25 random things

Sarah sent a message through Facebook asking people to list 25 random things about themselves. What 25 random things would you list?

Here are mine:

1. I was once hit on the head with a joint of roast beef

2. I don't like ice in my drinks

3. My mum bought me a rocking horse for my 10th birthday

4. I've still got it

5. I make words out of the letters on car number plates

6. I would like to marry Charlie Brooker

7. The first band I ever saw play live was Depeche Mode

8. I think that Marlboro reds are the only cigarettes worth smoking

9. I used to be a lifeguard on the beach at Sheerness

10. I like maths

11. I love German Shepherd dogs

12. I really don't like West Highland Terriers

13. If I had joined the services, I'd have been in the Royal Navy

14. I would like to re-visit Yellowstone Park in Wyoming one day

15. I wrote "I love Stephen" on the woodchip wallpaper in my bedroom when I was 7 years old

16. My dad used to make us do fire drills by climbing out of the bedroom window using the ladder from my bunk bed

17. We lived in a bungalow at the time

18. Cornwall is my favourite place

19. I am very proud of my daughter Rhona

20. I did a 360 degree flip in my car once

21. I have no tonsils

22. I taught myself to be able to flap my nostrils at will (and can still do it)

23. I am very bad at telling jokes

24. 3 is my favourite number

25. I wish I could time travel

Changing tastes

Every six months or so, just as the last notes of the dawn chorus were fading, mum would pack my little sister and I into the car for the bi-annual Shopping Trip. Essential supplies were needed - after all, Maidstone was at least 17 miles away from home so it was better to be safe than sorry. Crisps? Check. Extra coats? Check. Warm overly strong overly orange orange squash in a plastic bottle? Check. Oven off? Door locked? Check Check Check and Check again.

Eventually we'd get under way and pitch up half an hour later in the multi-storey car park. We were always the first there. My sister and I spent the hour or so until the shops opened fidgeting in the car munching crisps and watching the windows steam up. Mum would always be desperate for the loo and would head off like a starting pistol straight into the ladies at British Home Stores as the town centre clock chimed nine. Then the Shopping Trip proper would begin, the three of us traipsing from shop to shop attempting to put on shoes that were too narrow, me looking with longing fascination at fashionable 'lady' clothes and fancy underwear whilst trying on polyester dresses in green and brown that scratched about the neck.

Sometime after we'd picked up the requisite number of multi-packs of white waist high pants, we'd head back into BHS and straight for the cafe. Mum always had a mug of milky coffee with cod in batter, chips and bright green bullet peas. My little sister usually chose something involving ham and crisps. After our lunch (although we'd have called it dinner then), we'd move on to help mum look for clothes, usually in Evans, usually involving checked pastels, usually including elasticated waist bands. Then we'd browse a bit in the delightfully fragrant world of the posh department store Army and Navy, where we'd spray each other with perfume and try out lipsticks on the backs of our hands. Then the long trudge back to the car, grasping plastic bags and light-headed from the bombardment of scents, and start the journey home accompanied by the smell of slightly stale crisps. Once back, we'd open our plastic bags and show each other our purchases with great delight, holding each item up in turn to be admired, trying our new clothes and shoes on and twirling round as the cat looked on with round green eyes whilst singeing her fur on the gas fire. Full of tiredness after the thrilling day, we'd gradually creep off to bed early and fall asleep dreaming of the beautiful new things we'd bought. Our Shopping Trips really were the most wonderful days.

One day, when I was about twelve or thirteen, a bold move like no other came to pass. Instead of the usual milky coffees and such at the BHS cafe, mum suggested we went to the exotic new American restaurant she'd heard that had just opened in the High Street. My sister and I bubbled with excitement - how grown up that sounded! We could hardly contain ourselves as we approached. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And suddenly, there we were outside the doorstep of the closest thing to heaven we had ever seen. In giant yellow illuminated letters, the restaurant announced its presence loud and proud: McDonald's.

It was as if it had been beamed from another planet entirely. Instead of the pastel blue and plastic pine upholstery of the BHS cafe, the tables were red and green, the chairs armless and fixed to the floor. There were posters on the walls and toilets that you didn't need a lift to get to. The three of us shuffled up to the counter to look at the menu and then carried our heaped tray, full of polystyrene containers, awe-struck over to one of the red tables by the window. We sat down.

"Wait a minute", said mum, "they haven't given us our knives and forks. And there's no plates. I'll go and ask." And so she did, leaving my sister and I at the table to peep inside the boxes.

A few minutes later, mum came back with a face like thunder. "I can't believe it. They said there are no knives and forks, and no plates either! What are we supposed to do?"

We managed best we could, eating our food straight from the boxes with our fingers, silently trying to consider whether we liked the hamburgers, the gherkins and the miniature pieces of diced onion or not. When we'd finished, we stood up and walked back out into the High Street. "I don't think I like that place very much", said mum, "no knives and forks! I ask you."

***

I had a McDonald's for my lunch today. Nearly thirty years on, it is of course an every day sight in towns and motorway service stations and shopping centres throughout the country. Mum likes it now, especially the chicken nuggets which she always dips into a pot of garlic and herb sauce. Even my grown up little sister's three year old daughter recognises it, calling it by the delightful nursery-rhyme name of Old McDonald's.

As I tucked into my Big Tasty Burger, it might not have felt quite so exotic as it did on that very first visit all those years ago but it will always remind me of some very precious times with my mum and my little sister and our wonderful Shopping Trips.

Of frogs and men

Aside from spam offering me cures for, um, shall we say gender-related health issues that I could not possibly have, one of the items that I can be sure my inbox will contain on a regular basis is those round robin e-mails. You know the ones: spinning sparkling guardian angels, flowery friendship poems, inexplicable photographs of cats, dire ‘police’ warnings, nicely-worded chain letters warning me everyone I’ve ever met will die if I don’t immediately forward to 100 of my closest friends, and such. Sometimes they’re funny; sometimes they’re plain daft. But just occasionally, they make me laugh out loud.

Last night, I received one such from my friend Mary-Ann:

A guy is 72 years old and loves to fish. He was sitting in his boat the
other day when he heard a voice say “Pick me up”
He looked around and couldn't see any one. He thought he was dreaming
when he heard the voice say again. “Pick me up”
He looked in the water and there, floating on the top, was a frog. The
man said, “Are you talking to me?”
The frog said, “Yes, I'm talking to you. Pick me up, then kiss me and
I'll turn into the most beautiful woman you have ever seen. I'll make sure that
all your friends are envious and jealous because I will be your
bride.”
The man looked at the frog for a short time, reached over, picked it up
carefully, and placed it in his front breast pocket.
Then the frog said, 'What, are you nuts? Didn't you hear what I said? I
said kiss me and I will be your beautiful bride.'
He opened his pocket, looked at the frog and said, 'Nah, at my age I'd
rather have a talking frog.'

