Author Archives: Tina

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About Tina

Unleashed for a second term of blogging.

A load of bull

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This is a magical time of year. A strange observation for one who doesn’t hold much patience with spirituality, but a true one for somebody who, nonetheless, feels energised by change in season and changing of the landscape from brown to green. Nowhere is this more evident to me than down the local country park where me and the Little Dog take our daily exercise. Just a week ago, the trees were in bud, but remained reluctant to reveal their spring foliage to the world, but now we stroll within tunnels of fresh green.

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The swallows have returned and I watch, mesmerised by their low-flying acrobatics.

Barring a few more frosty nights, we can just about say that spring has sprung.

Of course, I don’t get much time to bask in nature’s fireworks displays as I have to keep my eyes and ears open for the Little Dog, trying to ensure that he doesn’t annoy too many other dogs or their owners and that he doesn’t roll in goose/fox/dog/horse poo. He’s not a fussy scatophile, he’ll roll in anything that leaves a lingering fecal smell in my car and home.

Every evening we get the opportunity to meet new people and their canine companions, but last week was special: we met Wil the English bull terrier. Wil is a girl, so I think she’s a Wilma, but irrespective of sex, she’s a little honey. By some cruel twist of [can’t think of the word… like what the Nazis wanted] eugenics, English bull terriers have the sweetest natures accompanied by the strangest physical features; some might call them ugly. After just a couple of meetings, Wil now recognises me and comes plodding over to say hello and have her ears tickled while Rocky tries to touch her with his willy. I am simultaneously awash with warmth and despair.

Tonight’s new friend was a border collie puppy called Bella. She was SO excited to see me again that she legged herself up and did a stunt roll as she ran to me to say hello. Rocky tried a Jimmy Savile on her too.

Meeting other dogs makes me ponder what might have been. But without him, I’d never meet those other dogs, enjoy the recognition from Wil, the stunt-rolling Bella, the badly-behaved Bruno. I wouldn’t spontaneously take myself down to the woods and notice the changing of the seasons or appreciate the flight of the swans or the diving of the swallows. I’d be a much poorer person spiritually.

So I thank my snoring sex pest, who, despite his ridiculous behaviour, is actually OK. He’s just a little stupid and over enthusiastic.

H2Orrible
Because of this thing I’m doing this week, I’m not having any pop or coffee and the only drink I can have is tap water. As a child, I’d drink this stuff by the gallon – LOVED it. But as I entered my teens, I discovered my love of coffee, then booze, then the refreshing power of fizzy water and Pepsi to revive me when I was hungover. I lost my love of tap water by the age of about 20.

Once you’ve fallen out of love with something, it’s very difficult to go back. As I sipped reluctantly from my bottle of perfectly nice tap water at my desk today, I pondered how much of the stuff my colleagues drink. They actually enjoy it! Eurgh.

As I regressed into a minor grump, CBT Tina started having a go at me. “You’ve got to stay hydrated or you’ll get a headache. Drink plenty of water and it’ll help keep your tummy feeling full. Also, you’ve got shitbreath, you need a drink.” The bitch was right again.

She’s always right.

Let’s get tummies to rumble

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Eurgh.

Firstly, “eurgh” because it’s gone 1am AGAIN and I should be asleep.

Secondly, “eurgh” because I’m taking part in the Live below the line challenge, which starts on Monday and finishes on Friday.

Essentially, participants have to live on £5 for those five days to raise awareness of extreme poverty throughout the globe, and in addition, raise some sponsorship for the numerous charities that do a fantastic job of trying to alleviate this.

FIVE POUNDS STERLING! I can see that evaporate in a morning, as I’m sure most people can. But having spent months going on about people in this country whinging about not having enough money to feed their families, saying that people need to learn to budget properly and cook a few basic meals, I figured it was time I did something to put my money where my mouth is and show that it can be done to absolute extremes.

I’ve kind of got a plan in my head of what I need to do, but I’m not sure it will pan out in reality when I go to Asda/Lidl/Aldi with my fiver tomorrow.

