Grey day

DO YOU SEE IT? There, on the blue gel wrist rest, clear as day? It is a deafening message from my body to remind me that I am DECOMPOSING, and that every day that passes brings me closer to MY END.

WHY WOULD I FIND MY FIRST EVER GREY HAIR TODAY? It is raining, and other bad things have happened to me recently. I am going to get my hair dyed this evening. If I had only waited until tomorrow to look in the mirror, instead of getting all vain and accidentally examining my overlong roots this afternoon, the offending item would have been disguised with bleach and I would have been able to trundle along, merrily smug that although lots of other people my age have grey hair, I do not knowingly have any. WELL NOW I CAN NO LONGER DO THAT, WORLD. I don't have many causes for smugness. Maybe just one or two exist. And me not having grey hair was one of them. Now I am just down to 'soft skin'. This SUCKS.

It's especially hard to take as I had been walking on air after a rare moment of serendipity last night meant that the glass of red wine I knocked off my table went, in its entirity, into my handbag, staining my hardback book and ruining a diagram showing the different ways people in the UK die that I'd printed out from the Guardian website a few weeks ago, but completely missing my cream carpet. It was an extraordinary moment for which I felt profound gratitude.

But can I be left alone to enjoy that happiness for, say, 24 hours? OH NO. That is too much to ask. Something must happen which will alert me to the proximity of a hooded figure, standing behind me in the work toilets with a MASSIVE SCYTHE.

Livid.

Let the self-pity begin

Be gentle with me, Faithful, for I am feeling well fragile today innit. If my eyes were plugholes, the tears would burbling up through the U-bend and heading for daylight.

The almost-four-month boyban has been amazing in illustrating that I was pretty much obsessively judging my success as a woman on whether or not a man was telling me I was attractive and good company. With dating forbidden and no flirtatious emails to distract me, I can clearly see the error of my way: I was doggedly pursuing a goal, thinking it would bring me a sense of self/satisfaction/fulfillment, when in fact we all know that getting a boyfriend is not really the answer to any of the above - and if it is, it shouldn't be. So it's been good, I've got a new sense of perspective and I am sincerely glad of that.

However, it probably won't surprise many of you clever readers that, if you take away someone's raison d'etre (however unhealthy it was) without lining up anything else to replace it, an existential crisis is fairly inevitable. And so, ta da, here I am, no career to speak of, no babies, in a society where having one or the other is pretty much essential if you're going to have any sense of self-worth. Oh, and I'm an atheist, so the world's best psychological crutch isn't an option for me either. You're left with a verbose hedonist with no sense of purpose, just night after night of pleasant, middle-class pasttimes. I am one big fat hobby.

In the meantime, Grania has spent the last several months dedicating almost all her time to preparing for some of the toughest exams I've ever known, learning a zillion planning laws and documenting her every waking action, turning down countless fun events to pursue her goal. And Sarah's been promoted, and Sara's started a new role helping people, and Kate is bursting with job satisfaction, and Olivia's been promoted and got pregnant again, and Mills has had her second child, and Lucy's dealing with her existing two, and Em and Erf are on honeymoon, and Marina, Justin and Lucy G are changing the media world, and Lilly's going freelance, and Charlie's had Gabriel, and Nick's doing his writing course and an internship while being Deputy Editor, and Georgie's directing, and Hatta and Astrid are engaged, and two other friends are trying for babies but it's all hush hush, and Don's making a feature film, and Ed's having intimate dinners at The Wolsey with A listers.

And I know, I know, everyone can take this kind of highlights-only snapshot of their friends, filtering out the quotidian, ignoring the fact that everyone has down days and everyone panics, but it's human nature to compare ourselves to our peers.

I can only see three ways to cope with this kind of barrage of achievement:
1. Persuade myself that I'm still valid, but in some different way. I am finding this difficult.
2. Find new meaning elsewhere under some previously unturned rock.
3. Accept, as my mother suggested, that my time will come, and right now just "bob along" (her words).

I love my mother so much it hurts, but 3. makes me feel like self-harming. It is excellent, measured advice and I desperately wish I could take it; being carried along like a brightly-coloured rubber duckie in a burbling countryside stream, letting the current take me where it will, well, it'd no doubt be good for me, relinquishing control, enjoying the view, but... well, I can't help but feel that time is running out. Not to have kids, necessarily. But to do something. I'm 33. I'm never going to be any younger than I am now, or have any fewer responsibilities. I was already feeling like I was a bit of a wasted opportunity. Then I watched Jamie's American Food Revolution.

That guy, annoying though his perpetual "bruvva"s unquestionably are, is an extraordinary and inspiring force for good. He's married with three kids, and he clearly loves his family dearly, but he has realised that he has a position in society that can change a lot of people's lives for the better. He has a clear mission - to encourage people to eat more healthily; to make cooking from scratch appear easy enough that people turn to it instead of ordering a pizza; and, ultimately, to save lives. It's an amazing goal, and he's already pretty damn rich, owning assets worth tens of millions - but he's still pursuing his mission, heading out to spend three months in Los Angeles early next year to film a second series of his Emmy Award-winning show. He is attacked and ridiculed wherever he goes, but he doggedly continues, spending precious time away from his loved ones, because he believes in what he's doing, and because he is sure that he can make a difference.

I am jealous of his mission. I want one.

And then, as a nailgun in the face to any specks of optimism I'd salvaged, last night, Luke and I saw The Social Network. Bloody hell, where do these people get their drive from? Their certainty that their ideas are valid? Their optimism and confidence, that sense of entitlement, that if they think it's a good idea, it obviously is? The determination to stop gassing about it and actually sit down and fucking do it? I just whitter on, it'd be nice to do this, that'd be brilliant, but I never commit, I'm terrified of failure, and moreover I fear the claustrophobia of being trapped. What if my idea was good? Then I'd have to do it and I'd miss out on doing other stuff. Plus I'm already really tired.

So I do bob along, but resentfully, doing nothing except inhaling as much of this beautiful city as I can take in, and waiting for my Facebook, my Food Revolution, to hit me square between the eyes so that I can start work. Problem is, I know that that's not how reality works. Meaning is often only visible in retrospect. Life missions aren't always obvious at the time. They creep up. They need leaps of faith. They need hard work over long periods of time. They need blind commitment. And they don't always end in positive results. I'm categorically rubbish at dealing with every single one of those things. Need someone with a short attention span who'll tackle a high-profile project, complete it to her own absurdly high standards in two weeks and then, with a rush of 'problem solved' satisfaction, move on in a flurry, never to give it another instant's thought? I'm your gal. Need consistent, shire horse effort over years to lovingly create something that lasts, often for little reward, someone who doesn't let failure get her down, who doesn't crave recognition? Move right along. Nothing to see here.

