Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner!

Thank god for that. It's over. The one day in the year that looms over me, like a dark cloud, has passed!

And, I hate to say it, but bar one year this was the best Valentine's Day I've had. Odd... with me being single and all! Decided I was not going to lock myself away this year with a giant tub of ice-cream, a large box of tissues and Bridget Jones on the tv.... as I usually do! I was going to be mentally healthy this year and ensure I had company and stuff to do in the sunlight!

My partner in crime this year was my equally single mate Stimpy. After sending out texts of love to all my mates I endured the 'fun' of local transport for an hour. We were then dragged for a lovely long walk along the coastal path around Jennycliff Beach by three exciteable dogs! I was really pleased I had dressed up for the day as I was pulled through giant puddles of muddy water. My joy was even greater as my toes first discovered the hole in my right boot. Still, all this didn't matter as I stood on the edge of a cliff and watched violent wind induced waves crashing against each other, then gently caressing the shoreline. The wind pushed us away from the edge, and my hair lapped around in the breeze, as if in time with the grass. It was breathtaking. Really wish I had brought my camera.

When we got back to the house we started our cooking extravaganza!! We did start making a giant mince pie (cos it was the only pie filling we could find) but then we both remembered our love of raw pastry mixture (much to our mothers' consternation!) and by the time we had finished there was very little left to actually cook! Yommy.... I did of course manage to do 'The Shake 'n' Vac' (anyone else remember that advert?) with the flour throughout the cooking process and by the end I looked like an albino.... with muddy trousers... and dirty brown socks. I was looking sexy.

Deciding I was now attractive enough to go out on the pull, Stimp and I went to the cinema. The week before I had bought tickets to see Dirty Dancing, which was playing as a 'one night only' deal at the local Vue cinema. No matter how cheesy I know this movie is I still love it! Some of the lines are just so cringworthingly bad that I have to regularly hide behind pillows in embarrassment but the chance of seeing Patrick Swayze's pecks and tush on the big screen was too much of a temptation for me! It was actually one of my best experiences in the cinema with everyone singing along to the songs and the entire audience laughing at all the 'special' lines. It was like a cult movie! I was expecting people to walk in with watermelons...

Hope everyone else's Valentine's was as good as mine! Love to you all!!

Coming To America!

I have made the executive decision to put my entire life on hold for the next 6 month to be able to afford to fulfill a lifelong dream! It's been a tough call to make cos I love going out and spending money on crap, like DVDs and clothes and meals but I've put this dream on hold for too long. This June, I'm going to America.

I don't know why I have this obsession with going to America, because I have spent most of my life making it clear that I find most Americans obnoxious and annoying.... maybe this is a little xenophobic. Maybe it would be more precise to say that after watching Jerry Springer and going to university I have found that the majority of 'average' Americans I have come in contact with or seen have either been nuts or megalomaniacs. I need to go to America to show myself that there are some nice yanks out there. Deep down I know that I can't base the whole nation on a few idiots I've met - I mean, I'd be truly offended if Americans based their opinion of the English on Liam Gallagher or Jordan.

I think this is my third attempt at going, and well, they say third time lucky! First time I was just far far too poor. I went to the travel agent, looked at the prices, went home and sobbed into my empty wallet. Second time, I fell in love half way through saving and going away suddenly didn't seem as important as buying crisps and beer and holing ourselves up in a basement with a computer and tv.... go figure! Apparently his world would be become 'Film Noir' if I left him alone and I was always a sucker for romantic amateur dramatics! Ironically, the same man (probably through some deepseated guilt) is the instigator of my third chance, when he put my name forward as an eat-my-own-spleen-to-go-to-America type. I will be going for 14 days to Boston and New England with my ex boyfriend's Mum and I can't wait! A strange choice of travel companion it may be thought but she's a great lady and I know this holiday is going to KICK ASS.

And... more importantly, I know it is definately going to happen this time! Today, I booked my non-returnable flight! Was very funny as we sat there and talked about how to get to Heathrow Airport for 8am without staying overnight. Neo's mother looked me in the eye and with a deadpan face suggested we ask her son to drive us up there overnight. This is the man you have to crowbar out of his computer chair to go to his sister's wedding. We both just looked at each other, there was a moment and then we LAUGHED and LAUGHED. The travel agent I swear quietly booked an overnight preflight stay for us in Broadmoor.

