Swede Teas

I’ve just spent hours Christmas shopping. HOURS. My feet are sore, I’m more drained than I’ve ever been in my entire life, and I’ve only got a small bagful of stuff. So, obviously, I’ve got to go again. And again. I kind of half-wish that the government had banned Christmas this year, to save money. A bit the way Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas back after the Civil War. Wouldn’t that have been great? Then no one would have felt they had to buy loads of stuff any more, or send any boring old cards, and there’d have been all the joy of secretly, illegally buying presents, and secretly celebrating, in a small way. Sort of like prohibition, with illicit Christmas parties going on in the cellars of innocent-looking shops.
At about 3 I met up with Glenn for tea, because he wanted top see me, and I do not want to end up sleeping with him, and tea is a meal it is pretty well impossible to:
a) get drunk at
b) extend late into the evening.
It isn’t romantic, either. I wanted a cream tea, but the nearest we got was scones and jam and a pot of tea, along with a smuggled tub of clotted cream in my handbag. (I’m going to leave the remains under my bed for Mirabelle to find, in a bid to enrich her environment, as Topiary has suggested . (The best way to enrich her environment and stop her being bored, of course, would be to buy a mouse from a pet shop and release it into the flat. But that would be cruel to the mouse, so I can’t do it.)
Glenn was wearing a truly gross black T shirt reading: ‘For my next trick I need a condom and a willing volunteer’. I asked him where the lovely cat-fur one was, and he said he’d borrowed it from a friend of Jasmine’s, just to please me.
Also, as we were eating he told me that most jam is about 60 per cent swede. Even strawberry jam. It’s used as a filler, as soft fruit is so costly. He knows this cos a farmer near him in Cornwall grows Swedes for jam. Isn’t this depressing? Next he’ll tell me clotted cream is made of pig fat or something.

What is Freedom?

Went out with Glenn last night. I think I said yes because when he asked me he was wearing a T shirt that said ‘No Outfit is Complete Without a Little Cat Fur’ – and I was touched. We just went to a pub in Hammersmith, and had sinister pub pies. (The kind where you honestly couldn’t say what the meat is. I thought mine was probably chicken with gravy browning, but Glenn, who knows a lot about cheap food, said it was more likely New Forest Pony, bought cheap in the autumn round-up, or else mechanically recovered meat slime, pressed into believable shapes.) It’s quite slimming going out with him.
He was going on about the Five Freedoms – a thing to do with chickens, where a well-looked after battery chicken is able to run, dustbath etc. Anyway, then he got on to what he thought the Five Freedoms for humans were, well, what they were for him, specifically.
1)The Freedom to live in a warm dry place with no rats or mould.
2)The freedom to eat food that doesn’t make you sick (or creep you out)
3) The F to be in a place where you possibly COULD have a relationship if you wanted
4)The freedom not to be hassled by The Man (ie not to be bothered by letters from the bank or credit card companies complaining about debts). (This would include freedom from landlord types popping in unexpectedly to see if you are breaking your tenancy agreement re cats.)
5)The Freedom to dream about the future and not be stressed out by global warming and governments doing nothing about it.
Every time Glenn talks I realise how different he is from me, in a kind of puzzling, disturbing way, that almost entirely cancels out how great-looking he is.
I said that one of my Freedoms would definitely be the freedom to wash in a lovely bath whenever I wanted, and put on perfume and crisply ironed laundry and a selection of (possibly vintage, to be ecologically sound) clothes and shoes. Oh, and have access to a hairdryer. He replied oddly to this. He said: ‘Yeah, that’s why we put in the bath-house.’
‘Where?’
‘At the farm.’
‘What farm?’
‘The farm where I live. In Cornwall.’
‘Aren’t there bathrooms in the chalets?’
He looked puzzled, and then started laughing. Strange man.

Mirabelle Goes Hunting

Yesterday Mirabelle slipped through my legs as I was coming in from work, and shot down the stairs and into the street. She’s so fed up with being shut in the flat all the time. I suppose it’s not much of a life for a cat, but what am I to do, when she isn’t even supposed to be there?
It took ages to find her, shouting along the street and hoping that my landlord didn’t suddenly decide to pop up and ask me what I was doing. And eventually, when it was really dark, and I was frozen stiff, I found her in one of the gardens in the next street. She had a bird in her mouth. A blue tit. I put my fingers in her mouth and to get her to open it, and the bird got free and just flew straight out into the sky. I hope it survives. But I suppose it couldn’t have been that badly injured if it could fly.
I was so glad she hadn’t got hit by a car or something. Apart from anything else, I hate going to the vet. It is a bit weird the way vets behave, don’t you think? Especially the way they give the pet your surname, and call out the whole rigmarole when the vet is ready; ‘Stripy Jenkins’, ‘Flufflepuff Mackintosh’ etc. Makes me wish I’d called Mirabelle ‘The Marchioness of Mirabelle’ just to make it all sound stupider. (It is strange, really, when you think of how even old, very dignified human beings are only called by their Christian names in hospital wards.)

Strange Religious Episode

Ho well, haven’t posted for ages as usual. I’m always promising myself to be a much better blogger, but I get swept up in things, and it just doesn’t happen. It is like dieting. I always want to be much thinner, and intend to do something about it, and then time slips by and I realize I’ve just GOT FATTER. I hadn’t weighed myself for weeks, and a few days ago I noticed my favourite trousers were really hurting round the waist, and had actually given me a sore, where the buckle goes, and so I got on the scales and was just horrified. How could I have put on so much without eating any more than normal? Also, it’s been cold recently, and I thought that made you lose weight.
Anyhoo, work is more stressful, as quite a few people have left, and we have to do their stuff, as well as ours. I asked Jasmine about Michael, and she said that she’d heard his company was really struggling, and he’d been spending a lot of time in the US recently trying to get refinanced or something.
Last weekend I went home, as Jacob was being confirmed, and they wanted me to go to the service. I can’t think why this was happening, as he’s never struck me as religious at all. Also, all the other confirmation candidates were frail little girls in sticky-out frocks, and it was strange seeing this large, shambling teen in a badly-ironed shirt in the middle of it all, with an uneasy smile flickering across his face. Ever since the poisoning incident I’ve been so suspicious of his motives. It’s wrong.

Life Gets Stressful

Well, I’ve spent all week working on a campaign leaflet thingy and being ceaselessly bothered and harassed by the design department who’ve kept demanding it earlier, even though it was impossible to it do that fast. I even took it home, and worked on it in the evenings, which is unheard-of for me. (Mirabelle jumped on my computer keyboard and pressed the wrong keys – just to rack up the tension.) And in the end I had to hand it back before I could do it half as well as I wanted to AND no one even said thank you for all the extra work I did. It left me feeling so let down. Like that famous remark someone once made about working for the BBC, that it made you feel like a mushroom: kept in the dark and with sh*t dumped on you at regular intervals. Really, work is getting so stressful now. Every one is in a state all the time. The designers were almost in tears yesterday.
Just as a sort of relief, because I felt so let down, I spent the early evening doing my hair and make-up and choosing an understated outfit. (Black, of course, plus some amazing gladiator shoes that I can hardly walk in, and cost far too much.) Then I tottered off round to see if Michael was in, and I could have a chat with him. His house was in darkness, and as I got closer I saw a For Sale board outside it.
Anyhoo, I’ve rung his number a few times since then, and I’ve only got the answerphone, so I don’t know what could have happened to him.

A Hostile Environment

Today is Jo’s last day at the office, and you would not believe the amount of cakes she has brought in to commemorate this truly tragic moment. There is even a still-warm apple-cake that she must have baked around 7.30 or so. And home-made chocolate croissants that I’m fairly certain you gave to be up at about 4 a.m. to look after because fresh butter has to be rolled-in then.
She looks a bit tired and harassed. But then she’s very disappointed not to be made permanent. We all thought she would be, because Julia, who had gone off on maternity leave. and who she was covering for, announced she wasn’t coming back after all. (Her husband is a doctor and they’re all moving to his new practice in Scotland.) The firm says they won’t be filling her job for the moment. I find this ominous. Along with the news that they’ve cancelled the Christmas party.

Turnover Newsflash

Re the story about the apple turnovers: there are two to a pack, so the guy ended up with FOUR HUNDRED apple turnovers.

Fat Cats and Apple Turnovers

Ways I am economising in the Squeeze:
1) Cheap catfood for Mirabelle. This also ensures she does not become overweight, making me liable for fine of £20,000 (according to new laws about pets).
2) Take sandwiches to work instead of going to prêt. This is NOT enjoyable at all, as now I either have a high-stress early-morning sandwich-making moment, or stale, damp sandwiches made the night before.(Why do they go damp?)
3) Have started going to Sainsbury once a week. and haunting the marked-down section at the magic hour of 7.30. Moneysavingexpert said this was the thing to do. But it is psychologically quite depressing as you have to hang around a lot and people look at you suspiciously. And the ticketing people grow to loathe you.It’s doubtful whether a few packs of chicken-breasts for 60p are worth this grief. Also, strange trampy types start talking to you. A v smelly man with missing teeth has started turning up at the same time and coming over eagerly to chat to me as a ‘fellow-scrimper’ Last night he told me that his best find was when they marked-down the apple turnovers to 1p a packet. There were 200 packets on offer so he triumphantly bought all of them. For £2. He is so proud of this story, but who would want 200 stale apple turnovers? Except a madman?