That book you think I should write? Two years on one project that will be criticised by strangers? Not my idea of fun. The presenting work I could maybe do? I look too fat on camera and I stop being funny because I get too nervous. Politics? MPs have to work too hard and they get criticised. Lobbyist could be good but I can never find an issue that sustains my interest more than any other. I'm not academic or enough of a brown-noser to get into a thinktank or any massive corporation. I hate sucking up to people. I hate toeing the party line. But then I got extremely depressed when I was freelance: irregular hours, irregular funds, irregular job satisfaction, having to be pathetically grateful for every commission and never knowing if the next paycheque would be the last. And with a mortgage to pay, I can't afford to be skint. I want regular hours, recognition for hard work, a sense that I'm contributing to a greater good, a salary that will cover my pension (thanks for the terror lesson, mum), and my evenings and weekends free for wine. It's the blight of an only child: I'm not sufficiently gifted to excel, but I'm too full of myself to bear being average. And I am appalling at compromise.

Don't worry, my weekly therapy session is in under an hour. I'm sure absolutely everything will be solved then.

All the threes

Of course, when you're young you want to be old, and when you're old you want to be young, but in your early/mid thirties, having an August birthday is good because pretty much everyone you know from school and university turns the new age before you do. It's been nearly a year since my first peer turned 33 and I'm now so used to the concept that I wouldn't dream of feeling ancient. Plus I have no grey hairs, even under the dye. And minimal wrinkles. So there's lots for which to be thankful.

Not much to report as yet, but a lovely evening last night despite a disgraceful performance from Purity Spa at the Park Lane Hilton. A few months ago, I spent £75 buying a special offer voucher, entitling me and a friend to a 30 minute massage and a manicure and pedicure. They told me to allow 1.5 hours for the experience. I took Em in May for her birthday, and found they'd lost our appointment, which was a bit of a shit present. They managed to squeeze us in for a massage that was as lengthy and relaxing as being brushed past in a corridor. Then they gave my friend a manicure. To apologise for the screw-up with the bookings, they gave me another voucher to do the whole thing again another time. We booked in for yesterday evening. This time, they at least remembered we were meant to be coming. Once again, the massage was pretty cursory, and the manicure and pedicure were not remotely as described - no soaking of feet, no moisturiser, just a shape and polish with performed with slightly less skill and certainly less affection than if I'd done it myself. The entire thing was finished within 55 minutes. On the upside, we were given two plastic glasses filled with cava. Which was a highlight.

Goodness me, what a boring, self-indulgent, middle class whinge. Apologies. Feeling a bit meh today, to be honest. There's something about spending the larger portion of one's birthday sitting in a corporate environment with harsh lighting, rain gobbing down outside and passive aggressive emails in the inbox that makes one feel a bit like taking a four day nap under one's desk. Not long til dinner.

600

A special day today for two reasons - this is my 600th LLFF, and secondly, today is my final day of being 32. So, a moment's silence to witness the occasional intestinal gurgle and reflect on the recent past. 32 has been a good age. A transitional age, in parts, but good all the same. No broken bones, a few briefly broken hearts and a bit of dented pride, but healthy, happy, older, a bit wiser and not much fatter. I feel good things about 33. Plus I'm excited about having a birthday, it feels like ages since my last one. Anyone needing my address for a generous gift should send me an email requesting such - you'll be staggered by the alacrity of my response. Or if you want to meet up in person to hand over my miniature pony, that will also be fine - I'm busy but I'll make time.

Still feeling the after-effects of Sunday night's unexpected drama - the butterflies are calming but the tight throat sensation is still hovering and I'm getting a bit fed up of being someone who always has something to complain about. Maybe this is what people do when they aren't looking for dates to go on. They get ill and then moan about it. Frankly, novel and unquestionably pleasant though it's been to have gone nearly three full weeks without being knocked back by an actual man, if the alternative is feeling like my windpipe has been exchanged with one from an organ-donating mosquito, I think I'd rather revert to type.

I say 'actual man' because my brain doesn't love me enough to spare me 100% of possible pain, so while my days have been rejection-free, my nights have been full to the brim with unpleasant dreams of thwarted romances and fictitious but nonetheless humiliating dumping incidents. Some have been unsubtle and heinous, others more veiled, where I'm abandoned in a variety of ways by friends or previously unheard of family members. I know we're all our own worst enemy but it is irritating to be quite such a walking cliche. No idea why I'm paying for therapy - a spaniel could analyse me. Head tilt. Woof.

Another day, another fad

For as long as I am in the black and largely free of any responsibility, I will continue to entertain myself by doing pretty much whatever I fancy. And last week I fancied buying some Yogatoes. There they are, in situ, on the left. They are like huge, clear jelly sweets that separate your toes, stretching the muscles, improving arch support and (hopefully) minimising the aforementioned bunion issue. You can see the pesky bunion on the knuckle of my left big toe. And one growing on the right too. Bah. Anyway. Maybe these things will help. You're meant to wear them for 10-15 minutes a day at first, and build up gradually to an hour. I put them on when I got into bed last night. My left little toe muscles felt a bit angry at first at the stretch but they soon settled down; the remainder of my feet found the experience seriously pleasant. I promptly fell asleep and woke up about an hour and half later, somewhat trampling on the recommended ten minutes of wearing time for a beginner. Oops. Walking this morning, I could definitely sense that something had happened. We'll see if it's positive: I'll keep you posted.

Yesterday I was so bored at work that I shuffled down off my kneeling posture stool so that I was sitting on the bit where I'm meant to kneel and leaning against the bit where I'm meant to sit. This meant I was very low down - my head was at about the same height as my desk. I started to read. Then I got a bit drowsy, so I rested my head on a stuffed toy. Then someone came into my office. Oops. I think I got away with it. Today I have bad period pains and am snuggling up with a hot water bottle. Am boiling but I don't see any alternative as I've already ODed on Nurofen. Last night the contractions woke me up at 3am and, fittingly, I'd beeen dreaming about giving birth. No sign of the baby but lots of supportive friends congratulating me for finally getting up the duff. My need for the outward symbols of acceptance is laughable: I want the ring but am not bothered about the husband, the congratulations but not the baby. Ah well. Nothing a few weeks of consistent Yogatoes use won't cure, I'm sure.