It never fails to suprise me the little 'suprise packages' of extra charges you get from the shafting airlines/agents. We smiled as we are told the flights will be a mere couple of hundred pounds.. 'A Bargain!' we think... then we get told about the tax (kerching!) and the insurance (Kerching!!) and the 'extra little charges' (KERCHING!!!). I mean, 'handling charge', what the hell is that about?! We get the privilege of paying out big wodges of our hard earned cash so some little prepubescent sod on work experience can manhandle my bag of valuables, play football with it and then baseball bat it to within an inch of its life before chucking it onto the plane... ok, yes, I'm still sore about the price of flights doubling in front of my eyes in mere minutes. Toughest minutes of my life they were - I almost cried. It was an emotional moment. Sniff.

BUT... it was worth it. I can't wait to see Salem, the witch hanging capital and even check out our very own copycat namesake city of Plymouth, home to the stupidest bunch of pilgrims with the smallest imagination for place names ever.

So, if anyone I know reads this site.. I'm not ignoring you, I'm just trying desperately not to spend any money for the next 6 months as I've got some SERIOUS saving to do!! Social life is officially on hold cos I have no willpower and need to hide from the world!

Might get going on a few computer games - maybe live life through a Sim or two?! Has life really come to this........ desperate times.

Anyone out there with any New England recommends, please feel free to leave some suggestions!

Bloody Quizzes

I am trying to decide if the reason for the abysmal performance of my generation in Quizzes has anything to do with the now terrible education system or if we just all have too busy lives to do the telegraph crossword or read Pear's Encyclopaedia every weekend?

I ask this question as my mate Jeff and I entered a pub quiz on Sunday night and we came in at an impressive last place! We were even beaten by the drunk at the bar who couldn't leave the bar or he'd fall to a heap on the floor. Embarrassing doesn't begin to describe it! As I was sitting there desperately trying to remember what the hell DNA stood for for the hundredth quiz, I began contemplating the above question.

Every other team in the pub was on average the minimum age of 50 and seemed to be finding the quiz relatively easy. Even worse was the fact the quiz was run by my old History teacher. He had been the most useless History teacher ever and he was making me look stupid. It was guaranteed if you started the old debate about whether Jesus was Jewish in his class you could get away with bugger all work the entire lesson.

Of course, my defence for my rubbish display in the quiz was the fact there was not a single question in reference to my strong knowledge subjects - History, Movies, TV and Music. I mean, there were 12 bloody questions about Science and Inventions?! I mean, really, who knows who invented the Gyroscope?! Well, I don't, and to be honest I think I will make it through life not knowing... unless I ever go back to the pub quiz at the Boringdon Arms, at which I will curse never finding out.

Happy New Year!!

Here we are in 2007 and I thought I had better write something as I am getting sarcastic nagging from my Blog Creator! ;op I apologise in advance but this is going to be a serious Blog...

I had my new year's blog all sorted after watching Captain Corelli's Mandolin the other day. I heard the following in the script:

When You Fall In Love

. . . it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it isn't conceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.

Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It's not lying awake at night imagining he is kissing every part of your body. No, don't blush. I'll tell you some truths. For that is just being in love, which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over; when being in love has burned away. It doesn't sound very exciting, does it? But it is.

Why? you might ask, am I talking about love at New Year's Eve?! It is at least a good month until Valentine's day?!! I'm talking about love, because, let's face it, most of life is about love and it seems to be particularly prominently in your mind at New Year's Eve...New Year's Eve is when you take stock of your life during the previous year and think ahead to the new year. If you are anything like me, you spend many depressing hours thinking about whether your love life was up to muster and if there are any drastic changes you need to make to improve it... it's just a disaster waiting to happen.

I heard the above words on my TV during the Christmas break and I thought, 'that's it! That's what I want!' I seem to have spent my life with men who tell me they don't know what 'Love' is and finally I have found the words that explain it all! To be honest I have pondered the same question myself... every New Year's Eve in fact! Nice to find someone actually put it into words the way I believe it - my hat goes off to Louis De Bernieres. Great writer. Of course, the point is, when you find true love you know what it is and you don't need to ask!

You are probably wondering how my New Year's went this year?! Well, it was actually good fun. Yes, that was an actual positive comment about a pagan festival from me! Blink and you'll miss it.

I spent several hours listening to my ex boyfriend's band (the ex that I dumped on New Year's Day in 2006... accident waiting to happen, I tell thee) in a house party and it was great fun! I even got to play the tambourine!! Woo hoo! Ok, it's not much to some but it was my 15 minutes of 'almost fame'. Spent most of the night chatting to a cool bloke, who I knew to be married but I'd heard from a reliable source his wife had left him earlier in the year. Spent a lovely night on the settee with the gentleman, contemplating love and all that crap, to then be told a week later by the aforementioned useless informant that the wayward wife had actually returned some time ago... accident just waiting to happen. Still, it was a pleasant night and I don't regret it, as I was a lady the entire night!! Thank god for me and my moral code!! Hehe! :o)

The rest of the evening was filled with Blackadder quotes, me singing and young 'ladies' flashing their knickers - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, as it were.