Ok, I have to confess here and now that I’m not 72 or male, nor do I enjoy fishing for that matter, but this one really struck a chord. After being single for 18 months, I’ve recently come to the decision that, right now, a relationship is really not what I’m looking for.

Now don’t get me wrong; I haven’t slipped into the mindset of thinking that all men are cads and bounders, nor have I closed my mind to the thought of being in a relationship with someone in the future. No, far from it – I’d like that very much indeed, one day. It’s just that, at this moment, I have realised that a relationship with someone is not what I want.

There have certainly been clues along the way that could have led me to this conclusion sooner. I have, for instance, been on quite a number of dates over the past six months or so. Without exception, the guys I’ve spent the evenings with have been charming and pleasant company (including, rather surreally, the one who brought with him a handgun concealed in a shoulder holster. On a first date. In a pub) and have asked to see me again. Equally without exception, I have known from the word go that each was not for me. The men were all quite different from each other in appearance, jobs, lifestyle, interests and such; no, the one thread in common was me. And that was quite fine.

I guess maybe I’m just a bit slow on the uptake.

Having finally come to the realisation that, for whatever reason, I really don't want to be involved with someone right now, I am actually rather relieved and strangely very happy about it. Sure, if I happen to bump into Mr Wonderful quite by chance, then that’s great and fantastic and so be it. I’m certainly not closing my mind to the possibility. But for now I ain’t looking.

And so if I do stumble upon a nice talking frog - for now at least - I’ll just pop him right into my handbag.

Conversationally incompetent

Nothing fills my heart with more dread or makes me feel more like a bona fide gibbering dolt. Honestly, I’ve given it a lot of thought and it really is my number one social anxiety. It climbs head and shoulders above such trivial concerns as having spinach in the teeth, garlic breath, broken knicker elastic or unzipped flies – all at the same time. Even calling one’s closest friends or nearest and dearest by the wrong names fades into insignificance in comparison. What is this gargantuan bogey, this Leviathan of gaffes, this mighty smiter of the ego?

Small talk.

Behind this little name lurks a big problem. Because, you see, it strikes me that small talk and its constituent parts - inconsequential waffle, gossip, anecdote, shaggy dog story, ad lib, et al – is actually precisely the fuel that fires the machine that turns the cogs that spins the wheel of life. Social life, anyway. And we are social creatures, so what other kind of life counts for much, really?

Maddeningly, those who are blessed with the gift of small talk are entirely oblivious to the fact, are simply not aware of the precious gem that has been bestowed upon them. Just watch them in action; they can talk to anyone, of any age, about anything or nothing for hours on end. Do their palms sweat? No. Do they frantically grasp around in their heads trying to remember something they think they read in a newspaper over someone’s shoulder on the bus? Never. Are they ever struck dumb, blushing and fumbling for words before blurting out something entirely inappropriate? Not this side of the tomb.

My sister has this gift in shovelfuls. My good friends Liz and David have it. My ex does too, come to think of it. And many other people that I know have it as well, even if to a slightly lesser degree than these masters of the trait. Of course, they are completely unaware of it and naturally so; you only appreciate this particular talent when you don’t have it yourself.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not entirely socially inept or a cave dwelling hermit (for the most part). But this skill is one I recognise in others precisely because of its complete absence in myself. Which doesn’t mean to say that I spend all my days in silence of course; give me a theme or a topic or a question-and-answer format (or a group of people that I know) and I can converse quite competently. No, what fills my heart with dread is, for example, that few moments before a meeting starts, say, and I find only me and one other present. Or arriving early to a party and willing away that first half hour before the rooms fills up or people I know arrive (or the wine kicks in – whichever comes first).

Strangely, I have no problem whatsoever in making small talk in writing. Perhaps I should round up a group of similarly small-talk-less socially-challenged folk and form some sort of pressure group to insist that one day a week is reserved only for communication using a written format. Heck, it needn’t be high tech – drawings would count, handwriting would be fine, or flashcards, and big felt tip pens on flip chart paper.

The venture would, of course, be ultimately doomed to failure. After all, it would involve a group of we social inepts actually becoming, well, a group. Which means conversation. Which means small talk. Which means, well, it would never happen.

Or maybe I could just write a little note to one of my small-talk-gifted friends and ask them to do it for me. That’d do the trick.

Wooden pants... and a tale of two dinners

It was a brainwave for David and Stephen to come up with the idea of a 'secret Santa' - also, come to think of it, a gold-star-worthy leap of lateral thinking to come up with concept of alternative Christmas. So combining the two in one delightful evening of food, drink and presents was always going to be a medal-winning performance.

And so the four of us - Liz, David, Stephen and me - gathered once again at their house to raise a toast and fill our boots at our alternative Christmas dinner. One month on from the C event proper meant that enough time and tide had passed under the bridge of any hastily-made virtuous new year resolutions to allow us a guilt-free evening of indulgence.

One of the 'rules' of the evening is that we each contribute one course to the meal. So we enjoyed a starter of chicken breast stuffed with Stilton and bacon; a main of delightful roast beef (with all the trimmings, naturally); and finished off with a choice of chocolate torte or blueberry cheesecake (or both) for pudding - accompanied by crackers and party hats and all washed down with champagne and lashings of thick double cream.

Stephen was my allocated person for secret Santa - anonymous gift to be to a value of a maximum of £5. So of course I made him a pair of wooden pants out of a piece of fire wood. I'm pretty sure that wasn't something that he already possessed...

***

A couple of weeks ago, I met up with my old school friend Sarah for the first time after twenty two years. Today, she had kindly invited me to her home for Sunday lunch, so I also met her husband (Simon) and son (Issac) for the first time. As well as their four cats, three chickens, two love birds, and, well not a partridge in a pear tree exactly, but two tanks full of fish.

Sarah had excavated some old school photos - those long, whole school affairs that took about half a day to take as I recall and mostly involved the younger ones getting told off repeatedly for fidgeting as the camera rotated slowly from one end to t'other. One of the photos was from 1985, just on the cusp of when Sarah and I were about to sit our O Levels and then to go on and leave the Convent for a 6th form elsewhere. Coming face-to-face with my 16 year old self was not something I'd anticipated today...