The naked truth

Last night at choir we were talking about hair maintenance and the effects of age. "Don't get me started," a fellow singer said, pointing firmly between her eyes, "my pubic hair starts here." I laughed a lot and then began a nineteen hour reflection on the many ways that growing older has changed my body and mind. When I was younger, I thought that people started getting noticeably old in their sixties and seventies. There were children (who were short), grown-ups (who were tall but basically the same), and old people (who had wrinkles and grey hair). The idea that I would start getting old while still in my thirties didn't cross my mind. Now that I'm here, of course, reality has hit like a netball in the face. And since revelations from others about their secret pubic monobrows make me feel better about myself, I thought I'd perform a public service and admit the dark secrets of my own moribund form.

I'll start at the top. My hair used to be lovely. Now it is drying at the ends, itches in the mornings, gets greasy when I moisturise my face and occasionally produces dandruff. This alone is enough to make me want to be sick. Then there's my face. It used to be smooth and even. Now it is spattered with large pores. I get regular spots - more every month than I had in a year as a teenager - and I have scars where I've squeezed them. There are tiny red veins visible all round my nose, which make me look like I have a permanent cold. There is hair on my upper lip. If I dye it, it appears blonde but thicker. If I wax it, I get a red rash and ingrowing hairs. If I have it threaded, I get spots. There are hairs on my neck, around the place where my Adam's apple would have been if I had been lucky enough to have been born a man. And there's a patch of skin stretching up my larynx to my chin where the pigment is strangely white. I think this is the onset of vitilligo, an incurable and ridiculously unattractive condition of the epidermis. Hooray.

Moving down, my bingo wings, which are here for life, now seem to be developing baby cellulite and, unless they are suntanned, are emetic, making the wearing of strappy sundresses ill-advised, a shame as my shoulders are basically the only part of my body that don't make me want to hurl myself into the contents of an open bottle bank. My fingernails - once strong and glossy - now peel and ridge. My back aches. My breasts, while still a fairly nice size, are covered in stretchmarks - white furrows that don't tan and thus become more obvious in summer, and when I bend over and look at them hanging down, the 'rocks in a sock' label becomes acutely recognisable. My stomach is no longer flat and the dark hairs known as a garden path on men have emerged, although I doubt they serve as such an enticing invitation to any visitor that should find himself in the vicinity. There is a weird white mark around my solar plexus where there was once a mole. My body surrounded it with a white 'halo' (official medical term) and then basically consumed the mole, so all that's left is a white, pigmentless blob. I think it's quite clever that my body got rid of something dangerous, but I wish it hadn't left a residual stain that looks like some bizarre fungal condition in the middle of my abdomen.

Lower still, and we're getting beneath the waist, into the truly nuclear zone. Beware the truth. As admitted recently, a good portion of my considerable buttocks is covered with red spots, as persistent as cockroaches and possibly less erotic. Thanks to my beloved course of laser hair removal, my bikini line is less horrendous than it might be, but unfortunately the laser was not able to remove several inches of fat and thus leave my legs in perfect order. My thighs are rippled with cellulite. I have always had it, inherited at a young age from my mother, but the older I get, the worse it becomes. It is deeply, deeply unattractive. If my legs were otherwise slim, brown or smooth, the cellulite might be able to be borne. Needless to say, my vast, white thighs resist all tanning attempts, and the hairs are dark. There are even several long ones that grow horizontally on the back of each leg in a patch around the size of an average paperback. These make me wonder whether I am actually human and not some sort of minotaur sent to confuse people.

Beneath the cellulite and the hairs are the onset of varicose veins, a blight that I have miraculously fought off thus far as my father was having operations on his when he was in his twenties. I have several patches of blue behind my knees, waiting to pop at the most inconvenient moment and ensuring that - if the girth, orange peel effect and wolverine hirsuitedness weren't enough - I will never wear hotpants.

Finally, my feet - once so long and slender, now covered in mysterious lumps and knobbles. There are several dark hairs on the neck of my big toes. I have bunions emerging, in particular on my left foot - a condition that I would consider justified had I spent my life in stilettos, worn while successfully wooing Russian oligarchs, but given my absurd shoe size, I have spent almost all my life in men's trainers and lesbian Birkenstocks and have wooed a succession of men that have been almost universally labelled Not Good Enough. My high heel use has only emerged in the past three years or so, during which time I have researched the incidence of bunions and discovered that they frequently occur even when people spend their entire life in orthopaedic flip-flops and barefoot. My mother's toes are ghastly, veering off in different directions like bizarre coral, so I think it's clear what's coming to me, in the pedal sense.

And thus we reach the end of my thorough physical examination, a study driven not by self-pity but by a selfless desire to alleviate the panics of others through the admission of my own flaws. It is a sign of my own unbelievable arrogance that I do not believe my physical appearance to be the reason for my single status - rather, I think that, when covered up, I am actually quite attractive. I know for certain that I will never pull while wearing a bikini, but it's safe to say that I've missed the boat for a starring role on Baywatch, and anything that keeps me out of the arms of Mitch Buchannan is fine with me. May the fictional god bless physical imperfections - I'd be unbearable if I was beautiful.

Sliding bores

Not quite so educational today but waaaaaaaay harder on the body. Still, my brain wasn't allowed to take a total back seat. Here is what I've learned:

• Cross country skiing. I mean. It is the most complete exercise form I've ever taken, other than swimming. Every. Single. Muscle. in your legs, your arms, your buttocks, your core, your back, your shoulders - all agony. But in a good way. Highly, highly recommended. We are going to go again.
• There are two types of cross country skiing - one where you go along in slim parallel furrows, which are carved out of the snow by a special piste machine. The other involves scooting along with your skis in a V-shape, far apart at the front and close together at the back. Each type of skiing has different skis, poles and boots. We did the former as it is easier. Your toe is attached to the ski by a binding, but your heel is free. You glide along like a beautiful ice dancer. Theoretically. In practice it is initially hard, and nothing like normal skiing. But we picked it up quickly.
• The Finns call cross country skiing 'skiing'. Downhill skiing is called 'downhill skiing'. So, if you're going skiing at the weekend, it's on the flat.

We set out, as a ten, at around 10.30am. Our ages varied from mid-twenties to mid-sixties. Within about ten yards, as I'd expected, I was pouring sweat like a jazz trumpeter during a seminal July set at Ronnie Scott's, pre-aircon. Fortunately, I know my body and was confident that, given time, I would acclimatise. After a few kilometers, I did. The older members of our party later admitted that they'd struggled, which seemed very reasonable to me. But although the activity was extremely energetic, there were no animals involved, which meant that it was inevitably slightly less incident-heavy than yesterday. I fell down on my knee at one point, and Grania headbutted the ground at another, but both those mishaps occurred in the first few moments and we were soon smoothly on our way.

