my stuff
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things to do this year and other dribbles
Do you remember the strange sleeping hours that my body was keeping before I went on holiday?
Well, I do anyway so that’s the main thing. It involved waking up at the crack of piss every day, slowly trying to roll out of bed without it creaking (and boy does it creak) and waking up Bandito (who has this uncanny knack of sensing the precise moment I’m about to leave the marital pit and clamping both arms and most of his legs around me in a grip akin to a clamp/vice/that huggy bear cuddly toy thing you got in the 80s) and then tiptoeing out of the bedroom quietly ‘shooshing’ the cat who goes into miaow overload as soon as he sees any potential food on his small but cuddly horizon and then spending 2 – 3 hours staring around the living room wondering why the fuck I’m up at such an ungodly hour.
Well. I put all of that down to excitement about my birthday and then our wedding anniversary and then Christmas.
But it would appear that it’s now my new sleeping pattern. Which would be fine – nothing like a few hours to yourself of a morning – if it didn’t mean conking out at 9pm whilst in the middle of dinner.
I’ve been home for quite a while now, surely it’s not STILL jet lag? And I don’t remember being like this when we came back from Thailand last April. Hmm. Tis something of a quandary.
I think that my genetic make up is launching a full scale attack and trying to turn me into my granny. Leaping over my mother’s characteristics and heading straight into old lady territory. This should be an interesting year if that’s the case.
This morning I woke up at 6am. I lay in bed till 7 (which I find very difficult, with only my brain, the darkness and Bandito’s light and gentle snoring to keep me company) and then came through to the living room. I like the house at that time of the day. It’s mine. I know Bandito won’t be up for hours (as he probably went to bed about 2 hours before I got up) and I can do whatever I please, so long as whatever I please involves being very quiet and not doing too much at all.
This morning I looked through my 2 new shiny cookbooks. I got this one (slurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp) and this one for christmas . I’m SO into Nigel Slater, literally to the point where I would quite happily drizzle him in highly expensive extra virgin olive oil and pan fry him with some pine nuts and basil, so I was delighted to get that one. The Oliver one though, I find difficult to deal with. My opinion is split 50/50 about him. I’m sure I’ll adore him when my future children aren’t being force fed chicken nuggets and ham twizzlers or whatever they’re called while they’re at school, but for the moment I’m just not sure.
Let’s look at the facts (and by facts I mean my opinions):
On the one hand – he has really done a lot for school dinners in England (so I’m told). On the other hand, he has a really fucking annoying wife (who has weird shaped legs). On the one hand, he does have really good recipes (tuna meatballs and chicken hunter stew in his new book to name a piddly few), on the other hand though – he’s fucking everywhere. I half expect to find him in the cupboard we keep the cat food in when I get up in the morning going ‘this cat food’s really pukka, if you got a little bit of nutmeg from Sainsbury’s and sprinkled it on bish bash bosh you’d be quids in’. On the one hand, he is really good at what he does, he clearly loves his family and saved those poor street urchins who had a lifetime of poverty and pot noodles stretching out in front of them and turned them into food loving chefs and maitre d’s, on the other hand – he has a really annoying wife.
Methinks I’m doing too much thinking about jamie oliver.
Anyhoo.
Whilst on holiday with 20 odd mates, conversation turned to things we’d hope to achieve in the year ahead (new years resolutions I suppose). We went around the table – among them were: stopping smoking, getting fit, getting into mountain biking, going to South America, buying a flat, changing jobs, cutting down on booze, joining a gym, learning a new language, learning to drive and mine:
• Spending more money on myself
• Shaving more
• Get a new kitchen fitted
• Get new windows put in
• Get into photography
• Doing some volunteer work
with the kids (man)
• Stop shopping in supermarkets
• Get an organic food box
thingy delivered once a week
• Get pregnant
(at some point. Possibly)
• Buy a digital camera
• Do more imaginative exercise
– i.e a burlesque class
or yoga or something
instead of joining a gym
or doing that boot camp
class twice a week which
is boring my head off
• Get less cained at the
weekend and actually do
things that sound pleasant
(a la girlsdontcry,
jennyj,
pollymagoo and
all you other lovelies that
do things that sound joyous
of a weekend) instead
of rolling around
people’s living rooms at
8am in last nights clothes
, pants and make up
smoking spliffs, drinking
uber strength vodka,
popping pills and holding
a speaker to my ear in
order to hear the bits
in between the music etc.
etc. etc.
• Start the bestselling
book I’ve been meaning
to write since I was 8
• See more of Scotland
• Buy more music and books
from actual shops instead
of online
• Get more quirky
• Stop swearing
• Wallpaper the fucking bedroom
• Learn to say ‘no’.
• Learn when to stop…
That should just about do it for the year. I hope I return to this list at some point to check up on myself.
Feel free to enquire at any point during the year about any or all of the above points. A gentle ribbing will probably help me along the way (a GENTLE ribbing starzero!!).
Guess what? Since returning home on Tuesday I have consumed the following alcoholic beverages:
Wednesday: 1 glass of wine
Thursday: 1 glass of wine
Friday: 1 beer
Does this mean that my new drinking regime is already in place? I suppose we’ll only learn in time.
Sunday is the official start of our annual ‘let’s find out if we’re alcoholics by trying to stop drinking for a month’ detox. Well kind of. We detox till next Saturday, then we’ve got a Burns’ Supper - which to the un-learned among you is a celebration of our national hero and general all round groovy poet Robert [Rabbie] Burns. We all get together and recite his poetry, something we’re all taught word for word from the moment we pop out of the womb and take very seriously [well, I know about 2 lines from 2 of his poems and so does pretty much everybody else..what is it again? Something about a sonsie face and wee shimmrin timorous beastie. That should do it)], drink whisky, plunge a big knife into a steaming haggis and gorge on said haggis with mashed potatoes and mashed turnips. This is NOT IN ANY WAY to be confused with a general flimsy excuse to get roaring drunk and rant good Scottish poetry to each other with big red noses and kilts on whilst conducting fiercely energetic highland flings and the like. No. It is a very serious celebration which should be taken very seriously.
So you see why I have to come off the detox for that – I’m doing it for Scotland. And then we go back ON the detox (and we’ll seriously need it cos our Burns Supper is at Crazy Horses, and she throws a mean dagger into a haggis that’s for sure) for one whole month.
Ah. The new year. I kind of love it.
Now – one last thing. I’m taking a ridiculous amount of time reading everybody’s diary, so can you all email me or leave me notes with a brief update as to what you’ve been doing, remembering to point out anything of note like engagement, boxing the mother in law on the nose, moving countries etc – that would be swell.
Oh and another last thing.
I am officially in love with fridayfilms but don’t tell her.
She gave the world THIS and you didn’t even thank her properly.
And a meow meow meow I’m outta here.
Love ye’s xxx
9:43 am - 21 January 2006
