I Would Go Out Tonight...

I think I might be having a mid-life crisis. I realise this means I plan to be dead by 56 (and I have to say I'll be pretty miffed if I'm dead at 56 as frankly I have far too much to do and that would be a serious impediment), and yet I seem to be showing many of the signs. I haven't yet bought a Harley, but that's probably more because I wouldn't have the faintest idea what to do with it, rather than because I'm only being half-arsed in my attempt to cling on to eternal youth.

I was, however, struck by a sort of fashion epiphany/paranoia a few weeks back when I made a throwaway comment about not having any style. My mate's response was "Yeah, you do," and, looking me up and down, "that's your style." Now that would have been all well and good, except that I was wearing a pair of shapeless, £8 jeans bought from ASDA in 2006, a top purchased when supposedly looking for clothes for my grandmother's funeral in 1999, and a Middlesex County Cricket Club jumper. Now, there's nothing wrong with that per se, but I draw the line at it being deemed my "style". It occurred to me that I spend pretty much every evening now in a vest top and jogging bottoms, and I haven't had a haircut since June last year - and that one was only because I was getting married. And then followed a sort of urgent revelation: "You're getting old; there's a lot of options out there but you can't pull them off for very much longer."

So what could be done about all this? Well, to kick off I bought some knee-high boots, which is a pretty good start, and based on the fairly reliable fashion sense of my stick-thin and trendy cousin. (At any rate she spent around 12 hours cumulatively in Westfield over the Christmas holiday so she jolly well ought to know what she's talking about!) Next, I bought some skinny jeans. This dented my confidence slightly, because I made the mistake of buying them in Top Shop, where it turns out I'm a size 12. This was even more of a shock given I'd just bought a comfortably baggy size 8 jumper in Monsoon, and somehow managed to grow two sizes in the 100 yard mooch down Oxford Street (NB I realise Monsoon likes to flatter its customers while Top Shop, conversely, prefers to gently but firmly push its clients towards unnecessary body angst). Now skinny jeans are fine - they actually look rather nice - but a.) they are really flippin' cold in the winter (the wind goes right through them, and you can't really fit leggings on underneath, which is my normal clever get-around) and b.) they are rather undignified to put on, having to be eased up bit by bit as you wave your legs in the air. Though that's probably just me.

Next on the list, then: glasses. Now, I hate eye tests, but Specsavers had refused to send me any more contact lenses until I relented and went for one, presumably in case my eyes have fallen out or something since they last saw me a mere 12 months ago. There's something about eye tests that makes me squirm far more than the doctor or dentist. First of all, the word "test is very apt: I feel I'm being trialled for some MI5 post or something (and for all I know that might be how they do it.) The officious, unsmiling 16 year old who's conducting the test flicks several seemingly identical images of black dots in front of me and barks
"Which is better, a or b?"
"Um...a?"
"c or d?"
"Um..." I barely had a chance to look...
"Probably d?"
I feel this might be some sort of sociology experiment, that I'm going to be zapped with an electric shock if the correct answer is c. Then she complicates things further.
"Which is clearer, the number 24 or 42?"
"Um..."
"42 or 24?"
It's like being on University Challenge. If you pause she'll start telling you to hurry up then dock you 5 points.

To make matters worse, once the pressure of this is all over and I can take my head off that hard plastic chin rest and start trying to release the crick in my neck, she starts shooting puffs of air into my eyes - 3 in each eye no less. Actually 4 in one, as apparently I blinked (well, wouldn't you?) She then briskly tells me my prescription has changed and my left eye has got worse again, making me wonder if I should apolgise for this, and marches me downstairs and deposits me with her equally chirpy colleague to pick out some new glasses.

"I'd like to look at some Missoni ones," I venture, having made the daft mistake of booking an eye appointment the day after pay day.
Chirpy Colleague is having none of it.
"They're too big for your face. They will not suit you."
I try a pair on, and she shakes her head emphatically.
"Your face is too small."
Well, that told me.
"You can have them as sunglasses."
Right, well that sounds OK, I need some sunglasses.
"Why don't you look at some others first?"
Er, because I don't want others. I want those.
"How about these?"
She thrusts some huge brown DKNY glasses into my face with what can only be described as a lump of bling on the sides.
"Um, I don't really like the...diamond thing."
"Try them on."
I try them on. They look ridiculous.
"What about these?"
"I really do like Missoni."
"These are Gucci."
Exactly. I.e. they're not the ones I've just said I like.
"Try them on."