After lunch back at the hotel, we took the minibus to the nearest big resort, Levi, pronounced like that which is dry in American Pie. Everyone else took the time to peruse the shops, but, ever-ambitious, Grania and I hired downhill skis, boots, poles, paid 2 euros extra for helmets, and set off for three hours on the pistes. The last time I skied was, I believe, in the late nineties, and things have changed somewhat. First, skis have shrunk about a foot, but gained about a stone. I don't know what they're made of these days, but I think it is probably uranium. (This is very heavy. I just looked it up on Wikipedia.) Boots are more comfortable than they were although I still have a panic that they won't do up around my calves. I also still fear T-bars after an incident which resulted in a cauliflower ear when I was approx. 11 and involved my parents laughing hysterically and insisting I pull my hair back off my face so they could photograph me like some sort of circus freak, ignoring the fact that IT REALLY HURT. But anyway. Basically, skiing is still the same: very fun, quite cold and slightly risky with a fair bit of adrenaline. It is way, way easier, cardiovascularly, than cross country skiing. We started out on the basic slopes but my map reading accidentally led us on to a black run and we both got down without incident. My only fall was, as usual, when I was standing completely still on a very flat surface. I recovered myself, turned my skis the right way and tried to get up. Panic set in as I realised I couldn't. I still don't quite understand what happened, but I think it is lack of upper body strength. I managed to lift my abdomen about a foot off the ground and then had to extend a pole and ask Grania to pull me through the offending middle section. Eventually I righted myself and we set off again. If she hadn't have been there I would have had to take my skis off, stand up and put them back on again. Unexpected result of ageing?

Skiing in Finland is great - the pistes are pretty much empty, the lifts have no queues and there is a good mix of runs. There isn't enough in Levi to keep you occupied for a week, but for a long weekend I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. That said, after 2.5 hours we were cold and tired, almost certainly the cumulative effect of our active morning and punchy afternoon, so we ditched our hired gear and jumped in a taxi for the short ride back to HQ and a sauna/freezing cold plunge pool/sauna extravaganza followed by dinner with the team where we were asked whether we'd ever seen Diana or Charles in a pub in London. Now we have a possible film or reading window and then sleep. Fractionally less hilarity today, and I've probably eaten as many calories as I've burned off (she says, stuffing the core of a Terry's Chocolate Orange in her mouth, one of many treats she brought for the dual enjoyment of herself and Grania this week, only to find out on arrival in Finland that Grania has given up chocolate for Lent), but it's been excellent. Hope all is well en Angleterre and with the rest of the Faithful, wherever you may be. Hey hey.

Lost Looking For Energy

Ohgodohgod, so much to cover, so little desire to write about any of it, but so little desire to go to the gym, such dirty hair that should be washed, in the shower, after the gym, but which clearly could continue hiding under my attractive metallic blue hairband for the rest of the day and evening, but then I'm going to a swanky restaurant for dinner and it would be nice to feel glossy of barnet and facially pretty. Gah.

So it was the Oscars last night and the Stupid Hurt Locker won over Much More Stupid Avatar, so that was good, even though it wasn't NEARLY the best film, nor the best directed film. I can't work out whether I should be pleased a woman won or outraged that it's even an issue. I think I'm the latter. More importantly, no one wore an exciting dress at all, and SANDRA BULLOCK won an Oscar for some cheesy, vom-inducing role as some soccer mom or something FFS. Anyway. I slept through the whole thing and, in retrospect, I think that was the right choice.

Before that, I watched five hours of American Idol over the course of the weekend, which was brrrrrrrrilliant. This stage is gripping, when the final 24 get whittled down to 12, all 24 performing in a small studio every week. Their performances are really, really inconsistent and the judges' feedback is a lot more constructive in these early stages. It is genuinely fascinating. For me.

What else, what else? I saw Olivia and adorable Isla on Friday, and my parents, and there was An Incident at home at 1am on Saturday morning which I'm not allowed to discuss but which still makes me laugh so much that I get tears in my eyes. Later on Saturday we went, en famille, to B&Q in Wandsworth. I know. Could I be any more cutting edge? I bought storage boxes. Then we went to a couple of furniture shops and I bought a black ceramic swan. Then I went back to my flat and put all my stuff into my new storage boxes and rearranged my kitchen cupboards. On a Saturday night. I am old. On Sunday I went to Beckton Park to meet Kate who was FIFTY SIX MINUTES LATE and I sat in the freezing cold sun and read Prospect and then we walked nine miles, through Woolwich, under the Thames foot-tunnel (v. exciting), through Charlton and Eltham and then jumped on (read: waited for ages and then trudged aboard) a rail replacement bus back to New Cross, then London Bridge, then home for Ricicles. Yum. Still no sign of the snake but I can hear him hissing sometimes. It's definitely male.

Needy much?

So there I was, enjoying a second consecutive pretty good Thursday night, when a girl sat down at our table. She had been at an adjacent one up to this point, being a bit raucous with some guys that she clearly hadn't known until that evening. We chatted to her for a minute or two, she was Australian and quite funny although possibly mental. Then later, when I was left on my own for a few minutes, she came back and started talking really fast.
"I know this seems weird, but I'm 35, right? And my two friends here are so lovely, but they're in their early twenties, and you might wonder why I'm not here with people my own age [not so much, no] but they're all MARRIED WITH BABIES, and I know it sounds desperate, but here's my card, and that's my mobile number, and if you ever want to, you know, hang out or whatever, I'm not a lesbian, I swear, I'm not gay, I'm not a psycho, I just want to be friends, you know?" I was a bit tipsy by this point, and I said,
"I hear you, and believe me, I've been there with the friends getting married and reproducing thing. But trust me, handing out your card to complete strangers in bars is not the way to forge lasting friendships. Can't you take up a hobby? Meet new people that way? Sing? Play the ukulele?"
"HA HA!" she said. "The ukulele!"
I glowered.
"Well, whatever floats your boat. Just... this [gesturing at the business card] isn't going to work."
She slunk off eventually and we didn't hear anything more from her 'til she started saying her earmuffs were the coolest thing ever to anyone who'd listen, and my competitive streak came out and I had to put mine on too, and she insisted that hers were cooler because they were stripy, which, if stripy earmuffs with matching mittens are your thing, then maybe she was on to something - but if you want an earmuff which will keep them toasty but not dominate an outfit too much, and you want to avoid looking like A PLAYSCHOOL PRESENTER, then I think a beige faux fur is the way to go. We both preferred our own. Nice when the world works out like that, isn't it.