Gout, and Reproachful Cats

Oh well, I spent the evening with Rachel and feel much better about everything. After all, the thing I caught is very easily cured, nothing really. And the weekend was still worth it, a brilliant glimpse of another world. And now I know it really isn’t for me, that life. (Also, the food at that hotel gave me terrible indigestion. It was all really perfect,tender prime meat, no vegetables to speak of, lots of alcohol, and divine puddings. Sort of guaranteed to give you gout.) (And wind. I was really glad I was alone for the first few hours after I returned home. Mirabelle kept looking at me reproachfully.)
Rachel thought that Michael looked a bit odd, too. ‘Supposing he WASN’T rich,’ she said. ‘And you were walking down the street with him. Wouldn’t you feel the teensiest bit ashamed?’ This is always Rachel’s test of whether a guy is right or not: whether you feel the slightest twinge of shame or unease to be seen in their company. Trouble is, it is such a hard test for men to pass, really.

Bathing in Chocolate

Well, the good news is that I’m not pregnant, and the bad news is that I’ve got some kind of VD. Not a terrible, life-threatening, incurable kind, but a non-specific sort. I really hate going to the walk in-clinic for this stuff. I hate the way they just assume - kind of half-smiling in reception- that everyone who goes in there is
a) pregnant, or
b) riddled with VD.
And, of course, I hate the way they are right.
When I was being rubbed with hot mud and wrapped in plastic at The Grove, the massage lady had the whole medical thing just right: caring and gentle and concerned. The nurse at the walk–in place was the opposite.
Oh, and it makes me wonder what else has to happen to make going to The Grove with Michael definitely NOT worth it. I feel it’s sort of hanging in the balance at the moment.
Still, at least my local Tesco has ‘discontinued’ luxury chocolate for 39p, so I’m just going to overdose on the stuff until I can drink cocktails again.

The Chocolate Minibar Beckons...

Of course Michael hasn’t been in touch. Rachel and I met up for a drink on Monday night and I told her I was going to go to the walk-in clinic for a morning after pill and she said, ‘Are you mad! If you get pregnant by him you are set up for life!!’
So I didn’t go. But it is very very unlikely I could be pregnant anyway. (Given what happened.) And also I feel angry and suicidal so clearly have PMT.
If I was a man I’d always send flowers afterwards, just to make people feel better.
Still, I have scrubbed out my whole flat, and last night I had a bath with all the White Company soaps and bubblebaths and stuff that came with the hotel room. I was thinking of buying a mini fridge and stocking it up with nuts and chocs, but maybe that is going too far…

Everything With Plums

Well, I’m back at work now, and the weekend all seems even MORE dreamlike. The place we went to was called The Grove. It says on its headed notepaper that it is ‘one of the leading hotels of the world’. Well, it just made me long to be rich. For ever.
When I woke on Saturday Michael was sitting up in bed in a bathrobe, all washed and shaved, tapping away at his laptop. I immediately ran to the bathroom for a long session of using all the complimentary soaps and stuff. And redoing my makeup. When I came out he said we had to rush off to breakfast at once as he had a session booked for me in the Spa.
That Spa! I could happily live in it. I felt a bit full of breakfast when I went in (I was down as ‘Miss Danielle Mazzini’ which was odd, and everyone kept addressing me as ‘Danielle’, which I went along with quite happily. Why not?) I lay in the jacuzzi, I had a sauna, and I half-heartedly did aquarobics with a load of other women (Whose pasty, elderly husbands were lying on beds round the pool, reading newspapers.) The women were obviously first wives, because they were all middle-aged, and quite worn, but with lovely, expensive hair. They were – and this was so comforting – mostly stouter than me. Well, very slightly. I’d been so scared they’d all be supermodels or trophy yummy mummies. After an hour I started a series of insanely expensive treatments intended for Danielle, like mud wraps and facials and foot massages. I was treated as if I was a very precious object – a designer handbag, maybe – and polished and wrapped reverently. Showers were run for me, and I was told not to go to the trouble of picking up my knickers, because of course they would do that. It was amazing. In between I lay in a darkened relaxation room, drinking ginger tea and listening to a tape of goat-herds tinkling bells by the sea.
I finally left about 5, feeling all pink and beautiful and massaged and creamed and de-toxified. Michael had told me I could go anywhere in the hotel and grounds and just have anything to eat or drink I wanted, all I had to do was give my room number and sign my name. (I gave Danielle’s, to avoid confusion.) Wow! It was so great! I had a special detoxifying smoothie, just to round up any last remaining toxins, followed by salad and champagne in the Stables restaurant. (The place has lots of restaurants, all with annoying names.)(If you decide not to have a sweet there, to be slimming, and just order coffee, it comes with a chocolate brownie on the side. Or a ritzy chocolate.) Then I wandered back up to the room, all the staff smiling and greeting me and asking if there was anything they could do for me? I spent ages trying to look incredible. I just wished I’d been able to pack properly, as I’d chosen quite stupid stuff, the way you do, if you are in a hurry. My shoes didn’t really match my long black silk dress with the bow on it. And the dress was a bit tight, despite all the saunas. It looked sausagey.
And finally Michael came back, as I was watching the widescreen TV, lounging on the bed nibbling on the contents of the mini-bar – and we made love. He was very kind. And seemed rather sad. But it was sort of disappointing. He asked me if I wanted to go to the restaurant or have room service, and we settled for room-service, so we could stay in bed. (Caviare, fois gras, lobster and plums. Practically everything on the menu came with plums or plum coulis, it was really hard to avoid them. (There was even a plum on the bedside table, in a stylish, Tate Modern fruit bowl.) The rest of the weekend was a blur of saunaing, and de-toxifying, and having golfing lessons from the golf teacher, and lying in the huge bed feeling incredibly grateful to Michael, and wanting to make him happy, but…well… failing. It’s never really happened to me like that before. Sometimes he actually looked like he was crying. And I wanted to make this good for him, but it seemed that I couldn’t.
Anyhoo, last night he dropped me and Mirabelle back at my flat, and the place seemed so, so shabby and dirty and cheap compared to the hotel. Even the bedclothes. The sheets were really heavy at The Grove, and smelled of some delicious, light perfume…

Life As a Dream (with pumpkins)

Well, I’m having a truly incredible weekend. It’s like a dream. On Friday, after work. I went off to the hairdresser to get my highlights done. I had thought of NOT doing this, being short of cash, but am so, so glad I went ahead with it, as my hair was looking terrible.
Anyhoo, afterwards I had nothing special to do and it seemed a waste ofd my great hair to do nothing with it, so I thought I’d pop into the Cadogan Arms for a cocktail. (I had just enough money in my bag, so did not have to go to the cashpoint, which has been randomly refusing my requests for money this week. It let me have cash Tuesday, but not Wednesday. V embarrassing.) I was just about to order when someone put their hand on my shoulder and said ’The delicious Scones!’ (Well, actually, they used my real name, which, for pointless security reasons, cannot be used on this blog.) I turned round, and guess who it was! Michael. He looked very rumpled and tired, and smelled of drink, and he has a friend with him, and he introduced me, keeping his arm round my waist at all times. So we sat down together, and the friend asked what I did etc and then the two men had a rambling talk, which seemed to be in code, about some company they owned. I didn’t listen, as Michael kept buying me different champagne cocktails and lining them up in front of me on the table and asking me what they tasted like. It was so so odd. He was so affectionate. It was like we were suddenly such close friends. Anyhoo, in the end his friend drifted off, and Michael put his face in his hands and said: ‘Scones, scones scones!’ He shook his head. And then he said, taking my hand, ‘I don’t suppose you would… No, no you wouldn’t.’
It took ages to get it out of him what he wanted, but he said he longed to take me away to a hotel for the weekend, would I agree?’
Well, OF COURSE I said yes! (Who wouldn’t?) He wanted to go STRAIGHT AWAY, so I said I had to go home and get some clothes, and see about Mirabelle etc. And in no time I found myself in a taxi, going to my flat. Michael waited downstairs while I flung stuff into a suitcase. The Japanese girls were not in, so we drove Mirabelle round to Rache’s, where I KNOW she will have a lovely romantic weekend with Oskar the totally-transformed cat. Rache came out to the taxi to have a good look at Michael, giggling, which would have been embarrassing if I hadn’t been so numb from the champagne, and then we were off.
We just sat in the back of the taxi, Michael gripping on to my hand tightly, and drove through the rain. He said, fuzzily, ‘You don’t know what this means to me, my darling Scones,’ and then fell asleep. I had no idea where we were going. It was to a huge stately home type place in Watford.
Michel piled out of the taxi and paid with a huge roll of cash, and then we were in to reception, surrounded by warm air, and polished glass, and incredibly polite staff. And pumpkins. The place was curiously decorated with sort of mad modern art stuff. There were trees with tiny orange paper lanterns on, like fruit, in reception, and the oddest paintings. And piles of pumpkins everywhere. I suppose because it is Halloween. Or was
So we went straight into a very dark restaurant with a vast oil-painting (of pumpkins, of course). And we had a ‘tasting menu’, which is when they keep presenting you with, say, a thimbleful of very salty soup, or a piece of meat the size of a bar of soap, with a squiggle of coloured sauce on it, and then they whisk it away and bring more plates, and more silver knives and forks, and another thimble. And we drank more and more champagne, and Michel kept squeezing my hand and telling me how wonderful I was, and laughing indulgently at everything I said.
It must have been about I a.m by the time we went to the suite, which had a huge four-poster bed. I ran a bath and tried out all the free soaps etc and when I got back to the bed Michael was fast asleep in all his clothes, snoring unbelievably loudly.