Another delicious roast (lamb today), followed by date and fig steamed pudding with custard and lots of fantastic cheese and biscuits. Wonderful. Although I remain puzzled how one can eat two such enormous (and delightful) meals barely more than 18 hours apart and still have room, let alone stand up afterwards. Good food, like sleep I've often thought, is something that can be enjoyed afresh on a daily basis with no hangover relating to what has gone before. Fantastic.

Now, where's my supper...?

Curry and beer and the ex – oh my!

The psyche moves in mysterious ways; and also, it would appear, performs the most unexpected wonders.

That Kaos, my German shepherd dog, settled back into life at the barn as if he’d never been away was not a surprise. Surrounded by acres of orchards with a ready supply of rabbits and foxes to chase, and a wood-burning stove to slouch against until his fur singes – well, from a dog’s eye view, what’s not to like? I was less sure about myself.

From a practical point of view the move back here made a lot of sense. After more than a year of trying, the barn had resolutely failed to sell; there had been a lot of viewings but ultimately no takers. Although we had completed all the structural works on the barn’s metamorphosis from tumble down heap of rotten old sticks to dwelling, there remain a good deal of ‘finishing works’ (decorating and such) to carry out. We concluded that, added to the impact of the credit crunch and the relatively high price tag the place carried, this was enough to put the kybosh on any prospect of a sale for the foreseeable future. And enough to simultaneously put the mockers on the chance for the ex and I to entirely go our separate ways - for now, anyway.

So the idea for me to move back to the barn was hatched. We could, we pondered, live separately, respectfully and independently under the same roof – there was certainly enough space for that to be possible. At the same time, we could pick up the tools again and work together to complete the finishing jobs whenever we had the opportunity or the money to do so. But the clincher that sealed the deal was financial; the split had torpedoed both of us and the idea seemed to present a glimmer of hope of financial survival in these turbulent times. Yes, on all practical levels, the move made sense.

It was on the emotional score that I was less certain. I’d been devastated when D announced he wanted us to split up and had spent the 18 months since slowly restoring myself to a semblance of normality. Good friends and close family had played a hugely significant part in my recovery; feeling ok again at last had been very hard won and I didn’t want that to unravel. How would I feel, I wondered, living with my ex again, being under the same roof but not actually together? Would proximity lead to the re-igniting of any residual flames that I still clung to?

As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. The move back to the barn seems to have achieved what many months of tears, sadness and soul searching never completely did. For the first time in all that time, D now really feels like my ex. I find myself able to relate to him on a friendly level without the least twinge of anything more deeply emotional. I am not bothered when he goes out, not concerned what he’s doing or who he’s seeing, don’t find myself wishing he was by my side. I would never in a million years have predicted that the final release from those lingering emotional bonds would have come about by moving back into the house we built together and which we shared as a couple.

And so it was that last night we had our first beer and curry night together, a chance for us to catch up and review how things were going at the end of the first week. We chatted, we laughed, we enjoyed some great food, we watched a film, and I raised a toast to the future of us together as housemates of a kind. It was a nice evening, spent together as friends but nothing more. When the food and the beer and the film were finished, we bid each other good night and went our separate ways. I came up to bed full and happy and without the least trace of wishing he was with me, before falling into a wonderful deep sleep.

I’m not the first to observe that the psyche moves in mysterious ways by any means, but this is the first time I have been on the receiving end and seen that wisdom in action.

Playing poker by proxy

I’ve just started reading Anthony Holden’s “Bigger Deal – a year on the new poker circuit". It’s a follow up to his “Big Deal", written 20 years ago, in which Holden describes the year he spent trying to make his living as a professional poker player in the late 1980s. The new book chronicles how the poker scene has changed beyond recognition in those two decades, thanks mostly to the game’s worldwide internet boom and attendant ‘new breed’ of players, but also partly because of its unlikely success on television. In the intervening years, a significant number of other changes have also happened to or around Holden: he’s divorced; he’s now in his late 50s; his children have grown up and moved away; and many of the old familiar faces of the poker circuit have gone too, replaced by a much younger internet-playing generation sitting at the gaming tables with baseball caps and I-Pods.

This book might sound an odd choice for a forty year old woman I know (even if it does fulfil one item from my resolution pages list). But then I do enjoy playing poker, and the previous book was delightfully enthralling – full of the life and the colour and the characters of the professional circuit as it was, all narrated against the constant clack of gaming chips. That I should select this book to put in my handbag and start reading on the train up to London today was, however, possibly more subliminal.

We had called an informal meeting of our board of trustees. The purpose of this was to pass on the news of the significant funding changes that are afoot so that, by the time of the next proper board meeting in four weeks, they could have started planning how (or even if) they wish to proceed from here. Trustees were concerned and sympathetic about the situation and reacted with consummate professionalism. What occurred to me, though, whilst sitting there with the conversation going on around me in the hotel bar, was that we were all playing a kind of poker game.

And the more I thought about that – with Anthony Holden’s book glowing away in the handbag at my feet – the more I started thinking about how many things at work are like a poker game. According to the type of player you are and your level of confidence in your game, you might bluff (or play it straight); might accurately read the ‘tells’ of your opponents (or miss them); might up the ante (or fold); might go all in (or play it tight). Ultimately, as in poker, you are in control of if and when you choose to show your cards; if you plan each hand in advance, there is always a strategy available to you which means you can keep your hand unseen, leaving others to only speculate on the cards you might have had. And much as playing your cards close to your chest is sometimes the right strategy, so showing your hand can be as well.

If Anthony Holden had been at the meeting, I wonder what sort of poker player he’d have categorised us each as? I continued reading Bigger Deal on the train back; and then again at home this evening where I washed my chips down with diet lemonade.

Chip shop chips, that is, not poker ones.

The elephant in the room

My impending redundancy has become rather the elephant in the room at work. Not within my small office, I should add - where all 3 of us have been given our cards and it’s therefore pretty much the only topic of conversation - but among the other staff in the building. Whenever I bump into someone on the stairs, in the kitchen, using the photocopier, people seem to either hurry away or speak overly brightly (and without eye contact) about nothing before scurrying away. Maybe it’s paranoia on my part of course, but I don’t think so.

It is the elephant in the room syndrome in action; the big thing that everyone knows is there but that nobody mentions.

Which strikes me as very strange. After all, around 100 redundancies were announced across the whole organisation so it’s hardly as if I have been singled out. Admittedly, the bulk of those concerned knew of their job losses in early December; mine is among a smaller group in a second wave announced last week. Whilst the outcome for all concerned is the same of course, it does mean that I missed out on being a part of the camaraderie that resulted from the big bang proclamation some weeks ago. The subsidiary I work for is the smallest in the organisation by a long way too, and I’m also a relative newcomer to boot so haven’t yet had the opportunity to develop those extensive in-house networks that come with longer service. Could those things explain it? Maybe, in part.