I hope the young lady, Angelique I think she was called, is now sitting at work booking onto beginners' classes in two or three different disciplines, but I think she's probably feeling very hungover, refreshing her email every six seconds, and staring out at the miserable London greyness, wondering what people are getting up to 12,000 miles away.

Six degrees of inadequacy

Last night I went to the theatre to see Six Degrees of Separation. Worried that I always hate everything I see at The Old Vic, I had bought £10 restricted view bench seats in the gods, and was thrilled on arrival to hear the best words in the world, 'Madam, you've been upgraded', and was presented with two seats in the middle of the stalls, simultaneously a joy and a sure sign of a struggling production. The play's concept is well-known (especially to those of us who've already seen the film) but I can't really see the justification for putting on a new version. Despite the interesting premise, it's not saying anything new, the concepts are either cliched or dated, and the acting wasn't as good as it could have been. I actually missed Will Smith. That said, for £10 I'm not complaining. Well, I am, but not to the extent that I regret going. I'd only have done something else and then moaned about that. And going to see a bad play is still a fun night out for me, perverse though that may be.

I just phoned my parents. One of them picked up, fumbled with the receiver for, I'm not joking, about 25 seconds, like some sort of feeble geriatric, which would be OK if they were seriously old but they're not. In the background I could hear the lunchtime news talking about Afghanistan. "Morons?" I was barking into the receiver. They couldn't hear me. I hung up. Now their line is engaged. I think this is the shape of things to come. I phoned my mum's mobile to tell her, but obviously, being over 60, she only has a mobile for emergencies and it is thus COMPLETELY USELESS to anyone else. I got her voicemail but didn't leave a message as I know from past experience that she doesn't know how to pick them up. I've now emailed her. She may find the message in a few hours. Not that it's really that much of a disaster that I can't speak to my parents this second, but I am bored and want to complain about that to someone who will give me sympathy. Thinking about it, my mum is probably not the best person to try. Leave the phone off the hook, you cavemen. See if I care.

Electric dreams

Two typos and a misused 'which' yesterday but due to rushing I didn't spot them until long after my self-imposed thirty minute editing window had past. Tut tut. Am distracting myself with my consumer excitement of the day: I am going to go to John Lewis after work and buy a fleecy heated underblanket. My arctic bedroom conditions have beaten me - I went to bed last night wearing velour bottoms, a T-shirt, a velour long sleeved nightie, a snood and slippers and was still so cold that I had to heat up my microwave beanbag and arrange it over my face so that it heated up my nose while still allowing me to breathe. Basically, I need another radiator in my bedroom, but a fleece underblanket is a) cheaper and b) easier so we will all have to ignore the fact that c) it makes me feel like I should also be applying for a freedom pass.

Not much to report from this end. New eyeliner is lovely. I am waiting to see what the Apple Tablet looks like. The Guardian's editor says that Murdoch is wrong to charge for online news access, but I can't see how it's sustainable to give all this journalism away for free when so many individuals are prepared to do it on a smaller, more niche basis without getting paid or by generating advertising revenue on their sites. Of course, the big papers generate online ad revenue too - huge amounts - but it's simply not enough to cover their overheads: apparently the Graun is losing £100k a day. Hmmm. The next few years are going to be very interesting.

I feel so lucky to have been born with one foot in The Past and one in The Future. I got my first mobile phone and email address when I was 18, but I still clearly remember life without them, when home computers were rare, TV only had four channels, and I spent most termtime nights queuing with ten other girls, waiting to use the landline at our boarding school, trying to get through to the house of some uninterested boy who was out playing sport or doing something really cool and would never get the breezy messages we left. Now Skype videocalls are normal, I can watch live TV on my phone and I frequently leave the house without a clue where I'm going, but by the time I've reached the tube station I've copied and pasted the postcode from an email into the maps app, found my destination, worked out which stop I'm headed for, and then found out which part of the platform to get on the train in order to be nearest the exit stairs on my arrival. I can't imagine how the future of technology could be much cooler than it is already but I'm sure it will surprise us all. Hold on tight.

Penultimatum

I couldn't feel less like writing tonight but I am aware that if I don't, then tomorrow I will have to write my last LLFF of the Noughties and it will all be a bit of a hideous rush, so I thought maybe if I am grown up now then I will feel the benefit tomorrow. There is certainly a fair amount to write about today, or not very much at all, depending on how you look at it. I am choosing to take the median option. We couldn't possibly get out of bed on time this morning and ended up missing breakfast, which was a disappointment as we were both looking forward to a traditional selection of cholesterol-boosting foodstuffs, and instead were reduced to drinking free tea in the hotel lobby while using the wifi to book the JAZZBOAT and eating the last of my mother's banana bread and my final mince pie, which I'd wrapped in tinfoil and carried here in my suitcase, because I am clearly an octogenarian hiding in the body of a 32 year old. And then we went to book tickets for the ballet tomorrow; we had been told that it was the story of the girl with the flaxen hair, and we thought it must be Rapunzel, which was fine, and then when the woman came to the ticket window to help us, she had just taken a gargantuan bite of cake, and we said we wanted to see the ballet tomorrow, and she said 'Goh-GOH-goh' or something, with bits of pastry flying everywhere, and Nick started nodding and I thought we were buying tickets for a ballet called Godzilla and then I realised she had said Goldilocks. Quite how a story about three bears going on a daytrip and leaving their breakfast on the table, and a girl coming and eating it, and them coming back and complaining, is going to take up a 2 hour ballet, I have no idea, but I'll keep you updated.

Then we crossed over the river and I very nearly spent approx. £150 on a bottle green fox fur muff but then didn't, and we took a funicular up a hill and then went into a mirror maze which was very kitsch and good but not QUITE as funny as everyone else in there thought it was, largely because the mirrors had steamed up due to the cold and there were snowy footprints on the wooden floor so you would have had to have been one mascara short of a make-up bag not to work out which was the correct path almost immediately. Then we walked down a hill, past a macabre human statue of a jester, to a monastery, which didn't make a massive impression on me, and from there we went to the Loretta, which I was keen on because it was so absurd - basically, there is this place in Italy where there is a little house and rumour has it that it is the exact house where the Angel Gabriel first appeared to Mary to tell her she was up the duff with God's baby - obviously this house wasn't in Italy to start with, but the Italians claim that angels flew it there. Anyway, the Bohemians love this idea, and built a replica of this Loretta house in Prague - it's one of forty such replicas in the Czech Republic. And basically it's just a really nice, small, red brick barn, about the size of an average room in a Hotel du Vin. But without the eight foot bed, obv. And around the barn they've built this massively ornate ivory-coloured casing, covered in reliefs of saints, so from the outside it looks like a gigantic Arc of the Covenant, and inside it looks like an intimate gastropub waiting to happen.

