Living with a boy

Moving on

2010-06-28T21:21:00.000+01:00

The time has come.

Time to pack up and leave. I took all your comments onboard and the majority of you seemed to be in agreement with the little voice in my head...

Time to move on.

I'll be keeping this blog open for the time being, I would never want to delete it, it was incredibly important to me.

But if you want me now you need to come and see me over at Just Me.

So will you? Please?

And if you don't then that's fine, I wish you well on your way and thank you for all your support and comments over the past year and a bit.

Hopefully see you soon

Love

The Girl

Tree Project - June. And the end.

2010-06-27T13:46:00.006+01:00

Dear Mr Tree,
I'm so sorry but I have to go. I hope you won't be too upset.

We nearly made it to a year though, hurray!! Maybe I'll wander your way once a month and see you're doing? I don't want to promise anything though, I wouldn't want to get your hopes up unnecessarily. You see things are going to be changing soon and maybe it's best that you're left behind as part of this life I had. I hope you understand.

So how have you been this month?

I see your beautiful white flowers have withered and turned brown as quickly as they arrived. Why don't they last longer? When you get up close to you I realise you're already beginning to look a little drab and you can't do that, it's only just properly summer time.!

Still, I guess things change don't they?

Good luck in the future Mr Tree, I'll miss seeing you every day. I hope the new people in the flat will appreciate you as much as I did.

Bye Mr Tree

Lots of love

The Girl.

Still most definitely here

2010-06-21T18:27:00.003+01:00

A few hours ago I e-mailed someone and told them that I needed to get back to blogging but that I wasn't going to rush it because there's too much going on right now.

And then I really felt like I needed to blog.

(This is why you should never scratch an itch.)

But then I realised that I most definitely do not have any coherent thoughts at the moment that would make blogging worthwhile. I need to work on that and then post. Which is precisely why I shouldn't be posting at this moment in time.

(Is any of this making sense?)

There are so many things I want to tell you about - moving out, moving in, new surroundings, killing myself unpacking, crochet stuff, Stitch & Bitch exhibition stuff (it's this Thursday!), Warfarin nonsense (having been ridiculously low for all that time I went this morning and I'm a whopping 3.9 - too high too thin!! I feel like I'm on a really rubbish version of the Price is Right.)

And this is why I need to logically order my thoughts and decided what to blog about and how to go about it.

But I do have one tiny favour to ask you.

Shall I start a new blog??

I feel like this blog has been wonderful, it's been the best yet and I feel I have come on leaps and bounds in terms of expressing myself and making bloggy friends. However. It was also founded and based upon a significant period of my life which is now over - should I start again somewhere else?

At the very least I need a name change seeing as I, you know, now don't live with a boy.

So I open it up to you lot:

1. Do I stay here? (In which case what the hell do I call this blog?!)
2. Do I go and start afresh? (In which case what the hell do I call this blog?!)

This is precisely why you shouldn't blog on a whim. My posts need to be ordered and thought out, otherwise I come off sounding like I have mental problems. Just think what it's like to be around me in person.

Thank you

2010-06-15T23:05:00.006+01:00

I am without doubt my own worst critic. There isn't a single person out there who could say something horrible to me that I won't have already come up with myself.

I've spent a lot of time over the past week questioning whether or not there is something wrong with me. Seriously how was this guy not making me happy? He could go down in the record books as the most perfect boyfriend ever - how was this not enough for me?

I went away this past weekend, we've both been living in the flat since last Tuesday, which has been uncomfortable to say the least.

It was only while I was away that I realised how not happy I have been. Things weren't terrible with the boyfriend at all and I certainly wasn't unhappy, there was just that niggle. This weekend that niggle was set free and I remembered what it was like to be me again. I hadn't noticed I wasn't being me, I think it had been so gradual, but I could feel me slowly returning and now that that niggle has gone it's actually quite relieving.

Mainly however I've been feeling incredibly guilty about my decision to end things. If ever there was a person who didn't deserve to have their heart broken, it was him.

I spoke to my brother on the phone on Sunday afternoon. I told him that I felt really guilty for doing this to him. He said I shouldn't feel guilty - I was just doing what felt right and then he said something which kind of shocked me. He said he was proud of me.

It's not what you expect to hear when you're pretty sure everyone's in agreement that you fail at life.

But he persisted. He has a failed marriage behind him and he said he wished he'dd been brave enough to leave, rather than hanging on and hoping that things would get better when he knew deep down that nothing was going to change.

The conversation left me feeling much better, maybe I shouldn't keep beating myself up?

And then along came you lovely people and all of you said the same thing. It made me ridiculously emotional (which isn't hard at the moment admittedly but still). When my brother said it I thought it was just a sibling love kind of thing, but there you all were, echoing his sentiments. (And I'm assuming he didn't tell you all to say that stuff to me.)

Reading all your comments, I felt my confidence slowly beginning to be restored. I did make the right decision and, you know what? I was brave, it did take a lot of courage to stand up and say "This isn't right", something my boyfriend knew, but wasn't prepared to face.

Yes I do still feel guilty, it's hard not to. I don't' want to hurt people, I want to amke them happy and it's a horrible feeling knowing you've broken someone's heart. But I also recognise that I have to be happy too and sacrificing your own happiness to serve someone else's is not they way to go.

So thank you bloggy people. Thank you from the bottom of my little black withered heart :)

Just close your eyes and jump

2010-06-13T20:14:00.002+01:00

When I was a young thing Mum and Dad decided to send me to go and have swimming lessons.
For the most part I liked them. I took to it pretty well and enjoyed splashing about and learning to swim my first width and the like. I just had one small problem...

...I was terrified of jumping in.

One morning the teacher got us all out of the pool and asked us to line up on the side. My knees were already knocking together, I just didn’t want to do it. And then I came up with a cunning plan. I would do the tiniest jump ever, just a little bit away from the side and then the side of the pool would still be close to me and everything would be ok.

I watched the other children leaping off the side of the pool. There were a couple of helpers who were in the water with us and some little girls and boys were aiming for their arms and flying off the side of the pool. Not for me. I had a plan.

I was last in line. The teacher tapped me on the shoulder and I put the plan into action. Just one teeny tiny weeny jump. I jumped...

And landed smack on my backside on the pool’s edge. I can still remember the pain that shot up my spine. My Dad, who was sitting along the side watching at the time, told me later that his first thought was “My god, she’s paralysed herself.” The pain was unbelievable. And I made sure everyone knew how much it hurt. I screamed like a bitch.

I was helped up from the side of the pool. It hurt to even walk and they let me hobble into the changing rooms and told me to sit down. I sat and I sobbed. A few minutes later my teacher came in.

“Come on. Lets get back in the pool” he said to me. I was absolutely horrified and protested but he insisted. He was very wise and knew that the best thing for me to do was get back on the horse, or in the pool, whatever, basically I had to do it straight away or my phobia of jumping in would get worse.

Reluctantly I agreed to go back to the pool. I got there and sat down on the edge, ready to ease myself in. The teacher tapped me on my shoulder.

“What are you doing?” he asked
“Getting back in the pool” came my reply
“No no no. You’re going to jump back in the pool”
“But what if I do it wrong again?”
“You won’t. You’re going to jump into the pool this time.”
“But what if my head goes under?”
“Then you’ll come back up again. Just close your eyes and jump. Everything will be alright.”

Simple. But true. And so I followed his advice, jumped properly this time and yes my head did go under the water and yes I came back up again, but most importantly I managed to overcome my fear. It became a standing joke amongst everyone there about my failed jump into the pool, a joke that continued to the point 6/7 years later when my swimming teacher was teaching me to be swimming teacher. No-one would let me forget it. If anyone mentioned jumping or diving in to water, a little wink would be thrown my way.

And I’m glad they did because I thought about this story a lot in the past few weeks. Especially what Paul said to me.

“Then you’ll come back up again.”

And so. On Tuesday. I closed my eyes and I jumped.

And ended my relationship.

I haven’t been happy for months now and I’ve tried to make things better but I can’t. Something just isn’t right and I think that the boyfriend deserves more. He deserves someone who is happy and fully appreciates him. Maybe I’ve been stupid and will forever go down in the annals of time as The Girl Who Gave Away The Perfect Boyfriend, because he really was. But sometimes perfect isn’t enough. There needs to be something more and that something, whatever it is, is missing.

I could stay. Nothing was drastically wrong, we didn’t argue, he adored me and would have done anything for me. But I wasn’t happy. And I can’t stay in a relationship where I’m not happy. Yes stability is great and wonderful and yes I have given away my shot at marriage, babies and houses, but I can’t settle.

Maybe one day I will settle, maybe I’m being unrealistic (although I don’t think I am). But the fact remains that at 27 I can’t make a life with someone if I’m not really happy. Imagine a lifetime of being ok but never really being happy, always knowing in the pit of your stomach that something is wrong...I just can’t do it.

I hope you won’t judge me too harshly, although I fear that some of you will. It’s hard to properly convey things in a blog. Especially when you don’t know the people involved. I’ve tried my hardest to explain in the above two paragraphs but I’ve done my best.

And although I’ve gone down, I know that I’ll come back up again.

A post about a lot of random things

2010-06-07T18:42:00.011+01:00

1. My INR result is 2.2 as of Sunday afternoon. Hurray hurray hurray celebrations galore. Thank you to all of you who kept their fingers crossed for me, it must have worked. 2.2 is within range (I have to be within 2 and 3) so I now no longer have to inject the Fragmin. Which is a relief because this is what my stomach currently looks like.

I know. Too much information isn't it? Ah well. I like to share.

I'm back at the clinic on Friday morning and hopefully all is stable and good and well.

2. I have a new anti-coagulant friend. His name is fluffy cat and he lives at the house next door to the clinic. He's usually waiting to be let in the house and he sits on the recycling bin then when he sees me he comes to say hello. I love him.

3. Did you want to know how the baby moorhens are doing? They're doing great, and growing up nicely. They don't hang about in the big group anymore, there's usually just one or two about on their own. They still have enormous feet.

4. Fred and Lily have now gone home and I will miss them muchly. Lily had a habit of climbing in things this past week, two examples are shown below. Photos that I missed included when she climbed in the laundry hamper and when she climbed into the shower and sat looking out at me. Fred did nothing hilarious so there are no photos of him.

5. The blanket is finished!! I do intend to take better photos of it in decent light to show you but for now you will have to do with this photo of Lily modelling the finished item which is currently residing on the back of the sofa.

6. And now to the point. I am taking a break. A break from blogging. Inspiration has been in short supply lately and there are going to be some changes and upheavals going on very soon. I think you probably know what's coming. So until I can get my head sorted out I'm going to have to love you and leave you for a while.

I'll still be hanging out on the blogosphere, reading your blogs and commenting away. I'm far too nosy to go completely silent.

So I'll see you when I see you. Knowing me it won't be long. I'm prone to the dramatics.

And posting pictures of my stomach.

Close...

2010-06-05T00:17:00.007+01:00

...but no cigar.

For some completely unknown reason my blood is still 1.7 after a week of injecting Fragmin and taking 10mg of warfarin.

So Friday evening I had to take 12mg of warfarin and I'm back at the clinic at 12.10pm today (Saturday).

I don't want any more rat poison in me :(

I'm tired of asking people to keep their fingers crossed for me. But would you mind? Would you? Just keep your fingers crossed that the reading tomorrow starts with a 2. Ok?

Thanks.

Apologies for the crap picture I quickly grabbed a snap of it when the nurse went out to consult someone about how far my dose of warfarin should be increased. I wasn't sure if I should be taking pictures or not and didn't really want to ask her if I could take a photo and then have to explain that it was to make a blog post about how my INR hadn't increased more interesting...yeah...way too complicated. Always better to sneak a photo instead.

A letter to a dear friend

2010-06-02T14:54:00.004+01:00

Dear Friend,

Do you remember the time we first properly met? It was at that party that someone in my year had for his birthday, I was 15. His parents thought he was having a few friends round and he’d actually invited the whole year round. I ended up being sick in his kitchen sink, and various other people were vomiting in the toilets, bedrooms and garden respectively. His Mum and Dad went mental when they came back home.

Despite this not brilliant beginning we became firm friends and you’ve stuck by me through every single momentous occasion in my life. In fact you’ve been a staple of every single momentous occasion in my life.

Remember the time I went minesweeping at my brother’s wedding because I didn’t have much money? I didn’t spend a penny all night and was so hungover I couldn’t get up to wish them farewell on their honeymoon in the morning. And do you remember the time of the absinthe cocktails in Sheffield where I lost the ability to move or speak and just sat on a speaker all night? And the time I decided it would be a good idea to walk back to Salford barefoot and sliced the bottom of my foot open on a beer bottle? There are almost too many fun times to remember.

And what’s been brilliant about our friendship is that I can go for weeks without seeing you and then when we meet up on a night out I revel and bask in your company and can’t get enough of you and it’s like we’ve never been apart.

I think the reason that you’ve made me so happy in the past is that you’ve boosted my confidence a million-fold. I’ve come to rely on you so much when I’m out with friends – I might start off feeling pretty shy, but a couple of hours in your company and I’m feeling wonderful about myself. You’ve become my emotional crutch and I think I’ve been taking you for granted.

Who knows why I don’t have the confidence myself? Maybe it’s because of the first boyfriend who told me I was no good. Maybe it’s because I’m the product of a broken home. Maybe it’s because I was best friends with the undisputably prettiest and most talented girl in school and I got used to never coming in first. Maybe it’s because of a million things or maybe it’s just that some people are wired to be confident and some people are wired to be consumed with doubt and self-consciousness. Either way, I’ve come to rely on you so much that I never stopped to consider going out without you by my side.

Until now.

I hope you understand that it wasn’t my decision to remove you from my life, if I had my way we’d always be friends. But Dr’s orders are Dr’s orders and whilst I’m on the warfarin I’m not allowed any alcohol. There’s just nothing I can do.

When I first heard the news I laughed about it and thought “Oh no what a nightmare” but as time has gone on I realised that I wasn’t finding it so funny. The thought of having to go out on a night out and be stone cold sober was not sitting well with me. And the more I realised how scared I was by the prospect of facing a night out without you, the more I came realise that we possibly don’t have a very healthy friendship. I shouldn’t need to consume vast quantities of you just to feel ok, I shouldn’t have to have a couple of glasses before I go out so I can face walking in to a bar to meet up with people.

I need to somehow dredge some confidence up from down in my boots and learn to stand on my own two feet. I shouldn’t need you to have a good night out, you should just be a bonus.
And so I face my first occasion without you on Friday. And what an occasion it is. A 30th birthday party. And even better, a fancy dress party. Those three words strike fear into my very soul whenever I hear them. They are an un-confident person’s worst nightmare. As someone who strives to go unnoticed on a night out (I don’t use you to make me the life and soul of the party, I just use you to make me stop thinking that everyone’s looking at me) the idea of going out to be purposely noticed makes me tremble. The last time I did fancy dress I got dressed up as a policewoman and had to drink most of the contents of a gin bottle before I stepped foot out of the door.

The idea of walking into that hall, dressed up, without you by my side, telling me it’s ok, actually makes me feel physically sick. I have honestly thought about pulling out but that thought was a sobering one (if you’ll excuse the pun). If you’re not wanting to go out because you can’t drink then you need to sort your life out.

So sort it out I will. I will march into that place with confidence. I will find it somewhere.

And I wanted to thank you for your friendship over these past years. If anyone has abused the relationship it’s been me, and for that I apologise. And it’s not goodbye forever, I’m allowed a small peck of you now and then so I’m sure we’ll meet up in the future. And who knows, in 6 months time we could be back to being best friends, although after facing these home truths I don’t think we’ll ever be the same again.

So for now it’s goodbye.

Lots of love

The Girl

PS One good thing about you not being in my life is that my propensity to fall off ridiculous shoes will be greatly reduced. Which is good news because the Shoes of Death, as they have become known, are coming out to play on Friday night.

This bank holiday I...

2010-06-01T17:39:00.014+01:00

1. Went to the anti-coagulant clinic every day

As I mentioned in my post on Friday, my INR reading had gone down, i.e. not the right direction. This has meant my warfarin dosage has been bumped up and a visit every day to keep an eye on it. I am also now injecting myself with Fragmin, a fast-acting anti-coagulant, in an attempt to thin my blood out more quickly. Injecting myself was a quite frankly terrifying prospect but it's not a big deal anymore, I just have to grab a load of fat on my stomach (I knew there had to be a good reason for me being overweight!) and stick the needle in. It doesn't hurt too much, just a little scratch and I feel very brave when I do it.

At the time of posting my INR is stuck resolutely at 1.7 and has been for the past 3 days. It just doesn't seem to be onboard with the whole concept of thinning out. I'm now taking 10mg of warfarin, which is a pretty hefty dose, and injecting the fragmin every day. I'm back at the clinic on Friday afternoon so fingers crossed there'll be a 2 on the machine!

2. Went to a barbeque.

We were undeterred by the rubbish weather because we are hard. BBQs suck when you're on Weightwatchers because there are way too many points on offer. It is very annoying. But I did my best and had quite a bit of the sweetcorn because that's all good. It was also one of the first times I was surrounded by drunk people and not being one of them. It was strange. And annoying.

3. Attended a stitch-a-thon.

One of our Stitch & Bitch group is off to Ghana for a couple of weeks in August to a charity she worked with before. They are currently trying to raise funds to buy a landrover to get between villages and we held an all day stitch in at a cafe in Hull. We had a little bucket and told friends and family and people came and stuck change in our bucket and admired our stitchery activities and we managed to raise £115. Not a bad day considering we basically wanted an excuse to sit about and stitch all day. I managed to start and finish this piece for the exhibition at the end of the month.
4. Did some crocheting.

Oooh what does that picture look like? Does it look like I've joined all my squares together? Oh hell yes. I managed to join all my squares together after a lot of dramatics and eye-rolling and squeals of temper. Now there is just the edging to do (no idea what I'm doing with that) and it is finished. Can't quite believe it.

5. Revelled in getting an extra day off

Although I generally think of work as something which gets in the way of doing the things I really want to do, I have to admit that sometimes it has its benefits. One of those being that we get an extra 3 days holiday a year for free - usually the Tuesday after the last bank holiday in May, the Tuesday after the August bank holiday and a day at Christmas. I didn't do much with today, especially as it's rained all freaking day but any day at home is better than a day at work.

6. Picked up two visitors
Mum is off to stay with my sister for a few days so we have taken delivery of Fred and Lily. So far they have mainly slept. I keep going in to the bedroom and fussing and poking them but they've been resolutely boring. This is why they bug us at 3am - they sleep all frickin' day.

7. Got my bake on
Haven't baked since starting Weightwatchers because the thought of finding out how many points were in the stuff I was making made my brain bleed a little bit. However, the WW website has some recipes and today I made banana and Malteser muffins. Only 4 points each, thus eliminating the guilt out of eating something 'bad'. I will be rewarding myself with one tonight because I just found out I've lost another 2.5 pounds (meaning there's officially 10.5lbs less of me than there was 3 weeks ago).

May Book Review

2010-05-31T20:41:00.002+01:00

The White Queen – Philippa Gregory
I’ve come to a realisation over the past few months. I would never have had myself down as a reader of historical fiction but it would appear it has snuck into my repertoire what with CJ Sansom’s Shardlake series and last month’s horrendous Wolf Hall.

I have never read a Gregory before and I have to say she’s going on my list now. Mainly because it’s so easy to read. The problem with the above books was that you felt you needed a PhD in Tudor History just to understand what was going on. With this book it really wouldn’t matter if you didn’t know the historical background, which is a good job because the Plantagenets I know nothing about. As the book wore on, vague recollections of Richard III and the Princes in the Tower came back to me but they’re really not important, you can just roll along and enjoy the book.

This is little historical fact. Do I really think witchcraft was involved in causing Richard III’s arm to wither? Erm no. (And that’s without the whole real-life historical debate about whether there was a withered arm or not.) Basically it’s set in ye olde times and features real-life people from ye olde times, the rest is fantasy baby.

And it was a brilliant read, entertaining and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the others in this latest series as well as her other, older books.

Duma Key - Stephen King
I’ll hold my hands up and admit my bias here. I love this guy. Can’t get enough of him. In fact I think somewhere in the realm of stored up blog posts I have a whole post about him because it’s kind of ridiculous how many of his books I have.

So. It’s about a guy who is in a near fatal accident, loses his right arm, mashes up his leg, marriage breaks down and he heads out to a seaside house in Duma Key where he takes up painting.

But wait. This is Stephen King. It can’t be as straightforward as that. And it isn’t. Strange things happen on Duma Key and when his paintings seem to take on a life of their own, the spookiness and scariness begins. Hard to say more without giving it away or just copying out the dust jacket.

It was great. I loved it. I got ridiculously scared in parts of it – hello, little girl ghosts coming up the stairs? No thanks. But mostly just laid back and enjoyed it – it was my faithful companion in hospital.

Teatime for the Traditionally Built – Alexander McCall Smith
Whilst in hospital I wasn’t up to reading anything hardcore so I turned to this guy to keep me going. Another probably biased review because I’m a huge McCall Smith fan as well, absolutely love his 44 Scotland Street series and La’s Orchestra Saves the World is simply beautiful. All his books are engaging and non too taxing on the brain, without you feeling like you’re wasting your energy reading them.

For all my love of McCall Smith though I haven’t really read his most famous series The Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Couldn’t tell you why. I picked this one up because it was The Times Book of the Week for £2.99 a while back. Even though it’s a fair few books in to the series this is still totally readable, I didn’t feel lost at all and I loved the pace of the book, it just rolled along slowly and purposefully, much as I imagine you would do under the hot Botswanian sun.

Probably only one to read if you’re already a fan of his work and/or have read the other books in the series though.

Twenties Girl – Sophie Kinsella
Not a book I’d buy but a friend lent it to me and I felt obliged to read it. (She’s also lent me 3 Jodi Picoult books, I don’t know that I can read that many in a short space of time so I’ve warned her it may be a while before she sees them again.)

I’ve read a few of Kinsella’s books before – the Shopaholic series is funny (and is of course now a film) and she’s up there in the elite of chick lit authors.

Lara starts being followed around by the ghost of her dead Great-Aunt, Sadie, who wants Lara to track down a missing necklace. Hilarity and confusion ensue of course with a bit of romance (obviously the main ingredient in any bit of chick lit) thrown in for good measure. Naturally all ends well and everything is tied up with a lovely bow.

I sound like I’m knocking it and I’m really not, it was the perfect read for me after my release from hospital and I raced through it in a couple of days, if it wasn’t good I couldn’t have done that but I really enjoyed it. It’s just that there’s not a lot to say about it – if you like this kind of thing then it’ll be right up your street, if not...well...you probably wouldn’t pick it up in the first place.

The winner?

I want to say Duma Key but I honestly don’t know if that’s the bias talking so I’m going to go with The White Queen. Buy it, don’t buy it, but it’s being bestowed with the very great honour of being May’s book of the month.

*allow for applause*

I do apologise if this monthly feature is a little boring. It has crossed my mind that it is and I think I’m mainly doing it for myself so I can look back at the end of the year and most likely berate myself for not filling my head with more sensible stuff.

Warfarin wanderings and wonderings

2010-05-28T15:10:00.011+01:00

So life carries on since my week in hospital, it’s as if I was never ill. How annoying, I didn’t realise how nice people are to you when you get hospitalised, I absolutely revelled in the attention and I kind of miss it now. Don’t miss the embolism that much though.

Although life is carrying on, it is now slightly modified and there are new things for me to consider/come to terms with.

One is the presence of Warfarin in my life. For those not in the know, it’s a blood thinner (and a rat poison) which has, you know, thinned my blood, ensuring that it whizzes round my body and doesn’t get the chance to clot (that’s basically the science).

I am on it for 6 months at first, then after 6 weeks I’ll have a blood test which will determine whether it was just a one off or whether I’ll have to take it for life.

Things I now have to consider

1. Going to the anti-coagulant clinic.
I have to go here regularly to have my blood tested to check that it’s not too thick or too thin. This is called an INR rating and it’s basically the time it takes your blood to clot. Normal people will have an INR reading of 1. I need to have one of between 2 and 3. Too low and they increase my warfarin, too high and they decrease it.

How regularly I go will depend on how stable they think my INR is/will be. My first appointment since leaving the hospital was on Monday of this week and my INR was only 1.6 so they increased my dose and I had to go back today to see how it was going. (It's 1.4. No that's not good. But that's going to be a whole other Warfarin-filled drama post) Once it’s stable then the visits to the clinic will drop off to just monthly appointments, unless I am prescribed any medication, in which case I will come in more frequently to check the medicine isn't messing with the Warfarin. Any over the counter things I want I will have to talk to the pharmicist first for advice.

It’s not so bad though, the clinic is in a lovely area of Hull called The Avenues and I’m more than happy to wander there, feeling huge pangs of envy looking at the gorgeous houses and admiring all the trees. Photos from my travels are illustrating this post to break up the really boring text.

2. Cranberries are no longer my friends
I’m not allowed to eat, drink or ingest them in any form while I’m on warfarin. Apparently they react with the warfarin (it’s science, don’t ask me why). With some people it makes no difference at all and with other people it can send their INR rating sky high so to be safe there’s a blanket ban.

Sorry cranberries.

3. Watching out for the leafy greens
When we were young, Mum allowed us to name 2 vegetables that we wouldn’t be forced to eat. Mine were broccoli and spinach. Now I’m a ‘grown-up’ I eat them just fine but I really don’t love them.

Now I have a cast iron excuse not to eat them. I can’t have masses of vitamin K (more science stuff) in my diet so that means I have to make sure I don’t eat too much cabbage, broccoli, spinach etc etc. I can still eat them but in moderation. No broccoli binges for me now.

4. No being a superhero
Because I have thin blood I need to look after myself. I will bruise more easily which should be fun, I can show them off to people. However, if I cut myself badly I will bleed like a bitch so no more playing with knives. And if I get hit or fall over or sustain some kind of trauma then there’s a risk of internal bleeding so it’s safe to say my rugby playing career is over before it’s started. I need to try and keep myself out of trouble.

Failing that all my friends know to tell the paramedics that I’m on warfarin should I decide I have to go and break up that fight that’s happening on the other side of the street and get injured.

5. Bye bye binge drinking
The most devastating news of all is that I can no longer drink alcohol. Ok. That’s not strictly true. I’m allowed 1 unit of alcohol a day but as far as I’m concerned it’s just not worth it. I am the original binge drinker – I drink to get drunk, and that is now officially a thing of the past. I did ask if I could save up my units of alcohol during the week to go out on a weekend but apparently it doesn’t work that way.