A bigger part I think is because I am one of very few managers getting the chop. Now I know I’m a good manager and I know I’m good at my job; when all of the core staff within the subsidiary are going, it’s clear the redundancy is not a reflection of that (or me) in itself. However, the issue is relevant nonetheless because managers are often perceived as exercising more control over their own destiny. As any middle manager in a large organisation will tell you, this is a falsehood of the first calibre. But it is nevertheless the perception that is sometimes held of the role.

The belief that we might actually have control is the illusion with which we allow our egos to delude us. I am not being fatalistic here; I certainly believe that we all create and help shape our own destinies. But only up to a point and only in certain areas of our lives. When organisations are making harsh survival choices in the midst of an unprecedented economic downturn, all bets are off. And with the discarding of the gloves comes the removal of any vestige of certainty, influence and control. Recognising that at least means I will hopefully never - at least in the work setting - harbour an elephant in my own room.

Or at least if I do, I’ll engage it in conversation.

Mr Barnacle

Two of the smaller taboos that remain unbroken are: admitting that you enjoyed a funeral (catchy imaginary marketing tag line “putting the fun back in funeral”); and openly confessing that you found a health and safety course interesting. If the former comes across as crass, insensitive or just plain tasteless, then surely the latter must be an oxymoron of the highest order?

And so it was with heavy heart that I made my way to the course this morning. Bracing myself for a day of unremitting eye-watering dullness, I shuffled into the room clutching a cup of tea as a kind of substitute shield. It soon turned out that five out of the ten expected attendees had inconveniently been laid low and taken the day off sick (...far be it from me to speculate wildly on the timing of this malady...). The rest of us, spread thinly down one side of the huge board room table, nodded grimly to each other and clasped our cups tighter on hearing this news. And then the trainer started...

And he was great. Funny, charming, entertaining – and yes, he managed to make the driest of dry subjects ("what’s the difference between a workplace and a working environment?", for example) an amusing, comprehensible, and yes, dare I say it, interesting topic. Maybe he was just a very talented trainer - a real life example of that saying about the medium and the message - or perhaps just one of those rare people who can convey their interest and expertise in a manner which inspires confidence and demands respect. I don’t really know but, Mr Barnacle (for that really is his name), I salute you.

As an aside, I should say that I can be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes. Witness the fact that it has taken me until now – 17 years into my working life – to fully appreciate that going to meetings (or indeed training courses) is sometimes exactly what I’m actually being paid to do. So rather than feeling eye-rollingly resentful at yet another meeting in my diary to get in the way of my work, I embrace it in the true and certain acknowledgement that attending the meeting will be, on that day and at that time, precisely what my work is.

If you also struggle with meeting rage, allow me to be so bold as to commend this mantra to you: However dull, however pointless, however full of hot air it might be, today’s meeting will not be getting in the way of my work; today, it will be my work for which I am being paid. [repeat as necessary]

Talk about a Damascus, scales-falling-from-eyes moment.

Or even better, let’s set up a meeting to discuss it. Shall we say Tuesday at 2?

The joy of text

Ah, text messages. Little packets of electronic wisdom delivered directly to your pocket at random. Bite-sized chunks of news or gossip, events or invitations, trials, tribulations and wild speculation – and all in 160 characters or fewer. A bit like having your own personal postman on duty 24 hours a day, except without the need for a letter box or worry about your big hairy dog getting all over excited.

Like opening a letter – the handwritten sort with a proper stamp – receiving a text message carries with it that perceptible jolt of joyous intrigue. They even arrive complete with a little musical fanfare just to ramp up the excitement level a notch. Who will it be from? What will they be saying? And heaven forefend the anticipatory anxiety brought to pass by being temporarily unable to open the message and read it. The suspense is quite unbearable. So what if you’re in the middle of performing brain surgery; you’ve just got to see it now.

And so it was this evening that I was on the motorway on the way back to the barn - all aglow with vigour (or what passes for it on a drizzly Monday night) after two classes at the gym – when my phone bleeped with a message. So of course, after pausing for a nano second, I read it. (Yes, I know you’re not supposed to, but how could I resist? My mobile even has little flashing blue lights on it; ironic and totally irresistible). A message from my sister enquiring how it was all going with the barn move, answered with a hastily composed reply from me using one thumb and with half an eye on the road.

A few minutes later, the phone bleeped again. “You always do exceed in drama”, she’d written. A pause, before I replied “Do you really think so?” “A little,” she answered, “but I don’t think you court it; it seems to stalk you!”

I’ve been thinking about this since. Is that true? Is that how I really am? It’s certainly her view so it must be how she sees me; maybe others do too. I don’t think I see my life like that – in terms of a series of dramas that I leap to and from like Tarzan on his jungle vines – but the more thought I’ve given it, the more I can understand what she means. And I concede that she might well have a point.

I’m sure if I was a better person I’d be meditating on this right now. Perhaps I will – perhaps I am already – but in my own way, with tea and cigarettes and writing it down. And pondering too on the nature of how quite such an eye-opening insight could have been delivered to me on a tiny blue screen at 60mph.

The wisdom of fridge magnets

I have no idea if there’s a name for fridge magnet slogan envy, but if there’s not there should be. Next time I’m in a souvenir shop on holiday or browsing in a bookshop where they’ve got one of those tall display stand thingies I’m going to buy one. Not just any old fridge magnet, needless to say, but one with a slogan that speaks directly to me. It’s this one:

Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most

I’ve seen it a hundred times at least but it never fails to make me smile. And then go away and think a bit. Not that I have actually lost my mind... well, probably not. No, what it does make me ponder on is the contradictory nature of the abstract parts of our lives. Specifically, of how there are some things that the more you want them, the more focus you place on achieving them, the further away they move from your grasp.

There’s a song by The Screaming Blue Messiahs, one of my favourite 1980s bands, that contains the lyric “yes I know it’s hard to find / happiness and peace of mind”. I think that just about sums it up; there is no personal journey more fruitless, more likely to end in a road block, than the one that consciously sets out for destination contentment.

Which doesn’t mean of course that contentment, resolution, peace of mind – call it what you will – is impossible to find. Just that paradoxically you have to let it – them - come and find you. And find you they will, when you’re good and ready. Realising that, as my own personal fridge magnet slogan might say, is the biggest step of all.