This goes on for a not inconsiderable amount of time. The upshot? Next week I shall be picking up my prescription MISSONI sunglasses. Which apparently won't suit me, because my head is too small and they are blingless.

Last on the list: hair. This is another experience I try not to have too often, partly because it's expensive and partly because I don't like having long conversations with ultra-cool preoxide blondes while they inflict pain upon my scalp. I also don't altogether trust my own abilities to explain what I want, and in turn their abilities to suspend their disbelief and actually trust that, unadventurous and bland though this makes me, I really don't want my head shaved, or my hair coloured pink, or an 80s perm. So I ask for blonde highlights and sit in near-terror for an hour whilw my hair is wrapped in bits of tinfoil, prattling inanely about my holidays and hoping I don't walk out looking like Myra Hindley. To make things worse, my (lovely) hairdresser has not only a very pronounced French accent, but also a lisp, so I'm answering "yes" to rather a lot of things (like "do you 'av a thide parting?") without actually knowing what she's said, but too embarrassed to ask her to repeat it for the third time. I'm also anxious at the revelation that I'm the only customer in the shop and apparently a guinea pig for some trainees, who all look about twelve. A girl with a brace and an alice band washes me hair, someone else mixes the dye for it and then, worryingly, someone I presume to be the manager shoos them both away and does the dying herself, before finally unleashing her speech-impaired colleague onto it for the grand finale.

So what was the result? Well, fortunately my hair looks more like Jennifer Aniston's than, say, Pixie Lott's, though I've inadvertantly gone for the Agnetha Faltskog look tonight, wearing my knee-high boots complete with a 1970s above-the-knee, all-in-one...thing (dress? Maybe?) and lots and lots of blue eye shadow and facial glitter. Bring on the party!

You Say Goodbye/And I Say Hello

Strange and potentially sad weekend of meetings and farewells. Not least of these was the Long Goodbye to Julie aka Mad Julie/Ex-blogger Extrordinaire/My Catholic/Friend. Julie has finally taken the plunge (I say that flippantly, but as plunges go this is the kind of massive, splash-making plunge they want to guard against in swimming pools when they say "No Bombing", because Julie is not only disappearing to the other side of the world on Thursday, but disappearing to become a nun in an enclosed order in Louisiana (click on the link and scroll down for pictures of nuns on swings. There's something strangely lovely about this.) Apparently she'll have to abstain from all caffeine, alcohol and dairy and she won't be allowed any contact with anyone - for the first few years at least - not even by letter, let alone the likes of Facebook and email. To me this is not only an utterly horrifying thought, it also strikes me as fundamentally weird. But then I'm currently sitting here happily sipping tea and eating chocolate to the dulcet background strains of ABBA and announcing this to the world at large, and this makes me greedy, exhibitionist, quite possibly even fantasist all in one, so I'm certainly not one to judge! Anyway, good luck Petal, we're thinking of you.