So from thence to the castle complex, and neither of us do art, so we missed out the galleries and went to the gorgeous, gorgeous St. Vitus or Vilnius o.n.o.'s Cathedral, which had the most breathtaking stained glass and a lot of people. And then to Golden Lane, where there are all these tiny houses that have now been turned into extortionate tourist shops, mostly containing puppets. And then to a concert in a lovely church, where a small chamber orchestra including a very flat second violinist played some Grieg and some Mozart and some Sibelius and some Tchiakovsky, while we sat there turning slowly to stone. It was far, far colder in there than it had been outside. Then we down a lot of steps and then to a pub for a warming beverage and some overpriced pistachios, and then over the deliciously spooky and atmospheric Charles Bridge, where my lifelong scaffolding blight continued, and then for further wanderings round the Old Town Square, Wenceslas Square (where we found a Debenhams and a Tesco) and to dinner at a lovely secret restaurant that no-one knows about except us and the people who were there tonight.

And tomorrow we have a lot more to do, and the same on Friday, and I simply cannot believe that this year is at an end. I feel as though it has flown by, but when I think back to waking up on 1st January, it does seem like an awfully long time ago. I don't think I was truly happy in my life until 2009, if I'm honest. It's been a long and magical journey up to this point, but tough too, and I finally feel as though I am Good Enough. I used to have a permanent feeling that things could be better, and at some undefined point in the past twelve months, something shifted, and now I pretty much continually feel aware of how much worse things could be. The glass is exactly the same, but where it was once half empty, it's now half full, and I couldn't be happier about it. Half full glass FTW. I have wonderful parents and some truly entertaining friends, but ultimately I'm me, on my own, and I'm grateful and content. 2009: I salute you for your part in my story. It's been a joy and I can't wait to see what's next. Butterflies in my tummy, ants in my pants and Czechoslovakian chicken fricassee in my small intestine.

My Noughties (recalled semi-drunkenly, late at night, after a long day's sightseeing, with no access to any memory-jogging apparatus save an iTunes library and a digital photo library begun in 2005 and some computerised diaries from 2001-04 that talk about nothing, and I mean absolutely NOTHING, except boys): Went out with Henry, lived in Shepherd's Bush, went to Cuba, did a car boot sale on a site which is now the Westfield centre, went to LA, interviewed Justin Timberlake, interviewed Britney, went to Bruges for an emergency summit with Henry, went to Frankfurt for the MTV Awards, broke up with Henry, moved back home, wrote off my Fiesta, got made redundant, was obsessed with several unsuitable boys, drove through Spain with Bee, met Luke, loved The Rolling Stones, started going out with Luke, went to Paris for Easter, joined the choir, went to Marseilles and Cassis in the summer, loved Elvis, was bridesmaid at Lucy and Jake's wedding, went to Tanzania and Zanzibar, loved early Elton John, went to visit my family in the States with my mum, broke up with Luke, was single for a year, had a Vespa, wrote a cafe book, started my MA, met Simon, tutored my favourite ever student called Lola, got my best-ever score in Scrabble ('quixotic' on a triple word square), loved Rufus Wainwright and Gorillaz, learned about Marxism and post-colonialism and feminism, wrote my dissertation in the British Library, graduated from my MA, loved The Clientele, went to India for two months, loved Nick Drake, started LLFF, started working at a bank, walked the Thames Path, loved M. Ward, went to Croatia and Montenegro, went to New York, broke up with Simon, loved Amy Winehouse, Sondre Lerche, Martha Wainwright, Tom Malmquist and Fionn Regan, bought my flat, went to Amsterdam, met Paul, loved Tosca and Monteverdi, moved out of my parents' house, loved Elbow, went to Vegas and Seattle, went to Latvia with choir, broke up with Paul, went to Paris with my parents, loved Bon Iver, fell for the gardener, did a politics course, went to Egypt, went to Glastonbury, fell for the Glastocrush, went to France with choir, recovered from Glastocrush, became comprehensively selfish, had several months of independent bliss, took up the ukulele, and here we are, in Prague on a minibreak, with crow's feet aplenty and a smile as wide as a mile. Happy New Year.

Overconnected?

Ways I Know I'm Old, Part 32: The way that my carpet slightly lifted up from my underlay due to the supreme suction created by my hoover once I'd put in a new bag made me go, "Ooooh!"

Last night, I got home, put on a pair of very fitted, grey Nike tracksuit bottoms that belonged to my mum in the eighties, and an oversized grey sweatshirt featuring a large picture of Mickey Mouse. I put my hair in a topknot, slid into my FitFlops, and cleaned my flat. I emptied the bins, I did the washing up, I did three loads of washing, I watered and pruned my plants, I plumped my sofa cushions, changed my sheets and vacuumed my floors. I also kind of tidied my V+ box, watching lots of month-old TV programmes, mostly on fast forward, while I scurried about. I ate my guilty home alone meal of microwave wholegrain rice, fried onion, tuna and mayo, drank two glasses of white wine, had a mini Magnum and received a couple of fun emails. Then I went to bed and nearly finished Prospect magazine. All in all, it was a brilliant night, accompanied by a Genius mix which started with my choice of Work by Kelly Rowland, and went via Play by JLo, Tears Dry On Their Own by Amy Winehouse, Superstar by Jamelia, My Love Is Like Wo! by Mya and Chain Reaction by Diana Ross. Pig in shit. Genius really is genius.

I do worry a bit about my obsessive love of technology though. The internet and its associated facilities affect the way I find out about news, the way I communicate with my friends and family, the way I cope with boredom at work, the way I find out about what fun stuff is going on in my city (and thus it directly impacts what I do in my spare time), it's the way I find out about new films and new dates and new music... I was standing in the shower yesterday, thinking that if someone threatened me with never being able to go online again, I would swap almost anything. Including possibly a limb. Any amputees out there will probably spit with rage at that, but I don't mean it flippantly. I am aware, though, that my perspectives might be slightly skewed, so (in an instance of fighting fire with fire) I downloaded an app to my iPhone called 'Disconnect', a hypnotherapy programme that is meant to make you less reliant on technology. I listened to it last night and although it didn't seem to be remotely profound at the time, I haven't checked Twitter today. Or Texts From Last Night. Hmmm. Maybe after a couple more listens I'll give up LLFF. Be a shame though. You'll be the first to know.