Does Carrot Cake Matter?

Apologies for not posting this week, but my computer at work broke, so I had to share with Valerie (in the same office) and of course had to be v careful. For a moment, there, I thought they weren’t going to replace the computer, ever, and this would mean I was going to be sacked FOR SURE, but it seems to be OK, though there is a strange atmosphere hanging over the place, somehow, and I didn’t dare make a fuss about the new computer taking so long to arrive.
Well, the party at Jasmine’s last Friday was an austerity party. We were supposed to make do and mend etc and bring wartime recipes. I took along a carrot cake, as they ate that in the war (though of course back then they were not baked by Mr Waitrose), but other people really got into it, making stuff no one in their right mind would want to eat, like mock-sausages and dried egg. I was very excited about this person I was being invited to meet, but it turned out to be – Glenn. Mind you, it was an improved model of Glenn. He had cut his hair short, and did not smell of alcohol (in fact drank fruit juice all night). He had a Tshirt under his jersey and later (we all went out to a Chinese restaurant) when he got hot I saw it read: ‘Die Hard: Take Viagra’, which is quite amusing, really. Glenn was incredibly well-behaved and very clean. And, as you know, he is extremely good-looking, with his dark hair, slim figure and blue eyes. He told me he’d been in AA since I last saw him and he is turning his life around. He lives on a big farm in Cornwall with a group of friends, and he kept saying why didn’t I move down there too (with Mirabelle, of course) as I could have my own place – no strings attached. It sounded like a sort of chalet in the woods that I could have if I wanted. It sounded quite tempting. Especially as they are almost completely self-sufficient, with a cow for milk, and a veg garden. Nothing else happened, but I found myself wondering, much as Sarah Jessica Parker does in those Sex in The City voiceovers: Is Money Really That Important? Maybe I’ll have to investigate. Or maybe not.

Clothes, clothes, clothes...

I was lying in bed at 4 in the morning, fretting about this and that, when I started thinking about clothes. Isn’t it weird how significant clothes are? Even clothes you’ve never worn, never even touched. Like – I just have to THINK about Richard Gere’s cheesy white suit (and cap) in ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ and I feel this sexy frisson. And thinking about Richard Gere himself doesn’t do it. It’s the suit. And then there’s the lovely coffee-coloured dress (with tight belt) that Julia Roberts wears to the races in ‘Pretty Woman’. I loved that. I kept meaning to buy one like it, but never did, and now it’s almost as if I did anyway, I feel such affection and nostalgia. And I saw ‘Priceless’ last night, with Audrey Tatou in it, and that film is, really, about clothes. Not that any stick out particularly (though the evening dresses are amazing – though they wouldn’t suit me. They’re for very slim women with tiny tits.) It’s just that you find yourself looking eagerly at the clothes, not the people. They’re really NEW clothes, too: there are lots of shots of people snipping tags off them.
Anyhoo, Jasmine wants me to go to her place tonight to ‘meet someone that she knows I’ll like’ so I’ve been running over my clothes in my head. Pity I can’t buy new ones…

Obsessing About Bernie Ecclestone

Fretting about my dad has got me thinking about fathers. I’ve always disliked Bernie Ecclestone – without ever meeting him – just because he runs Formula One, probably bribed Tony Blair, and is repulsive, teeny, and married to a v tall, v glamorous v young Slav wife. (And looks like he wears an unconvincing, Elton-John wig. Ugh.) And yet his daughter Petra is a hard-working success and says: ‘Dad has worked hard his whole life. He doesn’t deserve to see his daughters going out flashing their knickers, I want to make my parents proud.’ Obviously, he’s a brilliant dad. And then look at Bob Geldof. Everyone has always SAID he’s a brilliant dad: devoted, self-sacrificing, strict but fair etc etc. And yet Peaches Geldof is out flashing her knickers, taking banned substances, marrying on a whim in Vegas etc. So he CLEARLY didn’t do it right.
I was obsessing about this yesterday, and Helen, who works in the other office on my floor, said it was because how you turn out is all about heredity. ‘Didn’t Geldof take drugs and run wild when he was young? Didn’t Paula Yates? See?’ I don’t really like to believe this. It means that your future is sort of predestined the instant you’re born.
Anyhoo, sorry about posting this dullish thought, but I have been obsessing about it.
Oh, and my dad is very kind and unselfish and never took vast quantities of drugs, so doesn’t really deserve to be slowly poisoned. (If that is what Jacob is doing.)

Strange Flus???

Haven’t posted because I’ve been feeling so peculiar and unwell. I haven’t really wanted to eat anything since the weekend (except tea and toast, very occasionally) and while it’s a bit worrying – what did Jacob put in the Green Thai Curry? – at least my clothes aren’t too tight any more. I’ve been reading all this stuff about people getting kidney failure as a result of cooking up poisonous mushrooms, so I hope it wasn’t one of those. I even rang my dad, last night about it. He said they all seemed to have had a peculiar kind of flu that had laid them low for a few days, but they were now on the mend.
‘What about Jacob?’ I asked
‘Oh – Jacob didn’t get it. He never does.’
‘So have you had a lot of these flus?’
‘From time to time. Let me see, we had one back in August. I remember that because it was an odd time of the year for flu. And then Dawnie and me were bad in June. Very bad, for two days, but that was brought on by the cold and wet.’
So this makes me wonder. Is Jacob some kind of a psychopath teenage poisoner, working up to some sort of serial-killing spree by practising on his family? Or have I just gone mad?
Still, it is nice being slightly slimmer. And I notice that almost everyone I know has put on about half a stone (or more) over the summer. Probably because it was so wet and miserable. And they’ve been worrying about the squeeze.

Strange Foods

On Sunday we had a Green Thai curry for lunch that Jacob made (he’s been having cookery lessons at school and got v enthusiastic about being a masterchef) We all felt strange afterwards, and I decided to go home early. I’m not sure it’s a terribly good idea teaching teenagers to cook. Who really wants to eat their stuff? I mean, you feel uneasy the whole time, especially when you look closely at their expression and see how little they are eating. (And remember how they like doing silly experiments.)
Anyhoo, it was a good thing I came home early as when I got in with Mirabelle in her basket I saw a note on the mat. I was just opening a tin of catmeat for her (Mirabelle lost her appetite while at my dad’s, oddly enough. But she was desperately hungry when we got home.) When I opened the note. It was from the landlord, giving me 24 hours notice of a flat-inspection. So I stuffed Mirabelle and her dish of catfood in her basket and just raced up the stairs to the Japanese girls, but they couldn’t have her, either, as THEY were having a flat inspection, too. So I raced downstairs again, shoved the dirt-box in a carrier-bag, and rushed out into the street with all my cat-related items, and luckily managed to get a cab and go to Rache’s. And she was in – it was so, so lucky. Then I had to rush back to the flat to be there when the landlord arrived.
It was Ok. The only sticky bit was when he looked round the kitchen and saw the opened cat-food tin on the counter. Fortunately it’s a top of the range pedigree variety and doesn’t REALLY look like cat-food. (Esp as the part of the tin with the cat’s face on was turned to the wall.) I spread some on a cracker and bit into it, and then hastily put the tin in the fridge. So either he thinks it was pate, or he thinks I’m a little eccentric. Or that I’m economising in a stupid way, due to the squeeze. And none of those are grounds for kicking someone out of a flat that they keep perfectly clean, are they?
I haven’t wanted to eat anything, since, though. I seem to have stumbled on the best conditions for dieting: get teenagers to cook for you, eat catfood, and practically DIE of panic and anxiety.

Spaghettiing the Banana

I had a lovely time on Saturday. I didn’t think I’d enjoy it – I went off to my Dad’s, in Bristol. He remarried ages ago, and this was a big party for one of his step-children (who is 21). After the birthday lunch (in the back room of a pub) we all went back to my dad’s house and the children were messing around. My favourite step-brother is the youngest, Jacob, who is twelve and looks sort of angelic – blond curls hair, willowy, brilliant at sports – but isn’t. We’ve always got on well (except when he was a baby, and I resented him, of course), and he tells me stuff be probably wouldn’t tell his dad or mum, and I find some of it really interesting and amusing. Like - recently he’s discovered that if you push a piece of raw spaghetti into a banana it gradually absorbs all the juice from the banana over a few hours, and turns into a sort of slimy worm that horrifies anyone unsuspecting who bites into the banana .
Last time I visited he was really into dropping a special peppermint called Mentos into diet coke, which turns it into an explosive fountain. (He first did it in the garden and accidentally traumatised his pet rabbits – they didn’t know what to make of this sudden monsoon of sticky brown rain. You can still see where it fell on the greenhouse.)He’s planning to fill the bath with custard and walk on it next week. (Because, for some complicated reason to do with physics, it can support your weight, so its sort of like walking on water.)
Anyhoo, it was so great spending hours having silly conversations with him and his friends in the Indian summery sun. It makes me feel I would really, really like to get married and have children soon.

