Bulk up on Creme de la Mer?

I have been deferring to the last minute the decision whether to buy a large pot of expensive Creme de la Mer moisturiser to take with me to Spain, on the basis that you can only get Astral and things like that in Vera. Well, this is a philosophical question. Jane very astutely pointed out to me, when we were talking about my getting a job in Spain, that I didn't want to replicate my life in the UK. I don't: I don't want to be a communications director, even in Spanish. I would rather be in the estate agent in Vera. At least that's what I think now. The charm of our Spanish life has always been the lack of crap - no carpets, no curtains, wood stoves, no TV or PC, not much stuff and I am going to have to make sure we don't turn it into our English house; it is already a risk, even though the weather keeps you outside much more.

Does this, however, extend to moisturiser? I am not sure. There are three dimensions to this a) does it matter getting old and wrinkly and b) being unsure that C de la M actually makes any difference anyway and c) blenching at the thought of the price, which is immoral, when £27 buys a poor family a goat as I read in one of the charity marketing flyers I got recently.

I thought I would just stop having Botox, which I have had in my forehead for ages, and which has got rid of my deep frown line, thereby, perhaps, briefly deceiving people into thinking I am not a stressed out, worrying control freak. However, when the line began to surface after about 6 months of withdrawal, I thought I would just nip to the doctor for a quick booster. I have booked this in for the last day, but the question of whether I will come back for more, or start to age "gracefully," remains an open one. I will, however, buy the goat, though part of me was thinking about the 500 or so that are constantly having babies in Los Herreras - no doubt I will soon have them to give away.

I constantly wrestle with this problem. (I mean, of course, at the back of my mind; it is not an all-consuming Blakean tussle). Is it superficial to care about looking nice, or does it not matter?In the red corner are people like Xtina and Jasmine, who think it is bad manners, lacking in self esteem, etc, to let oneself go, and even Jan pointed out that it is really depressing dealing with social workers who never wear any makeup. In the blue corner is the figure of Death with a sickle, reminding me that all remedies are pointless and that we are all going to be old and ugly. I suppose God is also there saying things like Handsome Is that Handsome Does and Fine Feathers make Fine Birds. I vaguely recall that this is a perennial philosophical question to do with the body and the soul; are they like an onion or is there an unimportant box with something valuable inside it?

It strikes me that this is a version of the same question as the one about language that has been on my mind - I am sure old Saussure or Chomsky or even that frightful Jacques Derrida used to bang on about the idea not being separate from the expression: the way you talk determines what you say, just as you cannot say "bossy" or "I am stuffed" (after dinner that is) in French, presumably because French people are not bossy and don't overeat. It will be interesting to find out what you can and can 't say in Spanish. For instance, Luis already told me that you don't say you catch an illness, it catches you, because the Spanish are more fatalistic and don't blame themselves for things happening.

I might have already said this, but I think they have a better attitude to age. I have noticed that the older Spanish woman can still be sexy, and I suspect has a lot of home-made remedies such as olive oil which work just as well as Creme de La Mer. This will save me a lot of money, and if it doesn't work, I can always not see anyone from the UK any more.



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