It shouldn’t be a big deal but it’s thrown me for a loop which has actually made me question my relationship with alcohol a little bit. Probably a post for another time.

The potential good news is that my blood is so thin a glass of wine might just do the trick.

So not massive changes to be made, but enough to make a little bit of change to my life and enough to make me ponder the life, the universe and everything as I wander from the clinic back home, taking a shortcut through Pearson Park and maybe lying under a tree, in the sun for a little bit...

Believe it or not, there's a soup recipe in here.

2010-05-26T13:25:00.004+01:00

Poor Weightwatchers. I started out so full of hope and promise and had a whole 2 days counting points and getting used to the system. But then the embolism happened and it all fell by the wayside. I did try to be dedicated. I even kept track of what I was eating for the first few days, but when it became apparent I was going to be in for a while I decided to write the week off. I did try and remain on best behaviour though. When Mum came to see me on my first day in hospital I accepted the Nutrigrain bars and satsumas but made her take the massive bag of mini cheddars and the funsize Mars bars home.

However it turns out that I was to find myself on a much more productive diet than Weightwatchers. It’s called the Hospital Diet and basically someone tries to feed you the worst food imaginable. So bad that you actually start to develop a bit of a phobia of it and dread the appearance of the mealtime trolley. So horrendous that you end up just ordering salads which you will try to eat but will lose the will to live half way through due to the lack of dressing or salt and pepper. You’ll also develop a rabid fear of coleslaw – NHS Hull and East Riding seem to think that approximately half a ton of coleslaw is required when you have a salad.

Once I was on the outside I did resume my Weightwatchers (apart from Saturday when I went mental and had a Macdonalds for lunch and a steak the size of my head for dinner) meaning that I’ve spent a grand total of 5 days on the plan. Yesterday was my first weigh in I have lost the grand total of 8lbs in 2 weeks. (I'll leave some room for applause now.)

The Hospital Diet was an excellent kick in the right direction, and having lost so much in one go I actually have an incentive to carry on losing weight.

So I guess if I’ve committed to lose this weight I’d better, you know, lose weight and to this end I have nominated my former arch enemy, soup, to help me with this task.

I’m thinking I need all the help I can get until I’m able to step foot in the gym again (the date has been set, next week sees the return of the gym as a regular horrifying feature in my life) so the soup book is out, many many interesting looking recipes have been bookmarked and I am determined to make soup my new best friend.

First on the list was Carrot soup. Mainly because I already had all the ingredients and just needed to buy a leek to complete the list (I will hold my hands up, I’ve never bought a leek before. I’ve just never had a use for one it would seem).

I can see why people are fans of the soupagement. It doesn’t really take that long to make. Most of them require fairly minimal ingredients or rely on stock-cupboard stores. And it’s only just dawned on me how freakin’ cheap it is to make! Why did I not have this revelation sooner?!

This soup is nice although I couldn’t help but feel it was lacking a little something. Probably carrots seeing as I intended to make this soup a week before I injured my ankle and when I opened the bag I discovered that half the buggers had gone off, so I was about 100g short of carroty goodness.

Carrot Soup
- 1 onion, finely diced
- 1 leek, finely sliced
-450g carrots, peeled and grated
- 2 pints vegetable stock
- 150ml natural yoghurt (optional)
- 1 tbsp chives (optional)

- In a large pan with a splash of oil, stir onions and leek, season with salt and leave to sweat for 3 minutes before stirring in the carrots.
- Cover and cook for a further 5 minutes.
- Bring stock to the boil and pour over the vegetables, cover and simmer for 6-7 minutes.
- Liquidize and then season to taste
- Optional - stir in cream and chives

Recipe from here

It’s still nice even if I was a little short on carrots. It was also not watery, an essential for me in the soup stakes. If it’s watery it’s just too annoying to eat.

And it made a good 4 portions (probably 5 if you’re like me and wanted to eek it out that little bit further) out it which has meant that your lunches for the week are sorted, as long as you don’t mind being a creature of habit for a whole week.

If you speak Weightwatchers this next sentence will mean something to you, the rest of you, look away now please...

...it has zero points. Zilch. Not one. (As long as you don’t add the natural yoghurt that is and I don’t feel the poorer for missing it out.) My only points at lunchtime comes from the slice of toast I have my soup, I can’t eat a bowl of soup on its own, I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.

The Girl and The Shoes

2010-05-25T11:49:00.004+01:00

Their eyes met across a very crowded room.

The Girl, a shoe lover, found her soulmate, The Shoe, one Saturday in the far off land of Manchester in Office.

Normally The Girl did not go in to Office. Lovely shoes but very expensive but this shop was different, it was a tucked away treasure trove that had cheap Office shoes in it. End of the line shoes and sample shoes, shoes that were no longer wanted by the ‘normal’ Office store a mere stone’s throw away in St Ann’s Square.

It was a store not for the faint-hearted. You needed guts and guile if you wanted to be victorious. You had to throw yourself into the melee, make your way to the rack containing your shoe size and hope for the best. No “Have you got this in size blah blah?” If it was there, on your rack, it was meant to be.

The Girl was lucky. She has big elephant size 8 feet and no-one is never normally hanging round that rack. Unfortunately nice shoes also never normally hang round that rack either, nice shoes belong to the realms of size 5 and size 6, sensible shoes are the order of the day in a size 8’s world.

Then she saw them. Her eyes locked in on the prize and, like a valiant soldier, she charged full throttle towards them.

She snatched The Shoe up and held it to her chest. Her eyes were very wide and excited. “Ohmygodilovethemihavetohavethemthey’reonlyfifteenquid.”

She tried them on. “Hmmmmm.” She thought as she realised she could see the top of every single person’s head in the shop. “Maybe these are a tad too tall.” When you’re already nearly 5’10”, adding 6 inches to your height is something you might want to think twice about.

But the love was overpowering. She had to have them. (And, you know, they were £15 and heels that high always make your legs look awesome)

She wobbled about the flat like Bambi trying to break them in. She realised that sometimes the thing you really love isn’t always the best thing for you. She sensed trouble ahead. “I’ll just wear them when I’m mainly sitting down” she told herself.

But then. One fateful night The Girl had to go to the ball (alright, a night round Hull, same diff’) and she knew The Shoes had to accompany her. They had to. She would take the plunge and put her faith in them and they wouldn’t let her down.

And they didn’t.

The Girl and The Shoes had a wonderful night. They pranced over the cobbled streets of Old Town and they flitted across the dancefloor of various scabby bars with ease. And they were wonderful and charming and The Shoes received compliments wherever they and The Girl went. And they didn’t hurt her little toes and she arrived back home safely in one piece.

So when another opportunity came for them to go out together again The Girl snatched it up at once. “Oh what fun we shall have Shoes. We will dance and whirl and all who drink along Princes Avenue will be stunned and amazed at our gorgeousness.”

But there was an interloper.

Someone determined to spoil their fun.

And they went by the name of Rose wine.

The afternoon started off well, The Girl, The Shoes, The Wine were all getting along famously, what a marvellous little threesome they would make. But then the evening came and The Wine began to dominate, and The Girl became confused, she fell under the spell and she forgot all about The Shoes. They needed her full attention and so charmed was she by The Wine that she became distracted. The first evening she’d worn The Shoes had been fine because The Wine wasn’t a factor, this time was different, for a start The Wine came along at 3pm. Quite an early start.

The Shoes were rageful. How dare The Girl forget about them. How dare she treat them this way after lavishing so much attention on them? The Wine was annoyed too. It knew that it wasn’t The Girl’s first love and was angered by this. So The Shoes and The Wine conspired together. They decided that they would let The Girl enjoy her night out but when it came to the end they would teach her a lesson she wouldn’t forget.

And they did.

And the next morning, through her tears and fuzzy head, all The Girl could muster up the energy to do was sit and feel sorry for herself and promise and swear that she would never disrespect The Shoes again.

And then she came up with this equation because it was all she had the strength to do.

(And then you know she kind of had an pulmonary embolism and ended up in hospital as a result)

But it’s not really The Shoe’s fault. And they are very pretty. And some people did want to know where they were from and so The Girl, in an act of benevolence decided to see if she could find them online. And she did. (And she did a happy jig in her seat because they should have been £70! HA!) And she thought she would pass on the link to other people because that would be the kind thing to do and ohmygodtheydotheminredwhydidn’tiseethose.

So here you go, if you want the shoes (and you have either very small or very big feet because that’s all they have left) then click HERE.

But don't say you weren't warned...

Tree Project - May edition

2010-05-24T17:50:00.006+01:00

Dear Mr Tree

Ok, what in god's name is going on. I turn my back for one week and this happens...

What are you doing to me?! You can't go from only just having leaves one month to being fully foliaged up.

And not just covered in leaves you have flowers. Many many many flowers.

You really look quite beautiful Mr Tree. Very dapper. And judging by all the twittering and cheeping going on outside my window, the birds are loving it too. Especially Mr Blackbird, he comes and sits on top of the downstairs flat's bay window, loosely called our 'balcony' (no we really shouldn't sit on it but we don't have a garden, needs must!).

Really can't believe how much you've changed. Just to recap you looked like this just under a month ago. Seriously?! Tell me something, are you on 'roids? It doesn't seem normal.

You see this is a long term project, you're supposed to make incremental changes over the months and then this feature will be more interesting, you can't just blow your load in a month. Where do we go from here?! You'd better have something up your belt, otherwise I'm going to be most unimpressed.

Anyway, as you were.

Love

The Girl.

My week in pictures

2010-05-23T17:39:00.009+01:00

After making a joke about being institutionalised in my last post I actually had a slight wobble upon my release on Friday afternoon. I think the word that could best describe it was overwhelmed. It was like there were too many choices to make, even coming home and being faced with a wardrobe full of clothes felt like too much. I'd spent the past week in my pjs, it was easy! And the feeling of knowing that I could do anything I wanted was also a little scary, when there's nothing to do but just lie in bed, life feels a lot easier and a lot safe.

And it was funny because the whole time that I was in hospital I kept telling people it was no big deal, I wasn't really sick, I'd be right as rain, and as soon as I came out in to reality it hit me that actually it was a big deal. Had the blood clots moved I absolutely could have died. Not likely that that would have happened, but you know, it's the closest I've come to death in 27 years! The enormity of what happened did give me a little wobble and I longed for the safety of hospital, at least when I was in there nothing could happen.

Still I'm feeling ok now, just a little tired, and am back at work tomorrow. Much as I would love some more time off, there's no medical reason for me not to be at work, and no medical reason means no sick note, so it's back into the breach. Don't know how frequent the blogging will be next week because I expect a fair bit of knackeredness (yeah it's a word) but we'll see how it goes.

So I thought I'd show you what I was up during my week-long stay in hospital...

My brilliant compression stockings. I was given these to wear on the Monday and told that I would have to wear them for 6 months. You can imagine how this went down. I'm not the vainest person in the world but even I have limits. Anyway I double-checked with my consultant and he informed me I would only have to wear them for a couple of weeks, they're mainly to wear in hospital where you're lying about doing nothing and hence at more of a risk of blood clots. Sexy or what?

All my lovely cards. Nothing like feeling popular to make you feel better. Everyone commented on how many cards I had and it made me feel very smug. And a special thank you needs to go to Heather who sent me a get well soon card - very unexpected and very well-received, thank you so much!
My little coccoon. Once it was socially acceptable I would pull my curtains round me. There were days when I wanted to spend all day in there with the curtains pulled round but that is not allowed. It's for the best, you need the interaction and the camaraderie. Take my Ward neighbour, Joyce. We had absolutely nothing in common other than that we were both in there together, she was 77 and could not have had more different views on the world but I really do miss her, the chat kept me going. (Did I mention I was on a chest ward so I was the youngest person there by about 30 years? Acesome.) Anyway, once it was late at night, I would pull my curtains round and this would be my little set-up.

Please note;

- TV - lifesaver although if you were in a for a very long stay an expensive lifesaver. £10 for 3 days but I wouldn't have done without it.

- Trashy magazines

- Books

- Jug of water

- Cross stitch stuff

The hospital I was staying at is kind of in the middle of nowhere which meant it was lovely and peaceful and there was nature a go go. I could see a beautiful cherry blossom tree out of my window (I meant to take a picture but never got around to it and by the time I left all the blossom was coming off it). Also spotted were a robin and a thrush. Exciting for someone who just sees blackbirds all the time. And, way more excitingly.....bunnies!!! Big massive bunnies and teeny tiny weeny bunnies, I loved them.

I did manage to complete a piece for the Embroidering the Truth exhibition. This quote was actually provided by a little old lady on the ward who was sadly suffering from dementia and had plenty of fighting spirit. One evening she had decided she wasn't ill anymore and wanted to go home, the people in the beds next to her tried to placate her, telling her that we were all ill and we all wanted to leave and that we were all friends here. She introduced herself, saying "I'm Sylvie" and Enid replied...

Now I have to be off because it's warfarin time, I need to take it at the same time every day. And then tomorrow it's back to reality, albeit a slightly altered reality which will include my first ever visit to the anti-coagulation clinic - exciting times.

Hour by hour

2010-05-20T22:09:00.004+01:00

Life in hospital becomes one great big routine. You start off being bored and annoyed by everything that goes on and after a few days you just become accustomed to it all. I can completely see how people because institutionalised, you just get used to everyone doing everything for you.

Every day is the same. And you find yourself waiting for the next thing in the routine to happen. Truth is it's the only thing that keeps you vaguely sane.

I've had loads of stuff to do. My wool and hook is here. My cross stitch stuff is here. My books are here. And I've hardly done any of them. It's bizarre, I thought I would race through books here (I was thinking this month's book review would be a stonker) but I've barely read anything. The granny squares for my blanket are now all complete and I had plenty of time to try and put them together but haven't done it. Only one piece for the Embroidering The Truth exhibition has been done. It's like you become so bored you can't do anything.

So to while away the boredom you count down the hours...

6am - Start of day when the nurses come to take your obs. I hate them every single morning. Why so early?!

7.00 - 7.30am - Breakfast trolley comes round

8.30 - 9.00am - Drugs trolley comes round. Was more interesting when I was on the painkillers but since my pain disappeared I get nothing until the evening. Boring.

9.00 - 10.00am - Sit in chair while bed linen gets changed, talk to the auxiliary nurses

9.30am - Phlebotomist appears to steal your blood. Ward rounds by the Consultant, boring if it's nothing to do with you but fun to earwig in on everyone else's diagnoses. Why do they even bother pulling the curtains round?!

10.00am - Tea and coffee trolley comes round

11.00am - Your tray appears on your table for your lunch

12.00pm - Lunch time. Most likely something completely inedible. Everything you've ever heard about hospital food is true. (At least it is in Hull and East Riding.)

1.00pm - Drug trolley appears again.

2.00pm - 3.00pm - VISITING HOUR. Brilliant. Pure awesomeness, love this part of the day because not only do you get to see people but you know that from now on in the day is going to go a little bit faster.

3.00 - 4.00pm - Usually sleep. Get over-excited seeing visitors and seem to exhaust myself, even though I spend all day doing knack-all.

4.00pm - Tray appears on your table for dinner.

5.00pm - Dinner time. I have never eaten so early in my life and it distresses me every day. I can't eat so early! Also something inedible.

6.00pm - Drug time for me! Happy days. Find out what my INR rating is and hope that it's a good one. Get my rat poison and also get stabbed in the stomach with the Fragmin injection - you should see one of my bruises from one of those injections, it is immense.

7.00pm - 8.00pm - VISITING HOUR. Also very exciting.

8.00pm - Cup of tea time. Everything starts winding down for the day.

9.00pm - Nurses collect your cups and fill your water jug.

10.00pm - Another drug round. Nothing for me still so very uninterested in the whole thing.

And then that's really the end of the day, I pull the curtains round my bed and coccoon myself in for the night, usually end up staying up far too late watching tv and then getting an incredibly unrestful night's sleep due to all the moaning and groaning from the old ladies on the ward and the near constant sound of the buzzer going off for the nurses' attention.

But do you know what?

Tonight is the last night I coccoon myself in and tomorrow I will be counting down the hours, not just checking on the routine but counting down the hours until I get to leave.

Hell yeah. Tomorrow I am being discharged! (All being well barring any huge tragedies.)

This has been a loooooooooooong week and I cannot wait for it to be over.

Thank you so much for your well wishes whilst I've been stuck in here and once I'm home (and back at work!) I will be catching up on all your blogs, can't wait to see what I've missed!

How I ended up in here.

2010-05-19T11:58:00.004+01:00

My grand plans to escape this place are on hold at the moment. I was hoping to be released yesterday but that didn't happen, then I was hoping for today, but that doesn't look likely either. Tomorrow maybe?! This has been a recurring theme throughout my stay, people ask me when I'm getting out and say "Maybe tomorrow?" And now we are 6 days in....

So. I figured I'd give you the back story now. I could go on and on and on and on about my stay in hospital, 6 days can provide you with plenty of material but I don't want to bore you too much.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Tuesday 11th - First trip to Weightwatchers. Make a joke to my friend that I might have given myself an anxiety attack because I'm finding it hard to breathe. Get home and tell boyfriend I've done something weird to myself because it really hurts to breathe in on the left hand side of my chest.

Wednesday 12th AM - Chest really hurts. Figure I must have sprained a chest muscle somehow although I'm not sure how because I hadn't done anything in particular. Give a bit of a sigh - why am I always injuring myself?! First the ankle and now this. Take some comfort in the fact that although my ankle was really painful on Monday it seemed to have miraculously got better overnight and hadn't been bothering me since Tuesday morning. Celebrate having super-human healing powers.

Wednesday 12th PM - Pain is more than a little horrendous. Seems to get a squillion times worse whenever I lie down. Get a little bit of sleep but wake up in terrible amounts of pain. Have a little cry about it because I'm known to be a bit of a wuss when it comes to pain. Boyfriend says "Right I'm taking you to hospital, you're having chest pains" I tell him not to be ridiculous, I'm just being a wuss. I'll be fine. Have a very fitful night's sleep.

Thursday 13th AM - Boyfriend tells me I have to go to the Drs that morning, he's worried because he'll be spending the night in Manchester and doesn't want me to have a night like Wednesday on my own. Tell him I will but rebelliously don't bother. I'll be fine, just making a fuss. Boyfriend less than impressed.

Thursday 13th PM and Friday 14th early AM - Pain is beyond anything I've ever known. Find co-codamol in the cupboard, take some, no effect. Start to wonder if I am actually dying. Talk myself down from the ledge and tell myself to stop being ridiculous. Try and lie down, freak out about the pain. Sit for a while oscillating between being sure I'm about to drop down dead and telling myself it's just a chest sprain and I need to man up.

Friday 14th 3am - Decide manning up is not an option. I'm going to cave and go to A&E. They'll have some decent painkillers and they'll sort me out. Call a taxi and get myself there. Good job it wasn't a weekend, A&E is empty and I get seen straight away by a nurse who freaks out because my heart rate and blood pressure are off the scale. I get sent for an ECG. Get sent for an x-ray. Sit there going "Oh my god just give me drugs."

Friday 14th 6am - Apparently X-ray is clear. This makes me a little worried. I am being a wuss. Very fit A&E Doctor comes to take some blood. Realise I've now been awake for 24 hours - that's not good. Blood tests come back and they tell me that I've come back with slightly elevated clotting factors in my blood. I am being admitted and transferred to Castle Hill hospital.

Friday 14th 8am - Start calling people to let them know I'm in hospital. Hadn't told anyone yet because I didn't want them to freak out. The boyfriend would have done something stupid trying to get back from Manchester and Mum would have probably had a heart attack on the spot. Boyfriend does freak out and says he's coming back to Hull but I tell him not to bother, no point, there are visiting hours and he won't be able to do anything. Ring work and tell them that the chest sprain I'd been going on about might be something a little more serious.

Friday 14th 8.30am onwards - Get to Castle Hill. Mum breaks visiting hour rules and comes to see me, don't think the nurses dare mess with her. Finally get some decent painkillers in the form of codeine phosphate - they don't get rid of the pain but definitely take the edge off. Also get one of those tubes that you put up your nostrils that give you oxygen. Feel like a sick person. Still haven't slept, think I might be going mad. Go for a CT Scan at 4pm. Start to panic a bit, seriously what if there's nothing wrong with me and I've wasted all these people's time because I'm a wuss?

Turns out I'm not a wuss. I'm a bad ass. I've been walking about for 2 days with a pulmonary embolism. In fact not just one. I have "a few" blood clots on my lung. I'm going to become a warfarin addict for at least the next 6 months.

At this point I don't quite get the gravity of the situation and am pretty sure I'll be out by Sunday. Wrong.

The cause of this embolism? There can only be one culprit.

So you are officially caught up. I am trying to read all your blogs (what the hell else am I going to do?!) but my connection is pretty rubbish and it especially doesn't like blogs. I will get caught up though, I promise.

Right then I have lots of lying about to do and it can't possibly wait.

Just in case you were wondering where I was...

2010-05-17T22:01:00.003+01:00

...I realise I have been uncharacteristically quiet on the blogosphere for the last 4 days and let me tell you why.

I'm currently in hospital!!

Not dead or dying and most definitely on the mend (and consequently going round the bend). Hopefully I will be out on Wednesday and have many many stories to tell you.

Currently I can only get a signal at the very end of my bed which isn't massively convenient but hopefully I can blog tomorrow and tell you all my stories.

And I'll give you the guide to working out the difference between spraining a muscle in your chest and having a pulmonary embolism which would have come in handy for me earlier in the week...

Talk to you soon (hopefully!)

Duck Rescue 2009

2010-05-13T09:41:00.006+01:00

A long long time ago (ok it was last year), when I didn’t work in a windowless hell I used to look out of my office window into Queens Gardens. In particular I looked out on to this expanse of water.

I run into difficulties here. What to call this? It’s clearly too big to be a pond and yet I feel calling it a ‘lake’ is perhaps exaggerating its true qualities, that of a stagnant pool most likely littered with beer bottles. For the purposes of this story, let’s call it a lake, but rest assured I do not have delusions of grandeur.

I walk past this lake on the way in and out of work and one spring morning I was beyond myself with delight to see 5 little ducklings swimming about the water. Who doesn’t turn into a babbling moron when they see those little black and yellow balls of fluff? They were swimming about cheeping to themselves and I stood and watched them for a while until I realised what was wrong with the picture.

No Mummy and Daddy duck.

They were all alone (cue sad faces and cries of “Awwww”).

I wasn’t sure what to do and I thought that maybe their Mum was just somewhere I couldn’t see and took myself into work.

All morning I kept turning round to look out of my window.

“They’re still on their own.” I kept saying. “I can’t just leave them there.”

At 10.30am I made the highest sacrifice possible. I decided I would take my bread outside. My bread destined to be my mid-morning toast, and try and throw it to them. But they were so tiny they hadn’t been told that it was ok to eat bread from passersby.

(Disclaimer. I know that you shouldn’t feed ducks bread. But everyone else does and I didn’t have any grubs to hand.)

A park attendant man happened to be walking past. So I pointed them out to him and asked him what I should do. He informed me that the mother was dead on the other side of the lake, amongst the reeds. He didn’t seem too perturbed, I think he was a survival of the fittest kind of bloke. He said they’d probably get killed by other ducks and shrugged his shoulders and walked off.

Well Darwin didn’t have the RSPCA around did he?

Back to the office I went to phone the RSPB, who told me I should phone the RSPCA. So I rang, they even had a number for you to press if you were calling about birds or ducks, that made me laugh. I spoke to a very nice man and told him about the poor orphaned ducklings.

I spent the rest of the morning with a crick in my neck, trying to look at my computer and simultaneously keep an eye on my babies. I worried for them, there’s a big 6th form college across the road and I didn’t want the rowdy youngsters scaring them.

Then my mobile rang. It was a lovely RSPCA lady who was coming to rescue my ducks!
Except she didn’t know where I was or how to get to me (She wasn’t from Hull.) and after a lot of talking and some probably very poor direction giving from me (I don’t drive! It’s not my fault!) she appeared by the lake and I was, naturally, there to greet her. Work was clearly a lost cause that day.

She appeared with a net on long stick. “Yeah that’s not going to work” I told her. “They’re really jittery they won’t come near you.”

But she tried nonetheless.

And it didn’t work.

She resorted to calling the landscape company that looks after the city centre parks and gardens because they would have waders.

Half an hour later and there’s landscape man in waders, net on long stick in hand, most probably cursing the day I was born, striding around the lake trying to catch some rather agile ducklings whilst I, the RSPCA lady and several of his colleagues shouted/laughed encouragingly from the sidelines. My favourite bit was when they all decided to huddle by the little fountain that comes out of the wall, forcing the landscape man to just get wet. Second to that was the bit where he tripped up (probably on said beer bottles) and fell his full length.

Eventually all little babies were safely captured in a cardboard box and ready to be taken to their new home.

I could finally rest easy, knowing that I had done my bit and kept my ducklings safe. Survival of the fittest my arse. And better yet? I’d managed to waste half a day at work on my duck drama.

So that is why I take such an interest in these babies, (although really not as cute as Mallard babies but don’t hold that against them. Look at their freakishly large feet!) and every morning and every evening I check and make sure that they’re all well and Mummy or Daddy is there supervising. I don’t want to have to mount Duck Rescue 2010...

...but someone who did mount a Duck Rescue 2010 is Foods and crafts; fuel for body and soul who has posted her story HERE

Anyone else have any Duck Dramas they would like to share?!

Fat Camp

2010-05-12T14:24:00.001+01:00

I have lost many a friend to the cult of Weightwatchers.

People seem to join and immediately turn into incredibly anal bores who delight in telling you how many points are in that piece of cake you’re about to enjoy. Whenever I think of WW I think of a friend who joined and turned up for a night at the cinema with a little freezer bag containing some penny sweets. She was ridiculously excited because she’d saved up her points to allow herself this treat. She talked about it some more but I couldn’t hear her over the handfuls of popcorn I was shovelling into my mouth.

I really do not want to become that person.

And so I haven’t told a lot of people that I’m doing it.

I don’t handle pressure very well, as the recent family drama I went through highlights. If I knew that people knew I was on the ol’ WW I would start to feel them looking at me, looking to see if I was losing weight, looking to see what I was troughing, wondering why I didn’t look like Kate Moss in a month. Most likely all in my head I understand but such is the life of someone consumed with paranoia.