My meal plans for the week are:

  • Leek & potato or butternut squash soup for lunches
  • The same soup or spaghetti pommodoro for dinners

    • I know that butternut squash is 0.1p/g. Or do I? I got 0.56Kg for 56p the other day, so what does that make? Anyway, I’ll get one of those.

    Spaghetti can be bought for 19p a packet

    Garlic is 30p a head

    I’m sure I can get a couple of onions for about 30-40p

    Leeks can’t be that expensive if you get dodgy looking ones

    Value potatoes? No idea.

    So with veggies hopefully coming in at less than £2 – £2.50, I’m hoping that I can get a couple of cans of tinned tomatoes for about 80p or less.

    That leaves things that we take for granted: store cupboard items. I’ll need oil, stock cubes, salt and pepper, maybe some herbs. With about £1.50 in my pocket, I’m not hopeful of getting these.

    I should’ve got my arse into gear and gone to the market at closing time today.

    The whole challenge will mean a devastating blow to my caffeine addiction. I won’t be able to buy coffee or Pepsi Max. I won’t have funds for fizzy water, but water from the tap is good. I’ll have to get used to it.

    It’s only five days. Just five days. Next Saturday, I’ll be filling my fat face on all sorts of shit again. For millions of people around this planet, there’s a lifetime condemned to absolute poverty with no hope of release. We can’t feel guilty for this, we as individuals haven’t put these people in their situation, and by luck we were born in affluent societies where we know it’s our duty to ensure that the poorest are looked after.

    So I’m planning to do this properly. But something wound me up tonight; I learned that somebody had got their hoard together for the week by essentially scrounging off people. They’d cadged some free teabags, got some canned food that was going to go to landfill, got some free vegetables from friends, etc, etc and still had funds for actual shopping for the task. That’s not in the spirit of things, surely?

    I can feel myself getting really pious about this. I mean, yeah, I can easily live off a fiver if I use the free coffee at work, nick the salt, pepper and sugar there, go to my mum and dad’s for tea, use the “you’ve won a free Big Mac” token that I got from McDonalds last week. But that’s just wrong. I actually want to track that person down and give them a slap. Fuckers. FUCKERS.

    “Oh, look at me, being all clever with my fiver. I’m going to Subway at closing time to get free sarnies that they give to tramps.”

    FUCK YOU! Do it properly, or don’t fucking bother.

    Hark at me. Doing it properly would mean me giving up the trappings of my privileged life and actually doing something to help full time. This can only ever be a gesture and nothing more. At least if one things comes of this, people will for just a second think, could I do that? How do they do that?

    Find me at Live below the line

    Weeds

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    It’s gone 1am. He’s just emerged from under the bed to take a drink from his water bowl in the study/dressing room thing. And now, after a number of attempts, he’s jumped onto the freshly made bed. He smells. He smells really bad.

    The sunshine came back today and energised my soul from the moment I awoke and saw the bright blue skies through the partially open slats of my bedroom blinds. It’s been a busy day. It’s been a beautiful day.

    We walked, me and the Little Dog. We walked for miles along the river and back on the opposite bank. We walked to a place I recalled from my childhood, past a place where both my parents worked, where I used to go as a child myself; cared for by the laundry ladies in lieu of a crèche.

    The remnants of the industrial heritage still remain: factories long closed, now deserted as if suddenly evacuated; the aqueduct now dry; the magnificent railway viaduct, silenced for many decades.

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    They served a purpose for a time, but that time has passed and all that’s left is for us to marvel at the achievements in engineering in the nineteenth century.

    So, we wandered back along the river, my feet now burning from the distance and the uneven ground. But we walked with a purpose! The Little Dog always has a purpose: he must run and sniff. He ran and sniffed, I plodded… and sniffed… but in mind of one thing: pretty flowers. The car was parked near the garden centre and so it was convenient to go there and pick up the flowering bedding plants whose purpose would be to fill my summer with colour and joy.