To commemorate this momentous goodbye we went to Pizza Express, about which I'm not so much going to rant as simply relate the ad hoc, pot luck attitude that has replaced what used to be called "customer service." Broadly speaking, you can guess where a restaurant comes on the expense scale based on the demeanour of its staff. At the higher end, the staff are surly and supercilious but generally coldly efficient; this attitude fades gradually until you get towards the lower end - the chain restaurants - where the staff are often unnecessarily chirpy but unreliable. Then there are the restaurants in the middle that have missplaced pretensions. The staff here have mastered Surly and Rude but are unfortunately lacking when it comes to competence. TGI Friday, for example, happily falls into the middle category - we had a lovely chat with a young chap at a TGIs in Cheltenham who made up what he lacked in waiting with a broad smile, engaging hyperactivity and chattiness - he was training to be a primary school teacher and told us all about it, then served us steak instead of ribs with a beaming grin as he flew past us on a pair of rather superfluous roller skates. Pizza Express, unfortunately, so often falls into the latter category. We were once well and truly put in our place at the Euston branch when, having waited for a good couple of minutes for a table, we were eventually sat down by a window and abandoned. After 15 minutes we asked a waiter if we could order, only to be told, angrily, "You can't just come in and sit down! You need to wait to be seated! How are we supposed to know you're there if you just come in and make yourself at home? You need to wait!" When we told him his colleague had done the whole seating bit the response was simply "oh." At the end of the meal we waited 45 minutes for the bill. The staff at Charlotte Street were a little less accusatory but unfortunately also appeared to be in a world of their own. We were given menus and then, about two minutes later, the waiter was behind us, meerkat-like, pen poised, demanding our order. When we asked him if we could have a couple more minutes we were given fifteen, having apparently missed our chance. Dessert was also a little odd - I ordered coffee ice cream (along with J, who's presumably trying to cram a lifetime's caffeine and dairy into her final 3 days of freedom) and minutes later the waiter, still seemingly wired and beaming, appeared waving a bowl at me and saying "We don't have coffee ice cream. This is pistachio ice cream. We don't have coffee."
"I don't particularly like pistachio."
"It's just like coffee."
Well, no, it isn't, really, is it? It's more like... well, pistachio.
He looked rather hurt, and offered me chocolate, to which I agreed, at which point he sped away and reappeared seconds later, with a bowl of coffee ice cream.

Which, incidentally, was very nice, if a little bemusing.

Anyway, for anyone who hasn't sussed it yet (I'm always a little slow on the uptake and have only thought to look here for the last year or so) vouchercodes has some super offers on and frankly I wonder why, living where I live, I ever bother to cook.

Schimple!

OK so this morning I had 3 injections in preparation for a trip to somewhere I'm still in two minds about visiting. Add to this some prescription drugs, self-medication, huge volumes of caffeine and the not inconsequential lungs full of "it's-legal-in-Amsterdam" smoke I've been breathing in over the last few days, and... well, I'm going to go for a sort of Dutch-inspired stream of consciousness. We'll just see what happens...

So, I spent a long weekend in the Netherlands (I'm not allowed to say Holland for historio-geographical reasons - namely that Utrecht isn't technically in Holland, it's in Utrecht.) I normally try to go on holiday under some sort of pretence of it being educational in some way, or at at any rate cultural. This... well, wasn't, really. But here's some stuff I've discovered:

- A sort of tradition has evolved whereby whenever we go abroad we have to climb something steep and high. This time it was the Dom Tower, with its 400-odd steps. This made me realise a.) I like views, and this one was a good view; b.) my mate is unexpectedly afraid of heights; c.) the training is starting to pay off: no achy legs the following day. Woohoo!
- Public transport elsewhere in Europe is better than in London. Quick comparison: Warren St to Heathrow - trains delayed; had to stand until Hounslow (pre-rush hour!) doors kept failing to shut. Utrecht-Everywhere-Utrecht - double-decker trains, on time, seats galore. Ooh and Amsterdam has trams. You can't beat a tram. Eeee, reminds me of t'North!
- Museums are cool, but the best part of the weekend was listening to my friend hurl random abuse at the people on the Antiques Roadshow.
- The Dutch don't know how to make a decent cup of tea, but they always have a good selection of poncey teas available.
- Dutch pancakes are not as nice as French crepes
- ...but they do love their sausages
- I also love their sausages
- I love all sausages
- That isn't a euphemism
- Ooh and those little deep fried things with minced beef and potato in them...mmmmm....
- Where was I?
- Oh, yes...
- Watching "Goldmember" before going to Holland was not a Good Idea, because it makes you want to laugh at the Dutch language and accent.
- But then, their word for shop is "Winkel" and "whipped cream" is "slag room", so they are asking for it.
- And apparently the words for "mate", "whore" and "rented property" are all the same, which is just screaming out for some sort of sketch to be written about it.
- But nonetheless, putting "Sch" before every word beginning with an S in it does not consitute a Dutch accent and is neither big nor clever
- (Ooh, does that make the Meerkat Dutch?)
- (Why have we assumed all along he's Russian?)
- (Do they have Meerkats in Russia? Or Holland? Except for in zoos?)
- (I'm Confusched.com.... )
- (I said that's neither big nor clever!!! And anyway, that's the wrong advert, schtupid!!)
- SCHTOP IT!
- Ahem. So, anyway, back at the blog...
- I have wonderful friends and have just discovered one of them reads this blog, so I'm going to be nice about him
- He's lovely and clever and wonderful and reads this blog!!!
- And my other mate's not so bad either
- Though his kitchen is crap
- Do they not cook in Holland?!?
- I have an obsession with washing up even if it isn't my washing up. Any washing up will do. Anyone got any washing up that needs doing?
- Amsterdam is a very strange place and I'm not sure what to make of the slightly overweight women baring all in skimpy leather in their windows, presumably to attract passing trade.
- Amsterdam is also cold, but very pretty
- Anne Frank's house is well worth a visit but is inordinately depressing. (I was expecting this...)
- My tendancy towards unprovoked paranoia and anxiety is unaffected by foreign climes and arctic temperatures. I didn't check to find out if it would be exacebated by the legal highs Amsterdam's "coffee shops" have to offer
- Because I'm old and boring
- I have a mixture of Dire Straits and Abba running through my head...
- ...which is an odd combination... and rather irritating...
- I am very lucky to have some lovely friends who make me laugh and feel cosy and warm and are eminently huggable. I had an ultimately fabulous weekend with 3 of my most favourite people
- I'm going to stop typing lest my reputation for cynicism and misery ends up in tatters

