Feel Better

It strikes me that hangovers just aren't getting any easier as I get older. Gone are the days when I could pickle myself on sugary spirit and mixers (remember Taboo?) and still bounce out of bed the next morning. These new hangovers also seem to be dividing themselves into more distinct categories, you'd expect different levels of consumption to affect the evilness and logevity of a hangover, even the kind of alcohol consumed, but at the moment even the day of the week on which the hangover falls seems to have a marked effect on how godawful I feel.

The worst of these new kind of hangovers? The All-Day-Friday-As-A-Result-Of-Thursday-Wine-Consumption hangover. Weeknight drinking always seems ever so ritzy and blase at the time, but hangovers on a Friday are dreadful, and wine is the most dreadful of them all. You're up early when you really need to lie in, you're at a desk and concentrating when your brain is made of mush and you're restricted to an hours lunch break when all you want to do is stuff your face with stodge continuously untill the about-to-explode feeling overtakes the about-to-keel-over feeling and the shakes begin to subside. The Inycon Selezione Sangiovese Shiraz of last night was very lovely (and half price in Sainsburys at the moment from £9.99 down to £4.99) but was it really worth all this?

So today's lunch break blog is dedicated to all those things that would really make me feel better right about now, and perhaps if I concentrate hard enough I can absorb some of their healing powers through my monitor, like comfort osmosis.

Food:
Luckily I have half of yesterday's 3 meat pie with stuffing crust to chow down on, a very sucessful experiment made by a good friend of mine. Pastry is the king of all hangover foods, closely followed by anything that goes straight from your freeser to your oven, is brown in colour and usually either battered of breadcrumbed. Today is not the day to have food guilt.
But whilst the pull of cheap and nasty carbs is strong, a real treat can also lift the flagging spirits so my real food craving today is Rococo Chocolates Artisan Chocolate Bars. My wonderful sister buys me a couple each year for my Birthday and they're always a joy to be savoured. This years offerings were White chocolate with Cardamon, Milk with Sea Salt and Dark with Chrystaline Ginger. Each one scrummily rich and melty with a hint of something different. Totally worth the slightly treaty price of £4.25 per 70g bar. My all time favourite is their Rose Otto milk chocolate. How could such a pretty pink bar of gorgeous fail to make you feel better?

Film:
I want to be on my sofa, under a blanket, escaping from the thrumming in my head and into some other, better, prettier world where hangovers haven't been invented. Musicals are perfect feel-better-fodder but equally I'm dying to rewatch my box set of Amelie and A Very Long Engagement. I bet Audrey Tatou never gets hangovers!

Fashion:
It being dress-down Friday I totally could have erred on the side of comfort and worn my jeans and trainers, but my vanity got in the way as well as a desire to overcompensate for how bad I feel on the inside with how fab I look on the outside. It was good in theory, but now my feet hurt in knee high green boots and I'm constantly tweaking at the troublesome muffin top area where my skinny jeans are falling down and my vest is riding up and I've totally abandoned the gorgeous bottle green sweater with drapey shoulders because I'm roasting hot! All I really want is some comfy cosy loungewear and maybe a big white bed to sprawl on

Face:
On bad face mornings I'm usually tempted to go one of two ways: Have a misguided "more is more" moment and throw the lot on in an attempt to mask the problem, or give it all up as a bad job and wear no (well, barely any) makeup with the argument that I might as well look as dodgy as I feel. Today though I saved myself from either course and instead fell back on those few reliable products that really do help. Decently defined eyebrows (I've been using the same Body Shop eyebrow palette for yonks), a nice rosy blush to put a bit of colour back in (Mac's are fabulously sheer and worth the few pennies more than high street brands), concealer for the undereyes (the link is the classic Touche Eclat, find it cheaper on Ebay, but honestly Aldi's concealer pen is nearly as good for only £3.59) and, saviour of all saviours, Palladio Rice Powder which is brightening and anti-shine without being heavy or drying.

You know, it might be the litre and a half of water I've already poured into myself, but I really am starting to feel better. It might be worth some hair of the dog tonight just so I can indulge myself in all of the above tomorrow. Saturday hangovers are so much more obliging!