    I have absolutely no idea about plants, simply buying things that look pretty, colourful and low maintenance. After the initial burst of energy to establish the things in my borders and pots, I don’t want to have to deal with them until it’s time to remove their lignified remnants at the end of the season.

    So I spent the afternoon clearing my border of things that were dead and things that might have been weeds. I didn’t really have a clue about the latter, but I attempted to guide myself based on where I thought I might have, maybe, put things in last year… and whether it looked like it had the potential to grow pretty flowers somewhere down the line.

    There’s such a sense of achievement and anticipation to be gained from putting things in the ground that you really don’t have a clue about. There were some pansies and lobelia, but I have no idea about what the potential is for floral magnificence or disappointment as spring turns to summer, slugs and snails permitting of course.

    So now I sit and wait, and that’s the most fun part of gardening (in the loosest sense of the word) – just waiting to see what happens.

    The Little Dog is snoring loudly, it’s been a tiring day for him. I ache in the nicest possible way, but I do believe my body and mind are begging me to sleep.

    And I shall sleep knowing that tomorrow, I shall look out onto my little patch of land and be met by little spots of colour. Those little spots of colour, they do bring such joy.

    The wife project

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    So this is where I find myself:

  • Single
  • Quite lonely
  • Fairly content
  • But quite lonely
  • Wanting to change the current situation

    • I could try harder with my friends and make more of an effort to enhance my social life. This would be a good thing for me irrespective of my relationship status. Maybe I’m quite lazy on the friends front, but I don’t want to impose on people who have proper lives, who are busy, who are capable of making their own social arrangements. I’m also lacking in confidence in terms of inviting people to do stuff with me, mainly because of the reasons stated previously. If others are successful in finding relationships and friendships, why can’t I be? Because I think I’m a little bit odd. Perhaps.

    But I’ve never really been one for going out and doing stuff. When I was a child, I never had best friends at school, I didn’t hang out with people out of school; I just came home, did family things, homework, then went back to school. I felt awkward amongst my peers, possibly because of the age difference between us: it’s quite difficult being nearly a year younger than a lot of people in the same class as you, especially up to the age of about sixteen or so.

    Anyway (:@) all that aside, I think I’m ready to be part of an us again, but without a throbbing social circle (and anything remotely attractive going for me), finding a future Mrs Me is going to be quite difficult.

    I could throw myself into the world of internet dating, but that is bound to end in disaster. Desperate people searching for the love of their life by prescription. I’m not going to be expending a huge amount of energy, or cash, going down that line of investigation.

    People only lie on those dating sites anyway, or they’re way too open to start off with and immediately cause me to recoil in horror. It’s still amusing to have the odd look at women who think that a profile photo of them drunk and surrounded by their equally drunk friends is remotely attractive. Or those who can’t find a picture of themselves without photographing their reflection in the mirror. This results in them posting an image of their doppelgänger, don’t they know this sort of thing? Then there are the ones who can’t write in sentenced. Those who think others want to date somebody who’s always out rock climbing or fell running or playing golf or riding bare back or whatever. This isn’t impressive, especially considering that most people just work, go home, eat something, then veg out in front of the telly before going to bed.

    Why can’t people who post profiles on dating sites just be:

    a. Honest
    b. Coherent
    c. Interesting
    d. Normal
    e. Intelligent
    f. Able to fucking cook

    Yes, we all want a nice relationship with somebody who isn’t a drama queen, who hasn’t got too much emotional baggage, who doesn’t play games, who is trustworthy, etc, etc, etc. But what exactly do you like in your life? More importantly, what do you not like?

