Real life

Melissa Kite: Spare me from successful neighbours

At last. I’ve waited a long time for this moment. I’ve been through years of torture at the hands of excitable twenty-somethings, experimental thirty-somethings and Booker-prize-winning forty-somethings. I’ve had nothing but adventurous, liberal-minded, free-spirited sorts living in the flat upstairs. But I don’t want happy, joyful and free people living near me. I don’t want

Melissa Kite is punished for ignoring the Madonna of the sea

‘Benvenuti alla Small Cluster Band!’ And about time, too. We had been sitting in the Castello in Castellabate for half an hour watching an empty stage, while members of La Small Cluster Band stood around eating slices of pizza from takeaway boxes. ‘They’re on Italian time,’ I told my mother, as she sat in her

Melissa Kite: I can turn a picnic into a panic attack

You know you’re in bad shape when you need to make a list before you go to the GP. Admittedly, the list was on a Post-it note but it was in alphabetical order. Coincidentally, it also worked its way from the top of me, starting with my mouth Abscess, through the Eczema on my hands

Real life: Leave my dog alone

The man at the next table looked down at my fidgeting spaniel and shook his head. ‘Not trained,’ he said. How rude. There I was, having a quiet drink with my friend at the local pub, when the man at the next table decided to give me some unsolicited advice about how to control my

Real life: buying books before it’s too late

As well as buying vinyl records, I have begun collecting three-dimensional books constructed of paper that you hold in your hands and operate manually by turning their pages over. I buy them from bookshops. There are a few of these emporiums scattered across the country. My favourite one is called My Back Pages in Balham,

Real life: My own personal stress test

Are you stressed? Do you worry that your stress levels are not normal? Do you fret that your reactions to everyday situations are an indicator of your total inability to cope with modern existence? Then why not take my handy personal stress self-assessment test? It’s easy, fun and at the end there will be an

Real life: the taming of a shrewish mare

One of my favourite things to do is to visit the field where Tara, my bad-tempered chestnut hunter is retired because there, I know, I will find like-minded company. We are two obstreperous mares together. Never happy to concede defeat on the smallest of issues where a long, arduous battle might get us absolutely nowhere,

Winning match at Stamford Bridge

‘We hate Tottenham!’ If they had shouted it once they had shouted it 100 times. I wasn’t sure why, as we were watching Chelsea v. Basel. But I knew enough about a girl’s place at a football match not to turn to my male companion and ask what would no doubt turn out to be

Melissa Kite admits she asked for it

Sometimes, the answer only becomes clear when you stop trying to work it out, and give in to the incongruity of things. I was buying some shopping at Sainsbury’s in Balham. I picked a check-out where the conveyor belt was empty and the cashier looked as if she was waiting for the next customer. But

Real life | 18 April 2013

Having diagnosed myself with diabetes, I demanded the doctor run a full set of blood tests. Just to confirm what I already knew, you understand. I was weak, dizzy, my vision was blurred, I felt devastatingly tired, could barely get out of bed, and only then to stuff myself frenziedly with chocolate and biscuits. The

Real life: In praise of Balham

As if by magic, a long-lost cousin will every so often appear. They come from the sticks and ask if they can stay in my south London flat. I always say yes, on the basis that I was once taken in by kind people who took pity on a fugitive from Midlands farming country. Jim