I’m hoping the secret thing will work twofold – I can attempt to lose weight almost pressure-free and I won’t become a WW bore because I can’t give the game away by telling them how many points are in that digestive they’re about to dunk in their tea.

So I hope you feel privileged, knowing all about it.

Yesterday was my first day and it was with quite a bit of fear that I approached the scales. I don’t have scales at home so I can’t weigh myself but I had an inkling. But I had an inkling in the way that you think something’s going to be a certain way but there’s a part of you that secretly hopes it’ll be entirely different.

My inkling was right. The figure was official and was noted down in my little leaflet. It was like someone had taken a huge stamp and BOOM made it official. No escape for me now. I have to be committed, I can’t have a few days of being good and then kid myself that I can have 2 weeks of being bad as a reward, I have to be permanently good because I know that judgement day is only a week away.

God.

I’ve had fun, looking through my little book which tells me the points value of a few common things and I have a little Pointsfinder which is a grid which will allow me to work out the Points value of certain foods based on calories and saturated fat.

I think there’s going to be a certain element of annoyance as I get used to what things have how many points in them and there’ll have to be a certain amount of planning that goes on where meals are concerned.

But. For now. I feel positive.

Until next Tuesday...

Oh hello, when did you appear?

2010-05-11T15:48:00.008+01:00

Do you remember when the world looked like this?

And we thought it would never end?

And now a mere 5 months later the trees look like this.

And there’s loads of this flying about.

And, just to make your heart feel all fuzzy and warm, I spied these babies on the lake in Queens Gardens. (Ok, I know they're a little weird looking but come on, they're all fluffy!)

I keep a close eye on this lake, have I ever told you about Duck Rescue 2009 which I mounted last year? No? I’ll get working on that one for you.

Hello Spring almost Summer!

Letters related to this weekend

2010-05-10T16:16:00.005+01:00

Dear Brett and Jemaine a.k.a. Flight of the Conchords,

Thank you so much for touring again and coming to the UK. Especially for coming to Manchester on Saturday night. The gig was absolutely brilliant and well worth all the tears and trauma I went through to get tickets.

I would really like to thank you for playing at the Apollo which meant the gig was seated. I don’t know if you know but I recently hurt my ankle quite badly and although I am now up and moving about, there’s no way it would have lasted a whole night standing up.

You played a great mix of songs from the first and second series – you even played Carol Brown which is definitely one of my favourites. And thank you so much for playing us 3 or 4 new songs, I didn’t think you’d have more material because you said you weren’t going to do a 3rd Series, but you did and they were brilliant, especially because I’ve listened to your albums so many times that I know the songs inside out and back to front. Do you think that you could possibly consider releasing To Woo a Lady? It was freakin’ hilarious.

And can I just say that you dealt with all the hecklers really well. I don’t even understand why there were hecklers, it seems bizarre to me that you’d pay at least £30 to go and see something and then shout rude things at the people on-stage but I guess people are weird. I hope it didn’t give you a bad impression of Manchester or the UK.

Could you also pass this letter on to Eugene Mirman? I wanted to say thank you to him as well, I’ve never been to a gig that opened with a comedian before and he was really funny. And I felt bad for him because people were heckling him too and although he handled it well and came back at them, I think it threw him for a bit at the beginning. They were retards, I knew straight away that he was the landlord from the show.

And you had the best merchandise ever. I nearly bought 2 t-shirts because I just couldn’t decide but luckily the coffers were only stretched to one. I’m going to try not to wear it to death.

Ok well I guess I’ve said all I’ve got to say. Thank you again, it was really great and I hope I get to see you again one day because you were so so funny.

Could you maybe just think a little bit about doing a 3rd season? Or a one-off special at least?

Thanks so much,
The Girl.

...........................

Dear lastminute.com,

I have only used you twice but you’ve come up with the goods both times baby. First you gave me the City Warehouse Apartments for when my friends from America came over and we had a reunion in Manchester and this time you sent us to the Macdonald Hotel and Spa. Super fancy dancy and yet only cost us £100 for the night.

(Yes actually kind of expensive but slap bang in the city centre and it was actually last minute and anyway the Travelodge in the town centre was £135. Oh. And the boyfriend was paying.)

Seriously I walked in and was all jaw dropped and speechless and kept making little noises that were kind of excitable. So fancy!

And we all know that the mark of a fancy hotel room is the bathroom and Hello! Did this come up with the goods. It was the size of a small flat. The bath was like an ark! The shower cubicle was the size of my kitchen! There was a speaker in there so you could hear what was on the TV in the room (which admittedly was a little frightening when I was having a wee and suddenly Hollyoaks came blaring at me).

Keep coming up with the goods lastminute.com I’m your new fan.

Thank you
The Girl

..........................

Dear Ankle,

I get that I was silly. I get that I should not have worn those shoes (even if they are beautiful) and drunk that much alcohol. I know that I should grow up and act more appropriately. I really feel like I’ve learned my lesson so do you think you could, you know,

STOP HURTING PLEASE?!

I know that it’s only been a week and the Doctor at A&E told me it would be 6 weeks until I was fully functional. But I don’t think that you realise just how impatient I am. I can only be ill for a few days at a time and then I get really bored and fed up with it and consequently kind of become a pain.

I do appreciate that you have healed enough for me walk on you and I would like to especially thank you for holding out on the walk to work this morning – GO YOU! Actually that is quite impressive that I can walk on you already, maybe I have super-awesome healing powers....

But anyway, you still hurt when I try and go up and down stairs which has been kind of embarrassing and more than a little inconvenient seeing as I live in an old building which doesn’t have a lift.

And I would like to apologise for standing on you for nearly an hour on Saturday when we were waiting for the doors at the Apollo to open on Saturday. I have learned my lesson, 6.30pm is when the doors open, not when the act begins, and there are no pubs to go and have a drink in near the Apollo (well, none that would allow you to leave with your life. Seriously, pretty skanky area of Mancehester). And even though I was freaking out about someone accidentally kicking my ankle at the gig, it didn’t happen did it? So that’s good.

And I swear by the end of tonight I’ll be back on the painkillers. It’s just that I’m giving blood this evening and they have so many rules about not being able to donate that I thought I had better lay off them for the weekend. I realise now that you’re not ready to be un-medicated.

So thank you for holding up all weekend (kind of) and I promise that I’ll treat you better in the future, if you could maybe get better a bit quicker than 6 weeks I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks,
The Girl

The lights are on but nobody's home...

2010-05-07T08:19:00.002+01:00

...because I'm guest posting over at *Insert My Blog Name Here* for the lovely P!

Do you enjoy having people over to stay with you?

Would you like to know how to be a good host?

Then go HERE to read my guide to find out what not to do...

Happy Friday!

Why I got banned from watching The Crystal Maze

2010-05-06T10:46:00.003+01:00

Hands up if you remember The Crystal Maze.

For most people it was a fun and lively gameshow and they gained much enjoyment watching the team progress through the 4 zones, completing challenges and trying to win as many crystals as possible, earning them more time in the crystal dome at the end of the show.

For me, I break into a sweat just typing the name.

I don’t know what it was about The Crystal Maze but it induced a state of such high anxiety in me that I was in danger of putting my health at risk.

It all centred around the concept of getting locked in. For those of you that aren’t in the know, one person from the team was selected to play a game that came under the categories of Mental, Physical, Skill or Mystery. That person went into the room alone to complete the challenge. They were usually between 2-3 minutes long, with the clock starting the second the door closed.

If you completed the challenge and got the crystal, happy days. Much celebrating. You didn’t always have to win the crystal though. If it became apparent that you weren’t going to solve the puzzle in time, you just had to ask to be let out and you could be, no problems. As long as you didn’t let the time run out.

Really it was no big deal. You were locked in. You had to stay in the room until your team decided whether or not to use one of the crystals to buy you out. They could move on to the other zones and you would be left in there.

There really wasn’t anything to freak out about.

But for me I just had this thing about them getting locked in. It was if in my brain, getting locked in equated with them being killed or something because the whole idea just gave me a mental breakdown.

It would start as soon as there was only a minute left on the clock and it started counting down the seconds. My breath would start getting shorted and my heart would begin to pound. Then I’d get really really hot. Then I would be completely unable to stay sitting down and would have to get up and pace about, clenching my fists. I would start saying “Come on come on come on come on come on” under my breath. When it got to 30 seconds I really started losing it. That’s when I would start telling them to “Get out! Just get out! Get out now!” And start covering my face with my hands.

If they left it any later than 10 seconds I would completely flip my lid.

And there were people who would just always leave it to the last second to come out. They clearly weren’t going to be able to solve the puzzle so why did they insist on leaving it until the clock had 2 seconds on it?! And then there were the people who had had to go through some maze or over some bridge or some other crazy challenge which meant that it would take longer for them to get back to the door. Those people would get yelled at by me.

Don’t even get me started on the games with automatic lock ins. They were the games were you weren’t supposed to touch the floor or you couldn’t let something drop or get the wrong sequence 3 times in a row. Once they’d done it twice I was begging them to “Just get out!”

One morning, during the school holidays, I was watching an episode, it was always part of the Channel 4 school holiday programming schedule. I’m not going to lie here, I wasn’t really that young. I was probably 12/13.

They were doing their usual trick of leaving it until the last minute and I had, totally subconsciously, risen to my feet and was standing the middle of the room, screaming, and I mean screaming, at this person to “GET OUT!!!! GET OUT! GET OUT!”

My Mum came storming into the room. “That’s it. I’ve had enough. You are ridiculous. You are absolutely not watching this programme anymore!” and switched off the television.

I haven’t watched it since.

She said she was genuinely afraid, I was completely puce in the face and looked like a wild woman.

I tried to watch it a year or so ago, it was repeated on Challenge and my sister had Sky. I put it on for about 2 minutes and as soon as the countdown started I could feel all the old feelings coming back. I just switched it off, it’s not worth the emotional wreckage.

Just talking about it stresses me out. People think I’m mad when I tell them the story but I don’t understand how they don’t understand how that’s not stressful. Even typing this out my palms are sweating. Seriously.

I have no idea where it comes from. I’m not claustrophobic in the slightest. There is just something about that concept of being locked in that taps into something primeval in my DNA that makes me need to escape.

I revisited the stress in the form of a new gameshow that was on ITV recently, The Cube. It wasn’t the same kind of format at all really, you didn’t get locked in as such, but if you decided to go into the cube to play the game, you couldn’t leave unless you won the game. I got through one episode of it but spent most of it standing up behind the sofa going “This is really stressing me out”, while the boyfriend looked at me bemusedly.

I need to go and sit in a darkened room for a while now, stop my pulse racing.

Views from the sofa

2010-05-05T11:44:00.010+01:00

What I can currently see...

A foot which is much less swollen and getting less painful by the day. Thankfully not broken, a discovery made by a late night trip to A&E on Bank Holiday Monday just to make sure. Just a very bad sprain. Story of my life. I am incredibly clumsy and have lost count of the number of times I have cockled over on my ankles but somehow have never broken a bone. Must be all that milk my Mum made me drink when I was younger.

Pretty tulips that Mum got me as a present for looking after Fred and Lily for a week.

Mr Tree who is looking obscenely green. Seriously. Didn't I tell him in the last Tree Project post to slow the hell down?

Everything I need on 2 little tables:

- cup of tea

- glass of water

- my best friends, Ibuprofen and Paracetemol

- Grey's Anatomy Series 2 - currently re-watched most of this series in the last few days

- New book on the go, Stephen King's Duma Key

- Aida, hoop, thread and needle ready to start my next piece for the Embroidering the Truth exhibition

- Granny squares. Look at how many now!! Eighteen baby. Eighteen. I feel that the end is almost in sight. Almost.

Unfortunately all the relaxing and fun is almost at an end. Mum is taking me into work later this afternoon to pick up some work to bring back home and get stuck in to. Much as I would just love to be off sick, there's a part of me that knows I should be more professional, I can do work, I just can't walk at the moment. Planning on being back in the office on Friday, although we'll have to see how the 20 minute walk in to work goes.

Something else I can see? In the distance, lying on their side, the cause of all my misery...

I can't decide whether to throw them out or frame them.

PS. To Mr/Ms Anonymous who left the comment on my last post which had more than a slight tone of judgement to it - I'm 27. Thanks for asking :)

A Bank Holiday Equation

2010-05-03T09:50:00.006+01:00

Silly silly silly high heels

+

Lots of alcohol

=

Ankles that look like this

Hope your Bank Holiday has been slightly less painful than mine!

April Book Review

2010-04-30T12:43:00.002+01:00

Many thanks to those of you that contributed to the Grand Soup Debate of 2010, I’m pretty sure it will go down in the annals of time.

After the pathetic attempts at reading last month I somehow managed to get my backside into gear and get my reading groove on. A whole 5 books I tell you!! This was greatly aided by a mammoth train journey down to Devon which afforded valuable reading time and also the completion of a book which has been plaguing me for 2 whole months...

This month’s offerings are:

Cranford
I must be one of the only people on the planet who didn’t see the BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s book and I now feel a strong urge to rectify that because this book is the equivalent of being wrapped in a rather large woolly blanket. It’s the kind of book that makes me want to fashion myself a bonnet and call on someone to take tea with me. It’s just lovely and I know some would take that as a criticism but I loved reading every minute of it, it was soothing and comforting and so funny in some places. At times I had to stop and remind myself that it was written in 1858. Incredible that it still has the ability to tickle your funny bone.

Man & Boy
One of those books that I saw in the shops and would pick it up, read the back and then reject it for something entirely different. However readitswapit stepped in and I decided to give it a go.

Tells the story of a guy who gets married, cheats on his wife, wife finds out, wife leaves him, he has to look after small son, grows up and realises the error of his ways. In a nutshell.

It was ok. It kept me reading and I sped through it at a rate of knots so it has that going for it. Is it a keeper? For me personally, no. It didn’t touch me on any other level, other than that it was a good story that made you smile in some places and feel a bit filled up in others. I hate saying this because it sounds horrible but, you know, it’d make a good holiday read. Not much brain power required.

Red Lotus
Not one I’d normally pick up but I’m an absolute sucker for the offer that The Times and WH Smith do. Each week a different book for £2.99 when you buy a copy of The Times. There’s not a chance I can resist that offer. This book was the book of the week a while back.

It’s kind of 2 stories. The first part contains the story of Li-Xia, who overcomes adversity blah blah blah and marries the handsome captain Ben Devereaux. The second part concerns itself with their daughter, the Red Lotus, also known as Siu-Sing. And sometimes it felt like you were reading Part One all over again, just with a few names changed. Yes, Siu-Sing is just like her mother and escapes really similar situations. We. Get. It. Ever heard of labouring the point? Also it went kind of weird at the end and a little bit Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-esque.

Actually despite this I really enjoyed it. Lots of imagery a-plenty in this book and I may well keep an eye open for other books Pai Kit Fai has written. He’s definitely worth another shot I think.

Wolf Hall
Aaaahhh. My nemesis. I started this book at the beginning of time. No wait. It was actually the beginning of March and it has haunted my every waking minute ever since.

Because it is horrible! I actually don’t remember when I last read a book I liked less than this. Any other person would have given up but I hate to admit defeat and will point blank refuse to give up on a book, instead struggling to the bitter end. I started to actually dread going to bed because I knew it would be there, waiting for me, needing to be read. Bleurgh.

I just could not for the life of me get in to it. My friend, who absolutely loved it, said that apparently the Booker Prize judges had given the award based on the style in which she had written the novel. I think they were clearly out of their minds.

Mantel had the incredibly annoying habit of referring to Cromwell as ‘he’ throughout the book, this was so infuriating as there would be points when you would be rendered completely confused going “Who is ‘he’?! Which ‘he’ is she talking about?!” It was horrible. Just horrible. I couldn’t even tell you what it was about. Maybe the confused writing style was supposed to reflect the confusion of the times when you didn’t know what was up or down and things could change at the whim of Henry VIII? Maybe it was just irritating.

I was so disappointed. I mean I guess it must be me because the Booker Prize judges clearly disagreed with me (and obviously they know what they’re talking about. Surely?!) and I know plenty of other people have raved about it but it was horrendous. I would go as far as describing it as an ordeal. Not what you want out of a book.

By the way have you read Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black? That’s very good and not annoying at all.

84 Charing Cross Road
After the horror that was Wolf Hall I needed something a little lighter (both physically and mentally, I had Wolf Hall in hardback and struggled to even lift the damn thing) so I reached for this one. Best choice I could have made. I skipped through this in 3 days, you could sit on a quiet Sunday and get through the whole thing no problem. Wonderful. Delightful.

The book is a series of letters exchanged between Helene Hanff, a writer living in New York and a bookshop situated at, you’ve guessed it, 84 Charing Cross Road. You know what’s good about letters? They are short. You can speed through them at a rate of nobody’s business.

The letters span almost 20 years, from 1949 until 1968. They show an insight into a wonderful friendship between Helene and Frank Doel, the chief correspondent, it is both funny and touching and I will admit to misting up at the end of the correspondence. I can’t tell you what happens or it will spoil it for you.

The 2nd half of the book is entitled The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street and documents Hanff’s trip to the UK, which she finally made in the early 1970s. She kept a diary during her month long stay and it is wonderfully written, I found myself there with her, revelling in her insights into the city she had never visited but always dreamed about.

Maybe it was the relief of reading this after the epic that was Wolf Hall but I loved this in to little tiny bits and pieces and would really like to see the film adaptation that was made in the late 1980s.

...

How to pick a winner?

I think I’ve got to go with 84 Charing Cross Road, although Cranford runs a close second.

5 books in 1 month? Get me. To be repeated next month? Erm....probably not.

The Girl vs The Soup

2010-04-29T15:25:00.006+01:00

Some time ago Petit Filoux threw down a challenge. I had to fight the Battle of the Soup.

I had made the foolish mistake of revealing that I don’t really like soup. I am aware that this will bring gasps of horror from some of you, it does from most people. “What do you mean you don’t like soup?!” I just....don’t like it.

I don’t mean that I absolutely will not eat it and never let it touch my lips. Just that there is always going to be something I would rather have on the menu.

If I’m in a situation where soup is unavoidable or inevitable I quite like it, it’s not a horrifying experience, it’s just...boring. Maybe it’s that I have a need to chew. If I haven’t chewed then I don’t feel like I’ve eaten anything.

My dislike of soup extended to epic levels when I was in my first year at university. I got my tongue pierced and was warned by the scary man covering in tattoos and metal that my tongue would swell up to twice it’s normal size and I wouldn’t be able to eat anything other than soup.

I kind of wished he’d told me that before he’d shoved a titanium rod through my tongue.

It did indeed swell to twice its normal size, although contrary to popular belief I was still perfectly capable of talking and swallowing. My Mum, who I hadn’t told I’d had it done, asked me if I had a cold one day but otherwise didn’t suspect a thing.

Eating was an issue though. And I even bought lots of soup. I had soup coming out of my ears. But I just couldn’t bring myself to eat it. Instead I would sit with a sandwich and tear of really small bits of it and then push it to the back of my mouth, letting my molars get some action. It would take me about half an hour but I certainly showed that soup a thing or two.

But Petit Filoux told me I had to make this soup and I’m afraid I can’t turn down that kind of challenge. Plus if I am going to have my life taken over by WW then apparently soup is the way forward. (I should have known that soup and the notion of losing weight would join forces against me one day.)

And if soup is the way forward then this guy is the standard bearer behind which all other soups must get in line.

Red Lentil and Chickpea love

It is very tasty, with more than a kick of spice (I may have gone slightly overboard with the chilli flakes) which is nicely cooled down with a little bit of greek yoghurt. If I had to have a soup then a tomato-based one would be first in line so this baby ticks all the boxes and most importantly, it’s filling. It will fill you up like a....well I don’t know what it’ll fill you up like, but it will.

I was a little daunted by the chickpeas to begin with. I like my soup smooth and most certainly do not like those bloody horrible ‘Big Soups’ with slimy chunks of vegetable and potato in them.

*gag*

But actually I didn’t really notice them, I didn’t feel like they had a massive impact, I could probably happily make the soup again without them and it wouldn’t be the worse for it.

So I am souping it up all this week at work. The recipe made 4 big bowls, (This is where WW is going to kill me because I’m going to find out that actually I should be having about half that amount) and they are in little individual boxes, ready to make the journey into work to be scoffed down with a bread roll – thus satisfying the mouth’s need to have something to chew.

So impressed was I that I got out the never touched Soup Recipe Book and began tearing up strips of paper with gusto, bookmarking all the soups that I would like to make in the future. I expect this blog will soon be re-named Living in a Soup Bowl.

Has soup ruled victorious and conquered me once and for all?

Not completely. At the moment he serves a purpose so we have come to an uneasy truce. It’ll be a long time before I bow down and kiss his sloppy feet.

But congratulations must go to Petit Filoux (and her boyfriend who I hope now feels calmer about my admission of soup hatred) for making me see the error of my ways and forcing me to confront my demons.

If you would like the recipe (and why the hell wouldn't you after this acesome review?!), then why don’t you have a clickety click HERE.

The thorny issue of weight loss

2010-04-28T15:13:00.003+01:00

Once upon a time a girl went out on a date.

She’d met the guy in a bar on a drunken night out, and in a moment of madness given him her number. He asked her out for a date and she hesitated but thought “Why not?”

On the date she asked him what he did for his job and he gave her possibly the worst answer she could have heard...

“I work in a gym.”

Her blood ran cold. How had she managed to end up on a date with Mr Fit?! There hadn’t been any warning signs, he’d looked completely normal in her vodka-induced haze. She was a girl who didn’t do gyms. There had been gym literally outside her flat for 2 years and she could barely muster the effort to go there twice a week. She was a size 16 and fairly happy with it. Yeah she could be slimmer, yeah her muscles could be tighter, but she did ok in life.

She wondered if they could ever really be compatible. If his life was so focused on being fit and healthy and hers really wasn’t, could the two of them ever get along? She didn’t like to think that it could get in the way so she decided it would probably be fine.

She went out with him for a long year and half.

She wanted to be thinner, he said he would help her. He wrote her gym programmes and she went to the gym like a good little gym bunny. She almost got to the point where she enjoyed going.

The problem was the food. She just pure and simple straight up loved it. Any kind of food. All kinds of food. What greater pleasure is there than eating a good meal?

However when the girl was with Mr Fit she constantly found herself feeling guilty. Feeling guilty for eating a big bag of Sensations all to herself. Feeling guilty for ordering the ‘bad thing’ on the menu. Feeling the judgement when she ate something loaded with fat and calories.

She was in short, miserable. Thinner. But less happy.

And then he left her for someone else anyway.

The lesson she learned was that if someone is that focused on that kind of lifestyle and the other person isn’t then the two just won’t work together. She wasn’t prepared to ever be made to feel guilty for enjoying herself when it was doing no harm to anyone else.

Fast forward two years later...

The girl weighs more than she ever has done. She lives with a boy now and understand that that’s the price you pay for being a good little girlfriend and making all the meals and wanting to don a pinny and bake cakes.

But she knows she’s too fat. She knows that even though she’s nearly 5’10” and can secrete the weight about herself much more easily than someone who is 5’5”, that there’s nowhere for the weight to hide anymore.

She’s signed up to the gym but hates going. Now that there isn’t the constant pressure of going out with Mr Fit it’s hard to find the energy to go.

People say to her “You have to lose weight for you” but she doesn’t really know what that means. How do you know when you’re losing weight for you? Are you losing weight to feel more attractive? What is it that makes you think that you are unattractive – is that you want people to admire you? Surely that means that you’re losing weight for other people? Isn’t it their problem if they don’t fancy you? Are you losing weight because it’s a nightmare finding clothes that fit you? Doesn’t that mean you’re losing weight to conform to what Topshop says you should be wearing?

It’s as if society can’t conceive of the notion that you might be happy being a tubster.
Will she become a different person if she loses a few stone? Will that radically change her personality? She hopes not because she thinks she’s a pretty ok person as she is and what faults she does have don’t have anything to do with her thunder thighs.

Will you love her more if she’s a size 12? (She’s realistic, to be any less she’d have to live on licking on celery stalk once a day and miraculously alter her bone structure.) If so then she doesn’t really need you as part of her life thanks.

Do you hang around with her because she’s a nice person and fun to be around or because she can wear skinny jeans?

Will she be a better daughter/sister/cousin/niece/auntie if she has a lower BMI?

It’s all a little confusing.

And then someone says the words she dreads even more than “I work in a gym”. Someone asks her if she wants to join Weightwatchers with them. This girl is Weightwatcher-phobic. She knows that everyone that does it thinks it’s amazing but she also knows a lot of people that have done it and become world class bores, recounting in great detail how many points there are in that slice of carrot cake you’re eating and extolling the virtues of WW’s like brain-washed converts.

She hates the thought of counting points and keeping a track of what she’s eating, it would make food the centre of her life and not in a good way. It makes food an ‘issue’ and not something just to be enjoyed. She has friends that have fallen down the slippery slope of eating disorders and one who still hasn’t made it back up. She’s all too aware of the dangers that come with obsessing about food. Her friend says that she became anorexic because she wanted to gain control in her life, but surely isn’t the disease and the concept of food controlling her? How far of a hop, skip and a jump away is it from counting points? One day you’re counting up to your allowance, the next you’re thinking to yourself, “Hell what if I just took another point off, surely I’d lose more weight? And what about another and another?”

But the girl figures she might as well give it a go.

If nothing else she’ll probably get fuel for some blog posts out of it.

PS For the record. The boyfriend loves me just the way I am. He knows I have issues with my weight and when I mentioned WW he said that if it made me happy then he was all for it.

PPS And another disclaimer. I'm not dissing Weightwatchers here, it's more a general outpouring of thoughts and feelings regarding the whole subject of dieting and weight loss. I am walking into WW with a positive attitude. Really!

Tree Project - April

2010-04-27T14:04:00.008+01:00

Hey Mr Tree.

So last month I berated you for not really making any progress with the whole spring thing. Then I turn my back for a month and before I know it you're looking suspiciously green.

When the hell did you get leaves?!

Could you not have maybe given me a slight warning? A bit of a heads up so I could have come outside and taken some pictures of the in between phase of having a few random green buds to proper leaves?!
I feel like you're not really taking this whole thing very seriously.

But I'm pleased to see that you've got onboard with the whole spring thing. Those little red berries are finally all withered and dead and instead you have brand spanking new leaves taking their place.

And when I look out of the window you don't look quite as sad as you used to, you've got a bit of colour back in your cheeks. And on Sunday, after we had that crazy random thunderstorm that had the raindrops bouncing off the pavements, and the sun came out, but the sky was still gret, your leaves looked really beautiful against it. Shame I couldn't find my camera for the life of me.