    And this brings me on to the wife project. The problem with maybe, perhaps being on the lookout for a potential relationship, possibly, you know if something came along, is that we only know for certain what we don’t want. Or do we? Me being me, I have a huge list of absolutely nots, such as:

  • Dyke: I’m a gay woman, I want to date WOMEN, not somebody who looks like a bloke. Jog on.
  • People who say they want to be wined and dined. Who doesn’t want to be wined and dined? What do you think others want? To be beaten up by a pissed up partner? Come on, show some bloody imagination.
  • Women who describe themselves or use profile names that include: cheeky; mental; crazy; lezzer; sexy; boi. None of these things are attractive. Why not just cut to the chase and describe yourself as an unstable freak with no pride in yourself? Being “crazy” is not fun to be with, why would anybody think that? You’re a dick. Grow up.
  • Vegetarian. Because vegetarians suck if you’re not one yourself.
  • Vegan. Because they’re all fucking weird.
  • Having a faith. Fingers burned, should’ve known better. Smacks self in head.
  • Hippy types. Just fuck off and get a bath and a job.



    • The list could go on and on. And it does. But the more I look at dating sites, the less inclined I am to ever want to date anybody ever again because I build up a mental image of SUPER LESBIAN that just puts me off all gay women altogether.

    Maybe I’m just too set in my ways to date again. I don’t think there’s anybody in the real world who could match my ideal woman fantasy. She’s a hybrid of Miranda Hart, Kirstie Allsopp, Emma Thompson; NIGELLA; Jess Ennis and Kate Winslet. The problem with fantasising about that sort of thing is that the reality might turn out like Bernard Manning. No, they’re all too posh for that. Errmmm, Carol Thatcher.

    Dear Lord. I think being single is looking like the better option.

    Dry the rain

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    In the second week of April, the temperatures finally attained a level that is more fitting of the season. And so it came to pass that we basked in the glorious sunshine dodged the wind and rain all weekend.

    There’s always a trade-off: freezing cold temperatures, but beautiful sunshine; or relative warmth with wind and rain. It’s just the weather, we’re used to it being unreliable and unpredictable in this country, yet we still go on about it, mainly because it’s fucking shit.

    Today though, I was not going to be defeated. The forecast told me it was going to be windy and cloudy with a slight chance of rain in the morning. It mattered because I was determined to dry my washing on the line. I pegged out my whites, which means non-darks, and observed the skies as the strong winds blew ever blackening clouds towards me and my clean washing.

    I’ve never been so stressed in my life. So much so that, while my clothes dried eventually, they fell victim to having cigarette smoke blown onto them as I stood sentry in the yard, waiting for the precipitation to form heavier water droplets that signalled the onset of an unholy downpour. It didn’t happen.

    Maybe next time I should wait for less perilous weather conditions before risking a stress-induced migraine and emphysema while drying my laundry.

    Punch bag face
    I’ve just waxed my moustache and plucked my eyebrows. I look like I’ve been punched in the face or attacked by a herd of angry wasps.

    Who decides on those words for groups of things? What are the rules there? I suppose “herd” speaks for itself, i.e. anything that can be herded. But aren’t they called flocks of sheep and flocks of birds? Packs of dogs, packs of crisps. If you get prides of lions, do you get prides of sealions? Murder of crows? What? P-p-p-p-p-pickup a penguins.

    Jeez.

    Below the line
    After whinging about how people in this country whinge about not having enough money for food and how they should learn to budget properly, plan and cook meals and that, I’m going to be doing something to try to put my money where my mouth is. From 29th April to 3rd May, I’ll be participating in the Live Below the Line challenge to try to raise some funds for UNICEF and to highlight the problems of poverty in the developing world. All I have to do is use no more than £5 for all my food and meals for five days. EASY! Or it least I thought it would be until I considered:

  • No coffee
  • No Pepsi Max
  • No store cupboard items
  • No fizzy water
  • No cigs (not a bad thing)


    • I went to Aldi today and was encouraged by their 19p packets of spaghetti. Let’s face it, I’m going to be living off pasta and beans on toast for five days. I’ll also be comatose and headachy through caffeine and cigarette withdrawal. But it’s a challenge that I will look forward to; this is a very worthy cause and I’m not going to be whinging my way through it. And it’s only five days, after which I have the luxury of being able to return to my relatively affluent lifestyle, many millions never have that opportunity.