Tomorrow is another day.

I don't think that's a real elf...

So, I've been looking back at one of the most enjoyable holiday periods I've had in a long time - a party at which nobody died, the most brilliant Pogues gig I've ever been to, and lots of sporty and semi-sporty things sprinkled on top of it all. Ooh, and I met Father Christmas.

The real one, I hear you ask? Er, probably not. Not unless Father Christmas speaks with a Devon accent, drinks real ale and lives in a tent at Colyton Tram Station.

This little excursion was all part of the enforced jollity that is the Christmas season. We left Seaton Tram Station in a near-blizzard of sleet and trundled across some wasteland on a cold, antique tram that had seen better days, driven by a peculiarly miserable reindeer. I say reindeer, actually it was a bloke in a Bo Selecta bear costume to which he'd added some antlers. When we finally arrived we were welcomed by a buxom, over-tanned elf with a perm who asked us if we were looking forward to meeting Father Christmas. The Elf, semi-nude and covered in goosebumps in what were sub-zero temperatures, was clearly there to distract the crowd while they waited patiently for their two minutes in a tent with the grumpiest and least-convincing Father Christmas this side of Coronation Street (remember Percy Sugden's efforts?) and I have a feeling she had loftier ambitions than this - maybe one day a panto in Plymouth. As she babbled on in a west-country accent, asking us all what we were going to leave out for Father Christmas when he came to our house (apparently he likes sherry, but I think this one was more of a special brew man) my niece lent over to me and conspiratorily whispered "Aunty Polly, I don't think that's a real elf. I think that's a lady dressed as an elf."

Our two minutes with Father Christmas were fairly underwhelming. He came across as rather cantakerous and looked irritated when he asked me nephew his name and he proceeded to tell him his name, his brother and sister's names and his mummy and daddy's names (which are Mummy and Daddy respectively). Santa looked at me with what I feel was contempt, as if to say "if they're Mummy and Daddy who the **** are you?" and possibly presuming me to be the nanny. "What do you want for Christmas?" He asked the kids, and without waiting for the full answer he shoved some ill-wrapped parcels into their hands and said "Happy Christmas". I wished him Happy Christmas and said thank you. He ignored me. He adjusted his fake beared and reached for his beer as we sidled out. In the cafe we were plied with mulled wine and forced to watch an entertainer who was a bizarre sort of combination between Larry Grayson and Bernard Manning. Whateve he was he was out of date. He had a live dove which flapped its wings on command, and at one point he came over to me and said "Do you want a stroke, love?" followed by "Let me put my dove away, then". Erm... He made unidentifiable balloon models for the children, had a hat that turned round and round at the press of a button, and relied on Allo Allo-style innuendo to amuse the adults.

We spent the afternoon feeding 2p pieces into the machines at an amusement arcade in Seaton, and with dogged determination, despite the machine persistently delivering piles of coins back to us, we'd eventually lost them all.