Time in three parts

There’s something inherently metamorphic about time and our perception of it. We all know that time spent enjoying ourselves - Christmas say, or a week’s holiday, or an evening in the company of good friends – seems to be gobbled up and swallowed whole before we’ve had the chance to catch our breath. And yet when we are waiting for news, working when we’d rather be elsewhere, or perhaps feeling dislocated or lonely, our experience is quite the opposite; the minutes and seconds appear almost to peel away from the face of the clock and slough into drifts at our feet. That we know logically and intellectually that all hours are created equal makes absolutely no difference to our experience.

A third kind of time metamorphosis is waiting for those of us who frequently find ourselves awake when most others are sleeping. The hours that make the transition from night through to daytime are quite unlike those that precede or follow. Their flow is simultaneously fast and slow, at once encompassing and isolating, life-affirming and desolate, creative and yet frustratingly bleak. The frequency with which you stalk the corridors of night-time wakefulness will determine your familiarity with and response to this experience.

I’ve long since ceased resenting my insomnia and have come to appreciate that it is part of the bundle of traits and attributes that makes up my character. Not good, not bad, just neutral. In the spirit of all good self-help books, if you stop defining something as a problem then it stops being a problem.

And so it was that my first night back at the barn saw me making tea, reading, surfing the net and generally entertaining myself as those hours passed by. That the dog was similarly afflicted was a surprise and most out of character, him being a creature that tends to snooze most of the time. The clacking of his claws on the stairs and the floorboards made him a very unsubtle no-sleep walker. He also managed to get himself stuck three times – twice in the same room. What’s that about learning from experience...?

I’ve brought his bed over here today and hope that having somewhere to properly settle down tonight will do the trick. As for me, well, time will tell.

And breathe...

You may be wondering why I’ve titled my blog Moving Back, Moving On. Well, like a crap poker player or a poor side-show magician at a travelling fair, I’m about to reveal my hand.

In June 2007, my long-term partner and I split up. We were both approaching 40, so add in a bit of proper real-world stress and some family issues and ye olde fabled mid-life-crisis was close at hand. That the split came out of the blue to me is an understatement, although looking back I can see there were many things that hadn’t been quite right in our relationship for a while. We had also been carrying out the self-build renovation / conversion of a derelict 200 year old barn over the previous few years and found ourselves mentally and physically exhausted some way before the finishing touches were added. We’d moved into the barn and made the best of it as far as we could but...

Well, there are always ‘buts’ aren’t there?

Anyway, fast forward through that period... 18 months on, and what with the credit crunch and such we’ve been unable to sell the barn. I had moved out with the dog to my little house by the seaside and been very happy there, whist he’d remained back at the ranch. But we still continued to confront the insoluble unsellable on a daily basis and needed to find a way forward that acknowledged the fact that the wider economic (and personal) financial situation was unlikely to improve within the next couple of years. So...

To cut a very long story short, I have moved back to the barn today. We are not getting back together in any shape or form, but it is conceivably possible that – as there is enough space on site and we have managed to retain / develop a relationship as ‘friends’ – it could work out, living essentially as house mates under the same roof. It’s a trial period in the first instance. I’ve brought over some clothes, laptop and other essentials (the dog, for instance) and will be living and going to and from work from here over the next few weeks.

In the middle of February, I’m off to Egypt for a week’s holiday with my good friends David, Stephen and Liz. By the time I’ve completed the month’s trial and been away on another continent - diving and eating copious amounts for a week - I hope to have some idea of whether it’s going to work out for me here or not. If it does and has done, then I will make the move a permanent one. If not, I’ll either extend the trial period or move back to my little house by the seaside and call it quits.

It has been a bit weird today, of that there’s no doubt. I’ve felt angry at times, sad at others, and fair to middling in between. I’m trying hard to approach it with an open mind; after all, if it works out OK, it could provide a very practical and logical solution for the next 2 years or however long it takes us to complete the finishing touches here and for the credit crunch to blow itself out so that we can sell up. Practically and logically it all makes a lot of sense. Emotionally, well... that’s where the proof of the pudding is in the dwelling.

And so...

Well, just wish me luck please!

Drear Sir…

There’s something about filling in job application forms that encourages a kind of word blindness to settle on your shoulders and cling like an itchy vile-coloured scarf. Even those whose fingers are accustomed to gliding swan-like and decisive across the keyboard become stuttering cack-handed semi-literate blunt stumps when it comes to the “why do you want this job?” section. Or mine do at least.

To be fair, it feels a little harsh to blame this completely on the malfunctioning of one’s digits. No, in truth the fingers are as usual only carrying out the instructions of the brain (or the brian as I’d probably have written it this afternoon). Except for some reason those instructions have been put through one of the gobbledegook typewriters of the eternal monkeys who are otherwise busily occupied coming up with random versions of Shakespeare or whatever.

Of course the accidental juxtaposition or substitution of letters can have some unintentionally amusing consequences. From and form, thanks and thnaks, are perennial personal favourites, but ago and ego offers much more entertainment value in the recruitment context.

And so on an so fifth until you come to that point where your document is so littered with those ‘helpful’ little red and green squiggly lines that you just have to print the whole damn lot out. At which stage, any reasonably sane person (or me) curses out loud to no-one in particular, puts on the kettle, lights a fag and throws a crunchy chocolate snowball for the dog (which of course bounces off his head and disappears under a heap of washing).

Anyway, just a small aside by way of procrastination.

Now bach to the drawering bored. Thnaks for dearing.

Memory cheesecake

I’d wondered if I’d recognise Sarah.

The last time we’d seen each other was July 1987. I was all back-combed bleached hair pale-faced multi-earring-ed top-to-toe black-wearing Goth. Funky Town, Who’s That Girl, and Sinitta’s one-hit-wonder Toy Boy were riding high in the charts. The Pet Shop Boys were on the way back down from the top with It’s a Sin; we were just about to hear Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up for the very first time.

I’ve been on several blind dates* over the last few months and have certainly had a few butterflies on each occasion; that I was nervous going to meet an old school friend caught me by surprise. What would she look like? Would she be taller, shorter, fatter, thinner, speak differently from how I remembered? In the same way that rarely-visited relations seem genuinely taken aback that you’ve grown, I even couldn’t help but wonder if Sarah would still have her curly perm.

She didn’t, of course, and I recognised her at once as I walked into the pub. We embraced, ordered drinks, stared at each other, laughed at our ages, talked of partners, children, additions to and departures from our families, ordered food, shared tales of the tribulations of our own parents’ aging processes, of house moves, health, careers, current news, and reminisced about old friends seen or heard of or otherwise.