Anyway. Good work Mr Tree. You've made incredible progress in a mere month. I shall expect such high standards from you in the future.

I'll show you productive

2010-04-26T16:01:00.007+01:00

A quick check of the calendar last week revealed that this weekend would be the first one I would be spending at home in 4 weeks. That left me with 2 warring factions of my brain;

Side A: Oh my god brilliant you must sit about and do knack all and celebrate the fact that you don’t have to go anywhere or see anyone
Side B: Do not waste this weekend.

The fact is that I’m not really brilliant at just sitting around. Don’t get me wrong I can veg like the very best of them but sometimes I just get a little itchy and don’t like the feeling of just being slumped on the sofa staring blankly at the television. Hence even when I’m watching some incredibly mind expanding programme like The Hills or Hollyoaks, I’m usually doing something else whether it be cross stitch or crochet or, less often, ironing.

I decided to please both sides of the brain. There would be time for vegging but I was determined the weekend would not be completely unproductive.

Saturday included the very boring task of going shopping. For the first time ever I planned out in advance what we would be having for tea this week and needed a few extra bits. Then it was time to make start on a friend’s birthday present.

Her birthday was the day before mine. As in 3rd April. And I saw what I wanted to get her in February. I bought it and congratulated myself on my superb organisation powers. Then I promptly forgot to get around to actually making the damn thing. If only one thing would be achieved this weekend it would be the making of the guinea pig.

Yeah. I bought a little ready to sew up kit and made her a guinea pig. Because she has guinea pigs. And, you know, I’m hilarious.

I’d put this off because I looked at the instructions a while back and nearly gave myself a brain aneurism trying to figure out what in god’s name it was on about. Luckily for me, the boyfriend speaks Incomprehensible Sewing Instructions so he was there to let me know what I was supposed to be stitching to what.

The end result? Probably the funniest gift ever. I don’t know why but every time I look at it I want to dissolve into giggles. Just look at him.

Fred was slightly less than impressed with my efforts but I’m hoping my friend will appreciate it and forgive me for being a month too late.

I thought Sunday was going to be a write off because I had a night on the town on Saturday but I must be getting sensible in my old age because I jumped in a friend’s taxi at midnight, rather than keeping on going until the early hours. (Truth be told I would have carried on partying like a rockstar but there’s one thing you need to know about Hull. There are no taxis. Seriously. There are none. Don’t even think about going out without booking one to come home and even then it most likely won’t turn up.)

Things weren’t looking brilliant on Sunday. I spent the morning lying on the floor where I’d fallen asleep (I was trying to fix my bad back, which hadn’t totally appreciated me going out in 4 inch heels. Tell you what though, alcohol? Best painkiller ever. Didn’t feel a thing all night), watching Hollyoaks and thinking really hard about getting out of my pyjamas.

I had a sudden spurt of energy about 3pm and got my backside in the kitchen where I made Simone's Cherry & Sultana cake. The verdict? So so good. And even better still warm from the oven with a cup of tea. Oh. My. God.

I also made a Spinach & Ricotta Chicken Lasagne which J had featured on her blog a while ago. You have got to try this out. It was beyond good. What’s beyond good? Oh I know....ACESOME. I felt like I’d actually made an effort in the kitchen, I felt most smug with myself, especially seeing as there was an incident a month ago when I tried to make lasagne and it didn’t go well and I may or may not have actually cried about it. I feel I’ve put that ghost to rest now. Pictures? Erm, no because I was shovelling it in my face. AND there’s some in the freezer to have on a day when I’m lazy.

And lastly, I finished another piece for the Embroidering the Truth exhibition. I’m on a roll now people, five completed and 2 more months to go. I’ve actually got so many quotes stored up that I’m going to have to start picking favourites because I’m not going to have time to do them all.

(I overheard this one at the Post Office when a group of girls were talking about a fancy dress party they were going to)

So I reckon that qualifies as the perfect balance. Productive? Yes. Lazy? Yes. (I never did get out of my pyjamas on Sunday. Well technically I did but that was to shower and put them back on again. Yeah I’m kinda gross.)

Mission Impossible

2010-04-25T09:30:00.005+01:00

Name: Agent Fred

Mission: Wake up The Girl or the boyfriend via the medium of needling their bare skin

Bonus mission: Manage to draw blood

Mission accomplished: 4.30am Saturday. The Girl gets a bleeding chin.

Name: Agent Lily

Mission: Wake up The Girl or the boyfriend via the medium of biting their toes

Bonus mission: Manage to draw blood

Mission accomplished: 6.00am Saturday. The boyfriend gets a bleeding toe.

...

After getting in trouble for having Fred and Lily last time I decided to be brave and ask permission to have them for a week when Mum went away on holiday. Actually I got the boyfriend to do it because I'm not really that brave.

Anyway they said yes so they are here on their first official 'legal' visit.

The flat is now covered with the layer of fur...

Chinese Whispers - A drama in 2 parts. Part 2

2010-04-23T17:54:00.003+01:00

...I switched my phone on again at lunchtime. It immediately started buzzing with text messages.

My cousin had text me to say that she'd spoken to Auntie M about it and told her how pissed off she was with her.

Auntie M had text me to say that she was really sorry about the misunderstanding and she didn't realise and she didn't know what else to say.

Then my Mum had text me asking how my back was today and how word was.

Erm......

Something wasn't quite right.

So I phoned Mum;

Mum: Oh hi, how's your back [bad actually, I need to fill you on that as well. There really is so much to tell you]
Me: It's pretty bad but not awful
Mum: Right so I'll bring the cats round tonight at about 5pm [GOD I haven't even told you about that have I? Worst. blogger. ever.]
Me: Okaaaaaay.....so.....what happened with Auntie M last night?
Mum: What do you mean?
Me: Well, Sister rang me saying that Auntie M had called you saying The Boyfriend and I were all but over.
Mum: No she didn't. We were on the phone anyway and I told her that you were having problems with The Boyfriend and she said that yes she'd heard and was really sorry about it.
Me: Right. Yeah. Sister kind of made out like it was a really big deal. Said she had to practically talk you down off the roof and gave me a lecture about relationships this morning.
Mum: Oh god no. It wasn't anything like that.

Brilliant.

Thanks so much Sister.

So I then had to text my cousin back and tell her to stop self-flagellating and text my Auntie M back (who by the way is incredibly sensitive and prone to suicide attempts) telling her not to worry, that everything's got a bit out of hand and blown out of proportion.

So basically I had to fix something that I didn't start.

And I end up feeling bad because it's as if I've over-reacted and been awful to everyone.

And I had to go through all this drama and yet not be able to tell The Boyfriend about any of it because I didn't think he'd appreciate knowing that my entire family was talking about our relationship troubles.

And none of this would have happened if I'd followed my normal policy of shut up and keep it to myself.

Lesson learned.

So having witnessed how quickly things spiralled out of control with my family and taking onboard some of your comments about my relationship issues at the moment I feel I need to probably issue a clarification about the state of play.

A clarification

I have been unhappy for a while in my relationship. Nothing major, just one of those nagging feelings in the pit of your stomach or the back of your mind that something isn't right. You know the ones I mean? Not a big deal, you don't feel like you want to jump off a bridge, just...an unsettling feeling.

This unsettled feeling was brought to the fore with the revelation that I was still most likely, kind of, probably in love with an ex - as demonstrated in the Head vs Heart post (who by the way didn't cheat on me, I'm not sure where that's come from, I don't think the post was incredibly clear, probably because my head wasn't.)

To. be. clear.

I am not;

a) Leaving the boyfriend for the ex. Bad at relationships I might be but I've most definitely had enough of my fill to know a bad idea when I see one.

b) Starting up any kind of relationship with the ex at the moment. If I break up with the boyfriend I'm not going to be moving on to anything else.

c) Rushing into any major decisions. I realise that this could be the proverbial 'rocky patch' and everything will right itself and in a year's time I will look back on this and laugh. (Well. Probably not, but you know what I mean.)

So I hope that makes things a little clearer for everybody. Maybe I need to post this round to my family so everybody has the same story and can stop gossiping behind my back.

And now that I've done that I can move on to other things because quite frankly I am sick of hearing myself talking about it and you must be sick of hearing about it.

Done and done.

Chinese Whispers. A drama in 2 parts. Part One

2010-04-22T16:03:00.003+01:00

Whilst I was down south staying with my cousin I told her about the relationship woes I’m having at the moment. I didn’t go in to great detail, just said that I wasn’t happy at the moment, I wasn’t sure what was making me unhappy and I didn’t really know how things were going to pan out long term.

I figured that she’d tell her Mum, my Auntie S, because they’re like that. They are kind of gossipy and prone to dramatics, and this would be right up their street. I also guessed that Auntie S would tell her sister, Auntie M, because....well, that’s just what they do.

(A quick note: Auntie M and Auntie S are my Dad’s sisters but they are still very good friends with my Mum.)

Last night I get a call from my sister, something which never happens.

Sister: I need to talk to you when The Boyfriend isn’t there? Can you do that?
Me: Erm, not really seeing as it’s 9pm and, you know, he lives here. I can go in the bedroom, will that do?
Sister: I’ve just spoken to Mum and she’s had Auntie M on the phone telling her that she’s really sorry to hear about you and The Boyfriend and that you’re all but over.
Me: What?! Ugh. Cousin must have told them but it’ll have got exaggerated, you know what they’re like
Sister: Well I’ve practically had to talk Mum off the roof, I’ve persuaded her not to ring you and have a bath instead.
Me: I really can’t talk about this now, I’ll call you tomorrow morning.

I immediately texted my cousin to ask her what the hell she’d told Auntie M because she’d phoned my Mum who was now freaking out. She replied that she’d told her Mum but had told her to keep it quiet.

I spent the rest of the night with my stomach churning. I didn’t understand where things had gone so wrong and hated the thought that my Mum was upset about something. But I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was. Mum knows what I’m thinking, she has that incredibly annoying Mother knack of knowing when something isn’t right and had badgered me to the point where it was just easier to tell her, but I had downplayed the whole situation knowing that she would worry.

So this morning I call my sister:

Me: Right. So. What happened?
Sister: Well Auntie M phoned Mum and said she was really sorry to hear about you and The Boyfriend and that it was all but over.
Me: Yeah well, you know what they’re like. They exaggerate stuff, plus it’s gone from cousin to Auntie S, to Auntie M, to Mum so it’ll have morphed into this massive deal. I don’t understand why Mum’s freaking out so much, she knows all of this anyway.
Sister: Well she cares about you doesn’t she?!
Me: Yeah I know that but....
Sister: So what it is that’s wrong with you?
Me: Well I don’t know. I’m just not happy...
Sister: Well is it because everything’s up in the air at the moment and you’re going to be moving and you’re looking for a job [yeah I need to tell you all about that don’t I?!] and things like that?
Me:...Well yeah...maybe...I’m not sure...
Sister: Because you have to work at relationships you know. God knows I’ve been through enough stuff with _____ and sometimes things get a bit rough.
Me: Yeah. I know...
Sister: I mean and people just care, I mean Mum cares, I care.
Me: Ok. Stop. I know you all care. But this really isn’t that big a deal. I don’t even know what’s going to happen in the future, maybe everything will be ok, maybe it won’t. Even if the boyfriend and I do split up, the world isn’t going to spin off its axis, everything will be ok. And I appreciate that you care but it really isn’t that big a deal.

This is not a conversation I wanted to have at 7.30am.

I do not need a lecture about the fact that sometimes relationships get tough. I’m not a moron. I especially do not need a lecture from someone who most definitely should have left her husband about 10 years ago (but that’s a whole other story).

As soon as I put the phone down I felt a rush of claustrophobia like I’ve never felt before. I ended up having to open the window and stick my head out of it, gulping the air down. I wanted to scream. I was crying. It was such a massive rush of emotions it took me by surprise.

It was just extra pressure that I didn’t need. I am well aware that people will worry about me which is why I tend to not tell them about these things. I’ve actually surprised myself with how many people I have told, I’d normally just think things over myself and then act. I don’t need to know that everyone else is wondering what I’m thinking, I’m the only person that needs to know what I’m thinking at the moment. I don’t even think the boyfriend needs to know what I’m thinking because I don’t know what I’m thinking.

I needed space. If I had the money I’d have got on my jet plane and speeded off somewhere. I feel like everyone’s crowding me sometimes.

I know that they’re just concerned and they want to be supportive but now all I’m conscious of is that they’re wondering what’s going on in my head. So instead of concentrating on working through the contents of my incredibly scrambled brain I’m instead focusing on how everyone else is feeling.

This is why I don’t tell people my business, because of the gossip and rumours that start to spread. I don’t want to be thinking about what Auntie M and Auntie S and my cousin are saying about my situation and I definitely don’t want them talking to my Mum about it.

After the phone call with my sister I switched my phone off. I didn’t want to deal with it anymore. Plus I have, you know, a job to go to and turning up looking and feeling like a mental patient wasn’t what I wanted to do today.

I especially didn’t want to know was what was going to happen when I switched my phone on again in the afternoon...

So this one time I confronted a man when I was naked...

2010-04-21T17:15:00.003+01:00

I recently remembered that I was asked by a few of you about a story I briefly mentioned way back when 2010 was but a mere babe in arms. I published this post listing some of the things that had happened to me in the previous 10 years and I mentioned the time I confronted a man who had broken in to my Mum's house when I was naked.

Now is the time to tell it. Sometimes these stories work way better when you tell them in person rather than writing them down so I hope I can pull this one off.

Many moons ago (ok, it was about 2004/2005) I was living back home with Mum. I had finished my degree and was spending a year saving up to begin my Masters degree the following year. To be honest I never did really save up, I spent more of my time not eating and getting drunk - I've never been thinner or more hungover, it was fabulous.

One night, after finishing work at the cafe, I went out with a friend for a few drinks. I came home not drastically late, I think about 10.30pm. I wasn't steaming drunk, just in that incredibly happy state somewhere between feeling a bit fuzzy and complete incoherence. I took myself off to bed with the aim being to sleep away the inevitable hangover I would suffer from the next day.

I awoke suddenly to the sound of my Mum dashing about in my room. I peered through bleary eyes (I've still never learned to take my mascara off at night) at her. What was she doing? Didn't she know I wasn't back at work until 12pm? Why was she trying to get me to wake up?

As I slowly surfaced to join the world I became aware that she was saying something to me.

"There's a man in the house!!"

There's nothing like a healthy dose of adrenaline to cure a hangover.

Mum had disappeared out of my room after making this revelation and disappeared into hers. Still unsure of what on earth she was on about I decided to follow her.

Now. Sometimes when I've had a bit to drink, the whole notion of getting out of clothes and putting pyjamas on is an idea which is too difficult to comprehend. I'll get halfway through the task and then just give up. Unfortunately, this had been one of those nights.

I scrabbled about on the floor for my clothes and couldn't for the life of me find any. I don't even know what I'd done with the ones I'd taken off but they weren't lying in their usual heap beside the bed. At this point I thought the important thing would be to find Mum, who was still in her bedroom.

I grabbed my single duvet and wrapped it around myself, holding it with one hand at the small of my back and came out of my room. Mum was standing in the door way of her bedroom with the phone in her hand.

"CALL THE POLICE!" She screamed at me.

"What?! You've got the phone, you call them!"

At this point I turned round to see an absolutely enormous man coming up the stairs. He was seriously huge.

I'll never really know if it was the drunk that made me do the following or if this would be my natural reaction. Maybe a little bit of both.

I stood in front of him and pointed my finger in his face.

"Get out of this house immediately" I said, in what I can only describe as my most imperious, regal voice.

He stood looking at me with more than a hint of confusion on his face.

"Go on! Get out now." I was reprimanding him in much the same manner as you would a naughty puppy who had trampled dirt into the house.

Mum told me later that it was the most ridiculous sight she'd ever seen. My hair was all over the place, my backside was hanging out of the backc of the quilt and I was pointing at this ridiculously massive man like Queen Boudicca, commanding him to leave my domain.

He still looked a little confused but started to back down the stairs.

"Right! I'm going to phone the police" I said, and marched into my Mum's bedroom, taking the phone from her and calling 999.

Luckily for us we lived seconds away from a police station and the police were round incredibly quickly. Now dressed, I was at the front door, waiting for them. As I described the man they looked at each other. "We know who he is, he's just walked into the station."

It turned out he was a gurkha, out on a night out from the barracks near to Hull. He'd got ridiculously drnuk and had just decided that our house was his house and had broken in. This would explain the very confused look on his face. Imagine you've come in to what you think is your home, you've climbed the stairs to come to bed and instead you've been faced with two screaming women, one of which is holding a quilt around her, telling you to get out. I kind of feel sorry for him.

So it all ended well. Yes we were supremely lucky that it was a confused drunk personand not a burglar or raging lunatic. Yes Mum was very lucky that I was living with her at the time because God only knows what she would have done if she was on her own. She later told me that the reason she hadn't phoned the police, despite holding the phone in her hand, was that she had literally gone blind with panic and couldn't see the numbers. And yes I have been gifted with the ultimate bravery story that proves that alcohol isn't always a bad thing (unless it means you sleep naked).

PS When I think about it, the above events took place in the space of approximtely 30 seconds, from Mum waking me up to me ringing the police. It might even have been less than that. I guess it's true what they say about time slowing down. It's bizarre how I can remember every, single second of that moment as if it happened yesterday.

The Beautiful Blogger Award

2010-04-20T20:26:00.003+01:00

What is it with awards that they seem to come in batches? I've been awarded this baby by Taz at Ratbag and Suzie at Itch2stitch.com.

Apparently I have to share 7 things about myself. My god I gave you five things in the last blog award - I have nothing left to tell you!

1. My hair is the bane of my life. It's wavy so is that awful inbetween - not straight but not full of bouncing curls. Instead it's all over the place and takes forever to straighten. Plus I'm officially going grey. And I'm not just talking a few strays here and there, I'm talking full on, too-many-to-count-let-alone-pull-out grey. At 27. Depressing.

2. I have a Masters degree in Development Economics. Which I've never used. That was an awesome waste of money.

3. I have my tongue pierced. It's pretty far back so no-one can really see it unless I open my gob wide enough (which unfortunately is quite often). I've been thinking about taking it out but I'm not ready to let go yet.

4. I have been an Auntie since I was 13 and I have 3 nephews. I am dying for a niece and have my fingers crossed that my sister-in-law's current pregnancy is going to end with a girl.

5. I'm not a huggy touchy feely person. Unless you go out with me at which point I transform into a soppy limpet. If you hug me it will be returned tenfold but I am unlikely to initiate a hug. Unless you get me drunk then I'm all up for the love.

6. If money was no option then I'd go back to university and study just for the sake of studying. And history would be first on the list.

7. When I was a small person the first job I ever wanted was to be a police dog handler. Weird I know. I was, and still am, obsessed with German Shepherds and am desperate to one day own one. I think they are just amazing.

Now it's time to pass on the love. I hate this bit. I don't even know how many people I'm supposed to pass it on to so I'm just going to make it up.

BLONDE DESIGN - she is so talented it makes me want to throw up. Go and visit her and buy up all her products immediately. GO!

Heather at Little Tin Bird - Beautiful photos. Beautiful crochet. Just beautiful.

Maria at The Goddess's Kitchen - the food, look at all the food! Just gorgeous, and well deserving of the title Beautiful Blogger for that very reason.

And I'm stopping there. I know. Only three people, pitiful but everyone else always backs out of naming people so I am too. If you would like to take it then please feel free, I'll stop short of saying "But you're all beautiful" because even typing that as a joke made me throw up in my mouth a little bit.

Running away to the south

2010-04-19T16:36:00.008+01:00

There were a few purposes to this weekend;

1. See my cousin and reconnect after a ridiculously long time apart
2. See some old friends
3. Have fun
4. Running away

All 4 outcomes were successfully achieved. If they were written on a list I would have ticked them all off and I’d be feeling a warm glow of satisfaction. (I kind of now wish I had actually written a list. Is it ok to write and list post-event?)

I know running away doesn’t solve anything and you have to face your problems sooner or later but sometimes you can over-think issues and I am most definitely bordering on that at the moment. Sometimes you have to just remove yourself completely from a situation just to give your brain a rest and that was most definitely accomplished.

It would be boring to recount the whole weekend’s activities and there aren’t many photos I can show you. I mean there were plenty of photos taken but very few blog appropriate ones :)

At times like this you need a list to briefly and snappily run through things so here we go:

Friday
- Picked up from train station by cousin, made lovely meal, sit down to have nice civilised meal with cousin, one of her housemates and other friend. A polite game of Cranium is mentioned.
- Someone else mentions going to the pub down the road for a couple of drinks
- 4 bottles of wine at the pub later we roll back down to the house, causing minor disruption to the incredibly sleepy village of Coombeinteignhead. (Apologies to any residents who may come across this blog in the future. Especially the guy whose Landrover the other girls tried to climb on whilst I took photos.)
- Somehow end up with the 19 year old barman back at the house (who clearly thought his luck was in with 4 drunk older women. You have to admire him for trying.)
- Break table, trying to dance on it
- Kick barman out after having made him strip down to his boxers (don’t ask why)
- Get to bed about 4.30/5.00am

Saturday
- Wake up at 8.30 feeling surprisingly chipper, get up and get changed, feeling full of the joys of spring
- Retrace steps back to the pub to try and find my phone which had mysteriously disappeared
- Realise that I was still drunk and slowly sink into the hangover from hell in front of Saturday Kitchen.
- Have cup of tea and feel spirits rallying
- Find phone behind cushion. Have no idea why I wouldn’t have looked there in the first place, a clear indication of the effects of excessive alcohol on the brain.
- Discover that we somehow managed to get through 10 bottles of wine amongst the 4 of us.
- Ponder why we aren’t all in acute liver failure.
- Get ourselves to Paignton Zoo at lunchtime, looking and behaving like two Witches of Eastwick, hissing at all children who made too much noise or got in our way (we’re normally very nice girls)
- Laugh at the lemurs, stroke some goats and decide that the baboons are our favourites.

- Powernap back at home
- Dinner at Coombe Cellars which was so beautiful I couldn’t even capture it properly in a photograph, although I kept trying.

Sunday
- Back to Coombe Cellars to meet up with an old friend of mine plus husband, plus child.
- Lament the fact that we only have an hour before I have to catch my stupid train back home.
- Laugh and coo over friend’s child (see, told you I was a nice girl normally, just not with a hangover)
- Dash to Newton Abbot train station to begin epic journey back to Hull involving 3 trains and a bus. Ridiculous.
- Realise I’ve got a grand total of about 8 hours sleep over the weekend and will most likely die at work on Monday.

So in summary:

Laughing so much you choke + many bottles of wine + zoo + good friends = Quality Weekend

Did reality hit me like a sucker punch to the gut when I came home? It certainly did. But with this many things to reminisce about I can put off thinking about things for a while longer yet.

A tale of two cousins

2010-04-15T16:24:00.007+01:00

Once upon a time there was a child born unto a man.

And lo this child was a girl and there was much rejoicing because she was a) a girl, b) the man’s first child, c) the first child born unto the man’s side of the family and d) she was frickin’ brilliant.

And this girl led a wonderful, charmed life, doted on by all who gazed upon her and much lauded and praised by all who spent time with her.

Then, a mere 14 months later, the man’s sister had a baby, another girl was added to the family.

“How wonderful” they all proclaimed “Little girl cousins, so close in age, they will be the best of friends.”
Wrong.

The eldest cousin was, to be frank, a bit of a spoiled brat. She was the worst of combinations, a youngest child and also sort of an only child, having 2 much older siblings.

The cousins didn’t see that much of each other, the eldest lived in Hull and the youngest all the way down in the deepest realms of the South, also known as Devon. So when they came together it was usually for week long holidays.

The youngest cousin ruined everything. She was cuter and younger and always got her own way. This displeased the bratty older cousin who was used to all the attention.

This photo aptly demonstrates the 2 cousin’s relationship:

The eldest cousin wanted the yellow bag with the red strap. The youngest cousin was given it. Not. Fair.

Sometimes they got on. Usually when the youngest cousin adoringly followed the eldest cousin about.

As time went on they grew up and grew apart. The eldest child didn’t speak to her Dad for many years and lost contact with that side of the family, she didn’t see her little cousin for a long long time. When they got back in touch everything had changed.

The eldest cousin was no longer as much of a brat. Or at least she hid it better. This was a good thing because the youngest cousin was now ridiculously attractive, could dance, and was studying to become a Doctor. This would have pushed the eldest cousin over the edge had they been younger.

And they now had the ability to become very good friends, the closeness in their ages was a positive and they were actually very similar – mainly because they both liked a drink and shared a rather evil sense of humour. (And they also now united in a dislike for the littlest girl cousin, who came 5 years late to the party.)

But still the distance kept them apart. And the price of train fares in this stupid country. Until eventually, the eldest cousin figured that God invented credit cards for this exact reason and booked a ticket to go and see her younger cousin, now a real-life Doctor, and living by the sea in a far off place known as Newton Abbot.

See you after the weekend.

Oh wait, didn’t I tell you? That story was about me! I’m the eldest cousin. Aren’t I hilarious and clever and still obviously the best cousin? (say yes say yes say yes)

The Stitch and Bitch project

2010-04-15T16:14:00.007+01:00

Again. Thank you for all your kind words of support and advice. I do listen to them and I do think about them and they're all greatly appreciated. I really don't want this blog to become all about my moanings though so if I seem to move on to other things with remarkable speed it's not that I'm cold-hearted, more that I'm trying to look on the brightside!

When Stitch & Bitch first started back in September 2009 the word ‘exhibition’ was mentioned. One of the founding members of S&B had done an art degree and was very enamoured with the idea of us all creating something to display for others.

I was not so keen. I have a desperate need to be liked, which means that I don’t handle criticism very well – the thought of putting my work up for strangers to see makes me feel a little queasy. What if they don’t like it and think it’s stupid? My fragile little ego couldn’t cope with it all.

My policy was just to ignore any suggestion of an exhibition and hope the problem would go away but she persisted and last month it was decided. Exhibit we would.

And actually it was a very cool idea so I willingly hopped onboard.

We would be cross-stitching/embroidering/whatevering quotes that we overheard on our travels.

Basically, we would eavesdrop on peoples’ conversations and take little snippets and turn them into a finished article.

And the exhibition would be called...

Embroidering the Truth.

See what we did there?