I know I said this last year and it backfired horrendously on me, but 'Here's to a better year than last year!'.

Bring it on.

Christmas Sucks

Dear Lord, I really hate Christmas.

I want to enjoy it and get wrapped up in all that sugar coated 'peace on earth and goodwill to all men' crap but my heart just isn't in it! Last year I even managed to get out of the hard slog of hanging up the christmas decs. Bloody bliss.

Unfortunately, this year it's a definate no go - I've managed to find myself living with a christmas cheer i-love-tacky-shiny-baubles-and-all-that-crap type. Am going to have to dig around in the dark recesses of my cupboard and blow the dust off the decs. Last time (two years ago) I only got them out because I had a kid staying over and as I still cherish my childhood memories of Christmas I wasn't going to be the one to spoil it for the little lassie.

It must be my age, I swear it. I used to scowl at Bah Humbugs who wouldn't sing Christmas carols and poo pooed the very idea of Christmas magic but now as the years go by I find myself more and more grumbling around the shops, rolling my eyes every time I hear bloody Chris De Burgh singing "And it went aahahahaahahahaahahahaaaaaah".... grrr. And... and... the older I get the less able I am to buy presents for other people. I always go to town with the sole intension of buying presents and end up buying bags of things for myself. For example, last week. Decided I really really needed to start Christmas shopping or else I would once again be spending my Christmas Eve with the Dads of Plymouth, in a last minute desperate attempt to buy everything I need in an hour. I dragged myself into town and walked around for hooouuuurrrs. Couldn't find a single present. On the other hand, I did find two tops, a cd and and a lovely pair of shoes that called my name and looked sad in the shop window, to blackmail me into buying them. Have kept Christmas Eve free in my diary...

It is also bloody unfair that at such a busy organisational time of year your social life suddenly seems to explode out of control. Every other evening is another Christmas dinner (so you are pig sick of chocolate and turkey by Christmas day itself) and your days off you just want to recover from alcohol poisoning and chronic fatigue. I have once again bought a large box of Christmas cards only to find a stash of three unopened boxes in the aforementioned cupboard of forgetfullness which were abandoned there because I didn't find a spare hour or billion in Chrismas Past to write the same tired Tourette's-like expression "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!" over and over like lines for a punishment. Ok, ok, I admit it! I'm just plain lazy and can't be bothered to do cards. I can't even say 'I think it is a con by card companies to sell cards, so i'm boycotting them', cos I obviously still buy the cards and help keep the multi million card company bastards in business!!

I could go on whinging about Christmas forever so I am just going to go now and sulk about the hideousness of the single life at this time of year. I am sure this Christmas lark was just made up by Smug Marrieds to rub the single person's nose in the depression of loneliness. Nothing more depressing than dragging the Christmas tree home alone, buying your Christmas puddings for one, having no-one to buy a tonne of presents for and then waking up alone on Christmas morning to a near as dammit empty stocking and then drinking until you pass out and can forget the day happened.... in fact it is definately competing for my Worst Day of the Year award which is currently still won every year by Valentine's Day. For the love of god, that is only 2 months away! Sob.

I say it again. Christmas Sucks.

Why I Haven't Posted for a While

No excuses... I'm just crap.

Watching Others Get Old and Loving It More!!

After my birthday celebration, came 'round two' of birthdays and probably one of the most hectic weekends of my life! In the space of one week I know four people who celebrate their birthdays AND one wedding anniversary! Three of the said birthdays were to be celebrated in the same weekend.

On the Friday Night, with the prospect of two brithday parties I decided to get all sensible and not drink. Boring I know! And if I had known that all the 'party animals' attending the party on Saturday, were going to be so tired and hungover from the mad Friday party, I would have happily got drunk on Friday too! At the time, I thought it madness to get suicidally drunk two evenings in a row (boy am I showing my age now!) but then I realised it was just typical me, always picking the wrong night to drink!! Humph.