The Importance of Lovely Bras

Went out yesterday and bought really beautiful underwear, as I thought: if times get tough I won’t be able to afford this. And, like lipstick and chocolate, it’s a luxury you can’t do without. I mean, suppose I lost my job etc and was living on turnips, and then I fell in love… well, I would definitely need this crushed-raspberry set then. I was OFFERED A STORE CARD when I bought them. Also, earlier that morning MBNA sent me a letter asking me if I was feeling hard-pressed by the current crisis, and suggesting that all my troubles could be solved if I TOOK OUT ANOTHER CREDIT CARD.
I spent a lot of time yesterday telling myself that, as Miggins kindly suggests, tarots only mean something if you believe they do. This would have worked, maybe, if I hadn’t chatted to Jo about it. She immediately told me about her aunt, who kept getting towers, and skeletons with reaping tools etc, whenever she did her tarots, and eventually got so concerned about it she went to a range of fortune-tellers, who all, one after the other told her she was going to die early. And she did die early etc…
Jo had this secretive, pleased look on her face while she told me this. I hate it when female friends look like that when you’re in trouble. Although I have to say that I occasionally find it quite hard to keep a similar look off my face. When Jo told me a while ago that her wedding was being delayed as Martyn had decided (and more important, his mother had decided), it should happen in the spring, when some wonderful wedding place he knows about will be free to book, I had to try desperately hard to look truly sad for Jo. I was sorry she was having to wait. But also, deep in my heart there was a tiny malevolent – totally wrong - bit of me that was cackling with glee.

Pink Cocktails and Bad News

I’m feeling a bit woozy and depressed today as Rache came over last night and we drank too many champagne cocktails.(A credit-squeeze version, using pink Cava from Tesco.) (Also, some of them with cranberry juice in, as Rache has cystitis. Or maybe some worse, Greek variant.) She was so sad about Vasilius going. He is the best thing that has ever happened to her, such a fantastic lover, such a superb man in every way etc etc.
The thing I was most interested in is that she told me that Oskar, the demon cat, who was making Rache’s life a misery by, for instance, peeing in her fruit bowl, has completely changed as a result of these two grumpy middle-aged Greek men occupying his quarters for a week. Rache explained that Oskar now looks apologetic all the time, is pathetically grateful even to be allowed into the place, and doesn’t even miaow when he needs feeding. He just looks at her pleadingly, with a winsome look on his scroffy face. I don’t know what those Greeks did to him, but it sounds amazing. Maybe Vas and Dimi ought to have their own TV series, ruthlessly sorting out troublesome cats all over the UK.(Only, maybe their methods are best kept secret.)
Oh, and just before Rache passed out on my sofa, mascara smeared all over her face, she confided that Pym was really worried about me. My tarots were really diabolically terrible, and he was just making them sound better to be kind. He’s never seen worse ones, and was shocked when they came out almost exactly the same the second time…
Great.

Chocolate Lipstick

Went out to drinking last night with Jasmine, who has got a new, ageing Goth boyfriend. (It was the Intrepid Fox, a truly scary place. I am never going to the toilets there again, NEVER. ) One good thing was, I discovered all kinds of strange side-effects of the credit-squeeze. Her boyf does French polishing for very very rich people. (He is always having to rush out on French polishing emergencies, that is, some stupidly rich person will accidentally scratch a side table, and a neighbour is coming round! Oh No! Quick! Ring up a French-polisher and bribe them a thousand quid to come round immediately!) For the last month he has had NO WORK AT ALL. None. So, clearly, you have to be ludicrously stupidly rich to be unaffected by the squeeze. Stupidly rich isn’t good enough any more.
And one of the reasons why our firm is in trouble is that we represent a yoghourt brand that people drink to improve their stomach bacteria or something. (It made me make terrible, unforgivable farting noises, like a rapidly deflating balloon, when I tried it, so I never did again. NOT glamorous.) And apparently, when people are feeling the squeeze they stop eating special yoghourts. I wonder what the last things they give up are? The consensus last night was that they might be lipstick and chocolate.

My New Gay Best Friend

I was so miserable yesterday evening, and then I decided to take the advice offered by the kind people who visit this website and ring Pym. He told me to come round at once – said he’d been wanting to ring me but hadn’t been able to get hold of my number from Rache because she was out nightclubbing with Vasilius and Dimitrius.
So I went to Maida Vale, which is a lovely safe place to go to at night, its streets seemingly empty except for well-groomed Arabs and their servants. Pym had opened some champagne (it is all he drinks, apparently), and made some crostini things to eat, and he sat me down and told me not to worry about the cards, they all had positive meanings as well as bad ones. In fact he said the same sort of thing Miggins and Topiary and had. And then he asked me if I wanted to try again, and held out the cards. So I took a deep breath and held them in my hands for a while (you are supposed to suffuse them with your being etc) and then picked out 7. And it was really weird, but I got pretty much the same cards as before, with the Tower in the middle. Pym said this nearly always happens. He studied the cards for ages, then told me not to worry, it was actually quite positive. He said there are going to be really massive changes in my life very very soon, and everything I’m used to will be turned upside down. But after that, I will find a lot of wonderful, good, positive things happening, and my life will actually be better.
I felt so much happier after this. And we just chatted away for hours. It’s amazing talking to him because he is so gorgeous and so kind. (He said he adored my shoes. I had worn one of my favourite pairs to cheer myself up. They are pink.) And he told me about a great vintage shop to go to, and then I told him about THE BOOK and he said he wished they’d write something similar for gays, as he is always getting his heart broken. (Though Rache has told me that he goes for incredibly beautiful, vain, shallow young men, so this is pretty much bound to happen.)I even told him about this blog, and he said it sounded like a ‘chick-lit blog’, which I suppose it is. There was something v pleasurable, in a weird way, about having such an intimate chat with a man I could never have sex with. I’ve never had a close gay best friend, but I can really see the appeal now.

My Disastrous Career

Last night I went to dinner with Rachel’s gay best friend, Pym. (Well, that’s his surname, but he likes everyone to use it as if it is his first name.) We went there because Rache was desperate to find some way of entertaining Dimitrios, who is v hard-going, and accompanied Vasilius EVERYWHERE (except the bedroom, obviously). Oh – and Rachel seems delighted with Vasilius now, she thinks he is just as handsome as before etc.
Anyhoo, we went off to Pym’s flat, which is in Maida Vale. It’s gorgeous: nearly all the rooms painted a coffee-colour (called Bath Stone), old oil-paintings in gold frames, antique furniture, There’s a faint smell of dog. (He doesn’t have a dog.) But then bachelor’s places do sometimes smell a little. (Either of dog or hamster-cage. It must be due to unwashed socks.) We had a roast dinner and things were very sticky because Dimitrios said he couldn’t eat the food, it was too dry, he hated the sauce, Greeks didn’t cook pork like this etc etc. Then he was restless and got up and kept fiddling with Pym’s priceless objets d’art which made Pym nervous. So Rache said why didn’t Pym tell our fortunes? Apparently he has this party piece where he tells fortunes with Tarot cards and he is really rather good. I’ve always been scared of Tarot cards and kind of thought they were wrong and sinister, but they said I didn’t have to do it. So first Pym did Vasilius, and told him his business would do brilliantly, and there was a new romance in his life. Then he told Rache she had been unhappy, but a new era was dawning. And the big success was Dimitrios, who hadn’t really wanted to draw cards, but, when he did, got loads of pentacles, which apparently mean money and prosperity and success, culminating in the ten of Pentacles, which is apparently pretty much the best card you can have. He was so pleased! A smile even lit up his sour old face. He practically kissed Pym. (Who v kissable. So handsome, a lovely sexy tanned face, always smiling, and gorgeous bright blue eyes.)
Well, you can guess what happened next. It had got really late by now, and everyone said why didn’t I try. And, after all, their cards hadn’t been at all scary. And Pym held them out and told me to choose. And an odd thing happened. It was almost like I could see the backs of certain cards glowing slightly, like those were the ones I should choose.
And we turned them over… and they were just horrible! REALLY REALLY SCARY AND VILE. The devil card was in there, and right in the middle a tower with people screaming and falling off it. I just burst into tears. So then we went home. And now I don’t know whether to ring Pym and ask him what they meant, or just try and forget it all.