It’s been hilarious. At first I was worried that I would never overhear any conversations but I have developed a knack of listening in without making it too obvious that I’m listening in.

Unfortunately this has meant there have been a couple of occasions when the boyfriend has been sat there, chatting away to me only to realise I’m not listening even slightly and am instead earwigging in on the conversation the two people on the table next to us are having.

But I explained to him that sometimes art has its casualties.

We now have an official exhibition date for the end of June so we are furiously stitching away in an attempt to build up our portfolio.

So far I have....

Which was overheard in a rather seedy pub near to where I live – I think he was trying to impress the woman he was with. Or the rest of the pub seeing as he practically shouted it.

And....

Which was overheard on my way to a particularly unsavoury part of Hull and was made by a particularly stoned person on the back of a bus. I’m very proud of this one because I designed my bar table all by myself. For someone who has to always follow patterns this was a big step into creativity.

And also...

Which is the first snippet of conversation I overheard which was taking place between a rather drunk girlfriend and boyfriend who were waiting for a table in an Indian restaurant just down the road.

And I’m currently working on this bad boy, which I overheard at the boyfriend’s Grandma’s funeral of all places.

It’s been great to do something as a little group. We’ve all become firm friends now but it’s been nice to all be working on something together and I’m actually very excited to see all our stuff up on the walls somewhere.

So if you’re in Hull and you see someone leaning in uncomfortably close to your conversation...speak up a bit will you?

(Apologies for the crappy photos - they will look much better when they are ironed and

framed and generally prettified)

What's been said cannot be unsaid

2010-04-14T13:58:00.002+01:00

He asked me why I hadn’t said something sooner.

I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. I was determined to not say anything until all my thoughts were in order and I knew what I wanted to say, instead of blurting them out like some kind of idiot.

I said that I hadn’t said anything before because I didn’t know how to put it. I didn’t know how to say how I was feeling. I didn’t really know what I was feeling.

He said he was sorry that he’d been miserable lately, that it was a horrible atmosphere at work because of the impending move and he didn’t realise he was bringing it home with him.

I said I didn’t even know if that was what the problem was.

He said that I meant the world to him and that he just wants me to be happy.

I said that I knew that.

He asked me if I wanted space. He could go and stay at his parent’s house for a couple of days because they’re away at the moment. No-one would need to know.

I said no. I didn’t think it was fair for him to have to leave for a few days when it was me that had the problem.

There was silence for a long time.

I asked him what he was thinking.

He said he’d never have asked me if I was ok if he knew what I was going to say.

He said that there were a couple of options. We break up now or we wait and see if things improve.

I didn’t know what to say. He was taking it so calmly. He didn’t seem overly upset and he didn’t seem angry. He didn’t ask why. He didn’t ask if there was someone else. He was eerily quiet.

He said he would try and stop being stressed about work and bringing it home with him.

I said, again, that I didn’t even know if that was what the problem was. Because I don’t know what the problem is. I said I just had a feeling that things weren’t right. Something wasn’t fitting into place.

I said “What are we supposed to do now?” Were we supposed to just ignore what I’d just said and carry on with some false sense of gaiety and pretend that everything was ok? If someone says they’re not happy and they’re not sure why then what more else is there to say?

He said, “Well for a start I can go and put on the tea.”

...

...

And today was the first morning in over a year that he didn’t say goodbye when he left for work.

The bright side

2010-04-13T15:46:00.004+01:00

There’s nothing to lift your spirits more than a bit of appreciation. First I get it in the form of your outpouring of admiration for my crocheting efforts and then I go and get an award from the rather marvellous Taz at Ratbag.

I wouldn’t have necessarily called myself a looking on the bright-side person – always thought I was kind of moody and sarcastic and generally a bit of a pessimist, but I guess it doesn’t take a lot to make me happy. A new flavour of Pringles you say? Cue happy dance in the middle of the crisps and snacks aisle in Tesco.

Anyway I’m not one to turn down a bit of attention so I will continue to bask in the glory for a while longer before reluctantly passing it on to the next person.

The rules:
1. List Top 10 things that make you happy
2. List 5 trivia things about me
3. Share with 5 people and ask them to do the same
4. Link the blogs you choose and link the blog of the person who gave it to you

Things that make me happy:
1. Cats. All cats in general and Fred and Lily specifically. If I'm on the street and see one I will be stopping to try and touch it.

2. Crisps. Still and for always. Praise be to the salty god.

3. Crochet. Now that I've begun to crack it I am really enjoying it. Like really. Like so much it annoys me when things stop me from crocheting. Like work.

4. Spring. I spy with my little eye, blossom. And it's good.

5. The sun. It's hot its hat on and it's coming out to play. And it means lunch outside in Queens Gardens instead of sitting my little windowless box of an office.

6. Glee. It's just....gleeful. It makes me very happy and I've been quite miserable during its random 3 week break, but it's back on Monday!

7. Getting away. I'm going away for the weekend to see my cousin down south and I'm very much looking forward to it, I haven't seen her for ages and fun is bound to be had.

8. Stitch & Bitch. My little Thursday night activity and an exciting project on the go. I am definitely going to tell you about that soon.

9. Tea. Nothing like a big mug of it in the evening.

10. Shoes. I got the box of spring/summer shoes out the other day and felt almost giddy. There were so many that I'd forgotten about (which is worrying I know).

The triva:

1. I am left handed. And ridiculously proud of the fact in a way righties (and let’s be honest most lefties) don’t understand. It’s like being a member of a very cool club. Full of left handed people. Imagine it. The mind boggles.
2. I have ridiculously long toes that I call Fingoes (geddit? They’re long like fingers but they’re toes. It’s a laugh a minute with me.)
3. I was banned from watching The Crystal Maze when I was young because I got too stressed out watching it (there’s a blog post in that story)
4. I have a small scar near my left eye which looks like a botched attempt at an eyebrow piercing but is actually a scar from getting punched in the face about 6 years ago (there’s definitely a blog post in that story)
5. I am terrified of moths and butterflies (yeah I know it doesn’t make sense). If you want to see me freak out and make a twat out of myself then put me near one of them – you’ll never see me move faster.

The 5 blogs:

1. Kelly @ Kelly’s Recipes for Life
2. Victoria @ Florence & Mary
(those first two – seriously deserving of this award – no hint of drama, everything in life is wonderful, I need to take a lesson from the pair of them!)
3. The Curious Cat – because she is adventuresome and brave
4. Tabiboo – I would like to steal her life by the sea
5. Suzie @ Itch2stitch.com - She is brilliant, no other words for it. And most definitely, absolutely, positively someone who looks on the bright side.

Take it, go, fly my pretties. I’m going to take the award as inspiration and go off to make a list of why my life isn’t falling apart at the moment. Bright side is the key phrase.

The devil's craft: a retraction

2010-04-12T17:14:00.007+01:00

Some months ago I wrote a post about my first attempts at crochet. It had been a long old battle and I was feeling despondent. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't enjoy it. I had a strong suspicion that wool and hook were conspiring and laughing at me behind my back. The Stitch & Bitch girls were ready to drown me in my hot chocolate, such were my moans. I would pore through the pages of Attic 24, jealousy oozing out of my pores.

However, because I'm a stubborn little madam (hello? I'm an Aries aren't I?!) I refused to give up and with the help of a little tin bird, I eventually found my way.

Since that second post I have undergone a small transformation. My cross stitch has lain abandoned for who knows how long now as I sit and I hook. I've got in to my stride and it's more than a little bit addictive. I love the speed with which the squares begin to take shape. One problem with cross stitch is that you can work on it for hours and it resembles nothing more than a colourful blob on the aida. With the granny square you can see almost immediately where you're going and how bloody brilliant it's going to be.

Maybe it's the repetitiveness of it that's so soothing, just going round and round and round and round. Minimal concentration, maximum output.

I discovered you can crochet on the train on a recent trip to Manchester. I'm not going to lie, you get a few pretty strange looks, but I was brave enough to withstand them. (Must be a sign I'm getting older, I'm becoming less bothered of what people think of me.) I have a train journey down to Newton Abbot at the end of this week - 6 hours. The wool is coming with me. Podcasts are lined up ready to put on the i-pod. It's going to be acesome (yeah I'm still pushing that one).

It's not been without it's troublesome times. I have faced unknown hardships along the way including severe cramp, the perils of discontinued colours (hurray for the internet), the ordeal of making sure the colours are in a complementary order and, perhaps most importantly, the flippin' expense of it all. This is not the cheapest hobby I've ever taken up. I might have to take up another one to fund it - hunting for truffles maybe, or selling drugs. I'm not fussy.

But these traumas have been swept aside as I gaze with what I can only imagine is some kind of maternal pride at my woolly baby, taking shape before my very eyes. Sometimes I'll lie on top of it and pretend it's finished (too much information? Really?) I reckon 25 squares ought to get me a damn fine blanket. 36 squares would be amazing but I don't want to aim too high (and neither does my bank balance).

So I apologise to you crochet. You are not the devil's craft after all. Although you have done a pretty good job of subverting my attention away from all other crafts.....hmmm.

Probably the worst way to ask a girl out. Ever.

2010-04-09T13:46:00.004+01:00

So. First things first. Thank you for all the advice you wisdomous lot. Don’t fret yourselves, I won’t be rushing in to any enormous decisions, difficult though that is for me because I’m a throw yourself in at the deep end kind of person. Things are obviously going to take time and there’s a lot of things to work out and you needn’t worry that I will bore you with it all on here because that would be de.press.ing. But obviously I’ll keep you updated because a) I’m needy and b) I know that deep down inside you’re all nosy.

So I thought I might lift the mood a little.

By the time I got to my final year at school I was more than a little bored of it. A private school that catered for you from Year 4 all the way to Year 13, I’d been stuck with the same people for nearly 10 years, seeing them day in and day out.

As with a lot of private schools there was a huge emphasis on sport. Music and theatre were in there but no one really cared about them, it was all about being on the rugby/hockey/netball/cricket team. (No football for us. Only common people play that you know.) The ultimate in boyfriend material was to bag yourself a rugby player.

If you enjoyed going out with morons.

My group of friends were in an odd position in the social hierarchy at school – at the top of the ladder were the male sporty types, then there was the popular group of girls who funnily enough weren’t all that sporty, but were definitely slutty. Everyone rather charmingly referred to them as the Pussy Posse (proof that you can spend all the money you want, your kids are still going to be gross). Their pool of boyfriends came exclusively from the rugby boys. Then you had your geeks, freaks and weirdos.

We were placed under the Pussy Posse but above the geeks, freaks and weirdos. It was sort of a limbo position, neither one nor the other. Most of us were in the sports teams, most involved in the musical life of the school, drama, fairly high academic achievers, all but 2 of us were Senior Prefects (and yeah I was one of the two that weren’t). I found out years later that the people in Year 12 who shared the Common Room with us called us The Nice Girls. I can live with that.

So there was this one guy who had fancied me since we were about 12. He would send me Valentines Day cards and make half-hearted attempts to snog me at discos but nothing really happened. It was just one of those things that defined school – the Deputy Headmaster is the scariest human being on earth and Tom will always fancy me.

Tom was in the rugby team and we got on okay. One of the nice things about being one of The Nice Girls is that you straddled all groups, no one particularly minded who you were friends with.

In Year 13, Tom and I were chosen by one of our old form teachers to be his prefects for his Year 9 class. It involved little other than being at registration each morning and supposedly being a shoulder to cry on when they didn’t feel like going to a teacher (NB if you were a male form prefect your life was distinctly easier than a female, 14/15 year old girls are all about the drama)

During this time Tom and I got a bit closer until one fateful night in LAs.

LAs was short for Lexington Avenue, the club we all went to when we were in the 6th form at school. Now very sadly not just shut down but recently torn down, it used to be the hub of all social activity in Hull on a weekend. Our school had a little corner in LAs, turn right when you come through the doors and there was a little burger bar, you could be assured that the surrounding area would be filled with pupils past and present.

Tom and I were sat down in the burger bar, sharing a plate of chips.

“So I wanted to say something to you” he said. “Well it’s just I really fancy you, and I have done for ages and I was just wondering if maybe you’d like to go out sometime”

I thought to myself “Maybe I’ll give him a go” and was about to reply in the affirmative when this came out of his mouth...

“I mean I really do like you. I mean so much that I’d be prepared to go out with you even though you’re not in the pussy posse”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, you know because I’ll probably get the piss taken out of me for going out with you, but I like you that much I’m willing to put up with that.”

...

...

Who knows what possessed him to say it. I think it was an attempt to illustrate just how much he fancied me that went incredibly awry.

“Yeah Tom, I’m going to go ahead and say no to that.”

He was quite visibly stunned.

“Well I won’t wait around forever you know” came his reply

I didn’t want to laugh in his face. I felt that would be cruel. He obviously meant everything he said (which was half the problem) but in his little way I think he genuinely thought he was paying me the ultimate compliment. What could I say to him?

“I totally understand. I’ll just have to live with that” was my eventual response.

There were no hard feelings. A few months later we all left school to venture off on our own lives and I’ve actually never seen him again.

But I will remember him fondly, he provided me with one of the funniest stories I’ve ever had the pleasure to recount.

Head vs Heart

2010-04-07T15:59:00.004+01:00

My love life has been characterised by a distinct inability to listen to what my head’s telling me. I’m a follow your heart kind of girl, the last of the romantics and no matter how hard I try and listen to the little voice in my head, it gets drowned out by the twanging of my heartstrings.

Take for instance my very first relationship at the tender age of 16. I had a fairly unpleasant boyfriend who manipulated me in the only way a 17 year old with low self esteem could. He told me that I was ugly and that everyone in his year was laughing at him for going out with me and no one could understand what he saw in me, along with other similar pleasantries. My head suspected that something wasn’t quite right and told me to "Get out immediately" but my tender little heart, experiencing love for the first time and witnessing my parent’s marriage break down, told me that this was my one and only chance and I needed to stick in there.

You think I would have realised at that point in time that my heart doesn’t know anything.

But I continued to be led around by it and a merry dance indeed it has led me. From relationship to relationship – throwing itself in headfirst while the little voice has stood in the background shaking its head slowly and going “What are you doing you moron, listen to me!”

The little voice told me that Dave* wasn’t quite right for me. He was just a little bit too quiet and serious and all in favour of the easy life. I was dramatic and, quite frankly, a little bit crazy but my heart told me that I must have got it right this time, I was, after all, the incredibly knowledgable age of 21 when I knew everything there was to know. But I ignored the voice, even when Dave told me that he wasn’t looking to settle down any time soon and wanted to go off travelling and explore the world, and I hung on, until my heart realised that it wasn’t getting what it was needing back and led me to someone else.

The heart continued to pound, no matter how many knocks it got, and it never beat faster than the time when I was going out with The One. Perfectly matched, I’d already known him for years, and everything was going swimmingly until the heart decided that I should absolutely definitely tell him that I thought he was The One. The little voice said “Nooooooooooooo what are you doing?!” but the heart was confident this wouldn’t backfire.

Except it kind of did backfire. The trouble was that although The One was, you know, The One. He wasn’t The One At That Moment. He was in a strange old place, not behaving at all like the person I fell in love in with. And the little voice told me that I should leave but the heart refused to let him go. It knew, it absolutely knew that this was the one. And it held on and it held on because it knew that it was strong enough to fix everything that was wrong with him and that if it just stayed in there, he would realise that it knew best.

Until one day it could take no more and it had to go. It was stretched to breaking point and ready to crack in two and it realised that it wasn’t enough. Sometimes love isn’t enough. And for probably the only time in my life, the little voice and the heart said as one, “Time to let go”.

But the heart never really let go. It understood that it wasn’t enough at the moment but that it might be in the future and it still remained certain that it belonged to The One and no one else.

But over time this got lost and occasionally the heart would flare up and say “Hey, wait I love The One, not this other person” and the little voice would say “Oh no you don’t. Don’t start with this again, that’s only going to lead you down a rocky road. Please listen to me, you have to bury that love deep inside and don’t even think about it”

And the heart said a very sheepish “Ok” and seeing as it had been so wrong about so many other relationships it guessed the little voice was probably right.

But soon it was back to its old tricks...

I ignored the little voice when it told me that Steve* wasn’t right for me. Why in my right mind would a slovenly glutton like me be a perfect match for the ultimate gym machine? And when the little voice told me that something wasn’t quite right about this ‘friend’ of his I knew I should have listened to it. But the heart believed the lies and believed he loved it back right up until out of the blue he decided he didn’t love it anymore.

And then a few weeks later I met The Boyfriend.

And the heart said “YES! Finally a nice boy who would never ever hurt me and will look after me and make sure I don’t get broken.”

But the voice?

It said “It’s too soon. You have to wait and give the heart time to mend, it’s not quite itself, it’s still in extreme need of repair”

And the heart replied “NONSENSE. I. Am. Fine. Too soon, too schmoon. Shut up little voice.”

And then 22 months later, the heart had some kind of volcanic explosion and remembered that it loved The One and that things were different now, he was out of the strange old place and back to the person it had fallen for in the first place.

Except I’m older now (did I tell you it was just my birthday? Yes?) and I can’t let the heart have its own way again. It’s been wrong so many times. It’s the Weakest Link. It’s Britain’s Biggest Loser. If we were picking teams for netball, my heart would be the one wearing a patch over one eye who couldn't catch if its life depended on it.

So I turn to the little voice for some help and for the first time ever it’s decided to shut its trap. Or it’s talking so quietly that I can’t hear it. Or I don’t really like what it’s saying so I’m not really listening to it.

So until I can decipher what the little voice is saying I’m in the worst position imaginable – this close to everything I dreamed of and this close away from smashing it all to pieces in favour of, once again, going with the heart.

Although sometimes I don’t even think the heart knows what it wants. And sometimes I think it's a sneaky little devil and pretends to be the little voice to try and trick me.

Any of my other organs fancy helping me out here? Liver? Got anything to say? Pancreas? Fancy pitching in? Kidneys? Fancy a break from all the filtering?

(It’s always better to make a little joke than face reality I find)

*The names have been changed. Just because....you never know. Also I like the DRAMA of changing people's names.

Easter and Birthday Review

2010-04-06T17:39:00.009+01:00

The celebrations are over for another year and next time my birthday will be all my own (well apart from the billion other people that share it).

I'm not really in a wordy mood at the moment, got a lot going on in my head at the moment which makes it virtually impossible for me to string sentences together. Not sure if this is the place to air those worries or not, that's my next big decision.

BUT ANYWAY.

Easter saw us all down at my sister's for the weekend, all the family together. I always feel a little tense about these things. I don't know why, it's not that we don't all get along, it's just that sometimes I feel like I need to make an extra special effort to make sure everyone's having fun. I don't know why that is really. And I would normally go in to more detail and examine that in more detail, but like I said, head is not in gear right now.

Festivities of the weekend included;

- a trip to the pub (essential)

- a lark about Ashby Castle, which my youngest nephew absolutely loved. He could have spent hours there, running about with his little foam sword. We climbed all the way up to the top of the tower and waved at everybody down below.

- a lot of crocheting. Done a whole 12 squares now. I put them over Rowan the dog to get a feel for how they will look when they're all joined together.

- a little Easter egg hunt on Sunday morning for youngest nephew.

- lots of fun presents for me.

The boyfriend got me DJ Hero, which I've played so much I've given myself cramp in my left hand. We've got Guitar Hero already but I don't love it to be honest, I don't like many of the songs. This bad boy is brilliant though. Not only are the songs good but they're all mashed up together, you can't go wrong!

The boyfriend's parents also got me an amazing present. Some artwork that I've been lusting after for a long time. A metalwork picture of a shoal of fish.

It doesn't photograph brilliantly, I've tried taking loads of photos and none of them really do it justice. It's so beautiful, the colours are just divine and I can't believe they got it for me because it most certainly was not a cheap present.
Things may be a little quiet over here for a bit while I sort things out in my head. Alternatively there might be a post every day as I attempt to purge my brain of all its confusing thoughts. Just consider this a warning :)

The time Jesus stole my birthday

2010-04-01T15:11:00.004+01:00

Birthdays are great aren’t they? That one special day when it’s all about you and everyone is nice to you and you can do whatever the hell you want.

Not for me.

I’ve had the unfortunate luck of being born at the beginning of April, along with apparently the entire population of the world.

Maybe it was all that summer loving that people get up in the month of August or maybe there’s truth in the notion that women are more fertile in that period and more likely to get pregnant and have their babies in the spring so they have the best chance of survival (hey I read it somewhere). Whatever it is, there are an inordinate amount of people born in the first week of April.

For instance, a brief rundown of the people whose birthday it is in the next few days;

Middle nephew – yesterday (1st April)
Best friend – Saturday (3rd April)
Me and my brother-in-law – Sunday (4th April)
Eldest nephew – Monday (5th April)

Do you have any idea how annoying it is to have to buy people other presents around the time of your own birthday? And even worse have to give them to someone?! It’s wrong. The day is supposed to be about you. If I’m honest I think the whole week should be about you but apparently that makes me sound spoilt.

Really I blame my sister for all this. She’s the one who chose to marry someone who shared the same birthday as me and then, as if that wasn’t enough, she selfishly goes and gets pregnant and has offspring on virtually the same days (actually the birth of Eldest Nephew is particularly funny seeing as my brother-in-law had been out for his birthday the night before, remind me to tell you that one some time). I mean it’s not really on is it – I was here first after all. Well, technically my brother-in-law was here first, by a good twenty years, but that’s irrelevant.

And I mean these are just the people that are particularly close to me. Our old next door neighbour was on the 4th. My Mum’s best friend is on the 4th. There were 2 girls in my class, one on the 4th and one on the 5th. My friend’s sister is on the 4th. There is hardly anybody who, on finding out the date of birthday, doesn’t go “Oh I know someone whose birthday is then!” And today I discover that Tabiboo is getting on the act with her birthday on the 3rd and Mr T’s birthday today!

There’s no escape.

Sometimes being born at this time of year can have its advantages – I was only ever at school once on my birthday (for my 18th and that was a half day) because it was always the Easter holidays but that actually just made birthdays pretty quiet because people were always on holiday or doing Eastery things.

Ah yes. Easter.

Easter has raised its ugly head once more. I mean it’s inevitable, you can’t escape Easter interfering with things if you’re born at this time of year. I was born on an Easter Monday after all. But this year, my birthday is not only NOT just about me but it’s been completely hijacked by Jesus. Like I can compete with some dude rising from the dead. Thanks a lot for stealing my thunder Jebus.

Of course everybody is busy doing Eastery things so no one was available to party like a rockstar with me, which is ridiculous because it’s a bank holiday and we could so have gone out and drunk the drinks and been hungover all day Monday, but alas it was not to be.

And, because half my fricking family have their birthday at the same time as me, I tend to get stolen away to do family things. You would not believe how many arguments there have been because I’ve wanted to celebrate my birthday in Hull, with friends, and haven’t been able to because that would make me the worst Auntie in the world ever.

So this is my way of saying goodbye to you for a few days. We are off down to my sister’s to do Eastery/family/birthday things.

No doubt I’ll come back with some stories to tell. AND I’LL BE A YEAR OLDER.

Just in case that one had passed you by.

March Book Review

2010-03-31T16:27:00.004+01:00

Oh the shame. The shame. I pitiful 2 books read this month. I should be slapped in the face repeatedly and told to get my act together.

Life in general took over this month and didn’t leave any room for reading. Plus I am at the moment trying to make my way through a behemoth of a book at home which means my only other reading is taking place on my lunch break at work.

Still it’ll make recommending something easy.

Amy Tan – The Kitchen God’s Wife.

I’ve read a few of Amy Tan’s books now and they are good but suffer from the Jodi Picoult syndrome I spoke about in last month’s review. They all start to merge in to one. In fact they merge so much that when I picked this one up I couldn’t really remember if I’d read it before. Not the greatest of signs.

Tan’s books have a formula – Chinese mother who has emigrated to America vs daughter who was born in America and the clash of cultures between the two.

The Kitchen God’s Wife felt a little confusing. At first you think it’s going to be the same old formula, daughter Pearl is keeping a secret from her mother Winnie and doesn’t want to tell her. But actually pretty much the whole book is Winnie’s story, the story of how she came to meet her husband and live in America. I had no problem with this because it was an engaging enough story but it felt a little strange.

Winnie tells Pearl the story to explain why her Auntie Helen is not Winnie’s daughter-in-law and that the secret can now be revealed because someone has died. So you start reading, waiting for the big reveal. Did Winner and Helen kill someone? Why the need to lie? So intriguing! And actually, it’s not really explained, unless it was and I completely missed it, and either way it’s not really relevant to the story.

So after finishing reading, I could feel the quizzical expression on my face as I asked myself “What the hell was that about?”

Verdict?

Not her best. If you would like to read one of Amy Tan’s books try The Bonesetter’s Daughter or the Joy Luck Club.

John Lanchester – Mr Phillips

This is an interesting one and I feel like I can’t really say a lot about it without giving it all away because this isn’t a racer of a book where there are multiple plot lines and characters which all collide at the end to be tied up with a neat little bow. This is more of a “nothing really happens” kind of book although that doesn’t really do it justice. In fact it doesn’t do it justice at all, pretend I didn’t say that.

We follow Mr Philips round on one day (it’s a pretty small book, won’t take you long to read at all) as he wanders through London and are treated to his inner thoughts and feelings about life in general.

I think that’s all I can say without spoiling things.

A word of warning to those of a sensitive and delicate nature – Mr Philips thinks about sex. A lot. You’ve been warned. I just wanted to spare your blushes.

The winner this month is clear – Mr Phillips. If only because he agrees with me about Tuesdays being the worst day of the week as this passage demonstrates...

“Monday, along with its awful back-to-workness, contains a tinge of relief, of the bracing moment after the plunge into the icy pool when we realize the worst of the shock is over. Tuesdays are his least favourite weekday, since they lack the get-on-with-it feeling of Mondays, and at the same time the next weekend is still an impossible way off...”

Here's hoping April is slightly more successful...

Tree Project - March

2010-03-30T18:54:00.006+01:00

Hey Mr Tree

So last month everything was looking promising - green shoots, blue skies, birds singing - it all looked so good.

And now what?

Spring appears to have halted, at least on this road, for a short while. As I type the rain is hammering against the windows and you are looking more than a little forlorn. And it's surprising because this morning I took this photo,

and things were looking pretty happy.

One question though.

Where are the leaves buddy?

You've halted at green shoots and I've got to tell you, please don't give up now, just try and keep going and produce a little bit more. For me. Ok?