    See through
    Another week of being prodded and poked beckons as the ongoing saga of misbehaving metabolism enters stage two: secondary diagnostics. First on the list is another blood test tomorrow. Tuesday I get to have low-level radiation fired at my bones to see if they’re still bones or whether they’re turning into sponge. I have to lie still while they do the scan, I’ll pretend that I’m on a sunny beach somewhere. Wednesday I’m back at the hospital to see the endocrinologist, but my DEXA scan results won’t be ready, so it’ll be a massive waste of time. Such bloody fun.

    In the meantime, I can’t donate blood, yet I’m being constantly bombarded by the blood people wanting O neg donors. Yes, yes, I KNOW stocks are low, but I can’t help at the moment because there’s actually nothing wrong with me.

    One positive aspect of all this is that I know my heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas and bladder are all absolutely fine. My duodenum, on the other hand, might be on the verge of bursting its contents into my peritoneum, which might kill me. But then at least, I wouldn’t have to worry about whether it’s a good drying day.

    Moesday

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    Something amazing just happened as I was trudging upstairs to bed: thinking about a meeting that’s in my diary for this Wednesday, I groaned at the prospect of having to be out of the office for an hour or so tomorrow. “Oh, but that’s not until Wednesday and tomorrow’s Tuesday. Oh no, it’s only Monday today!” My head cleared as I recalled snippets of events from yesterday. “Hang on, yesterday was Monday… today is Tuesday.”

    So tomorrow is the hump of the week after all.

    I must say that I prefer Moesday to Tuednesday, but nothing beats Le Weekend.

    The F word
    Talking of beets, I’ve got some in my fridge. They’re a superfood, apparently. In years to come, all these idiots who evangelise about the latest superfood will realise that they were being taken in by the latest fad for what I call “fresh produce”. A real superfood would be something like a massive pepperoni pizza that actually makes you lose loads of weight, reduces cholesterol, fixes all your broken bits of DNA and gives you whatever figure you happen to choose for yourself. If the figure you choose for yourself happens to be like mine, then Domino’s Pizza have exactly what you’re looking for right now.

    I have a problem with food in that I can’t stop eating it. There’s no secret, magical way to having a healthy body and an appropriate weight: eat sensibly, move around a bit, don’t drink too much booze. I eat rubbish. Vegetables are a bloody chore, I could happily live off meat and carbohydrates and I have to pretend that I’m really enjoying anything that has a high cellulose content. Apart from peaches, nectarines and plums of course.

    Exercise hurts me and always has done, so even the prospect of physical activity makes my joints and muscles ache. Why is this? Running should be exhilarating and fun, but you don’t do running in PE at school, you do standing around freezing your tits off while the teacher shows you how to throw a fucking ball. Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the physical activity in that? Riding a bike can be fun, but I’m too much of a pussy it’s too scary to go onto the roads… and I live in a valley, so any destination involves a humiliating and lengthy push of my bike up a bloody great hill. Maybe I’d have more success if I traded in my Penny Farthing for something with gears and brakes.

    Booze has become a pleasant weekend treat for me. I love not drinking on a school night. I love having a clear head for the majority of the week. I love having a clear head all of the week in all honesty. I’d recommend that everybody who drinks regularly goes teetotal for at least six months, it’s a very liberating experience.

    From my experience, and this may only apply to me, I had to go for years without having any alcohol to really appreciate this rather than going through motions one weekend to another, just waiting for time to pass before I could get hammered on a Friday, Saturday, errrm, Sunday, well, most nights. Of course booze = empty calories + a compulsion to have pudding chips and gravy on the way home from the pub -> huge weight gain -> feeling crap -> an endless cycle of booze, chips, weight gain, feeling crap. Where’s this going? Oh yes, so, I hated all of that, who wouldn’t? These days I just feel pretty exhausted most of the time without needing any alcohol to help me.

    But still, I’ll probably get drunk once or twice over the weekend. This will induce me into ordering a takeaway or two, stay up late watch crap TV then make me feel so rubbish the following day that I don’t go on quite the walk I’d intended with the Little Dog.