Bitter Greek Reality

Sorry not to have posted, but things are very edgy here at work, and I don’t particularly want anyone to see me doing non-professional stuff when I’m supposed to be working. There have been a lot of serious meetings, and whenever you see the partners they look grim, so I’m starting to wonder if Michael was right after all, when he said the firm was in trouble. Wish I had looked for another job when he suggested it, as looking for new jobs it going to be loads more difficult now.
Ho well, other news is that Vasilius arrived last night. (Accompanied by his bitter, grumpy cousin Dimitrios.) Rache rang me up for a whispered telephone call. She said he looked completely different in London: sort of sallow and wrinkly. I suppose it’s a bit like when you buy one of those kaftan thingies on holiday and wear it every day, feeling relaxed and glamorous, and then you get home and try it on, and practically pass out with horror at how awful you look in it. Still, as Vasilius has gone to the huge bother of pretending he needed to go to a London to look at restaurant supplies (he’s opening a restaurant soon with his Dimitrios), and flying over here, Rache feels she pretty well HAS to sleep with him, now, whether she fancies him or not. She hasn’t got the strength of mind to say he can sleep on the couch and nothing more. (Or even the strength of mind to refuse to answer the door and pretend she isn’t in.) On the plus side, he brought her loads of cakes. (Which had also gone sort of sad and wrinkly on the plane.)

The Ebay Catnip Conspiracy Theory

My latest resolution is to reduce my scary debts, so I’ve been trying to sell stuff on ebay. I don’t know if you’ve tried this, but before you can even START there’s so much fiddly stuff with paypal you just feel like resting your face on the keyboard and screaming. Once 2p and 8.9p or whatever have been put in your account, you’d think it would get easier, wouldn’t you? But it doesn’t.
I put two pairs of shoes and a dress that I didn’t like much on there, and they all went through the auction process etc, and made a decentish amount of money, but then I got an email from the MAN who had bought them. Why? Are they the sort of thing transsexuals would want to wear? This is so worrying!
And he said he couldn’t pay for two weeks and would I bear with him. So I said I would, and then of course I wandered about on ebay, spending all the money he may possibly be going to give me on perfume and mascara and a mini-brush for my handbag. So I’m now even worse in debt than before. Oh, and I also bought a catnip cushion for Mirabelle because all the catnip thingies I’ve ever bought her don’t seem to work properly . They hardly smell of anything. I’m beginning to think there’s an international dud-catnip conspiracy, with millions being made from selling snipped-up hay (or tumbledrier fluff) instead of catnip. (After all, who ever looks inside a catnip toy?)

Dog Waistcoats and Bad Thoughts

The day before yesterday, on the tube, there was this horrible, shuddersome thing on that strap thingy you are supposed to hold on to in the ceiling: a used condom. And then I read in one of the Woo’s posts that she’d found a turd on a tube seat. Aren’t these terrible? How did the city ever get so bad?
Ho well, I try not to think of such things, as I’d much rather be cheerful and optimistic. Also, I’m trying to keep a pleasant, about-to-smile look on my face at all times, which is much harder than you’d think. Though a lot more people have been asking me for directions and chatting to me in shops lately, so it must be having an effect.
I walked casually past Michael’s house lately, wondering whether he’d been affected by the banking collapses and general financial meltdown, as it seems middle-ranking very rich people are being wiped out, having their homes repossessed etc, while the uber-rich are happier than ever, buying up jet-loads of champagne, ordering fresh Vivienne Westwood diamond waistcoats for their dogs and so on. I don’t know which he is: rich or uber-rich. His house looked unoccupied, like it had been empty for weeks and weeks. And I found myself wondering if I’d even find him attractive – or want to have anything to do with him – if he was poor. Which was a very bad thought.

Baclava Love

Rache rang me very excited saying that Vasilius, the unhappily-married Greek shopkeeper she met on holiday has just sent her a postcard (with a donkey on it) saying he is coming to London to see her. I can’t see that this is exciting at all, especially as Rachel read THE BOOK on Saturday, and seemed at the time to completely take in all it said about having nothing to do with married men. (The book said that, statistically, the only time a married man is likely to leave his wife for you is in the first three months of your relationship. After that, there’s no chance. And anyhoo, married men are an all-round bad bet in the romantic stakes.) Her reply was that she’s only known him three weeks (or 5 days if you just count the days she spent with him), so she’s a long way off three months. And anyway she’s not sure she wants him to leave his family.
I just feel v.sorry for Vasilius’s wife, who looked about twice his age, was shaped like a bolster-cushion, and had a sad, bitter look on her wrinkly face. And spent her whole time scuffling around sorting boxes, stacking shelves, cooking etc etc while Vasilius flirted with the female customers and gave them free slices of baclava.

THE BOOK - and cheesecake

Well, the weekend has just been DOMINATED by that book. I took it in to work on Friday and people kept wandering casually up to my desk and leafing through it, and then wondering, in an off-hand way, if they could borrow it. (I said No, as I knew I’d never see it again.) Then all weekend people kept dropping in to read it. The two Japanese girls got engrossed in it on Sunday, after appearing (with Mirabelle, who had escaped again, this time to their flat, because they have a sun-roof thingy and she loves basking in it.)
It’s engrossing not just because - as Topiary said, it is based on honest research, rather than just the stupid opinion of some self-appointed guru – but because everyone who reads it seems to have a story that backs it up. I was discussing it in the deli, esp the bit that says if you want to get married you HAVE to have a particular serious conversation telling your man that you do, and the woman behind the counter, Pixie, said that that was exactly how she got married. She had a long-live in relationship that went bad, having had two kids by the guy. And then she met her present husband, and really liked him. And one day, when they were in bed – yet another proposal-situation that happened when both people were naked – she summoned up all her courage and said to him that she really really loved him etc but she’d already tried living with someone and that hadn’t worked out, so this time it was marriage or nothing, and if he didn’t want to commit she’d have to end things. And then she felt so ashamed and self-conscious she pulled the duvet over her head and hid. And after about five minutes she poked her head back out and he was sitting up, smiling, and he said ‘I’m still here!’ and that was that.
We were smiling and laughing about this, and I was trying to choose between two low-fat cheesecakes (lemon or mango) when her husb appeared. And guess what! He was fat and bald! But in a very nice, attractive way.
This morning, two men have come casually up to my desk to leaf through THE BOOK. So word is getting round.

GoodbyeToAllGooeyCakes - Probably

What an amazing book that is, that Topiary recommended! It’s called ‘Why Men Marry Some Women and Not Others, and basically, it tells you what you have to do to get married. Especially if you are getting on a bit. The advice could be boiled down to:
1)Diet until you are around size 10
2)Put makeup on and groom yourself
3)Wear nice (not tarty) clothes
4)Be a very nice person
5) Spend all your free time going where men are
6) When you find a man (and you have to be prepared to accept balding, fat guys) determine whether he is a serial non-committer or not. If he is, dump him and find someone better
7) After you’ve get into nice relationship with this balding fattie, make it very clear that you want to marry him desperately and are expecting a proposal. If you don’t get it, dump him and…etc.
I never realised you had to try that hard. But I suppose it’s obvious that you do. I immediately got Rachel and Jasmine to read it, and we’re all now practising ‘looking pleasant’ (you have to look as if you are just about to smile)(No grinning madly). And you’re also supposed to walk about with rolled-up washcloths on your shoulders, to get a nicely erect posture.
Anyway it is just amazing, and everything in it is backed up by reams of research. I just wish it wasn’t ESSENTIAL to lose all that weight.

Buster-Collar Blues

Took Mirabelle in to the vet’s yesterday to have her neutered (on Topiary’s advice). It was just terrible, as she hated being in the basket and kept miaowing. And then we had to wait in the waiting room next to a v hostile man with a huge sweating pitbull. (He told me that the dog ate cats. Very tactful of him.)
Anyhoo, now Mirabelle has a plastic collar on to stop her biting the stitches. She really hates it. She spends a lot of time walking backwards and/or trying to jump up the bookcases and dislodging all my magazines and books. It looks so horrid that I’ve been and bought some lace and ribbons and glitter to make it prettier.
I was talking about this to Rache who isn’t very sympathetic. Her awful cat (Oskar) started limping a while ago so she had to take him in to have a plaster-cast. An hour after getting home he had bitten it off. So she had to take him back, and get another one. They told her to keep him in a confined space, so she put him in the downstairs loo, and an hour after putting him in there she opened the door and found he’s bitten it off AGAIN. So then she had to keep him in a cage thingy they lent her. And he kept peeing through the bars at her. So I suppose I’m lucky with Mirabelle, who is just ceaselessly (night and day) stumbling around in her collar, knocking things over.
Every time I pass the stairs now I look so see if there’s a man sitting underneath but of course there never is, so I must have misheard what the Japanese student said.

Worrying News About the Kitten

Dropped in on the Japanese students on Sunday to thank them for looking after Mirabelle. (I took them some flowers and chocs. I spent a long time looking at Tesco sushi and wondering if they’d prefer it to chocs, but decided they probably wouldn’t. It always tastes wrong to me. I’m no expert on sushi but surely it shouldn’t be that stodgy and tasteless? I like the box it comes in, mind, and the little containers of sauces, chopsticks etc. Always reminds me of airline food, which I adore. Airline food tastes wrong, too, of course – but in a charming sort of way. The portions are so small it is like eating doll’s food. Ventriloquists’ dolls’ food. )
Anyhoo, only one student was there (not the one called Teg) and she got quite giggly and confessed that while they were looking after her, Mirabelle had run away. And been missing for a whole day, having nipped out of the door and streaked down the stairs. Just as they were beginning to worry about whether they should wander out into the street yelling Mirabelle’s name, or put up reward notices (thus tipping off the landlord to the highly illegal cat-tenancy going on in one of his flats) someone had brought Mirabelle back, tapping on the door of the students’ flat before handing her over. Who was it? The non-Teg student didn’t know the name, just that he was a ‘nice man’ who sometimes sits under the stairs.
It’s really frustrating trying to talk to people who can’t speak English properly, however lovely they are in other ways. I kept saying ‘But NO ONE sits under the stairs!’
And the student kept saying. ‘Yes. Sometimes he is there!’ very insistently.
Afterwards I went downstairs and looked at the cubbyhole under the stairs, but of course there was no one there.
So now, the question is – did Mirabelle meet a tom cat while she was out? Would it be wise to take her to the vet for a morning after pill? Can you get them for cats? And would they work after a week has gone by?
She certainly looks very pleased with herself nowadays.