So, anyway, the first party was a fancy dress or formal dress evening, so I got my best glad rags out of the wardrobe. I had a mini celebration as I discovered the 'tight' dress I had kept in my cupboard as a goal for several months finally fitted!!! Hurrah!! Funny really... must be eating myself thin cos all I've done these past few weeks is eat chips and other crap and I've even started getting the bus to work instead of walking. Bad bad Racheal..... but hey, who cares!? I'm getting thinner!! I then put my fake hair in - a real pain to get in but damn, it looks great (long mermaid type locks). Gets me all depressed cos it is the best thing ever to help pull blokes and it only leaves me wishing my hair really looked like that. Anyway, how awful would that be if I actually pulled wearing the hair?! I take a bloke home and tell him to wait whilst I slip into 'something more comfortable'... and then the next minute I return with the hair out!! He'd bloody scream the place down and run out of the door! Have decided extra hair is a great ego boost to make me feel more attractive but definately to be left at home if I seriously intend to pull!!

Back to the story. I get to the first party, celebrating 30 years of life with my mate Claire Bear, where I end up entertaining my parents most of the night! I then get asked to look after a young woman who doesn't know anyone and I take my duties very seriously!! I chat and dance with her and then offer to let her tag along to the second party I have to go to. I feel all philanthropic and good about myself! Then, and I'm putting it down to the hair again, I pull a bloke in a maid's outfit!! It certainly doesn't happen every day....

After making myself hoarse from singing along to rock songs the party ended and sad with the knowledge that I didn't get enough time to chat to my buddies, I moved on to the next party! This one was in town and celebrating the advancing age of Mrs Earl - our infamous punch poisoner!

It wasn't until I arrived at Fuel (the pub/dance club on North Hill) that I realised how utterly inappropriate my outfit was for a club on a Friday night! Ah well!

After a disasterous visit to 'Revolutions', a club for posers and dolly birds and, it seems, people with no decent musical taste, we moved onto the very cool Ride 2. Ride 2 is a chilling pub that plays soul and motown type music and is probably the coolest pub I've been to, which isn't saying too much I know, but I'm sure you get the gist I liked it!

By 2.30am the rest of the gang moved on to the Earl's residents for a few nightcaps and I went home to prepare for a second night of parties.... it turns out that the 'nightcaps' went on until 7.30am for some, which did not bode well for the next night!

Saturday night was Neo's birthday and I didn't hold out much hope for a wild night out when the birthday boy called at 11amish to mumble about how tired he was... or at least I think that was what he said, what I actually got was "mmm, mm, mmm, mmm, urgh, ach, mmm, mmmmmmm".

Sat night was a quiet, yet very pleasant night. Everyone was too tired to really go mad with the drinking or the celebrations but this actually made for a nice night. Everyone got just tipsy enough to loosen up but not so drunk that they couldn't hold a decent conversation. We all had a stellar meal at the Tap and Barrel pub (I am so eating there again!) and then moved on to The Mannamead on Mutley Plain. The birthday boy seemed to enjoy himself and seemed pleased that everyone was willing to listen to his 'fascinating' information talks about watches of all types! Bless him. Neo left early as the rest of us unwittingly found ourselves glued to our comfy chairs....It was a bit like that episode in Buffy where no-one could make themselves leave a party after a spell was cast on everyone to stay where they were forever! Jason was the only one who seemed to even try to leave, with half hourly reports that it was 'definately about time to go', though no-one seemed to respond to these announcements with more than a nod... and another drink. We finally all agreed to stand on the count of five and walked out of the pub at 1.30am, after trying to leave for 3 hours.

Getting Old and Loving It!

Am so so sorry I have been really tardy as far as my blog goes these past few weeks but life has been a little hectic! Will try to do a few catch up blogs today.

Well, my 31st birthday has been and gone! It was actually less depressing than I expected! Hurrah! Decided to see the 'day of doom' in with me dressed like a teenager - big black trousers, chains and a bra! In fact, thinking about it, when I was a teenager I dressed like my mother and was far too fat to be showing off my belly, so it was not in remembrance of my teenage years but the teenage years I would like to have lived!

When I was 'young' I was basically the living embodiment of Saffy from Absolutely Fabulous... yes, there really are teenagers/young women like her out there. I remember reaching 20 and regretting I had not coloured my hair blue, at least once, or pierced parts of my body my father would have totally disapproved of, or worn baggy black clothes with chains everywhere, coloured my eyes and half my face black and generally spent most of my weekends in a haze of alcohol and smoke.

Unfortuantely here I am at 30 and still not a lot has changed... except for that one time when, like a naughty schoolgirl, I pinched some of Neo's tobacco when he went out for a night and tried this smoking lark. I remember liking the heady feeling I got the first few puffs and so decided to try it again (I was going through one of those 'Smoking looks sexy' phases, which I now blame on Neo and young love!). The second cigarette did not agree with me as well as the first and I promptly spent the next hour considering how dirty Neo's toilet bowl was! A walk in the fresh air did not improve matters. By the time Neo returned I was looking very green... of course, I was too embarrassed (in my goody-two-shoes tower) to admit what I had done, so Neo, for our entire relationship, believed I had been struck by a freak sudden illness - an illness which really only seemed to resurface every time he lit up... it may have been the beginning of the end for his personal vice!