Memory’s a funny old thing – a sort of black box recorder where things are encoded and filed away according to, among other criteria, the significance to you of an event or a time or a place or a person. Sarah had the most astonishing recall of our school days. Details that I had completely forgotten – of friends, classmates, teachers, the old nuns who were still teaching at our school back then, of sports days and hockey teams, the playing field, the trees, the autumn conkers, the smell of polish, the pews in the chapel, and even where people sat in the 5th form. When she told me that she could name fifty individuals that had been in or left our form during the time we were at the Convent, I quite believed her.

Two forty year old women with twenty two years of life having passed by since they last met were always going to have lots to talk about. We ended our lunch with New York cheesecake and cream, more embraces and a date to meet up again in a couple of weeks.

Let those memories flow on and around the women we have become and help us create a new friendship in the here and now.



* But that’s a story for another day

Ticker tape

When I stood on the threshold of a new year twelve months ago, there were two sets of personal ticker tape uncoiling from me in opposite directions. One of them was written in indelible ink and attached at the other end to an anchor, way out of sight and in the past; the other was fresh and blank and streamed freely and unfettered into the future.

The first – the backwards flowing one - was historical; my recent past. On that tape were a series of words and images of events, in particular those that had happened in the previous year or so up to that point. Among them: the writing and publication of my first book; the death of my grandmother; Rhona sitting and passing her A levels; and my break-up with D and the impacts of that, still very fresh and active at that time.

The other ticker tape was the one marked the future. It had no words on it at that point, but a few vaguely conceived ideas had started to make an impression; certainly, if I had started writing my resolution pages then they would have read very differently from now. Among those concepts or ideas that were yet to pass from being a vague impression to being written in bold black Biro was the topic of work.

I had been self-employed for more than two years and had taken to the freelance life like the proverbial duck to water. Of the many welcome attributes of working for myself, I’d especially found the constant changes of tasks and clients was the solution to heading off the inevitable boredom that always settled on me after a time in any regular job. Yes, being self-employed had served me well indeed – until the after-effects of the break-up zapped my concentration, and my motivation (and bank balance) dwindled to beyond a vanishing point.

And so it was that in the first few months of last year I started the gradual process of trying to get my emotional and practical house back in order – a significant outcome of which was the decision to go out and look for a regular job again. I recognised that the structure of the work-a-day 9 to 5 could bring some much-needed stability to my finances as well an inkling of motivation, and that having colleagues around would fill the day with welcome interaction, conversation and light relief. If it’s a big move to go from employment to self-employment, reversing that process was more significant still. But I was absolutely delighted when I was offered a job in the late summer of last year and quickly settled into a small but lovely team.

Sadly, it wasn’t to last. The two direct colleagues with whom I share an office were told of their redundancy in early December. Mine came on Monday. It was not entirely unexpected. The three of us will remain in our positions until the end of March so we have a couple of months to look for something else. I’m sure something will turn up and feel very positive about it all. But what a pain in the butt all the same!

On a lighter note, arrived home from another a second consecutive day in Croydon to find a large A4 envelope wedged into the letter box. It took me a good five minutes of slightly bad tempered end-of-a-long-day-this-is-the-last-thing-I-can-do-with wrestling and joggling the flap-down lid around to release it. It was my membership pack from the British Wheel of Yoga. The irony was not lost.

The joy of porridge

If you're still suffering from the post-Christmas / having to go back to work / no money / life-in-general January blues, may I make one small suggestion?

Porridge with golden syrup and banana. Food of the Gods.

It might not change the world, but it will make your day. Unlike today's work-related trip to Croydon.

Peripheral visions

It was probably more to do with peripheral vision and less to do with having a 6th sense that I spotted the spider. It was one of those daddy-long-legs spiders - all spindly limbs and no body - just inches away from my shoulder. I watched it gracefully abseil from an invisible rope and pick its way across the desk, before diving to ground in the dark knee recess underneath.

I think it’s likely that we all have a 6th sense, in the meaning of a non sight-related ‘peripheral vision’. There’s nothing remotely spooky or mystical about the kind of 6th sense I’m describing; I certainly don’t mean it in the same way that ghost hunters or psychics might. I’m speculating that back at the beginning of human times this could have been the added extra that kept our ancestors safe from predators, which led them to fresh water or to fertile land. Perhaps the ability further evolved alongside the development of language into the earliest forms of politics, strategic planning, trade and bartering.

I suppose you might define it as the ability to spot patterns or evidence – of climate, of mood, of prices, of group dynamics – and add that to the indefinable-but-persuasive feelings of direction, foreboding, opportunity or threat. It’s there to keep us safe and to protect us from the threats that our subconscious antennae have detected well in advance of our cumbersome, logical, proof-seeking brains.

We ignore these primitive feelings at our peril. And so for the last two weeks or so I have been beginning to act upon the signals that my 6th sense was sending me. Not about dodging dangling daddy-long-legs spiders (although I’m grateful for that!) but about something much closer to home, something I had begun to predict as likely without any concrete evidence. And today I got the confirmation.

The consequences of the issue are still sinking in and I will return to the actuality of it without being so vague in the next few days. In the meantime, just to thank my desk exploring spider for once again prompting my ancient self to keep the contemporary version alert.

Multi-tasking

Over the last year or two it has become a habit of mine not to plan too far ahead. Leaving aside for a moment the semantic difficulties suggested by having a habit that consists of not doing something, this activity (or lack of) has served me well as I strive towards mastering the Art of Slow.

But sometimes, just occasionally, there is an event on the horizon that forces me to temporarily dump the habit. One such example being the anticipation of the ritualistic Monday morning work question “Well, what did you get up to at the weekend then?”

This simple, innocent-sounding enquiry is a (wo)man trap for the unwary. Why? Well first off, if you haven’t been up to anything more exciting than painting your toenails and answer, truthfully, “nothing” you just sound like a sad sack. By contrast, if it’s happened to be one of those rare weekends where you have done lots of great stuff (climbed Kilimanjaro, say) then you risk coming over all superior and hoity toity. But primarily the question is a minefield because it obliges you to ask the questioner the same in response – and then to will yourself not to yawn more frequently than every ten minutes whilst they describe in minute wrist-slitting detail the progress of their new baby / dog / love life / pond creation project.

And so it was that I found myself on Sunday afternoon sitting at my desk anticipating my answer to this perennial question a day in advance whilst at the same time drinking tea, surfing the Internet, smoking and eating a Mr Kipling apple and blackcurrant pie. And Eureka! There was the answer, right in front of me. What had I done this weekend?