Liver Spot Worry Gone

It was just a bit of chocolate, luckily. Due to a fairy cake.

Tanning regrets

It’s so strange the way, on holiday, the more tanned you get the more beautiful you feel. And the more men stare. So you get this feeling you are just looking more and more gorgeous. (Also start to feel great about being in a bikini because the tan makes the flab OK somehow, also the beach is full of really flobbly people or people of 70, all proudly wearing teeny bikinis. Also monstrously furry Greek men in teeny Speedos but I won’t talk about them.) And on the flight home everyone is smiling, like members of a new club. And then you get into your flat. (Smelling, strangely, of old dog. And of a mouse that Mirabelle somehow managed to find, half-eat, and hide down the back of the sofa, where it now has maggots. Ugh.)
And the first time you look in the bathroom mirror you reel back in horror cos your face looks suddenly all dry and scaly and flakey and coarse. Horrific. I’m completely slathered in anti-ageing cream now. Glistening like a slug at my desk. It’s so cold I’m having to wear tights so no one can see my gorgeous brown legs that I lavished so much basting attention on. And no one has commented on my tan. I can see one freckly thing on my arm at the moment, that just CANT be a liver spot. Surely you don’t get them at 36, do you? Aaagh.

Fish Frenzy

Rache and I discovered that you can feed bread to the fishes in the Mediterranean, exactly like feeding ducks on the Serpentine. You wade out till you are up to your waist, then throw bits of dry Greek bread on the water and fish boil round it. It's like watching piranhas feeding.When we first did it the other people on the beach thought we were mad, but then a few other women came out, out of curiosity, and they got into doing it, too. One was trying to get the fishes to feed from her hand, but they were too shy.
Rache's Greek guy is called Vasilius. Apparently he's married but does not get on with his wife etc. This was not a surprise to Rache as somehow all the men she has ever had relationships with have been married (or bitter and recently divorced, like the guy who left her Oskar). She told me she's kissed Vasilius. (In the back roomn of the shop where gas canisters are stored.)It was great, apparently. Apart from his beard being tickly. (His lips are too red for my taste.)
Anyhoo, we have all the delight of waiting hours in a Greek departure lounge now, and the holiday rep has just told us the Greek are very very severe about overweight luggage so I'm wondering whether to just eat all my halva and baclava and olives NOW rather than pay extra euros for taking them home. Sigh.

More Greek Thoughts

Well, here I am again, typing at the unbelievably slow internet connection in Greece. I take back all i said about Greek cats. Today Rache and i found a nest of kittens in the bushes round the back of the apartments. There were six of them, about five weeks old, all spotty and gingery and really tame. They were COVERED in fleas, though. Things Greek cats like eating: lizards, tinned sardines, slices of Bologna and Emmental. The kittens' mother will grab a slice of Bologna and carry it off like it's a rabbit, walking sway-footed, Then she eats it, lashing her tail. Things Greek cats won't eat: Greek yoghourt.
I'm feeling quite cheerful as three Greek men hooted at me as I was walking down the road in my bikini.Also they keep staring at my tits. i can't recall A SINGLE Greek man looking at my face this holiday Another one bunched his hand into a sort of pointed fist at me and then opened it. What does that mean?
Rache has given the Greek man in the shop her address in London. I feel this was not wise.
Feeling really sad I have to go home soon. I wish i could live here forever.

Quick Greek Thoughts

Managed to fins a Greek internet cafe. Can't write for too long as the bartender keeps sniggering at my breasts. The Greek men are very testosteroney and grumpy. Anyhoo, it is v hot here and Rache and i both have great tans. Part of the reason we came was that Rache was desperate to get away from her horrible cat, Oskar (it belonged to her ex). But the cats here are -well, completely different to English cats. There are so many of them. One black one keeps racing into our apartment and hiding under the bed. Another one, that looks stuffed, with a lumpy, misshapen head, stalks us, and if you give it a slice of bologna sausage it eats it INSTANTLY. There are about five kittens in the apartment bar, all of them snarling at each other when they think you aren't looking, and then putting on studiedly sweet expressions when they think you are.
Apart from that, Rache is getting on rather too well with the man who runs the rubbish shop that sells dry, furry peaches and overpriced bottled water. I'm rather sad i haven't managed to find anyone yet.

Apologies

I've been very gloomy lately, and you know how that just sort of stops you writing. First, I had to work incredibly hard to get all my work done before the holiday - and then I got flu. And the whole staycation idea was horrible. It was definitely NOT the same as being on holiday, living in my flat, with the rain pouring down outside, and a few guest soaps sprinkled around the place. I got sick of Indian food after the second day, too.
The only strange thing that happened, last Sunday, was that Mirabelle the kitten escaped out of the front door, and i was in a real panic to find her before the landlord did, and she raced down to the hall and found her curled up on a dirty sleeping-bag someone had left behind the stairs. I met the two Japanese girls as I was carrying her back up, and they went on and on about how sweet she was, and said they'd love to look after her for me.
So when, yesterday, Rache and I went to see Mamma Mia, and decided that we didn't care if we had no money, we were going to max out our credit cards and go off to Greece AT ONCE if it killed us - I had someone who'd look after Mirabelle. So we are off tomorrow, early, on a cheapo flight, and we won't be back for a week.
When i do come back I'll try to be a much better blogger, and write every day, and be better in other ways, too - work harder, and be much thinner etc etc.

Walnut cake and Frankfurters

Inspired by the lists on other blogs, e.g. the Urban Woo’s., I’ve made my own:
Hideous minor celebrity I fancy and feel deeply ashamed about (and repulsed by myself in consequence): Dennis Waterman (I didn’t mean to fancy him. I had one of those awful, creepy dreams after watching him by accident on TV.)
Favourite cake (if not allowed squishy chocolate) : walnut and coffee.
Strangeish meal I eat when completely miserable, which always perks me up: frankfurters with lime pickle.
My lucky underwear is: a boned, zebra-print set (with yellow lace edging – ugh) that I got in a moment of sale-madness years ago. Got a wonderful job offer while wearing it, also was wearing it when Michael’s secretary rang with offer of dinner. It is incredibly naff and uncomfy, so I only ever wear it when everything else is in the wash.
Most horrible recent sensation: last Thursday, when I accidentally tipped some pommes dauphinoises into a hairy rug, and then had to comb it out with my fingers. While the kitten rode on my head, trying to be helpful.
Part of a politician that most annoys me: David Cameron’s puffy cheeks.
Thing I hate most about this summer: having to wear sweaters. Also, the way the milk still keeps going off in the fridge (the way it does in hot summers –why is that?).
What animal would I most like to see a comical youtube film about?: polar bear. Wish there were far more polar bear films on there.

Surprising Things

Clare, at work, has just told me HER husband proposed to her when she was in the nude, too – in a Jacuzzi in Thailand. Maybe all real proposals (as opposed to ones in romcoms) happen in the nude.
I was thinking about how miffed I was at the wedding – that Andrew didn’t flirt with me the way he always has every time we’ve met up. It’s odd, because I don’t fancy him at all. I’d never want to go out with him or even snog him. So why do I care that he no longer wants to flirt with me? I think it’s a possessive thing. Because he usually flirts with me, I feel he’s MINE, and should flirt with no other – ever. Also, any diminution in any flirting aimed at me, even by repulsive people, is BAD .Odd, really.

Being Past It

I had a rather depressing weekend, which is why I haven’t been posting. But then it seems lots of other people are gloomy at the moment, too – like the Woo - possibly because this rotten weather makes any sadness worse.
Anyhoo, I went off to a family wedding which I’d been looking forward to for ages (Mirabelle came in a cat basket), and all the liveliest, wittiest, most gorgeous people at it were all around ten years younger than me. Obviously I wanted to be with them, but I’d been put on the boring table with the aunts with early-onset Alzheimer’s, the old farts who only wanted to talk about tall ships/ military campaigns/ the hatefulness of Labour etc. Well, I went over and sat with the fun ones after the speeches, anyway, and though they seemed pleased to see me, and I could join in all the crack, they still made me feel a little as if I, too, was not that interesting, Not one of the guys flirted with me – and, you know, one of them, Andrew, really did flirt with me a LOT at the last family do I went to. I just started to feel I’d completely lost it. I even got the feeling two cousins at the end of the table were sniggering at me and specifically my dress, like it was far too short or something.
Maybe I need to go to a family funeral where, hopefully, family octogenarians will flirt with me and make me feel better.
Oh, and at this wedding the bride let on the groom had proposed to her when they were naked in the shower. I can’t decide whether that’s romantic or not.