Aw, Bless 'Em

This lot might be good when they leave school...

To be fair to them, I've seen some seriously dreadful support acts, but this lot, faced with the rather daunting task of supporting the Pogues (in my view one of the most stunning and insummountable groups that ever walked these fair shores, to be sure), were not one of them. Get past the grating Mockney (Lily, eat yer heart out) and the fact that they look like they're skiving Double Geography and the King Blues are actually rather good. Their music - touchingly optimistic but lyrically oddly beautiful, alongside tunes that make you want to jump up and down while pretending you're not - is desperately trying to get the balance between edgy political and well pretty, innit? but they're not far off. At some times encouragingly if jarringly Clash-inspired, these guys are not only not bad, they're actually good. They're on Twitter (so I'm told), Myspace and Facebook. If you're on Spotify it's worth checking out I Got Love (aahhhh) and Save the World, Get the Girl (oh where did my optimism go?) They may sound sickeningly positive, but cynics like us could do worse than to let a bit of this into our acerbic little hearts once in a while...

I'm not bitter....

Oh no, wait, I AM bitter. Bitter and twisted. One day back at work, several narky emails from the same American, same old bitterness. But if all else fails, I feel sure I can get a job as a chambermaid.

But I do have my home back - Hotel Penter is temporarily closed. I say "back", I have it back, post-8 - yes 8 - guests in the last month - until Saturday, when another 2 arrive; I have it "back" if you don't count the wardrobe full of someone's clothes, a suitcase full of someone else's (French and Latin) books, a photo frame and several leftover kitkats of indeterminate flavour (it claims to be cheesecake. I'm not convinced.) I have it "back" if you don't count the bike that's in our vault, the coat and scarf mysteriously left on the hook by the front door, the pile of rubbish that needs clearing out of the spare room, and the Christmas card we (semi)-lovingly gave to one of our guests only to find it abandoned next to the sink. Like I said, I'm not bitter. After all, I'm now free to piss in the shower and cook naked, should I wish to (I don't.) On the upside, F has bought a Dyson. Apparently this is very exciting.

So what's my purpose in life now? With nobody around to ply with copious amounts of tea or wash up for, I'm somewhat surplus to requirements. Ooh, I know - I'll run 10 kilometres. That'll be good.

Yes, I've signed up for the Bupa 10K. This is the result of some ill-placed enthusiasm - possibly induced by copious amounts of legal cold-curing drugs - that I can't quite seem to resurrect now. I'm running for Cancer Research UK for Will, and for Mind (and I'm rather proud to have worked an Eeyore quote onto my page already, namely "We can't all and some of us don't". Oh yes - give us yer money!!)

Now 10K is a long way. It's twice 5K to be precise, and 5K is the usual distance at which I can feel as though I've achieved something. To put it into perspective, I ran 7K in the gym 3 weeks ago, and my legs wouldn't work when walking downstairs for 4 days afterwards. 10K is a long way, unless you're a marathon runner. I'm not a marathon runner. Everyone did 3 sports at my school, unless you were a singer, in which case you were exempt from 1. I was a singer. While everyone else was scraping mud from their sweating bodies I was going "Ooh, top C. Nice one."

It's also a terrible time of year to be attempting to do anything remotely sporty, because it's New Year, and my gym is full of keen people. They all have personal trainers who shout orders at them as they sweat copiously over all the machines I want to use. They all wear shiny new vest tops bought in the sales and they talk superciliously about their abs, which annoys me, because I've been going for years and am not certain I'd recognise an ab if it came up and bit me on the...well, the ab. It doesn't matter much, in that next week it will get quieter, and come February it will be the Marie Celeste again, but in the meantime, grrrr....

I went to Pilates tonight, but my Pilates teacher didn't; I ran 3K instead; I ached and gasped for breath; I brooded about the fact it was only 3K; I brooded about the fact that I no longer have a surrogate flatmate to drag to the gym with me to give me the impetus to actually do something while I'm there; I brooded about the fact that my students hate me because (I know, how could I?!?) I'm not the Home Office and their visas are still languishing in Croydon; I brooded about the rubbish that still needs to be taken out and then bed that still needs remaking; then I drank tea and skulked around the flat listening to Morrissey. Happy New Year, sweet people.