Cherries and June [needs work]

This advertising campaign for Calendar Girls has been upsetting me. June Brown, aka Dot Cotton, covered in cherry bakewells, aged 82, is not an image that would get me rushing to buy tickets for a West End show. And much as a despise the ageism prevalent in our media, well... it's just a lot, isn't it? I think what I find particularly disturbing is the level surface that appears to be her chest, which made me first wonder if it was just her head stuck on a mannequin's body and then made me consider the possibility that she'd had a double mastectomy, which would certainly be a brave concept for an octogenarian photo shoot, but possibly not quite suitable for cheery family fun at the theatre... In my news, the spot went down but not quite enough. And the date was fun but not quite enough. This afternoon, I have goosebumps and I'm very tired. And that, I believe, is all.

Ew

I can't believe it's taken me so long to write this down.

Yesterday, I was walking along Whitehall towards the ICA where I was going to meet Emily and see Shooting Robert King (recommended) and then Sara was going to meet us in the foyer and we were going to go to the bar for a drink and then Emily was going to go home and Sara and I were going to have dinner. I was a bit like a baton in a relay race, but curvier and fractionally less easy to pass from hand to hand while running at speed.

Anyway, so back on Whitehall, I was walking along in my Fit Flops, and looking at the pedestrian in front of me. She was wearing bright blue cropped trousers, trainers, and her hair looked a bit frazzled. I guessed she was a slightly muttony 55. Then I looked down at her bag, and started trying to work out what she was carrying. It was a plastic bag, within which was what looked like a plastic paint bucket that, for some reason, I felt was filled with vinegar and cockles and mussels. I don't know. That's just what sprung to mind. I didn't have much time to dwell on it, however, because after a couple of seconds, she did a sudden, unexpected lurch to one side, and then carried on walking. Then I heard the sound of some liquid hit the pavement. I looked at the bucket of cockles and mussels, thinking the liquid was coming from there. But no. It was between her feet. And suddenly, as we walked along, she started the most extraordinarily vigorous wee. To be honest, wee isn't the word for it, such was its fury and volume. It was a piss. And some of it WENT ON MY FOOT. Freaking Fit Flops. If only I'd been wearing trainers, none of this would have happened. Well, she still would have wet herself. But I wouldn't have had to walk around the rest of the evening, in the ICA of all places, knowing there was someone else's urine on my foot.

I tried to be nice about it in my head, and realise that some people are incontinent, but seriously, this wasn't incontinence of the type for which I am mentally prepared to be a fact of life following childbirth or general old age. This was incontinence that would not be contained by incontinence pants. Gasp! Maybe that was what was in her bucket! Earlier wees! And it was full, and she didn't have time to stop, so she just thought, "What the hay, I'll keep on going, no one'll notice." That was the weird thing - she just kept on walking during the pee. I've never tried to walk and pee, at least not since I was wearing nappies and expected to multi-task in this fashion, but I don't think I'd find it too easy. She made it look like a wee-walk in the park.

Then the other day there was this old witchy woman on the tube with loads of bags who sat down all flustered and got a yoghurt out and started eating it with her index finger, scooping it out and licking it off with loud smacky noises. I was nearly sick. God I'm glad I'm not mad. Yet.

Woop

It's my birthday. I am at work. I received four birthday cards in the post this morning. I received a further card when I got to work, as well as an individually packaged slice of M&S Victoria sponge, which I ate for breakfast. As I type, I have received ten birthday messages on my Facebook wall. I have had four birthday texts and one birthday voicemail. Tomorrow my boss is taking me out for a birthday lunch. It is not clear why he couldn't do that today, on my actual birthday, but I'm not complaining. Tonight I will be cooked a delicious meal by my parents. On Friday I will celebrate with a select group of friends who aren't on holiday. And thrillingly, I have one birthday bunch of flowers on their way, which is brilliant because I can carry them home on the tube and everyone will see that I am loved. Not that I care about that kind of thing, for I am self-sufficient and a natural introvert, but I just thought you might like to be kept in the loop. Birthday love to all from The Birthday Girl.

And the beat goes on...

Yesterday, shortly before 11am, I wrote the following paragraph:

I just read the headline in the Guardian, which reads "Cabinet ministers press Gordon Brown for radical shake-up of politics: Elected upper house and caps on party donations on modernisers' agenda". And, with the whining voice of a six year old complaining about having to go to bed early, I said to myself, out loud, sitting at my desk, on my own, in my glass box office, "But I don't want an elected upper house."

I was going to edit it, by the way. It is unfinished. Regardless, I was going to follow it by a written down (and obviously hilarious) version of my internal dialogue concerning the House of Lords. But then Laura came into my office and we were chatting about Weight Watchers, and then at about 11:20, Eva phoned and told me she had a spare ticket to the Ivor Novello awards in the Grosvenor Park Hotel, and that I was welcome to the ticket if I could be on Park Lane in forty minutes. My lovely boss gave me the afternoon off, I hot-footed it to Bank and across town on the Central line, did my make-up en route (apologies Mum and all others who hate public make-up application: I am of your number but sometimes needs must), found applying my newish Laura Mercier eyeliner with fine brush onto inner upper eyelid somewhere around Chancery Lane fairly complicated, and was obviously livid to be wearing relatively subdued work clothes to an event where there would be dressed up people, but excited all the same. And then there we were, heading into the Grand Ballroom, just as we did the last time I went to the Ivors, when I was approx. sixteen and the highlight of my day was when Tony Mortimer asked me for a light. Now no one is allowed to smoke inside and Tony Mortimer is probably in his forties with seven kids by nine different women.

But that's not the only thing that's changed. To my utter relief, I'd heard of almost everyone who was nominated for an award, including Elbow (yay!), The Ting Tings (yay!) and Duffy (yawn). But what shocked me was that after the event, given the opportunity of returning back to Eva's house to watch Aladdin with her two toddling kids or staying out with the others to drink more booze and hang out with famous people, I unhesitatingly chose the former. Something dramatic has shifted within me and I'm afraid that, once again, the answer is clear. I am old.