A Return Dinner

Jasmine says I should invite Michael to a party at my flat, as a thank-you for his (pointless and unnecessary) advice and slap-up restaurant meal. It either has to be a drinks party or a dinner-party, and a dinner party is loads cheaper. Obviously Jasmine has to come, and I thought Jo and Martyn would be good (especially as Jo says she’ll make a range of delicious puds). Rachel wants to come, and says she’ll bring her gay best friend, Pym. And Jasmine says she’ll find some presentable man to bring along. So I’ve just got to persuade Michael to come. I keep getting either his answering service, or his scarily efficient PA, and I don’t want to leave a message with either of them. Esp as it has to be a ‘Can you come this Friday, or next Friday, or the Friday after?’ pathetic kind of message.
I feel quite hopeful about this as I love cooking, and unlike Bridget Jones, am jolly good at it. I’m going to practice various dishes, trying them out on Rachel and getting her honest opinion. At the restaurant, Michael chose really stodgy English food: steak and kidney pie. And treacle tart. So I’ll do something like that. And I might buy a Cath Kidston apron, so he can see a softer, more domestic side to my character. Rache says I must serve really strong champagne cocktails to everyone the instant they arrive as there are three rules to follow if you want people to think you are a good cook:
1) get them plastered
2) serve small portions
3) only feed them when they are totally famished (and plastered)

Staycations With Cats

Rache came round again last night (to get away from Oskarthe evil cat) and said she was very depressed because she can’t afford a holiday, and needs one. I’ve spent so much lately on shoes, dresses to impress Michael etc that I can’t really afford one either. So we’re going to have staycations. Rache says we should exactly replicate all the things we like best about going abroad.
1) The hotel experience:
We’d clean our flats and fill the bathroom with mini-soaps and shower gels, and put paper wrappers on the loo. Then we’d lay out a breakfast that included mini cereals in boxes, and possibly something completely unsuitable unappealing and peculiar, too, like dates in syrup or slices of boiled ham. (Rache thinks we ought to swap flats, too, as that would make it more like a hioliday, but I’m not keen on spending my whole holiday with Oskar.)
2) I like reading loads of chick-lit while lying on a lounger, being warm, and getting a tan. Rache likes getting completely bladdered, dancing on tables in clubs, and sleeping until teatime. Both of these can easily be done at home. I wondered if we should keep to one particular cuisine – say, Indian, for the whole two weeks, just to give the experience authenticity.
3) Rache says we ought to stick together (getting slightly annoyed with your friend is part of the holiday vibe) also meet new people, especially waiters and sports instructors (i.e. not the usual sort of man), so we might spend a lot of time in health clubs, maybe trying out free introductory days – in order to economize.
4) And of course we have to wear clothes we’d be embarrassed to wear at home: strange kaftans bought at discount markets, ultra-tight shorts etc.

It’s been quite cheering thinking up all this stuff. Maybe it’ll be OK after all. Actually, the bits I like most about holidaysare the flight out (esp the weird airline meal), and waking up in the motning knowing it’s going to be hot and hearing really unfamiliar sounds like cicadas, donkeys braying. Not sure how to replicate these.

Bad Cat, Rubbish Thoughts

Maybe it will all turn out OK and Michael won’t tell anyone about my imaginary inheritance. In the meantime there are no obvious signs this firm is in trouble. The client list has not shrunk. They’re refurbishing the upper offices. The MD was whistling in the toilets this morning. Could Michael be mistaken? Why would he lie to me about something like that?
Anyhoo, last night Rachel was ranting bitterly about male/female relationships, and how they are a scary meat-market. So if you are a woman over thirty-five, basically your market value has declined tragically, so you have to pick a man who is:
1) less attractive than you
2) less wealthy than you, or
3) less classy than you
Other things that cause a woman to have to lower her standards severely in the hope of getting laid are:
1) being larger than size 12
2) having a past (ie divorced and ranting about it)
3) being accompanied everywhere by nightmare small child called something like Max or Rupert.
So according to Rache if I was divorced and had a nightmare kid the only person who’d ever go out with me would be a hideously misshapen tramp. This can’t be right.
I think prolonged contact with her nightmare cat Oskar has depressed Rachel too much.

Date with Destiny - Aaagh!

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/wsimgs/rk/images/rcp-images/Recipe/Flourless-ChocolateTorte.jpgThe date with Michael was both worrying and blissful, in equal measures. We were meeting at Quo Vadis in Soho. I wore my best LBD (it’s always back to black if you feel fat) with a belt made of exciting satiny ribbon from VV Rouleaux. This is supposed to be a thrifty thing to do. (In all the broadsheets’ top tips for saving money in a slump.) But you should see the price of that ribbon! I have some great black stilettoes, too. (Did think of wearing flats cos of how short he is, but then most rich men go for taller ladies, don’t they?)
He was ten minutes late and on the phone when he arrived. But he had warned the staff and he had booked a brilliant table, and they opened a bottle of champagne just for me while I waited for him.) He smelled of Eau Sauvage, and was wearing a nicely-cut suit – so cunningly contrived it almost made him look fit.
It’sgorgeous in Quo Vadis – all frosted mirrors, polished silver and white linen. I had crab talgiatelle and fillet steak with béarnaise. The worrying bit was when we were all settled with our food and he said he felt so terrible because he’d never offered me the advice I’d asked for at the breakfast. And what had I wanted to consult him about?
So there was nothing for it but to fib and say I’d been thinking of setting up an agency on my own (with an imaginary inheritance from an aunt). He looked grave and said it was the worst possible time for a new venture, and I said how I’d heard recessions were times of opportunity too.(Thus looking like a lively, rich businesswoman, and perfect consort.) It all flowed along until he said it was lucky I had the inheritance to fall back on as he’d heard my firm was in trouble, and looking to lay people off Aaagh! The minute I heard that I got in a panic and the chocolate torte turned to ash in my mouth. And even hearing he’d seen me at the Private View and longed to speak to me,and that the tall blonde he was with was the artist (a client’s wife) – explains why the pics were so rubbish – did not make things better.
I was so distracted our goodbyes were rather brief. (Wet kiss alittle bit like terrier slobber on my cheek.) What do I do if he tells my boss (one of his best mates) I’m rolling in it and want to start up on my own?Aargh!

The Spell Comes Good!

The spell seems to be working! (Which is really amazing seeing as I did it so badly.) A workman wolf-whistled at me this morning. And didn’t shout abuse. (I was wearing my new turquoise tunic. I have discovered if you wear a belted tunic over trousers and high heels you look vastly thinner without having to diet. This was, actually discovered ages ago by Gok Wan et al., but has taken this long for me to implement it.) And the workman was quite decentish to look at, too, and when I glanced back at him he waved at me. (There was a finger or two raised in there, but he was smiling broadly so I don’t think he meant to be rude.)
And then when I got into work Daddy’s girl had moved off to another office, and Michael ACTUALLY RANG ME to ask if I wanted to go out to dinner with him on Friday! So I’m in the mood to celebrate, and Jo has brought in some shortbread. Which isn’t a very celebratory food really. In fact, it’s the sort of snack you have to mentally gather your strength for, even though it is nice. (Though it’s raspberry shortbread, so that might be different.)
Well, I never believed in witchcraft before, to be honest. I thought it was a load of poo. Sinister poo. But maybe it isn’t.

A Smoked Oyster Spell

Well, it has been incredibly difficult to write this blog recently because the boss’s daughter is here on work experience, at a desk near mine, and keeps spying on what I’m doing, and no doubt reporting back to darling Papa on how hard I work, how frequently I take cake-breaks etc. So I’m having to be a total saint, and I can only quickly look at other people’s blogs whenever she goes to the loo. But I’m working late tonight – to make a point about how totally indispensable I am - and she isn’t around.
Anyhoo: the special romantic spell. On Friday night I had everything ready: a range of aphrodisiacs – watermelon, tinned oysters (there isn’t an r in the month) and chocolate. I’d also found some dark blue candles and some red chalk. I waited until 11p.m., and then drew a circle on the floor of my sitting room, under the window, lit the candles, and sat there in my best underwear, trying to think romantic, erotic thoughts about the mystery new man I wanted in my life. The moon was clearly visible through my window, and the whole thing would have been quite shiveringly spooky, if the kitten hadn’t kept jumping on me and going on about how she wanted a snack. (But then, of course, a cat is an aoppropriately witchy thing to have around, if you happen to be doing a spell.)
Just before midnight I opened the oysters (getting cottonseed oil all over my new bra). They were disgusting. And didn’t go particularly well with the watermelon or the chocolate. They also made the kitten more bothersome and intrusive. It was almost impossible to actually think deeply about the spell etc. But I did my best, and tried to conjure up an attractive male face and so on, but, annoyingly, I kept seeing Glenn. Isn’t that weird? Particularly as I’m so relieved he isn’t pestering me any more.
I went to bed feeling disappointed and rather queasy, and woke suddenly in the night to find the kitten eating a smoked oyster (complete with oil) in my hair.