Multi-faffing.

It’s a bit like multi-tasking but without the prerequisite of any proper activity whatsoever. The ability to multi-task of course having in recent years become practically the definition of the difference between men and women.

[There are lots of other differences between men and women of course. Men are more likely to have hair on their chests and chins, to under-estimate journey times and to over-egg the importance to the national psyche of sports involving (usually inflatable) missiles. Women are more likely to pretend they don’t pick their noses or use the toilet, to identify their cars primarily by colour and to retain a selection of soft toys beyond puberty.]

And unlike multi-tasking itself, multi-faffing is a habit that can be enjoyed and un-actively participated in by both sexes. So it was with a glow of pride and acknowledgement of my own achievement today that I have discovered a new trait, struck a blow for gender equality and have a ready answer for my colleagues tomorrow morning. Back of the net, as Alan Partridge would say.

A haggis by any other name…

To lose one haggis may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two looks like carelessness.

Or at least looks as if somebody somewhere in the postal chain between Edinburgh and Sheerness has a serious haggis fixation. Two dispatches of the warm-reekin great chieftain o the puddin'-race had disappeared en route, my mother whispered, as Rhona and I arrived at the Burns Supper this evening. How else could we otherwise explain by what mystery a collective weight of ninety pounds of haggis (sheep's ‘pluck’ - heart, liver and lungs - mixed with oatmeal and spices) had vanished into the ether?

Standing at the bar in the municipal hall pondering the shocking disappearance, my mind came up with a fresh worry all of its own. If there was no haggis then…

…Did that mean there’d be no supper?

The hall was alive with tartans – in sashes, kilts, table cloths, banners, Saltire bunting hanging from the curtain poles. Around me, dancers spun and reeled and whooped in time to the five piece fiddle band on the stage. It might well be the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns and one of the most significant nights in the Scottish dancing calender, but all I could think about was my supper receding into the far distance.

My brow tightened with anxiety as I carried the drinks back to the table. My mother must have detected the panic in my eyes. Taking her glass, she looked up at me. “They’re going to do sausage and mash instead”. Never before had the Selkirk Grace had quite such significance.

Some hae meat and canna eat,

And some wad eat that want it;

But we hae meat, and we can eat,

Sae let the Lord be thankit.

Cogs and Wheels

As things sometimes do, it all started with a funeral.

That Billy was dead in the first place seemed most out of character. There are some people who are, well, so full of life, so much part of a place, that death must surely not apply to them. But it does and did, and Billy had died suddenly and unexpectedly, having only recently survived a serious illness.

Squashed into the last seat of the last pew at the back of the church, I’d glimpsed Jeremy as he carried his father’s coffin on his shoulder. And now, as we trickled out of the door, there he was, in front of me. I tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m so sorry about your dad, Jeremy”. He turned round to face me, puzzled for half a heartbeat, before his face split wide into a grin.

Twenty two years had passed since we had last seen each other. Jeremy was taller than the 17 year old I remembered, his shoulders broader, his face more masculine now, but the boy was there inside the man in front of me. Our words tumbled out in a jumble. He told me he was living in Australia, had been for four years. He ushered his lovely Australian fiancée Ursula over to meet me, his second cousin. They were to be married in a couple of months, he said. Billy had been the first person they’d told of their plans. By now, people were queuing up to offer their condolences, so we said goodbye and I slipped away from Jeremy and Ursula, promising that I’d be in touch.

I found him through Facebook and sent him a message a couple of weeks later when I knew they’d be back in Oz to receive it. And that’s where it all started I think. Since then there have been many more contacts through the ether. Among them Chris (living in Bali since the mid 1990s); Graham (London, a wonderful picture of him and his wife in silver disco gear at a music festival); Paul (now a lecturer in Bath); and today Sarah (with a new surname and back in Kent after 15 years living in London).

I don’t know if it’s because we have all just turned 40, or because it’s the beginning of a new year, or simply because everything that we thought we knew about our little corner of the world is turning on its head in front of our eyes. Or maybe the cogs and wheels and invisible threads that bind us were set in motion to draw us all back together by Billy’s funeral.

Whatever the reason, the last few weeks and months have seen me reconnect with old friends that I haven’t seen for twenty years. Twenty two years to be precise – more than two decades. A long time in anyone’s reckoning. But worth the wait.

Evens Stevens

“Exactly £25 in two pees. What are the chances of that?” For an hour, Sue had been counting her way through the small mountain of copper and silver that had come out of four collecting boxes. The mingled heap of coins was now in neat piles and rows and waiting to be bagged up into bank-friendly denominations.

Well, what were the chances of the tuppences adding up to exactly £25? Precisely the same as the chances of there being £24.88 in two pence pieces. Or £25.02. Or £26 for that matter. The only amounts there were no chance of it being was an odd number of pence; or zero. Aside from that, evens Stevens, fifty fifty, heads or tails. But somehow, that all of the donated two pences added up to a round pound figure holds greater significance.

This is the odd place where what feels instinctively logical and correct doesn’t necessarily add up to what makes mathematical or statistical sense. As I was mulling this over, it was announced on the radio that the Bank of England had cut interest rates to 1.5%. Yesterday, I drove past one of those high street ‘pay day loans’ shops. The charge for cashing a cheque to bail you out in advance of your pay day was 149%. No-one would have predicted a year ago that UK interest rates would (could) fall that low. And – I’m imagining myself here – if you’re desperate for cash and you need it now, I’m pretty sure you won’t care less or even stop to think how much your short-term tide-me-over-for-a-few-weeks loan is going to cost you to pay back.

None of these things make sense instinctively, logically, statistically and mathematically all at the same time. What seems true may not be; what appears to make sense actually doesn’t. It’s left brain versus right brain, Mars and Venus, emotion and intellect all over again, except without love hearts in the margin or late night drunken texting.

So thanks to Sue and a pile of coppers, I think I finally began to edge closer to understanding the credit crunch. Or – unlike the weather outside today – maybe at least the fog started to lift a little.

Un-deck the halls

Three men in high-vis jackets and the municipal cherry picker signalled the end of Christmas. I saw them in the High Street, late on Sunday evening, dismantling the lights and coiling the cables away. Two days were yet to pass until twelfth night. Not so much the Grinch that stole Christmas but the pinch of recession perhaps? Let’s hope some contemporary magi weren’t relying on festive lighting to illuminate their way to the bin store of the Travel Lodge.