I've got a feeling

2010-03-29T16:14:00.003+01:00

I’m part of a fun little trio consisting of myself, my best friend (who I spoke about in the last post) and one other guy. We’ve never had a night out together that hasn’t been great. I’ve spent all day trying to think of one and I can’t.

For reasons unknown we haven’t been out together as a threesome in about a year and a half and this weekend we set about rectifying it with a trip to Preston.

Sometimes you can’t find the words to properly sum up how good a night was it would take too long and bore everyone and sometimes it’s because there actually aren’t the words to sum up, it’s more a feeling that you have so that when the night is long gone and you only have pictures left to look at, they bring back a feeling so strong it can knock you off your feet.

With these two people I am fully myself, I never feel like I’m trying to fit in to a role which has been provided to me (a pressure I accept I probably put myself under) and there’s no hidden agenda, I’m just with two of my most favourite people, forgetting about everything and everyone else for one night only.

At one point in the night I impressed upon them a very important point,

“Neither of you are allowed to get girlfriends you know”

(Could I please take a moment to point out that this was after the consumption of cocktails and good few gin and tonics.)

I did have a point behind my drunken statement.

Girls are rubbish. They complicate matters. They would most likely be distrustful of me, the person their boyfriends were going out and getting drunk with (“What the hell is she up to?”) and I can tell you now that I won’t like them because neither of those two boys are going to find a girlfriend that’s good enough for them and I’ll be the judge of who is good enough for them thank you very much. The girlfriends could come out with us but then the dynamic’s completely thrown off – it has to just be us three. And I don't know why it doesn't make a difference if I have a boyfriend, but it just doesn't (there's probably a more eloquent argument to make than that but at this point in time I can't wrap my brain around it).

So maybe that’s why these nights out are so good and why I look forward to them so much, because I dread, with a feeling that makes me feel completely sick to my stomach, the moment when one of them gets a girlfriend because I know that on some level it’ll spell the end of our trio as we know it.

Whether boys and girls can be friends will always be a bit of contentious topic and I guess that what we have is rare and maybe it only works because of a million different things happening at the same time, some kind of big bang theory for friendship, the situation has to be just right for it to work and just one thing has to go wrong for it all to be thrown off kilter.

So if it does all go wrong at some point in the future, and all I’m left with is that feeling of being with 2 people that I love and am completely happy with, then I’ll try and remain happy that I had a chance to have it at all...

...and then go back to constructing a mental list of why their girlfriend’s are stupid.

The foundations of a lasting friendship

2010-03-26T15:54:00.002Z

After my first year at university I returned to Hull for the summer holidays. I had grand plans of lazing about for a couple of months, doing nothing but reading and watching the television.

My Mum had other plans.

Get out. Job search. Now. (was the basic gist of the conversation)

I spent an afternoon wandering around town, begging at bars and shops and littering Hull with as many CVs as I could. Tiring of my search in the late afternoon I stumbled across a coffee shop in the town centre and decided to have a cup of tea. As I sat drinking I thought to myself “Not a bad place to work this” and decided to ask if they had any jobs going.

An application form was thrust into my hands and I sat and filled it out while I drained the rest of my cup. I handed in and waited for the obligatory “We’ll give you a call if anything comes up” and instead was somewhat shocked to hear the words “Can you come in at 9 tomorrow morning?”

And that was how I got the job. (I’m still not sure if they even read the application form.)

My first day and I’m there feeling ultra nervous – did I mention that I’m probably the clumsiest person you’ll ever meet? Me + hot coffee = disaster in waiting.

The boss turned to me and said “First job of the day. We’ve got a situation in the ladies’ toilets, can you go with ____ and sort it out?” I turned around and came face to face with the prettiest looking boy I’d ever seen. He had a face that mother’s would love – clean shaven, smooth skin, nice straight teeth, lovely sensible hair. “Hello!” He said and off we made our way to the toilets.

The ‘situation’ was a rather enormous poo in one of the toilets which was refusing to leave the party.

This is an awkward situation to find yourself in. Very small cubicle. Very good looking boy you’ve only just met. Giant floater.

We did what we could. We valiantly fought against what we christened The Atomic Poo for about half an hour, going through a bottle of bleach and entirely ruining a toilet brush. By the end of it we were firm friends.

All summer we worked together and even though many were in love with him I just didn’t feel that way about him at all (plus for most of the summer I thought he was gay and by the time I realised he wasn’t we were well into the friendship zone), he was just my best mate.

Turned out that he was going to be starting at Salford University and would therefore be just down the road from me when I returned to Manchester in September. With promises to ring each other when we got there I left Hull and made my way back to uni. To be honest I didn’t really see it happening, I figured it was one of those things you say and you do mean it but you just never really get round to ringing them and then you’ve left it too long and before long they’re a dim and distant memory.

However on my first day back I got a call on my phone “Hi it’s ____ I’m in Salford now, did you fancy meeting up tomorrow?”

We met in the Printworks the next afternoon and decided we’d go mad and have a bottle of wine with our lunch. The service was so appalling that by the time our sandwiches appeared we had finished the bottle. So naturally we decided to get another. I had paid an extra £1 for chips with my sandwich and despite asking the waitress several times, they never appeared. I was most incensed by this injustice, which was fuelled by the second bottle of wine. I decided to go and ask for my £1 back (it was the principle you see) and was served by a very apologetic Manager who not only gave me my £1 back but also gave us a free bottle of wine.

Mistake.

I ended up buying a full length woollen cardigan from Muji for £60 (which I wore about twice in the space of a year until my Mum shoved it in the washing machine and promptly shrunk it to the point where it fit my 4 year old nephew), we went out on the razz with all his new flatmates and ended up dancing in the fountains in Piccadilly Gardens before sitting, sopping wet, on a bus back to mine.

After all that how could he not be my best friend?

And he is.

And nothing more.

No-one believes me when I say that not a single romantical thing has ever happened between us. Not so much as a snog. But it really really hasn’t and it just never will because I think of him now as my brother. He is the first person I’ve rung whenever I’ve split up with any boyfriend and, like a brother, he frustrates and annoys the hell out of me sometimes, but I can never stay angry with him for long.

Seven years later and we're still friends and I’m off to Manchester tomorrow for a night out with him and my other best friend (who is also a boy, but that’s a whole blog post of its own). These nights out always promise to be hilarious and messy in equal measure and this will be the first time we’ve been out together as the hilarious trio that we are in nearly 2 years (where did the time go?!). I couldn’t be more excited if I tried.

And it’s all thanks to The Atomic Poo and the missing plate of chips.

The Dark Hours

2010-03-25T15:31:00.004Z

There is a time of day that I have come to dread.

The hours between I arrive home at 5pm and when the boyfriend arrives home at 7.30pm.
No this is not some sap about how I can’t bear to be in the house without him (to be honest I’m gagging for a weekend on my own in the house, doesn’t he have any plans to go away somewhere?!) but is instead about my other love.

Food.

I get dinner on the go to be more or less ready when the boyfriend comes in from work. This is less a picture of the domesticated housewife having dinner on the table when her man comes home and more about me getting the green light to shovel.

7.30pm is a long way away from lunch time.

I’ve tried to put things in place. My daily yoghurt I now have about 3.30pm, instead of with the rest of my lunch, but the second I step through the door at 5pm my stomach starts whinging,

“You should feed me now.”

No stomach. We must wait for 2 and a half hours.

“But I’m huuuuuuuuuuungryyyyyyyyyyy”

And so this battle rages on through those long dark hours. Sometimes I win and I can stave him off until the boyfriend comes through the door and is greeted by me saying “Hello yes lovely you’re here, aren’t you great, now change because I need to eat.” And other times I fall victim to his wily ways. “I’ll just have a nibble of this” I’ll tell myself, before devouring a block of cheese/packet of crisps/bar of chocolate.

And the stomach is satisfied. So satisfied that he appears to have grown to twice his acceptable size.

So I have officially entered battle with my stomach. During the day I can keep him at bay. I have a routine, I stick to it and I eat pretty well, but every night I enter the danger zone, when the fighting is at its most severe.

I am trying to develop coping strategies as I feel it’s all just a case of keeping busy.

If I go to the gym after work that’s a good hour or so taken care of. I can come in and start the dinner and once that’s on the go the stomach quietens down in eager anticipation of the meal ahead.

But let’s face it, that ‘if’ at the beginning of the sentence is a really big ‘if’ and any excuse I can find not to go to the gym I will take. “Oh sorry the clouds are in the wrong formation today, I couldn’t possibly go and sweat in a room full of strangers.”

And the stomach knows that it has won that battle.

So new coping strategies are in order and I have turned to who I hope will be my General in this long and lonely war.

Barbara Currie.

She of the yoga fame. I have dusted her off and stuck her in the dvd player. This is officially the new plan. If I cannot drag myself out of the house and walk the 10 minutes down the road to the gym (yes I really am that lazy) then I will push back the sofas, throw a blanket on the floor and I will try and stretch and bend my body into terrifying shapes for an hour or so.

And so far General Currie and I are doing well. Yesterday, not a morsel touched my lips from lunchtime until dinner time and yes I know we shouldn’t starve ourselves and we should eat little and often but I’m afraid I was not born with the power of willpower. My brain does not understand the notion of ‘little and often’ when it comes to food, or anything in life. I’m an all or nothing girl which is why I fling myself head first into projects, becoming all consumed by them and forgetting everything that went before. Life would be great if I could have just one crisp, or half the bag, but it is not to be for me. The bag must remain unopened or all the contents will be poured into my stomach in record time.

So off I trudge into battle once more with a leotarded pensioner by my side. I put my trust in her and if she fails me I have a back up keeping busy strategy....

Housework.

Mabel's story

2010-03-24T16:11:00.010Z

Do you remember Pumpkin?

So. Pumpkin died and the RSPCA said we could come and pick a new cat when we felt ready.

We had to wait a while until kitten season was established (it’s a bit like deer season except there’s less blood and killing of animals. In fact it’s the opposite of deer season come to think of it) and we then went to make our pick.

Every weekend we were within a whisper of getting our new cat but we just kept missing them. The RSPCA has a somewhat bizarre system which means you are unable to ‘reserve’ a kitten to come and collect when it’s old enough to leave home. Instead you have to be quick off the draw on the day that they go up for adoption.

It was time to get serious.

We’d seen a litter of gorgeous kittens, all lovely little tabbies and Mum had her heart set. The following Saturday they were coming up for adoption.

That weekend I was away and when I switched my phone on in the morning I had one from my Mum to say that she was at the centre and was ready to do battle. This was at 6am.

And she wasn’t the first there.

(seriously)

At 7am someone came out and gave them numbered tickets and at 9am, when they officially opened, there was a queue of about 20 people and in no way enough kittens to go round. Aah well. You snooze you lose. Literally.

By the time I came home on Sunday our new kitten had been named Mabel (I’m not entirely sure who came up with that one).

(Why yes that is me hiding behind her, how nice of you to ask)

I think the best way to describe Mabel would be to say she had ‘character’. Another way would be to say she had ‘mental problems’.

She absolutely loved climbing. Mainly people. It was hilarious when she was a wee thing and she would scramble up your legs and body to get up to your shoulder. It became less hilarious when she got older and heavier and her claws got sharper.

She was also obsessed with water. She was my constant companion whenever I did the washing up and would howl outside the bathroom door until you let her in whereby she’d come and sit on the side of the bath, staring intently in (which was actually quite creepy).

But the one thing she loved more than climbing and water was being outside.

We could not keep her in. “Wait until she’s about 6 months and then let her out” the vet said. Yeah, right, ok then. She could sense when you were going to make a move towards the door and would hurtle towards it to try and get out. Eventually we bought one of those harnesses so she could come outside and wander about safely. Also it was summer and we were sick of having to keep all doors and windows closed.

One evening, a friend came round for a natter. She was telling me about a friend’s cat, Molly, that had just gone missing. Mabel was outside, doing her thing, she was old enough to go out alone now and she liked to just potter about the garden, checking out the birds. She appeared at the window to be let in and I brought her inside but she was adamant she wanted to go back out. It was late but she’d been out at that time before so I opened the window for her.

“Go on and find Molly” I said.

Talk about famous last words.

We never saw her again.

She just vanished into thin air. She’d never even gone outside the garden before, so to completely disappear was just bizarre.

We called and we searched and we called and we searched. We put up posters but nothing was ever seen or heard. She was micro-chipped so if she was picked up we’d have known about it. Same if there’d been an accident on the road, they check and inform you if they pick up any dead animals. She was just, not about anymore.

(So you can see why I freaked out when Fred went missing that time)

I sat in guilty silence for a long time. Mum still doesn’t know what my last words to her were. If only I’d kept her in she’d still be here.

But you know what? I think she’d have made her escape anyway, she was just one of those cats that would never really be tame.

Mum remains convinced that someone stole her because she was so pretty but I like to imagine her still out in the wilds of Hull, climbing things and chasing birds. Possibly with Molly, who never turned up either.

Facing the fear

2010-03-23T15:30:00.003Z

One of my greatest fears in life is public nakedness.

I’ve told you all about this before, remember? (It was back when The Curious Cat was my only commenter, bless her heart for sticking with me for so long.)

This weekend in Center Parcs I came, literally, face to face with that fear.

One of the great things about the Sherwood Forest site is the Aqua Sana spa where, for £40 you can spend 3 hours in a state of almost catatonic relaxation as you wander in and out of Japanese sea salt rooms and saunas and Indian blossom steam rooms and aqua meditation rooms and tepidariums....you get my drift?

It is marvellous (or acesome, if you wish to use my amazing new word) and well worth the money.

We were booked in at 3pm on Sunday afternoon and I’d spent the weekend looking forward to it. I told my boyfriend I’d see him on the other side and we disappeared into her respective changing rooms.

And that was when it happened.

Full frontal nudity right in front of my face before the door had even closed.

It did not put me into a state of relaxation.

It also didn’t help that the changing rooms were some kind of labyrinthine, wooden-lockered nightmare and every corner I turned brought me face to face with more naked flesh. Getting changed wasn’t an issue, I’d come prepared with swimming costume under my clothes so everything was whipped off and shoved into a locker and I bolted for the sanctity of the spa.

I tried not to let it prey on my mind as I concentrated on feeling like a lotus flower, gently floating on a summer’s breeze.

But I kept getting flashbacks to images of pubic hair.

Three hours later, I returned back to that room of hell. It was now busier. Great.

I looked up and saw that there was indeed a private changing room. I could use that! Except I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to admit to this room of naked strangers that I really had a problem being a naked stranger too. Maybe it’s because I know I shouldn’t be bothered by it, maybe it’s because I have an extreme narcissus complex and assume that everyone’s going to be noticing what it is I’m doing, who knows.

“Get a grip” I said to myself, “You’re almost 27. Time to stop being embarrassed.” Also I figured that because I wasn’t showering (no I’m not horrendously filthy, I’d just decided to shower back at the lodge) I didn’t have the complication of drying whilst trying not to reveal yourself.

Repeating the mantra “No-one’s looking. No-one’s looking.” to myself I got all my clothes out of my bag.

I lined them up neatly.

I checked my phone to see if there were any interesting messages I had received.

I made sure my socks were turned the right way out.

I went over to the mirror to see what my hair looked like. (crap, if you were interested)

I did everything I possibly could to avoid actually taking my clothes off.

Then I had a brainwave. Knickers were easy to do! The spa provides you with a lovely white towelling robe which I still had on. It would be easy peasy lemon squeezy to just whip off the bottoms of the tankini and replace them with pants. GO GO GO.

Mission accomplished. I had pants on. And then trousers. I was half way there.

There was nothing I could do to hide the boobagement though. It had to be done. Off with the towelling robe young lady.

I still wanted to dither though. I had another quick check of the bag to see if the answer to my prayers was somewhere in there.

As I dithered a young girl came in to the changing room to get ready for her spa session. In a manner of seconds she had whipped off her clothes and put on a bikini without seemingly displaying anything. I decided this was to be the new mantra, “Quick like a cat, quick like a cat.”

The tankini was undone, the bra was picked up, I was almost there!

Oh no! The catch wouldn’t catch! “Come on come on come on” I silently prayed as the hooks point blank refused to get into place. It was at this point that I realised I was holding my breath and would need to sort this situation out quickly before I became a passed out half naked stranger on the changing room floor.

Finally the clasp was done. I was officially covered.

When the boyfriend came out of the changing rooms I looked about and conspiratorially turned to him. “Guess what?” I whispered, “I’M WEARING UNDERWEAR” I announced to some probably rather freaked out passersby.

I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of myself and this trip will be remembered as the time I was brave enough to show strangers my boobs (without the consumption of many glasses of alcohol and the promise of sex). The next stage is to try and get to the point where I don’t nearly give myself an aneurism doing it.

I’m still a long way off the ladies who were stood, completely naked, drying their hair and talking to their friends who were also stood completely naked. And do you know what? I’m quite happy to not reach that point for some time to come. If ever. No need ladies, no need.

A short break

2010-03-22T21:04:00.007Z

So the boyfriend and I escaped this weekend and ran away to Sherwood Forest to pretend we were Robin Hood and Maid Marion.

Or....

We went to Center Parcs.

A couple of months ago I had some kind of brain seizure and decided we should book a weekend away at Center Parcs. I'm not entirely sure what came over me because god knows it's not the cheap option and I really don't have the money but ultimately I'm beyond glad that I did. It turns out it was perfect timing and really came at a time when we could do with just getting away and having some time to ourselves.

Now I am Miss City Girl, I've only ever lived in big cities and even then I've not lived on the suburbs of those cities, I've lived on main roads, slap bang in the middle of the action. This means that I have a tendendcy to get over-excited when it comes to nature. Whilst I can't imagine ever living in the country, the petrol fumes are too well ingrained in my body for that, I do enjoy a bit of countryside action in short bursts.

We arrived at our apartment on Friday afternoon to be greeted by 3 mallards hanging out on the patio. Now granted, I see mallards all the time when I walk past Queens Gardens on the way too and from work each day, but these babies were close. Real close. So, leaving the boyfriend to finish unpacking the car I ripped open the bread we'd brought with us and flinging open the door, started throwing bits of bread to the quackers, all the while doing an excited, impish, I-love-nature dance. (I like to picture it as 'impish' and not 'retarded')

Duck feeding over I closed the door and started unpacking, only to hear a tap tap tap on the window. I turned round and discovered one aspect of nature I do not enjoy.

Geese.

I hate geese. They're mental and I've never got over the fact that one of them bit me when I was a wee thing on a visit to East Park to feed the ducks. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Damn goose.

Luckily they never made a reappearance and soon I had the ducks eating out of my hand. Literally.

The weekend was in a word, acesome. Yes I have decided to create a new word. I needed something better than awesome, mainly because I'm convinced there are certain words that English people cannot pull off, awesome being one of them. Sometimes things just sound cooler in an American accent. So acesome I can pull off. You know, it's ace and awesome, all in one. Acesome.

(You see, this is what happens when I spend too long in that fresh country air, I need to come back and inhale some unleaded.)

We went down the rapids, we played in the waves at the swimming pool, we went out for a meal, we spent time in the spa, we laughed and danced and frolicked in the woods.

Ok maybe we didn't do the last one.

But we did do falconry which was possibly the acesomest (see how versatile it is?!) decision we ever made. I figured we'd see a few birds, maybe stroke a barn owl and that would be that. But there was more. Much more.

I held.....

A golden eagle.

Seriously. How cool am I? (And yes that is me in the photo, exciting times for the blog, the back of my head has been revealed!) I know I just went up in your estimation by about a thousand. I should be able to tell you lots of interesting facts about the golden eagle but unfortunately I wasn't listening hard enough to Darren the falcon man and spending more time looking at her enormous beak and claws and quite frankly terrifying wing span. I can tell you that golden eagle's are ridiculously heavy. Ok they're like 9lbs but when that's sitting on the end of your outstretched arm, you can't half feel it. So much so that Darren had to hold underneath your hand to keep it straight. (I also held a barn owl, a kestrel, a harris hawk, a buzzard and a vulture but I won't bore you with those)

But the thing I loved the most about the break?

I made friends with a squirrel.

He only had half a tail and at first I felt sorry for him but I didn't need to because he was more than capable of looking after himself. And he was a brave little chappy. So brave he decided that he'd be find coming up to me and letting me give him his peanuts. By this morning he was happy to come in and climb on to my knee and take them from me.

Yes I know he was probably diseased and riddled with fleas but I'm not listening la-la-la-la-la-la.

I was, in short, very sad to come home. Very sad. I didn't realise how much I was enjoying myself until it was time for it all to end.

So yeah it might have been more money than I could afford to spend but it was worth every single penny.

Don't make me go to work tomorrow.

The day it all fell in to place.

2010-03-18T15:29:00.009Z

Did you want to know how the crocheting was going?

Dare you ask?

The answer is a very big, excited, "It's going well!!"

The main problem is that I haven’t really had the time to spend doing it ‘properly’. In the evening, the cross stitch calls to me and I oblige it, what with trying to make cards for people’s birthdays and anniversaries and producing stuff for the Stitch and Bitch project (can't believe I still haven't told you about that), my time is pretty much eaten up.

I did go out and buy some lovely wool in an attempt to make myself sit down and wield my hook and produce a work of art. There was no way I was going to let the money go to waste!

But then people were all selfish and died and stuff so that meant that the wool was left abandonned, shoved under the bed in the spare bedroom, out of sight, out of mind.

Until.

Last weekend. When the boyfriend and I spent the night at my Dad's house doing a spot of dog-sitting. This is Jess.

(Who is irrelevant to this post but I thought you might enjoy a picture of a dog.)

And I proclaimed that day to be The Day I Would Crochet. The wool was brought out of hiding and the laptop was packed along with our pyjamas because the laptop held the secret weapon to Crochet Domination.

Little Tin Bird was to be my Master (or should that be Mistress) of all things wool and hooky and with her instructions of how to make a basic granny square I began...

...and I only bloody went and succeeded!

I didn't even have to pull it out and start again once (cue smugness), I just went round and round and round and round until I decided I had a square I liked the size off and stopped. And I managed to complete this one square by the end of Sunday evening which I thought was rather marvellous.

And since then I've done another square..

And started on the third.

And hopefully one day I will have enough to make into a blanket at which point I will turn to my Master in a very whiny voice and say "But how do I stitch them all togetherrrrrrrr?!"

(Sometimes I worry that my crochet stuff looks different to the other pictures I see but I just put this down to the fact that I'm special and left-handed. And whilst we're on that topic, I've discovered that I can't use my left-handedness as an excuse for not crocheting because if you reverse the directions it seems to work. For me anyway.)

Saying goodbye.

2010-03-16T22:42:00.004Z

Today we said goodbye.

The service was lovely (aren't they always? Have you ever heard someone come back from a funeral and say, "God that service was rubbish"?) and the boyfriend read a eulogy which officially makes him the bravest person I know.

And then one of his sisters read this lovely poem that I had never heard before.

Apparently I'm one of few because it was read at the Queen Mother's funeral.

Now I'm not really a poem person but I thought this was lovely. And I thought I would share it with you.

You can shed tears that she is gone

Or you can smile because she has lived,

You can close your eyes and pray that she will come back

Or you can open your eyes and see all that she has left,

Your heart can be empty because you can't see her

Or you can be full of the love that you shared,

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday

Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday,

You can remember her and only that she is gone

Or you can cherish her memory and let it live on,

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back

Or you can do what she would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on

David Harkins (1959 - )

This time last year...

2010-03-14T21:31:00.003Z

...after much huffing and puffing and lifting and shoving and wondering why we had decided to move somewhere without a lift, I officially moved in with a boy.

One whole year living with a real life boy.

I was pretty panicked before moving in with the boyfriend, I was worried about anything and everything.

If I knew then what I know now I would have told the panicked me to stop stressing. I'd tell her the following things I have learnt over the past year:

- You can solve arguments over quilt stealing by getting a king-size quilt for your double bed.

- 2 toilets should be mandatory in all houses.

- He is allergic to empting the bin and will just keep piling in rubbish until the lid doesn't close and you will want to kill him but...

- ...when you empty the bin he will take it all the way downstairs to put it in the wheelie bin.

- Don't worry about losing your independence. You'll keep it but be too embarassed to admit that sometimes you'd rather stay at home.

- You'll get bored of keeping your legs constantly shaved after about 3 weeks.

- Repeatedly asking "What's wrong with you?" is not the way to get him to tell you what's wrong with him.

- His standard response to "How does this look?" will be "You look beautiful." Very sweet but not entirely honest. Well. He may genuinely think you look beautiful in anything you wear - everyone else thinks you have a fat arse.

- Monday to Friday you will take care of the dinner. Saturday and Sunday it's his job. One of those evenings will almost always be a takeaway.

- You will gain about a bazillion stone in weight. And that's definitely something you need to work on in year 2 of living together.

- It's actually not that hard living with a boy.

A letter to Flight of the Conchords

2010-03-13T11:55:00.003Z

Dear Jermaine and Brett (or should that be Brett and Jermaine?)

Just wanted to drop you a note and say a massive THANK YOU for adding more UK dates to you tour.

You obviously saw my letter last week to Live Nation UK and understood how upset I was. Seriously you have no idea what a mood I was in last Friday, I was really not a very pleasant person to be around.

But you came to my rescue and announced you were playing another date in Manchester. YAY!

I was working from home on Friday and had the computer all ready and set up to begin the horrendous task of trying to buy tickets online.

I nearly had heart failure when I realised I'd slept in and the tickets had gone on sale 15 minutes previously.

But clearly you knew that I'd been feeling a bit down lately and that I was pure of heart because somehow, against all the odds, I managed to get my grubby little hands on a pair of tickets.

So shocked was I that I still don't think I really believe it. I've refused to let myself get too excited in case I've got it all wrong and haven't actually purchased tickets to see you and will instead find myself at a gig for something completely different.

But if everything is ok then I'll see you on Saturday 8th May. I'm quite far back but I'm pretty tall and the boyfriend's taller so you might just see us. I'll be the one waving and singing along to all the songs.

Thank you so much for making a crappy week a lot better.

Yours sincerely,

The Girl.

PS Please play this one ok? Thanks.

How a little person sees death

2010-03-11T16:37:00.001Z

The boyfriend’s sister was in a quandary about what to tell her daughter, who’s 4, about the death of her great-grandmother.

Little person was actually in the house when it happened, fast asleep in her bed (although there was a brief moment of panic when she woke up when the undertakers arrived to take the body away). The hubby is in the forces and when he goes away on shift, sister and little person decamp back to the family home for the week (no I don’t understand why either but that’s the way it is) so little person was well aware that Mutti wasn’t well and was in and out of the room all of the time.