Anyway, back to the point. My birthday. Everyone met at the Bank where we had a sociable drink or two and I was pleased to see quite a few people make the effort! We all sat around talking about Horror movies and sex... that was around the later part of the evening if I recall! After that we all went to JFKs. For some it was a trip to their own teenage years, but to me the place has been a new discovery. One of the few places I can go in and feel one of the more normal people there! I love it! Not only does everyone wear black and chains but the music is AWESOME - bit like walking into a street in New York. Rock, metal, grunge etc etc all night. Can a girl ask for anything more on her birthday?! One of my last memories of the night was cutting a rug on the dancefloor to Killing In The Name Of and then i was off to Goodbodies pub for a fantastic and much needed fry up.

I looked like a banshee when I looked in the mirror before going to bed... the sign of a great night!

Thanks to everyone who turned up!

Racheal of Green Gables!!!

I apologise for this entry but I think I am having my yearly crisis, as my birthday looms on the horizon screaming at me 'YOU ARE GETTING OLD!'. :OD

This Sat evening I took another trip down memory lane - back to the School Summer Holidays. Every summer of my teenage years I looked forward to the annual TV airing of Anne of Green Gables - a cheesy bit of girlie TV and I loved every second of it! I went to see my gracious hostess friends, Charlie and Becky, for another of our regular video and pizza nights and there it was on DVD. I couldn't believe it!!

As I watched I realised that Anne represented the girl I used to be! 'Anne with an E' talked the hind legs off anyone, waffling on about pointless rubbish, getting lost in romance and fantasy, being overdramatic, revelling in her imagination, talking to imaginary friends, blurting out the truth no matter what the consequences and not changing herself for anyone. My mother used to compare us a lot! I was very offended then, but now I wish I had hung onto her a bit more. Well, maybe I have, a little part of her at least! I still have the ability to talk (and write!) non stop I know, so she must be still there! I want to get back that joy of fantasy and imagination so I think I might make a new resolution for the end of the year.

A past boyfriend of mine once said to me 'Life is not like the movies' and it was like a depressing dose of reality to me, but, well, now I beg to differ! I think 'Why the hell not?!'. Why can't we believe in our knights in shining armour, in true love, in unbreakable loyal friendships and embrace the beautiful world around us as the most unappreciated yet wonderful thing we have?! So my new resolution is going to be: to read more books, to watch more movies, to get a new imaginary friend, to take more pictures and to let my imagination run wild just now and again! I'm over 30 years old but who said I can't still be a kid?!

Games, a Big Old House and Stuff

Sorry I have been all quiet the past fortnight but nothing really noteworthy has happened recently!

Last weekend I popped up to Exeter to see my good Uni buddy Rachael... well, I say 'Uni Buddy', but we never actually met at Uni though we both went to Aberystwyth Uni, were in the same year, and knew some of the same people... life is just weird like that sometimes! Anyhoo... I always love to see Rachael, in some odd ways it is like visiting myself! We both share a slight obsession for house cleaning, we love the same books, many of the same films and generally we like to do the same stuff! Where am I going with this you might be wondering?! Rachael and I not only share the same name but we share the same star sign (by a day or two) and the same year of birth and I realise that together we prove that Astrology can't be all wrong! We talked about this year, which I might add has been my Annus Horribilis and she felt 100% the same. Funny really, cos my New Year's resolution was to not have another year like 2005... well, I surpassed myself! It's been far far worse! So in some way I kept my resolution... though not quite as I intended!!! Anyway, I am now keeping my fingers crossed that Rachael finds herself a boyfriend by next week! Gives a girl hope!! :O)

Whilst in Exeter I had a great weekend. Indulged my passion for historic houses once more (it's been a while!), visited an old Mill full of craft items, soaked up the beautiful British weather (what a year it has been) and then went fruit picking! It's been a while since I have been so content and I got to share it with a kindred spirit. Thanks Rachael!

The rest of the week has been pretty quiet... so quiet in fact I went out and bought myself a Nintendo DS Lite. So much for budgeting! Ah well, we only get to live once, might as well enjoy it! No fun in having money in the bank you can't spend, that's my philosophy! Of course, every time my conscience bites I just blame my friend Mark Bell for showing me the cute little dude running around in the Nintendo game 'Animal Crossing'! Damn you Bell.