The Yoga Class of Doom

Decided that the best way to lose weight was to do exercise, so joined a small locallish evening yoga class. The teacher was fifty-plus, with a cake-eating frame. ( I say this kindly, as a cake-eater myself). Quite a lot of her drooped, too.(So maybe she had only just started teaching. Which probably explains why her class wasn’t popular.) And her hair was dyed a peculiar mottled orange and cut to resemble Friar Tuck’s.
Anyhoo, she was extremely welcoming, and smily. Present were: four pensioners, a man with strangely dark,greasy clothes, who hid himself away at the back, as if worried that he smelled - and an Asian girl in a tracksuit, who constantly nipped into the corridor to talk to her husband on her mobile. To begin with, I was glad that the place was not bulging with beautiful over-muscled people in Spandex (or whatever the yoga equivalent is), but then the melancholy setting began to get to me. The pensioners and Asian girl seemed despondent; the greasy man was clearly severely depressed, and the yoga teacher, though she kept smiling, was obviously finding it hard to be upbeat. And then I began to notice strange under-currents. The teacher reserved a note of gentle, but persistent criticism for the Asian girl, ‘No, try a little harder, Lavali’. ’Did you hear what I said, Lavali? You’re not very good at that, are you?’ And she began making offish remarks to me, under the guise of being helpful. So she’d say: ‘Is that all right for your back?’ And I’d say ‘Fine!’ back, brightly. And then she’d say something like: ‘No osteoporosis, then?’ or ‘This one is especially good if you are going through the menopause.’ And she definitely wasn’t looking at anyone else when she said that. After an hour or so I was feeling pretty dismayed. Also, I hadn’t brought a mat, and the floor smelled gym-shoey. And then my hair and hands did. In fact, by the end I felt so terrible that it was a shock to look in a mirror and NOT see a bent-over crone, glowing from one final, post-menstrual flush.

The Glass is Half-Empty

The Private View was disappointing. The things we were viewing were – predictably - terrible photographs taken by a talentless madman. But on the plus side, there was good champagne. I never saw the artist. He wasn’t standing around looking arty and tortured the way they usually do.
As advised by Topiary, I’d gone for the Rene Russo look. I was getting my highlights done anyway, so I’d asked them to put my hair up in a French pleat, and I nipped home after and changed into a split tweed skirt, brown boots, and a rollneck sweater. It felt nice in the cool, rain-washed streets on the way to the view, but when Jasmine and I got there it became unbearable, because the room was so hot. I started sweating, my neck prickled, and even wearing my special sausage-skin knickers my skirt rode up ridiculously. Also, when I caught sight of myself reflected in one of the stupid photos I realised the pleat wasn’t flattering. I looked the way Anonymous always sees me: like a porky dominatrix (quite topical, really, considering the Mosley trial). The place had filled up to crush-point by the time Michael arrived. AND he had one of those awful, thin, hyper-groomed, ultra-chic women with him. The sort that make any average woman just want to curl up and die. She had incredible teeth, and tits that couldn’t be real, and she was gripping his arm and leaning in to him. (Well, more like bending down – she was jolly tall. It created a bizarre effect, like a mummy seeing her child off on his first day at school.) I don’t know if he saw me. Jasmine wanted me to go up and introduce myself etc, but I couldn’t bear to. Instead we slunk out. And had cocktails in a bar. So I suppose my last hope with Michael, now, is the magic spell on the 18th. If that doesn’t work I’m giving up.

A Wordy Way to Slim

I read today (in the Telegraph, which I’ve been reading on and off since coming across it at Michael’s breakfast) that if you keep a food-diary and write down what you eat every day you lose twice as much as normal. So here’s yesterday’s food diary:
7.30, while hurrying to get dressed: black coffee, no milk as kitten wanted it.
8.20, Latte from Starbucks
9.0 disgusting non-coffee from office machine. Diet yoghourt I’d bought to work
10.0 Chocolate-time hazelnut meringues with double cream and strawberries. Strawberry smoothie.
I.pm Diet yoghourt
3.30 Chocolate - time ditto except had non-tea from machine (only the non-soup is worse) and no smoothie.
5.45 Reluctantly ate damp lettuce from sandwich box as had to work late. Squishy tomato also.
7.30. Faint and desperate with hunger. Came home to find nothing in fridge except catfood so had to go out shopping again. Whole supermarket suffused with smell of baking bread, also, warm, comforting odour of fresh pasties. Wolfed down pasty on bus.(This all made worse by supermarket till person handing me the pasty in its bag as I packed stuff, saying: ‘You’d better put this on top. You’ll be eating it on the way home.’ How did she know?) Got home and realised whole diet had gone down the drain for the day, also it was raining and I was wet, so made big bowl of pasta and shared bits with kitten. Two peaches.
9.30 Glass of wine. Suddenly felt incredibly happy so opened tin of salted almonds at back of cupboard, had two more glasses of wine as thirsty.
11pm wedge of brie to go with peach
11.30 Another peach as they were v good.
I’m not sure how writing this down will make me lose weight, but hope it does.

Magic for Cake-lovers

My romantic life has been so rubbishy lately that I was quite interested when Rachel told me I ought to give magic a go. She discovered on the internet that the thing to do was to, first of all, write down all the things you are looking for in a man, and put it in an envelope in a safe place. Then you find out when the full moon is: 18th of this month – and on that evening you get hold of an African aphrodisiac called Yohimbe (available in health food stores), take some, and channel all your energy into ‘sex magic’ – i.e. thinking longingly of this new man who is going to come into your life. And then, apparently, he’ll appear within a couple of weeks. So here’s my list:
1) Healthy
2) Financially sound: lives in a lovely place
3) Kind and thoughtful
4) Not too old
5) No bad breath
6) Never clips toenails in front of you
7) Preferably has hair on his head
8) Preferably no paunch
9) Doesn’t mind waiting around while other people dry their hair, go shopping etc
10) Likes kittens. And cake.
I didn’t want to be too fussy, and rule out too many people. The papers have been full of stuff about ‘the dark triad’ recently, i.e. women prefer men who are narcissistic, thrill-seeking and selfish, but I think Iif I’m going in for witchcraft it’s probably best to keep it white and not ask for anything dark and creepy. Not v keen on this Yohimbe stuff. May substitute something else like watermelon (just been revealed as superaphrodisiac).

Strawberry Shortcake Thoughts

Well, it’s very hard to see how the thing with Michael is going to progress. I was discussing it with Jasmine just now during chocolate-time (strawberry shortcake), and she said that she knows Michael is going to a private view next week and I ought to go too (she can get me an invite), and sort of be in the crowd, being mysterious, friendly and distant, so he can come up and say hello if he likes.
I thought he might think I was STALKING him. She said, no, if I’m there, too, it will just seem like I’m one of the in-crowd, and have very much the same interests as him.. The other problems are: I don’t really want to buy another new outfit on my credit card. (I can’t fit into any of my existing great outfits until this tomato sandwich diet starts working properly.) (And I just ate some strawberry shortcake because the colours were similar to a tomato sandwich and also I couldn’t resist.) (So possibly the diet won’t work today.)
Also, how hard does one have to try, to catch a (to be honest) not terribly attractive rich guy? Jasmine says there’s a whole art to catching a millionaire, and you can buy books on it etc. And it’s really well worth doing because if you manage to marry them, even for, say a year, you are set up for life. (Although, I do think this is the wrong way to think, and one ought to be romantic, too.)
Oh, and she also said she was a bit worried about Glenn as she hasn’t heard from him lately. He said he’d ring her when he finished being at Glastonbury, but he hasn’t. She’s worried he’s ill and passed out in a hedge somewhere.

Strange Breakfast

Well – yes, the breakfast. Haven’t been able to post for days, it seems, because there’s been so much going on at work, and then Rachel came round again, to flee from the evil Oscar…
It felt very peculiar going round to Michael’s house at 7 a.m. having spent about an hour washing my hair etc first. The Philipino maid showed me in to the dining room – huge expanse of shiny table with four places laid and loads of newspapers, and asked me what I’d like to eat. It really was the perfect place to be, so I just sort of settled in happily and drank coffee and had bacon, sausage and tomato (and fried bread, which I hadn’t asked for, but ate as it was there), and it was almost startling when two strange men appeared as well, and started eating and chatting to each other. And then Michael turned up in shirt-sleeves, looking terribly busy and important, and kissed me on the cheek. I had a question ready – about whether he’d advise me to start up by myself in the PR business –pretty obvious really. But I DIDNT HAVE TO ASK IT. There were mobiles going off all the time, and every time Michael caught my eye and smiled at me, as if he was about to bring the question up, one of the other men would butt in and say something to him. So basically, all I did was turn up and have a very nice heavy breakfast and read his Daily Telegraph.
About 8.15 I thought I’d better go, and he waved at me (on the phone) and said, ‘We must do this again!’ And that was it. So what do I do now? Do I ask myself to breakfast again? Does this count as a date?
Oh – and the bad thing about eating a full cooked breakfast is that you still feel wistful when other people produce fairy cakes later on, but you know you have completely used up your calorie allowance for the whole day. So it’s sort of like being a prisoner.