His sister wasn’t sure what to do for the best; tell her when she woke up or just send her off to nursery in the morning like usual. She wasn’t sure how she would take it and how upset she would be.

It was decided that it was a play it by ear situation.

Little person woke up and went off to nursery, and it was decided that hubby (who was back that evening) and mummy would sit down and explain to her when she came home from nursery.

They picked her up, took her home and explained that Mutti had died and that she was now in heaven.

Little person’s response?

“Does that mean she’s not in bed anymore?”

And that. Was that.

The longest day

2010-03-10T17:20:00.002Z

So on Saturday night the boyfriend and I were out for a friend's birthday (see I do take him out sometimes!) and he gets a call from one of his sisters to say that his grandmother had taken a turn for the worse. We knew this was coming soon, she had been getting weaker and more frail since January, when terminal cancer was diagnosed.

We arrived at his parent's house for the most awkward of all social situations - a bedside vigil.

(Is a vigil a social situation? I'm classing it as one because there is a group of people there.)

Unfortunately we all know how I deal with difficult situations. Badly.

'Surreal' doesn't even cover it. There we all were, grandmother in bed, death rattle in full flow, the boyfriend's parents, his sisters, the dog, boyfriend and me. Oh and I was fantastically dressed up, having decided to wear a fancy new dress out for the birthday. It felt a little bizarre to say the least.

Luckily the boyfriend's family is as inappropriate as I am and at one point we were all sat around the bed, drinking pink fizz, laughing and joking and talking about all kinds of things under the sun. His grandmother wouldn't have minded, she'd have been joining in with us a month or so ago.

Eventually it became clear that Saturday night wasn't going to be the night so at 1am we all decided to go to bed, I borrowed something to wear from one of his sisters and we collapsed into the boyfriend's old bed for a very fitful night of sleep.

Sunday morning dawned along with the realisation that the only clothes I had to wear were either a fancy dress or men's pyjama bottoms complete with inappropriate flap. Cue quick trip home in what was possibly the most hilarious walk of shame outfit ever - Hooters t-shirt, men's pj bottoms, 4 inch pink heels and the boyfriend's coat, carrying dress and last night's tights in a bundle in my arms. Just call me classy.

We were soon back to begin one of the longest days ever.

It's actually quite boring waiting for someone to die you know.

I felt a little awkward because of my position, I was the only non-family member there so I tried to do useful things while the family took it turns to sit upstairs.

When it got to about 9pm we decided we would make tracks and head back to the flat. The boyfriend got his coat on and headed upstairs to say goodbye.

Next thing I knew we were all upstairs. The time had come. And we were all stood around the bed as she passed away. I've heard horror stories of people's last moments and I was pretty afraid but actually you'd never have known, if it wasn't for the fact that I could no longer hear the rattle, I wouldn't have been sure she'd gone.

We opened the windows and brought up all the flowers in the house and sat around the bed for a while longer. I began to get a bit itchy at this point, I was very conscious that we ere sat with a dead body in the room and I wasn't particularly enjoying it. Especially when the boyfriend's Dad leaned on the remote control for the bed and for a moment it looked like she was sitting up - my worst nightmare realised. It did dispel the tension a bit.

Like I say, I was unsure of whether I should be there or not, I didn't know if this was a moment just for family and if I'm honest I would rather not have been there, I don't enjoy seeing dead people, it makes it harder to remember them when they were alive and that's the image I would rather have, but I just wanted to stick beside the boyfriend and make sure he was ok.

And actually I was glad I was there. I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to my grandma and for the past year and a half I've had a replacement who I saw more of than my own. Maybe the tears were a delayed expression of emotion for my own flesh and blood.

Or maybe they were just for a wonderful lady who was so incredibly full of life. It sounds trite to say that and I always feel a little inward roll of the eyes when I hear it but I swear it really was true. Last summer she was with all of us in France and in November she had a super fancy party for her 90th birthday. She loved nothing more than a glass of sherry (why do old people like sherry?) and watching the cricket.

And this is what we say to make ourselves feel bettter. "Oh she had a good life.", "Oh she had a long life", "Oh at least she's not suffering anymore". But beneath all that we still feel it's unfair and still think she was taken too soon.

See you later Mutti.

Normal blogging services will resume shortly

2010-03-08T17:04:00.003Z

I'll be away from blogger for the next few days.

The boyfriend's Grandma passed away last night so we're not ourselves at the moment and we're not in the flat that much.

I'll be back.

A letter to Live Nation UK

2010-03-05T16:10:00.003Z

Dear Live Nation

I would like to extend my thanks to you for making my Friday rubbish. Fridays are supposed to be good days, happy days, filled with laughter and growing excitement about the weekend. Instead mine was spent cursing and clenching my fists and sighing very heavily.

I hope this letter contains some useful advice that will stop people feeling the way I did when I tried to purchase Flight of the Conchords tickets this morning.

I sat at my computer, fingers itching with anticipation, I’m a dab hand at this ordering tickets online business now. I know the tricks. I had multiple screens open. Different ticketing sites. I was ready.

And when the clock struck 9 I clicked. I clicked and clicked and clicked.

Disappointment rained down on me. Ticketmaster, my normally incredibly reliable booking office of choice, seemed to sell out in the first 5 seconds of going live, which I still haven’t figured out.

I decided to stick with you. Live Nation was the website that the fan page on Facebook was telling everyone to go to.

And I got them!! They were there. On my screen. All I apparently had to do was enter my Username and Password.

Excuse me?

What Username? You didn’t give me a username. Was I supposed to know this information? I went back to my e-mails all the while watching the timer gradually counting down to the moment when my reservation would be lost and my tickets would go to someone probably undeserving.

I couldn’t figure it out. I tried my e-mail address, I tried the nickname you asked me to create for some unknowable reason, I tried my real name. I capitalised, I hyphenated and then the inevitable happened.

You sold out.

I would like to applaud you for your prompt response to my enquiry as to how I was supposed to know what my Username was. You replied within minutes and I call that good customer service.

And it was then you told me that if I was booking tickets with you I needed to also register with Eventim UK, your ticketing partner.

Now call me a crazy person but wouldn’t it be a good idea to let people know this somewhere on your website? Perhaps in big bold letters. I would imagine it’d come in handy for the people that come to your website to, you know, BUY TICKETS. Or maybe when you send people an e-mail confirming that their account has been activated you could put a little notice in there.

It might be worth thinking about to avoid future customers having an equally crappy Friday.

Now I’ll never get to see Brett and Jermaine

Yours sincerely,

The Girl

PS I do realise that in your FAQ section there is an explanation that you are using Eventim UK as of 1st February 2010 and that you will need to register with them to buy tickets but I’m talking about BIG BOLD LETTERS somewhere. You know. Big. And Bold.

PPS I hope you don't find this letter troublesome but...I told you I was freaky.

Breaking the law

2010-03-04T22:15:00.008Z

I have to tell you something.

I'm a law abider.

I know. Shocking isn't it?

I don't know what it is about me but I just have to follow the rules. Sometimes I don't even question the rules, I just blindly follow them without hesitation.

Who knows why this is. Some people were born to break rules, others were meant to followthem. There could be a whole nature/nurture debate. Do I follow rules because I was brought up to just do what I was told - by my Mum and the private school I attended? Did I follow the rules because I just like an easy life? The debate will rage on endlessly I'm sure.

I had one detention throughout my whole school career. And that was for being caught inside school premises at lunchtime when I should have been outside.

Rock and roll or what?

I was absolutely mortified however and to be honest I still am. Maybe this is why I don't break rules - the feeling of shame is such that it burdens my soul. If I am breaking a rule I spend that much time panicking and worrying about getting caught that it's really hardly ever worth breaking the rule in the first place. I'm just always certain that if there's a group of people doing something they shouldn't and one of them is going to get caught, that person will be me. I am just always that person. The person who fainted in the senior school production of Carmen? Me. The one child to come back with her leg in a brace after the school skiing trip? Me. (I know, productions of Carmen, skiing trips - yes I did go to a private school. Try not to hate me.)

Sometimes. Just sometimes though. The pain and agonising and worrying about getting caught are worth it.

Case in point 1

and Case in point 2.

Now technically Fred and Lily shouldn't come and stay with us. We have a 'no pet' clause in our contract although technically they're not our pets, which I guess is a loose interpretation of the law.

So yesterday when my phone rang and the person on the other end said she was from our letting company, I got a little worried feeling in my stomach...

"I just wanted to check something with you and it might be a misunderstanding but when we took you on as tenants there is a 'no pet' clause in the contract and we've reason to believe you've got 2 cats living in your flat."

After I had managed to stop myself from relieving my bladder all over my trousers and dealt with the wave of nausea and intense hot flush I was experiencing, I did what all people in my situation would do.

Tell the truth.

Now don't get me wrong. I can lie when it's required. There are many times when I have delivered an Oscar-worthy performance. But the first rule of getting caught out? Tell the truth. Lying will only make it worse. If there is one piece of wisdom I could impart to you, this would be it.

I explained that they were not our cats (true), that they were my Mum's cats (true), that they were being picked up at 5pm that day (true), that they had only been there for a few days (true) and that we had tehm because my Mum had been suddenly called away for an emergency and didn't have time to put them in the cattery (not true - but a small lie is ok as long as it is surrounded by truths. Says me.)

My immediate thought was "OH MY GOD WE'RE GETTING KICKED OUT!" which flashed like a beacon over and over and over in the my head as I apologised and apologised and apologised to the letting agent.

She actually seemed fine about it, just said if we needed to have them again could we call and let them know and that what had happened is that the landlord had come round to visit the property and had seen them staring out the window.

I had to suppress a laugh because the image that popped into my head was that of this photo I took that morning before I left for work...

I spent the rest of the day in a rather wobbly panic. I had visions of us never being able to rent a flat again because we'd be blacklisted. I had visions of the landlord waiting for us at the flat to evict us. I was, quite frankly, a bit of a state. And most of all, running through my head was the fact that there would be no more Fred and Lily visits.

And really it was unnecessary because, as the boyfriend pointed out, the landlord would be pretty foolish to evict us seeing as he's already got 2 empty flats in the building and, most importantly, she didn't say we couldn't ever have them again, she asked us to let them know next time.

So the panic gradually subsided, although I still do not like the feeling that I've done something wrong. Now that lady on the end of the phone knows I'm a RULE BREAKER. That's a feeling i don't like.

But watching these two look after each other is a feeling I do like.

What happens at 5am...

2010-03-02T18:30:00.003Z

*Tap, tap, tap.*

Something's tapping my head. What the hell is it? I prise my eyes open...

HELLO!

Hey little one. What time is it?

Time for you to get up.

Erm. No. It's 5am. It's time for sleep.

But wait, I have to tell you something.

You really don't, just go back to sleep.

I do. I just want you to know how much I love you.

Good.

No I really do, I'll show you how much I love you by rubbing my nose all over your face.

Thanks. I love you too, see, I'm stroking you. Now go back to sleep.

I don't think you get how much I love you. I love you so much I want to lick your chin.

That's horrible, it feels disgusting. I don't want you to love me in that way. Now. Go to sleep. The boyfriend's alarm is going to go off in 45 minutes, that's not long, then he'll feed you.

Oh my god I completely forgot about him, he's in bed too, excuse me while I climb over your face to get to him.

*Tap, tap, tap.*

No don't tap the boyfriend. Don't wake him up. I just said didn't I that he's getting up in 45 minutes, this last hour of sleep is important to him.

But I love him. AND I LOVE YOU. I'll just walk across the boyfriend's head to get to you. HELLO. Have you missed me whilst I've been the other side of the bed?

Yep. Loads. Now. Let's go to sleep again.

But I love you. You know how much I love you? I love you so much I need to needle at you.

*Needle, needle, needle.*

Actually that's really painful, can't you just love me in a non-violent way? Maybe just needle the quilt instead.

No it has to be SKIN. Otherwise you won't get how much I love you.

I swear I do. And seriously, the alarm's going to go off soon so why don't we just accept that I love you and you love me and have a little sleep.

Maybe. Actually no, I think I'll just wake the boyfriend up now, he won't mind...hey get off me!

No I won't get off you. You will lie here quietly with me, the boyfriend wants to enjoy his last half hour of sleep.

Ok. Fine. I'll stay with you. But only if you let me....I don't know....sleep on your head.

That's fine.

Excellent, I can needle your scalp from here. It's nice. Is relaxing.

*sigh*

February book review

2010-03-01T20:00:00.004Z

I'm already starting to feel the pressure of making sure I've read enough books to talk to you about each month. Why do I do it myself?!

Anyway. Introducing the books of February...

Plain Truth - Jodi Picoult
I've read a couple of Jodi Picoult's books. Only problem is that I can never remember which ones. And that's sort of the problem with these books; they seem to follow the same pattern - strong yet slightly messed up lead female, some kind of crime/mystery to solve, twist at the end.

Thing is, it's a parttern that works. Even if I can't remember which books I've read, I know that each one was absorbing, that I enjoyed reading them and that it was a good ol' story. (My Sister's Keeper! That's one of them I've read!)

Plain Truth is about an Amish girl who has a baby that dies and is accused of its murder. Enter strong yet slightly messed up lead female in the form of a lawyer who stays with the girl and her family whilst trying to solve the mystery of who killed the baby. You can see whodunit a mile off, but I can't deny I sped through the book, wanting to see just how everything got neartly tied up.

The Lady & The Unicorn - Tracy Chevalier
I haven't read the book that Chevalier is best known for, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, and I got this book from Read it Swap it. Couldn't see anything else I fancied on that person's list so thought I'd give it a go. (As an aside, that's why I like Read it Swap it, I always try to pick a book by an author I don't really know so that if I don't like it, I haven't wasted my money buying the book!)

This was one of the best beginnings to a book I've read in ages, I was taken in from page 1, thrust right in to the story. You don't often get that.

The story is about a wannabe French aristocrat, who commissions some tapestries for his house. The story is told from different perspectives - Nicola des Innocents the painter, the wife and daughter of the aristocrat and then various people in the family of weavers who turn Nicolas' paintings in to the final tapestries.

I guess if you had to really break it down it's a love story although if you read this don't expect the classic everybody-turns-out-happy-ending.

Revelation - CJ Sansom
This is book 4 in the Shardlake series and is a series of books I would most definitely recommend. Not my normal fare at all, I'm not usually one for historic fiction and crime at all, but I have loved these books.

Don't let the fact that there are 3 books preceding this one put you off, you can easily read it as a stand alone novel. To be honest, it's been that long since I read Sovereign, the 3rd book, that it might as well be a novel in its own right because I can't remember a thing that happened!

Matthew Shardlake is a hunckback lawyer who is joined by a sidekick of sorts, Jack Barack. They are trying to find a serial killer who is carrying out murders in the style of the Book of Revelation in the bible.

A word of warning - you need to do a bit of homework for this one. It's set towards the end of Henry VIII's reign and I haven't a clue about that period. The whole background of the story is to do with the reformists and preachers and religion and I quite frankly don't know anything about it and found the whole thing quite confusing. A quick trip to Google enlightened me but to be honest I'd rather read a book that doesn't involve me having to do my own research!

Overall, it was good if you're already a committed Shardlake reader, but this one's the weakest of the series so far.

One Day - David Nicholls
This one is about Emma and Dexter, who spend 1 night together on the night of their graduation from university. The book then follows them through their lives, reporting in on the same day, one year later which is a wonderful concept. It allows you to follow 2 people through twenty years without getting bogged down in minor details and the sutff you don't want to know about.

It's just brilliant. I don't really have the words to describe it. (Always useful when the task in hand is to talk about something.) It's just so completely and utterly compelling, I really did have trouble putting it down. There were a couple of nights where I would realise that it was nearly 1am and I needed to get to sleep but I still didn't want to put the book down. Definitely a good sign.

I couldn't get enough of it and I'm going to be on the look-out for Starter for Ten, his first novel.

So clearly the book of the month is the last one One Day and why it was included in the first blogaversary giveaway, I would definitely recommend you go out and buy this one.

Reading has now virtually slowed to a standstill while I get on with the Stich & Bitch project and make people birthday cards...fingers crossed there'll be some read this time next month!

Anyone else got some February book recommendations for me?

This weekend I will be mostly...

2010-02-27T10:49:00.006Z

1. Laughing at these two.

Yep, they're back for a visit and will be staying until Wednesday. Hopefully there'll be plenty of hilarious photo opportunities like the above. Yes they seriously both got in those bags by themselves. They know I need good photos to show you guys.

2. Le cross stitch.

We have a project on the go at Stitch & Bitch, hoping to put on a mini exhibition. I think this one deserves a post all of it's own on another day though.

3. Shopping for wool

I need to stop putting it off. Just go out. Buy the wool. Attempt the crochet. I will not be defeated by the devil's craft!

4. Getting my bake on

Haven't baked anything since before Christmas. Mostly because there's an unfortunate side effect of baking. Having to eat the produce. I either eat it and feel guilty because if there's one thing these hips don't need, it's extra inches. Or I don't eat it and end up throwing it away. Equally not good.

5. Enjoying a Saturday night in

This is the first Saturday night I'll have stayed in for 6 weeks. I know, I'm such a giddy party animal aren't I? My post box is simply overflowing with invites to all the best shindigs. No, not so much. It just happens there's been a flurry of activities lately and I find it actually impossible to say no in case I never get another invite out and have to spend the rest of my evenings in for eternity.

What will you be mostly up to this weekend?

Tree Project - The first 6 months

2010-02-25T22:43:00.004Z

Don't worry, I'm not going to turn in to an arborist.

(Are you impressed I know that word?)

(Don't be. I asked the boyfriend.)

But I just wanted to show you this. Purely because it took me longer than necessary.

You know when you've decided to do something and then halfway through you think to yourself "What the hell are you doing?" but you've gone so far and you don't want to have wasted the last half hour of your life?

This is what happened to me yesterday.

Really I blame The Curious Cat because it was all her idea. "Why don't you do a 6 month review?" she says. And I think "Oooh yeah great idea."

And then I set about trying to do it and realise that actually when it comes to things like that I'm pretty much a technical moron. Why else do you think my blog layout is rubbish and boring? It just stresses me out trying. What I really need to do is pay someone to do this kind of stuff for me but I couldn't bear to that either, so I'm stuck known as that Girl with the Boring Blog.

So why would I decide to try and do this montage?

Because I'm a fricking idiot.

But at least I had a go, right? Right? RIGHT?

(This is where you talk to me like you would a child who's brought home a splodge on a paper and you have to pretend that it's amazing and the finest bit of artwork you've ever seen when in fact you're thinking "Do I really have to put that on my fridge?")

So. Here's a collage of Mr Tree's First 6 Months....

I don't even know if you can make it bigger. I've given up stressing about it. If you come round to my flat I can show you my laptop because it's my desktop background (hey, I'm proud of my splodge) and you can see the writing and everything.

In summary.

It had leaves, then the leaves turned golden, then they fell off, then it snowed on it, and now it has some green shoots.

Shocking I know, right?

Do you ever think to yourself sometimes, "Why in the name of all that is holy am I about to click 'publish post'? You know it's a bit crap, you know that people probably don't want to read about a frigging tree two days in a row, just delete it!! But I have rubbish self esteem and know that you guys are going to be my proud parents telling me I'm wonderful, so bear with me, ok? I'll come up with something better in a couple of days.

Tree Project - February

2010-02-24T17:28:00.005Z

Hey Mr Tree,

How's February been?

I know it's been pretty rough for you - it's snowed on you, it's rained on you, the wind has battered your branches. I would imagine you're pretty fed up with it by now. I know I am.

At first the snow was a novelty and it was exciting, now it's just dull. And annoying.

And more importantly, it's cold. Really really cold.

I'm bored of it being cold, are you? You don't even have any leaves to keep yourself warm.

You look so miserable and see, even your berries are all dying and stuff. It's so sad.

But what's this I see?

GREEN SHOOTS!

Keep the spirit of Spring alive Mr Tree, keep it alive.

I took these photos this morning as I was setting off for work. I had to get my blinkers on and focus on what I was doing. If I'd stopped for a second I'd have realised how ridiculous I looked to all the people also on their way to work. I tell you, the lengths I go to...

Tell me why I don't like Tuesdays

2010-02-23T18:30:00.005Z

Tuesdays are the worst days of all.

I have declared them Stupid Tuesdays because they are, you know....stupid.

Allow me to explain.

Mondays: They are indeed rubbish. You're back at work, the whole week is ahead of you and it would be easy to sink in to a deep depression. However they usually pass in a blur for me because I'm still adjusting and living in the weekend. (Also Glee is on E4 at 9pm which makes Mondays worth getting through.)

Wednesdays: Well come on. It's Hump Day isn't it? It all gets better from here on in.

Thursdays: I like Thursdays because I know that it's really when the weekend starts. I just have to get through the day and then it's Stitch and Bitch in the evening and I can stay up late because the next day is...

Fridays: And everyone knows they don't really count do they? I can actually do a lot of work on Friday and be 'happy' doing it because at the end of the day you get to go home and start your weekend.

Saturdays: You can't hate Saturday. It's physically impossible. A weekend full of promise lies ahead of you.

Sunday: Ok, it's not a great day because you know Monday's looming but it's still a weekend day. A day for laziness. And Hollyoaks.

Now.

Tuesday.

Ugh.

Tuesdays are far away enough from the weekend that it's just a distant memory, you've already been back at work for one day. And yet the next weekend isn't even a glimmer on the horizon and you have to get through another 4 days (4 days!!) at work.

And that is why Tuesdays are stupid.

However this Tuesday is not so stupid. The reason?

It's time to announce the winner of the 1 Year Blogaversary giveaway!!

Are you ready?

Is your breath bated?

(What does that even mean by the way?)

The winner is....

Now unfortunately Heather has difficulty commenting on some blogs (damn you blogger!), but I can assure you that she did enter the giveaway and I can even tell you what her favourite crisps are....Doritos with a hint of lime. A very fine choice indeed.

You should most definitely visit her - she has crochet skills to leave you in awe (I have appointed her my Crochet Mentor. She didn't know that until now.) and she has crazy escape artist rabbits. And even if she can't comment on your blog, she will reply to your comments on her blog by e-mail which makes her a very lovely person in my book.

Right.

I'm going to get back to hating the rest of Stupid Tuesday.

Any of you lot have a day of the week you particularly don't like?

Worst girlfriend ever?

2010-02-22T18:14:00.002Z

So I have this group of girl friends and we’ve been friends for a few years now and everything’s great and I get on with them all really well, there’s just one small thing that really irritates me and on Saturday night it raised its ugly head yet again.

They have this thing where all of the boyfriends get invited out to our nights out. And worse than that, when the girls go out, the boys are encouraged to all get together and have a boys night as well.

I find it completely bizarre to tell you the truth.

You know how in America they have that whole, what is it, separation of church and state? I have separation of friends and boyfriends.

I don’t actively keep them away from each other but I’m not going to go out of my way for all of them to become the best of friends.

The boyfriend and I had been going out for nearly a year before he was properly introduced to this group of friends and before that they’d say “We haven’t met the boyfriend yet?” and I’d think, “Erm....and?” Am I looking for your approval of my boyfriend? No. Do you need to be friends with him to be friends with me? No.

I just feel like it’s irrelevant whether they know him or not. I mean I became friends with these girls long before the boyfriend ever appeared, my friendship with them has nothing to do with my relationship with him.

I feel the same way about their boyfriends. If I meet them, that’s great. If I don’t meet them I won’t be sitting at home wondering what they’re like, I doubt I’ll consider them at all. As far as I’m concerned, as long as the person my friend is going out with makes them happy then that’s all I need to know.

In fact it can get more awkward if you meet the boyfriend and don’t like him. Which is the case with one of these girls. I think her boyfriend’s a complete fool. I just want to slap him every time I see him and hear the latest inanity to come out of his mouth. But it doesn’t make any difference that I think that does it? Am I going to say with her “Your boyfriend’s a twat”? (Oh how I wish I could.) No I’m not because me thinking that isn’t going to make them split it up, it’s just going to make things awkward for us.

Also I like my independence. I like that I have my own friends and that’s my thing and they belong to me and the boyfriend isn’t overly involved in that area of my life. Like I say, I don’t go to great lengths to keep them apart but I equally am not going to invite him to every girl’s night out that we have. And as for him becoming friends with the boyfriends? If that happens naturally, of its own accord then that’s great. What I’m not going to do is force him into a situation where there’s a group of men that everyone thinks should get on, just because their girlfriends do. The logic doesn’t follow for me.

So on Saturday I went out for one of these nights. We were going for a meal for someone’s birthday and they’d said boys were welcome to come and I thought to myself “That’s nice” and left it at that. I did ask the boyfriend if he wanted to come and I could see by his face that he didn’t really want to so I said that was fine by me, he could have a date night with his one true love, the X-box.

I get to the restaurant and realise immediately. I am the only person here sans partner. And it makes me sigh on the inside because I know what’s coming next...

“So where’s the boyfriend tonight then?”

“Erm.....he’s at home.”

SILENCE.

It's like they can’t conceive that he wouldn’t want to come out for a meal with all my friends.

And then you have the incredibly boring meal where everyone’s sat in their couples talking away and I’m wanting to stab myself in the eyes with my chopsticks because it’s just all so bloody boring.

The thing is it makes me question myself. They seem so surprised and shocked that he isn’t out that I start thinking that I’ve obviously got this all wrong. Should I be insisting that he comes out? Should I be having other couples round for sophisticated dinner parties?

And I thought to myself, my god, I’m a really horrible boyfriend, I’m making him stay at home with crisp-stealing cats whilst I’m out having a laugh.

I got back home and apologised to the boyfriend.

“Sorry if I’m rubbish”

“How are you rubbish?”

“For making you stay at home and not encouraging you to come out for the meal.”

“Whose birthday was it again?”

(I tell him)

“Yeah I would have come out but to be honest I can be doing without her and her boyfriend.”

And I sit back and think, maybe I’m not so bad after all.

Until the next ‘girls’ night out...

Why I won't be eating crisps this weekend.

2010-02-19T17:42:00.005Z

Have I ever mentioned that I love crisps?

(Oh my god make her shut up about them)

So you know how your parents can pass on certain traits and characteristics to you?

(Don't worry I'm not trying to start a whole nature vs nurture debate.)

Like for instance my Mum has passed on a debilitating fear of moths and butterflies to myself and my sister. I know, I know they can't hurt me but if you want to see me run, stick me in a room with a lightbulb and a moth. Usain Bolt aint got nothing on me.