Shortly after Jafar's henchmen had sent Aladdin to the bottom of the sea with a ball and chain around his leg, I reluctantly stood up and took the tube back to Russell Square for week four of the politics course, where we discussed the law, and when, if ever, it is appropriate to act outside it. Having consumed disappointingly large quantities of delicious food and wine at lunch, I was unable to resist the platters of charcuterie, bread, olives and chocolate biscuits that were laid out for our mid-evening break, and when Laura and I totted up my Weight Watchers points this morning, a rough estimate puts my score at an impressive 54, approximately 2.5 times my actual daily allowance. Hmmm. Not doing so well. Trying to think of the beach and the bikini horror but it appears to be particularly difficult when I am having fun. If only I could have a more miserable life, I would clearly be much thinner. Sigh. It's so unfair.

And after all that, I am still not sure about an elected upper house, even though it is clearly undemocratic. I need to work on that. And I'm still working on my theory of immigration. So much to do, so much to do. A bientot.

End of the pretence

I may have fooled you, and from time to time, I may even have fooled myself. But sadly, the truth has come up with a pot of hot wax, poured it over my head and ripped it off without any regard for my desire to remain hairy of scalp. I have, I'm afraid, received yet more conclusive evidence that I am Officially Old. A few weeks ago, someone I respect told me quite firmly that I should read The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. Eager to please, I purchased a minty-green Penguin classic copy and began to plough through the pages. I found it exceptionally well-written and easy to read, melancholy and atmospheric and, overall, it is fair to say that I was thoroughly enjoying the experience (as much as is possible with such a profoundly depressing story). Around half way into the novel, I had a very feint sense that I may have seen a film of the book. A particular scene seemed slightly familiar, but I was certain that the pages either side were virgin territory, so I moved on quickly and thought no more of it.

Until a couple of days ago, that is, when I was lying on my sofa, feeling sorry for myself and staring absent-mindedly at the opposite wall, and my eyes alighted upon a particular book on my shelf. Immediately, I flushed with shame as I knew precisely what it was: my original Vintage Classic copy of The End of the Affair. Gingerly, I stood up, crossed the room and easily opened the slightly dog-eared cover. Tragically, there was no denying that it had been read, and by me - looking at some of the sentences and phrases I'd underlined, I was clearly in my Obsessed With Jonathan Coe's What A Carve Up! phase, which was around the time I was finishing at university. Yes, less than a decade ago, I'd read the book. Properly, from cover to cover. I'd made notes. I'd appreciated it. And then I had, almost entirely, forgotten it.

What was particularly curious for me was that there were two passages that I had highlighted as being particularly resonant in both copies. So from the late nineties to the late noughties, between my early twenties and my early thirties, the things that strike me as cool haven't changed much. I don't know if that's reassuring or depressing.

Either way, I have achieved a new milestone: I have read and digested an entire book without realising I had read it before. I am old. My memory sucks. But hey, on the upside, I don't need to buy any more reading matter - I can just start again on the stuff I've already got. It's greener and it'll save me money. Every penny counts and all that. Sigh.

Crows' feet? Not a glimmer...

Ooh, I forgot to say. The other day when I was tutoring, my adorable, mop-headed, 11-year-old student was complaining about his sister, who we could hear having a bit of a screaming match with their mother in the next door room.
"She's fifteen," he said, with that oh-so-wise voice that only children can do, "and you know what teenagers are like." He rolled his eyes as I nodded sagely. But then he looked perturbed and said, "Sorry - I hope you're not a teenager? I didn't mean to offend you if so."

A teenager! I could have kissed him if it wouldn't have been deeply wrong on several levels, not to mention massively illegal. The last time I was a teenager, he was minus two years old. That makes me feel queasy. Or maybe it's the full fat Coke I'm drinking in a desperate attempt to combat my hangover before another round of drinks tonight...

Happy holidays

This weekend has passed by in a bit of a blur, and I am inordinately glad that I do not have to return to work this side of 2008. I have managed to eat and drink a fair amount in the past few days and I now feel confident that my stomach will be fully limbered up by Tuesday, allowing for maximum gluttony while it is considered socially legitimate to eat until one is unable to do much except massage one's own intestine in the hope of facilitating digestion. Personally, I find that sitting at a slight left or right incline can inexplicably expedite this process, though I am sure that medical professionals would scoff at such pseudo-quackery.

Today was both enjoyable and efficient, one of the best day combinations currently on offer. I met up with Katherine in Hammersmith where we performed possibly the most adroit last minute Christmas shopping ever attempted, making it through Primark, Habitat, M&S and WH Smith's in just under two hours, followed by a delicious lunch and our reward of Pinot Grigio. My only minor hiccup had occurred in Smith's. I had selected my desired item in under a minute and then sped-walked to the queue, only to find it snaking through the magazine racks into the middle distance somewhere north of Lancaster. The till-workers seemed insufficient in number and, with the awaiting Katherine adding to my impatience, I made the decision to search out an alternative queue. I found the DVD tills at the same time as three other customers and although I made it clear I wanted us to unite in a 'first come, first served' fashion, a lady in a red coat decided to plump for the 'two tills, two queues' method - one which I detest. I detested it even more when the man in front of me revealed his haul with what I believe was a touch of vindictive glee - he was purchasing at least 37 DVDs, each of which required the well-meaning staff member to burrow into the filing cabinet behind him, find the correct disk and place it in the case before scanning it. I am not normally a queue-mover, on the whole preferring to stick these things out, but immediately I knew there was no competition and I reluctantly took my place behind the redcoat who was oozing sympathy like pus. She then realised that she had forgotten High School Musical 2 and rushed off to find it, bleating apologies with all the sincerity of a hairdresser with ADHD. Sadly the till-man wouldn't serve me in the interim so I sat there thinking about The Power of Now and hoping that steam wasn't actually coming out of my nostrils. Props go to Katherine for only phoning me once to ask politely how I was doing. I could easily have learned Cantonese while she'd been waiting for me, so her calm demeanour was impressive.

This evening I have been feeling very festive in new Primark lounge trousers (£4) and sheepskin slippers. Having derided our requests to play games, my father was unable to resist the clatter of the Boggle cubes and the three of us spent an animated 45 minutes playing a new version of the game, with added old age. This involved my mother reading out the list of words she'd found, around half of which were actually on the board. Of those that were valid, she would generally have written about three of them down more than once. When she realised her score was low, she would then pretend to be searching her piece of paper for more words, while frantically scanning the letters on the board to find last minute options. Dad, meanwhile, attempted to pass 'moppet' and 'doper' off as genuine words. And I won. Tomorrow I will wrap presents, go for a walk and peel many root vegetables. La vita é bella.