Whether in the High Street or the home, I miss the Christmas lights when they come down. Their sudden absence seems to usher in the gloominess that descends and settles miasma-like in January: the disappearance of sparkle; the packing away of the feeling of magic and that anything might just happen; the snuffing out of optimism; and a whole aching chasm of time to fill with dreary work and chores and bill paying until the next holiday period arrives.

Personally, I’m not inclined to join the post Christmas light austerity brigade just yet. Yes, I know if you don’t haul your decorations down by 12th night then you have to wait until Easter or something to do so – but that’s OK with me. Our lights are still shining brightly out of the window and inside the house. I’m not sure I’m quite ready to meet the gloom that will descend once I take them down.

And so that if there are three wise chaps wandering about with gifts of precious metals and rare perfumes, they know where to come.

Stereotypes of a kind

Temporarily plucked the straw and seaweed out of my hair so that I could pass undetected among the commuters onto the London train this morning. Ah, London - a fabulous city - but why is everyone always in a rush? It makes me feel that I've been missed off the invitation list for a really exciting, life-changing - nay, seismic - event, a bit like always being the last one to be picked for the class netball team. Though admittedly I was / am crap at netball and indeed all sports involving implements.

Anyway, survived the bumpkin detector at Victoria Station and headed to Marylebone High Street for a training day. There are a lot more women than men working in charities and today's gender profile was no exception - 5 entries out of 16. Took the opportunity while the policy manager was doing his thing to take a closer look at the gentlemen of the non-profit world. Two were late 30s-40s, slender, earnest, close cropped hair, glasses, jumper-over-shirt wearers with an almost trendy urban feel including man bags and loafers, . Two were 50+, vocal, pastel jumpers, very-to-extremely portly, with flowing rumpled white hair and beards and a future playing Santa Claus at church functions. Two matching pairs. The 5th was a kind of hybrid.

Which set me to thinking - what sort of stereotype am I? 40. Single (since split with D 18 months ago). Blonde (with assistance of Shelly and co - thank you ladies). Female (a constant). Dog lover (ditto). Recent yoga convert (borderline obsessive). Writer (sporadic).

Middle Aged Blonde Lady Woman perhaps? MABLaW for short.

Arrived home to find a book I'd ordered from Amazon had arrived (hooray!). And that my first ever payment for public lending rights is on its way (wonderfully, writers get a few pee each time one of their books is borrowed from a library, which is added up and paid annually). The money's extremely welcome of course, but it's amazing knowing that nearly 1,700 people borrowed my book from a library. Wow!

Patted self on back for progress on resolution pages today. Can report with pleasure that:

• Did not buy coffee / pastries / other delicious temptations from stalls and shops on the station and elsewhere whilst in London. Although this was much aided by the provision of substantial and delightful lunch at training day (3 helpings)
• Read most of the way there and back - started "Sidetracked" by Henning Mankell (which Rhona bought me for Christmas). Am loving it!

So a good day. Yes, a very good day.

Snowing and settling

So.

First day back in the office today and felt about as motivated as a piece of firewood. With dry rot. And woodworm. After last night's ding ding bout of insomnia, I slept through the alarm clock and was 50 minutes late too.

At least it wasn't just me; according to an article in today's Guardian, today is the most stressful day of the year in offices up and down the land http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2009/jan/05/most-stressful-day-big-brother.

The article's author recommends standing in the middle of your office screaming. I usually find that mashing the keyboard repeatedly with my fists whilst howling curses at an unseen deity does the trick. But hey, any method of taking revenge for the malice of inanimate objects has to be good.

At least one tick on the resolution pages for today though - I remembered to take a packed lunch.

But I'm being all dreary January here and rather joyless. So here are some great pix that Rhona took in the snow on the beach last night / this morning.

The upside of insomnia

Death and taxis, er, taxes - the two constant companions to life they say. In my case I'd add a third to the list - insomnia. In spite of it being many years since the event, my mother still likes to remind me on a regular basis that I cried continually for my 1st 6 months without pause for sleeping, and that, even as a toddler, the flicking on of the kettle in the kitchen or the whisper of a curtain closing was enough to wake me up.

Well nothing much has changed in 40 years. My recent bout of insomnia has been a cracker even by my standards, the other day / night / whatever seeing me fall asleep precisely 50 minutes before the alarm clock went off. And then trying to put contact lenses in.

So after reading for a couple of hours and then spending another thrashing around with the duvet, I temporaily abandoned my bed last night / this morning and came down for a cuppa. Opened the back door to empty the ash tray while the kettle was boiling and found...

It was snowing! Proper snow, settling on the faded reclining red chair and the fat balls for the birds out in the back yard. So obviously I had to take the dog out for a walk. Luckily, even though it was 2.45 in the morning, Rhona was still awake (it being less insomnia in her case than the fact she's running to a student clock). We dressed in double quick time and crashed out of the house - she and I swathed in scarves and coats, the dog just gleeful for a walk at any time.

And it was beautiful. The whole of the park, the sand pit, the beach, the promenade, all covered in snow. Not a footprint in sight either. Perhaps unsurprisingly at 3am, there was no-one about. Dog off his lead, Rhona taking pictures on her digital camera as we walked along the beach, the snow illuminated by the few street lights and the camera flash. Our footprints and the dog's paw prints, the patterns of his slides and skids and where he just crouched down and rubbed his face in the snow. How lucky we were to have caught the snow in all its fresh laid glory. Quite magical.

Insomnia certainly does have its upsides.

Once more into the breech...

I was 40 a month ago today.

So far, I am pleased to report from behind the frontline of the first four weeks of my 5th decade that:

• My hair has not gone grey
• My teeth have not fallen out
• I have not started thinking that my health constitutes an interesting topic of conversation
• My face does not yet resemble one of those wrinkly Japanese dogs

Which means that all of those things are yet to look forward to. So as is customary at the start of a new year, I thought I'd write myself a list of unstickable to resolutions - my resolution pages. Here they are:

1. Take food / a packed lunch to work every day
2. Feel more motivated about things I have to do even if I don't really want to do them
3. Get out of the habit of buying a chocolate bar every day
4. Read more
5. Watch more TV / DVDs
6. Spend less time on the internet
7. Move on from my relationship with D
8. Try something completely new this year
9. Sort my finances out - and having done so, keep on living within my means
10. Have another bash at giving up smoking
11. Or at least reduce the amount I smoke by a lot
12. Write another book
13. Acknowledge the pleasure I find in every day things - people, birds, wildlife, dogs, Lockets

I've written them in my diary so I can carry them around with me and chastise myself on a daily basis.