Anyway.

So I'm pretty sure that I've passed my crisp addiction on to Lily and Fred.

(Yeah they're my babies.)

They go totally loopy for them and the trouble is they're so ruddy quick. You're sitting there, enjoying your crispage and suddenly out of nowhere a paw appears and your crisp has been swiped.

Most probably along with most of the skin off your finger.

They've come to stay for the weekend and last night I was having my daily crisp intake. You can try and be vigilant and make sure they're not around. The other option is just to shove them all as fast as you can in your mouth (which is a pretty cool option, I'm not going to lie).

But sometimes you get engrossed in something and this happens....

Mutilated thumb ahoy! Courtesy of Fred.

Much as I love my crisps I think I like my fingers more.

(But only just)

And Fred's crisp of choice?

He's a classy boy.

(PS Have you entered the giveaway? Did you want to enter? Clickeroony here and go for it - you have until Sunday 21st 12pm.)

Happy Blogaversary!

2010-02-18T07:51:00.005Z

Well. Who’d have thunk it.

This little blog has made it to one whole year.

I can’t actually believe it.

On this day a year ago I decided to start up blogging again and I quite distinctly remember, sitting on my bed in Mum’s house, laptop precariously balanced on my bed as I set about starting up again.

And a mere 184 posts later I have all you guys! Hello lovely blog people, you are great, have I told you that?

Recently I’ve gained a few new followers (Hello new people!!) so I thought that maybe it would be good to have a little re-cap, let you know what this blog’s about, who the people are that I’m talking about and other random bits of info. You know what it’s like when you stumble across someone’s blog and it’s bit like when you walk in to the middle of a party and you’re thinking “Whaaaaaaat are all these people talking about?” It’s like a crib sheet. So next time I talk about The Visitors you can be all “I TOTALLY KNOW WHO SHE’S TALKING ABOUT”.

So if you would like to know more then please click HERE (go on. You know you want to.)

But that’s not all. It would seem, on inspection of other people’s blogs, that it is customary to do some kind of giveaway on your anniversary.

I have struggled with this one. I’m supposed to be writing about living with my boyfriend what am I going to give away? Him?! (Hands off ladies.) My flat?! It has been the cause of much panic these past few weeks.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO!

WOULD YOU LIKE TO WIN THIS LITTLE PACKAGE OF GOODNESS?!

- Some material from that time I made a noticeboard

- A rather marvellous cross-stitched card to give to the person of your choosing (probably your Mum or your Granny as it is a little floral number)
- 2 little stitchlets to get you in to your cross-stitching groove
- A book from this month’s reading list (I apologise in advance for the jam on the back cover, I don’t even know how I did that)
- Possibly some more fun things?! (notice the use of the word possibly there)

So do you want to play?

It’s really simple, you just have to answer a question by leaving a comment. Just one. And then the names will be put into a hat and I will designate the boyfriend as Chief Drawer-of-names-out-of-hats and I’ll send you the goodness.

You have until Sunday to complete your mission.

Ready for the question? (It’s easy peasy lemon squeezy)

What is your favourite flavour of crisps?

(Told you it would be easy)

(Crisps are very important to me)

Now. GO GO GO GO GO!!!!

Mother knows best

2010-02-16T18:44:00.002Z

I remember the first time my Mum took me to the ballet.

Let me rephrase that.

I remember the first time my Mum dragged me to the ballet.

She had decided she was going to culture me and the first stop was the ballet. You can imagine the response she got from a very non-girly 12/13 year old.

“Oh my god it’ll be sooooo booooooooooooring” was most likely the response.

(This was a time in my life when I refused point blank to watch black and white films because they were ‘sad’. Aren’t we charming little things when we’re young?)

My Mum has never been the kind of mother where we were allowed to make our own decisions and do our own thing. Actually that’s a little harsh, we were absolutely allowed to make our own decisions and do our own thing, just not when it clashed with what she’d decided we were going to do.

I was going to the ballet.

We took our seats in Hull New Theatre (as far as I was concerned this place opened at Christmas for the pantomime and that was its only raison d’etre) and I sat deep in the throes of stroppiness that only you can conjure up when you’re a hormonal teenager.

“Why don’t you go and look in the pit?” suggested Mum. Most likely as an excuse to get my petulant face out of slapping distance.

Off I mooched to the front of the stage and peered down at the orchestra. I did a secretive inside jig at seeing the viola players.

(At school I started off torturing the violin but they had the cunning plan to move me to the viola when I reached senior school. “You see your arms are so long you might find the viola more comfortable” They told me. In actual fact, they had no viola player in the string group and orchestra and I was an easy target. Don’t play the viola. For a start no-one bloody knows what it is. I used to describe it as a fat violin but that led to people thinking of me as the Fat Violin Player – not a good thing. Actually it’s far better than a violin, much less screechy. Unless I played it. This is a long aside, I should wrap it up now.)

As the curtain went up I was beginning to think the ballet might not be so bad. I did like music after all.

First thing that struck me about the ballet? They’re so freaking loud! They look so graceful floating through the air and spinning about on one leg. The reality? Those wooden blocks in their shoes make a hell of a lot of noise. They have all these lovely graceful arms and lovely long legs and then as they’re running around they’re going “BANG BANG BANG BANG”. It rather spoils the effect.

Second thing that struck me about the ballet?

I couldn’t tell you because I was totally absorbed from start to finish. My cold teenage heart was melted and I was forced to do something I have always hated doing...

Admit my mother was right.

I think the thing that draws me in the most is the music. I don’t sit at home and whack on a bit of classical music but when I do hear it, it always draws me in. I’ve never been able to understand how someone could sit down and write all that music for all those instruments and have it not only sound good, but be able to tell a story. I had to write 2 pieces of music for my GCSE and could barely put two notes together, let alone describe the prince searching for his beloved through the use of a violin and piccolo.

Anyway, since that fateful day I have been to see a few ballets – the Nutcracker’s still out there as the lead, especially the last time I went to see it, wish I could remember which ballet company it was as I would give them credit. But I can’t.

Anyway this post had a purpose, what the hell was it?

Aaah yes. So. A couple of weeks ago I read on Hayley’s blog that she’d been to see Sleeping Beauty, performed by the Russian State Ballet of Siberia. I had a look on their website and lo and behold, they would be performing a week later in the grand city of Hull.

Last year for my birthday, the boyfriend promised me that he would buy me tickets to go the ballet. 10 months later I decided to take him up on that offer. “Birthday present please” I demanded. “And don’t go thinking that if you get me this, it counts as an early birthday present for this year. YOU. PROMISED.”

Naturally the boyfriend obliged because he’s nice like that. Only problem was that it started at 7.30pm and he probably wouldn’t be back from work by that time. Who else could I take?

The Mum. Figured I could pay her back for being right in the first place.

And nearly 15 years on you would think that I wouldn’t laugh at the principal male’s bulge in his lyrca pants.

I try to be mature about it but really. It’s like, in your face. You can’t help but look.

And FYI Russian State Ballet of Siberia. When I imagined the Prince fighting his way to Sleeping Beauty he was a pretty masculine chappy, seeing off evil Fairies and the like. He did not have a pink silk cape and glitter in his hair. I’m just saying.

Anyway, you might think it’ll be boring. You might think it’s a bit gay. But, if the chance arises, give it a go and you too can laugh at men’s crotches and thumping ballerinas.

The V Day

2010-02-15T17:39:00.003Z

Is it too late to post about Valentine’s Day?

Aah well. Don’t worry, there’s not really a lot to post.

I mean, really it’s just another day isn’t it? I don’t think we need a specific day to be romantic, and if I’m honest, the boyfriend is a big bag of smoosh most of the time, but I still think it’s nice to have a day just to say “Hey. I like you.”

I gave the boyfriend his card, and he gave me mine.

I don’t do presents and had told him not to bother but he bought me this orchid.

A freaking orchid.

I’m already panicked about killing it. I don’t have a great track record when it comes to nice plants. And those are just regular plants, not special plants that require you to do special orchidy things to them.

And then the day was just like any other Sunday. Bit of Hollyoaks, a trip to Toys r Us to get his niece a birthday present. (That place makes me want to kill myself. Or kill children.) He manhandled me past Hobbycraft. (I didn’t need anything from there, just an inexplicable urge to go in because I was walking past it.)Then back home to just sit and mooch about and watch crap on TV, before eating, watching more crap, bemoaning the fact that it was nearly Monday already, then to sleep.

A couple of times I felt like we should be doing more. There should be more effort. Maybe I shouldn’t have put my lounge pants on the second we came back from the shops. Maybe I should have sat next to him instead of going to sit on a sofa all by myself so I could stretch out.

Then I had a thought. The beauty of it is that that’s what makes me happy. Lying my full length on the sofa, tangling myself up in bits of wool and thread, watching crap on telly, accompanied by the background noise of whatever stupid game he’s playing on the PSP, getting up every so often to make cups of tea and check in the cupboard to see if it’s restocked itself with crisps since I last looked in there (it never has you know.), and generally being a lazy bint.

I’m just thankful I’ve found someone I can be a lazy bint with and still have him love me.

And for that reason I guess he’s my valentine.

(You may all commence vomiting now)

A letter to the cleaning fairy

2010-02-11T07:18:00.000Z

Dear Cleaning Fairy

Just thought I’d drop you a line, see how you’re doing because I notice that you haven’t really been around the flat much for the past week and a half.

Just yesterday I noticed that the bin is dangerously close to overflowing, the recycling bags are almost full and that dishwasher still hasn’t been emptied from 2 days ago, whilst the plates from the previous lie in disarray on the worktops. Also I can’t remember the last time you mopped the floor, I’m pretty sure that’s not hygienic.

And don’t get me started on the bathrooms. How do they get so dirty? What is that weird black fluff/dirt stuff that clings to everything? Why does the shower screen have loads of streaks on it and why is the toilet in need of a good douse of bleach? I couldn’t make it easier for you, there is bleach and that shower screen stuff right there in the bathroom under the sink. Can’t you see it? And don’t get me started on the bath, do I want to have a bath in a scum-lined tub? No I do not thank you very much. (And it is by the by that I struggle to bend down to get in the bath, that’s not the point of this letter Cleaning Fairy, the point is that it GROSSES ME OUT.)

Oh yeah and you really need to get the hoover out. I know that I’m closer to the carpet than usual, what with spending most of my time lying on it and stuff but seriously, come on, you know how much I moult.

And while we’re at it, I looked in my wardrobe today and realised that I don’t have anything to wear. Why is that? Because it’s all in the ironing basket. All of it. The basket is filled and then there’s another basket’s worth on top of that stuff. Clothes don’t iron themselves you know.

Now you know me. It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s just unfortunate that all these things require you to have fairly minimal mobility in your back to carry them out and I just don’t have that at the moment. And in fact I was pretty much all sorted right up until last night when I decided I was well enough to hoover and make a start on the ironing and ended up in extreme pain. That’s your fault I hope you realise. If you did your job then I wouldn’t be in pain right now.

So I hope that everything’s cool with you and it would be great if you could make it down to the flat in the next couple of days.

Yours sincerely

The Girl

PS What’s that? You don’t exist? Well would you mind telling that to the boyfriend before I start screaming and throwing sponges and cream cleaner at him? Thanks.

The most embarassed I've ever been

2010-02-09T18:48:00.001Z

So. When I did my back in I wasn’t really sure what the best course of action would be. I could go to the Doctors but I didn’t really know what he’d be able to do for me. Maybe refer me to a physio that I would get to see in 2 years time at the next available appointment. Then I thought I could try a chiropractor but I’m pretty sure they cost money.

The boyfriend suggested going to see his Dad who is a doctor but who also does a few of the hippy things, hypnotherapy and acupuncture are part of his repertoire.

And the boyfriend assured me that acupuncture really sorted him out when he had a bad back.

So in we went and his Dad got the massage table up and said to me “Would you like the boyfriend to sit in with you while we do this?”

“Erm...yeah?” I said. I mean I know I’m not the world’s bravest person but I reckon I can handle a couple of pins in the back.

But.

The boyfriend had neglected to tell me that not only would his Dad be acupuncturing me (yeah I just made up a word, what of it?) but he would be performing a kind of massage called the Bowen Technique which would promote my muscles to heal themselves.

I don’t know much more. I had stopped listening because I had realised one thing and one thing only.

You must remove clothing to have this done.

In my head, I’d just push up my top a bit, have a couple of needles stuck in where it hurts (right hand side, lower back) and I’d be cool.

At no point had it crossed my mind that I’d be taking my top off in front of my potential future father in law.

“Right so if you want to take your t-shirt off. Leave your bra on though.” Boyfriend’s Dad says to me.

LET THE NIGHTMARE BEGIN.

As I’m taking my top off I think to myself, “This is really fine. Just whip it off, throw yourself on the table on your front and he never has to really see anything.”

T-shirt was whipped off.

Threw myself on to the tabl....oh wait. Yeah, no I can’t do that. BECAUSE I HAVE A BAD BACK. Instead I end up having to be helped on to the table by boyfriend and his Dad in a most ungainly fashion. At that point I wasn’t sure what was worse, the pain in my back or the deep rooted shame and embarrassment that I knew was, at that very moment in time, scarring me for life.

Bowen itself is fine. It’s not really a massagey kind of thing. And it doesn’t hurt at all. Just felt like he was putting his hands in random places on my back.

And the pins are fine. You can feel little tiny nips as they go in, but I wouldn’t say it even registers on the pain scale.

“All done.” I thought to myself. “Good job. You got through it with only minimal mortification.”

“Now if you just want to turn over on to your back.” His Dad said.

Say WHAT?

It doesn’t just take place on your back. Oh no. That would be too easy.

There were many things to consider here, as I went to move on to my front:
1. The Slippage Factor. Could I be sure that everything was where it should be. I’ve been fairly well blessed in the chest area and sometimes it can be a struggle to keep things where they should be. (Yes I know I need new bras but they’re so flippin expensive when you have enormous chesticles)
2. The Mesh Factor. The cups of the bra I was wearing were half some mesh-like material. Could I be sure that the mesh was covering everything it needed to cover?
3. The Ungainly Factor. Is there any way to gracefully turn on to your back on a very small massage table whilst at the same time checking Factors 1 and 2?

(I believe the answer is no)

Did it work?

I couldn’t honestly tell you. I was so horrendously embarrassed through the whole ordeal that I can’t imagine I was terribly relaxed.

His Dad did warn me that sometimes, the next day, the pain is worse. And it was. Oh my goodness it was. It had improved towards the end of the week but I’d also spent 2 straight days lying on the floor so I wouldn’t like to attribute one thing over the other to it.

I did have another session at the weekend (I made sure I was well prepared this time) and Monday was my first pain free day which made me very happy. Until I energetically threw myself into the hovering and ironing and ended up back on the floor by 8.30pm. My bad.

Would I try Bowen again? Yeah I think I probably would. Would I get my kit off in front of my boyfriend’s Dad again? I’m thinking.... no.

Meet my new friend...

2010-02-08T22:52:00.004Z

...it's Mr Inhaler!

So I filled in my peak flow meter chart like a good girl and took it to the Doctors and he looked at it and he ummed and he aahed and then he pulled a funny face and then I told him that I had begun to get a cold during the week and the cough had gotten worse and I thought it was a virus that wasn't going away and then he ignored me and said he was giving me an inhaler.

(Why don't Doctors ever listen to you?)

I had to take my new friend home and leave him with Mr Peak Flow Meter and I must have a couple of puffs each day and I must carry on recording my awesome lung capacity to see if Mr Inhaler makes a difference.

Then I have to go back in 2 weeks (I've been at the Doctors more in the past 3 months than I have been in the past 3 years) and see what's what.

(And I'll still think it's a virus that's not going away)

(And he still won't listen to me)

Did you know that inhalers are actually pretty hard to use? I thought it would be easy peasy lemon squeezy but I've choked on the damn thing, had smoke coming out of my mouth and generally messed it up in every way possible.

But I think I have the hang of it now.

What with the inhaler and the bad back I've never felt older.

The V Word

2010-02-05T18:02:00.008Z

There are an awful lot of hearts around at the moment you know.

I’m not really one to go all out on Valentine’s Day. Have never done the exchanging of gifts, I’ll send a card, maybe go for a meal out but that’s it really.

I don’t have anything against it as a day, I’m not one of those people who start foaming at the mouth and saying “You shouldn’t need a day to be romantic”. I agree, it shouldn’t be the only day that you are romantic, but if there’s chance for a little bit more and a day to take a little time out and be especially nauseating then why not take it?!

At the same time, I’m not going to line the pockets of some savvy businessmen who have latched on and want me to buy The Greatest Love Songs Ever of The Decade Ever and Ever Part II as a declaration of my love.

I’ll just make a card for the boyfriend and maybe we’ll go out somewhere and maybe we’ll stay in. Who knows?

Ah yes, “make a card”.

This is when living together becomes an irritation. Last year was easy peasy, I was living with Mum, plenty of time to get my needle and thread out. This year? He’s there ALL THE TIME.

Luckily I’ve had Stitch and Bitch on a Thursday evening to do some stitching, (although when we picked me up last week and asked me what I’d done I had to give the rather lame answer of “Oh nothing, I just couldn’t be bothered”) and in the evenings before he’s come home I’ve got my stitch on, and I have encouraged him to take lots of nice, long, relaxing baths, but it was looking like it wasn’t going to get finished.

My salvation came in a rather painful way though.

I have done my back in.

I would love to say that it was flying through the air on a trapeze, or skiing down a mountain, but I just slept a bit funny. And I woke up and it hurt. Then the next day it hurt a bit more. Then the next day a bit more. Then the next day a bit more. Then the next day I cried. Then I got a taxi home from work because I couldn’t walk, sit, stand or generally concentrate and I spent that day and the next lying on the floor at home.

It was irritating and incredibly annoying. I felt absolutely fine. I was at home, I could be doing things!

But my back wouldn’t let me.

“NO” it said when I asked it if it would mind me just sitting on the sofa with my legs out. “NO” it said when I asked it if it would mind if I laid my full length on the sofa. “YOU MUST LIE FLAT ON THE FLOOR.” It demanded.

I tried to reason with it. “But it’s annoying lying flat on the floor, can’t I just lie on my side?”

“NO. ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN. GET. FLAT.”

You can’t do anything! I thought I would spend lots of time piddling about on the internet, but I had to balance the laptop to do so and I figured that at some point I was going to get a broken nose when it fell on me. I figured I’d pick up my cross stitching but that too was annoying. My arms got tired from holding it in the air and because I was following a pattern I kept having to stop and put down the aida, pick up the pattern, see where I was and do the next line.

In one word.

FRUSTRATING.

But I am pig-headed. And I persevered because I knew that this was my silver lining. Yes I was in pain and probably overdosing on ibuprofen but here was the perfect time to get the boyfriend’s Valentine’s Day card made.

(Sometimes you have to look really hard for positives)

So hurray for me, it is done and I can relax for the next week or so.

On the floor.

(The pattern for the card came from The World of Cross Stitching magazine and was part of a Love Token sampler)

(My back is on the mend now, and has felt much better today. I am receiving some treatment in the form of acupuncture - probably more on that in a later post!)

The devil's craft

2010-02-03T16:04:00.006Z

Like many before me I was seduced by the adverts.

They promised me things.

I felt like they had answered my prayers. How did they know I had declared 2010 the Year of the Crochet?

And here, before me, for a mere 99p (to start with) I could learn! There was wool! And a hook! And easy step by step instructions!

I was whisked away with it all. I had visions of a home like Attic 24 - I would bask in the adoration of those who appreciated the magic I would weave with a hook and some wool.

Has anyone ever told you how frigging annoying crocheting is?

Afterwatching the DVD and reading the magazine, I embarked on my mission - easy peasy.

Not easy peasy.

Turns out either I can't follow instructions or the instrutions were no good (I'm tempted to go with the former if I'm honest) because what was appearing from my hook bore no resemblance to what I was supposed to be producing.

I spent a whole day trying to figure it out. The boyfriend must have been sick and tired of my ball of wool begin thrown across the room. As I hooked and then tore apart my hook, the wool became as frayed as my temper.

Help eventually came in the form of Stitch & Bitch, where one of the girls showed me the error of my ways.

After many many many more attempts (including a complete inability of crochet straight lines, I had more curves in the edges of my work than Kelly Brook), I finally crocheted a square of treble stitch.

There was much rejoicing.

But this wasn't good enough. I want to make the square that the magazine wanted me to make. If I didn't do it I would feel it was mocking me.

Well mock away magazine because I officially give up. I have everything you asked of me. I have pulled apart countless swatches and instead of looking like the picture in the magazine, my square bears no resemblance to it whatsoever.

I didn't want to make your stupid blanket anyway.

My Stitch & Bitchers have solidly stood by me and encouraged me and have put up with me temper tantruming in the corner. They eventually managed to get me to make a flower which I am very proud of (but which I can't really do anything with because it is a rather crazy shade of orange). I will persevere however and next on the list is a granny square.

But for now, I'm returning to my soothing cross stitch for a while. It understands me, it makes sense, there aren't a billion different stitches and instructions, just up one hole and down the other.

Peace and tranquility have returned to the flat.

For now...

January Books

2010-02-01T19:01:00.002Z

First of all thank you for your words of advice – having a look through it I think there’s a general consensus that I should just leave him to get on with things. He knows he can talk to me, god knows I’ve said it enough, so I shall continue with my inane chatter until he decides to speak.

Now. On to more uplifting things.

The observant of you may have noticed that a new box has appeared on the right hand menu. (I’ll give the less observant a moment to frantically scroll up and down the page to figure out what it is they’ve missed.)

Found it? Give up?

I have decided to keep track of all the books I’m going to read in 2010. I thought it would be nice to keep track of what I spend my time doing when I’m not stabbing a needle through a piece of fabric. I started the list and then had a rather marvellous thought. I shall do a speedy review at the end of each month of the books I’ve read, pick a favourite and there we go, a recommendation for my blog readers. How. Lovely.

I have already noted the potential pitfall of this idea. There’s going to be a month where I don’t finish a book. Or I only finish one. But that’s ok. I have acknowledged this, accepted it and I feel ready to barrel on regardless. There’s also another potential hazard. I suck at talking about books for some reason. I feel able to say whether I did or did not like a book but lose the power of speech when it comes to the details. But let’s just ignore this hazard.

Got off to a good start this month, 4 whole books read although a couple were technically started in December and one was really short BUT THAT’S NOT IMPORTANT.

The Selected Works of TS Spivet – a purchase that was the result of me spending too long in a bookshop. I begin wandering and looking through every book in front of me. I came across this wee beasty when I was in Manchester a while back. I liked it because a) it had pretty maps and drawings in the margins of the pages and b) Stephen King said he liked it and what Stephen likes, I like (have I revealed my King obsession to you yet? Don’t judge me please.)

It’s a story of 12 year old T.S. who maps and draws every aspect of his life. He is awarded a prize for his drawings (they don’t realise how old he is) and he runs away from home to travel across country to collect his award. In a nutshell.

I guess you could say it’s about growing up – about the way in which a child and an adult view the world, how they deal with what life throws at them. The adults in T.S.’s world seem a little one dimensional at times, like Larsen only took the time to briefly sketch down some notes about their character and didn’t bother filling them out. But then was this on purpose? Is this just the way that TS sees the adults in his life? (And here begins the merry go round of discussing a book.)

Wedlock: How Georgian Britain’s Worst Husband Met His Match – A TV Book club book this one. You’ll hear them say that the story seems too wild to be true. They’re not kidding.

Mary Bowes is tricked into marrying Andrew Stoney when he pretends to be mortally wounded after a duel defending her honour (as you do). Once wed he makes a miraculous recovery and then spends the next 15 years or so making the woman’s life hell, routinely beating her, keeping her away from friends and family and keeping her a virtual prisoner. She eventually escapes, only to be drawn into the surreal world of the law in Georgian Britain which did little to protect women’s rights.

Considering the potential for a factual story to become a little dry, this book races along at breakneck speed, the unusualness (is that a word? Who cares! Onwards!) of the story means that it’s very difficult to lose interest.

One thing that’s sad about this book? Mary is supposed to be a champion of women’s rights, taking on the law courts at a time when women had no rights in the eyes of the law, but I couldn’t help feeling a little uncomfortable that the same thing still happens in society today. Yes the law has moved forward but there are still women out there, kept in their homes and subjected to terrifying abuse – they might be able to escape and find some recourse in the law but shouldn’t we be trying to stop it happening at all?

Mister Pip – I feel a little ambivalent about this one. Africa. Civil war. White person who is viewed with suspicion and fear at first but then turns out to be good. Bloodshed. Blah blah blah. I feel like I’ve read it all before.

In fact I cared so little about it I can hardly remember what it was about. Maybe there was some subtle message that was so subtle is got lost along the way for me.

Best thing I can say is that it was an ok story. I didn’t have to abandon it halfway through, I kept reading to the end. But I put it down and didn’t think about it again. Not a good sign.

The Boy with the Cuckoo Clock Heart – you see this is why I was going on about independent bookshops when I was in London – you’re not blinded with the agenda of the Waterstones Board who want you to buy the books they want you to buy. You are free to wander and pick up what you will. Which is how I came in to possession of this little fella.

When Jack is born his heart doesn’t work properly so he has a cuckoo clock grafted on to his heart to keep it ticking. It comes with a warning that he’s not to fall in love – his heart will not be able to cope with the inevitable grief. So, like all good characters in a book, he goes and falls in love, with disastrous consequences.

It’s a small book, you’ll most likely be done with it in a weekend and I guess it falls in to the genre of fairytales for grown-ups, although I feel like this is doing it a bit of a disservice. It is translated from French, but I didn’t pick up on that to be honest, sometimes translated books feel a little stilted I think but this flowed nicely and carried me away with it. Apparently the film rights have already been bought – I pictured a Tim Burton, Nightmare Before Christmas or Coraline type film, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Now to pick just one to recommend....

(I think we know what it’s not going to be)

And I reckon Wedlock has enough publicity at the moment, being part of the TV Book Club.

I’m going to go with The Boy with the Cuckoo Clock Heart although The Adventures of T.S. Spivet is running a very close second.

It’s short and sweet and you’re more likely to miss it than any of the other three. And sometimes, we all need to hear a fairytale (even if it doesn’t have a normal fairytale ending). Reading for me has to be about being transported away somewhere else for a little bit and this book did its job perfectly.

Now leave me be, I have to make sure I’ve read some books for next month. Why is February so short? I could do with an extra couple of days!