    So yes, there you go. To anybody who complains that they don’t understand why they can’t lose weight, stop lying to yourself, it’s not your glands or your hormones, it’s you.

    Now, I’d better put this to bed before I go and raid the cupboard for some tinned sardines or four year old sultanas. Even those raw beetroot seem very appetising at the moment.

    Cometh the warmth, cometh the menaces

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    Having been blighted by an icy easterly wind for what seems at least a month, the air was finally still today. The sunshine brought with it the most welcomed warmth.

    This should not be remarkable for April, but as we emerge from what feels like the longest winter, that first day of spring was sprung on us today.

    After waking at 5 and finding myself unable to return to slumber for another two hours, I was shocked into waking at 11.30 by my phone playing the theme from Wonder Woman. Mother was calling. She asked whether I wanted my dad to put a bet on the Grand National for me. Without hesitation, I declined the offer. On too many occasions, the horse that I backed ended up dying, so, convinced that I was jinxing them, I stopped betting a few years ago. I don’t even like to hear the names of the runners in case one sticks in my mind and the poor beast ends up as dog food… or a supermarket ready meal.

    Spurred into action, I jumped out of bed, made coffee, and returned to the comfort of memory foam and goose down to enjoy it. As is my way. I lay looking through the opened slats of the blinds at the unbroken blue sky, listening for the rustling of the barbecue cover and the banging of the loose fence panels: nothing but birdsong. The wind had gone at last.

    Me and the Little Dog eventually embarked on our trip to the woods for our daily constitutional. It struck me immediately: it was warm. WARM! I’d been waiting for this day since October and a smile filled my face as we trotted along to the woodland. The paths there skirt the river and circle a lake and where there’s water and sunshine and warmth, there are midges. Thousands of the buggers had woken up overnight and were out in force, dancing their merry dances in my face and hair.

    Why does this happen? What makes nature so cruel that it plays these awful tricks on us? As soon as the sun comes out, so too do the associated irritants. The houseflies will be next. Moths in the evenings. Wasps. People showing way too much flesh when they really ought not to. Garden power tools, all day, every Saturday and Sunday.

    My mood wasn’t dampened by the emergence of the flying nuisances though. How could it be? I was trespassing in their hood afterall. Saying that, I think one is trespassing up my nose at the moment.

    Me and the little feller shared an ice cream. He had a paddle in the river. It was utterly energising and put me in a fine humour for going out tonight. I’m even tempted to set fire to some meat tomorrow. Let’s face it, this dry spell won’t last into summer and we have to make the most of it while it’s here.

    So now at 2am, I’ve fallen into the usual trap of not getting to bed early at the weekend. Tonight’s culprits are Sarah Beany and Nick Knowles. It’s quite compelling viewing, watching programmes about people’s houses being rescued from near destruction.

    The National didn’t claim any fatalities. I can sleep easy tonight.

    Tally ho!

    You don’t need an airing cupboard when you’ve got Jesus

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    I’ve got an airing cupboard, I don’t need Jesus, whatever that is.

    Because I’ve got an airing cupboard, I’m experiencing the luxury of warm pyjamas. I’m also experiencing the luxury of a warm bed, courtesy of my electric blanket. I don’t think either of these luxuries were mentioned in the bible, so to some evangelical types, they might be a sin. If all that worries some people is their extrapolations, hang on, interpolations, of how we should behave in the 21st century from things that weren’t mentioned in a book of fairytales written from hearsay and translated by people with no knowledge of the language to suit the rulers of the times over many centuries, then it’s clear that our mental health services are very much in crisis.

    I wonder how future generations will interpret His Dark Materials in centuries to come. They might be seen as documentations of humankind’s release from the shackles of religious doctrine. I’d hope that they’d be taken as a pretty good trilogy of fictional work.

    Sausages
    One thing I miss most about not going to Derbyshire anymore is my sausage supply from the village butcher in Crich. They were LOVELY, probably still are, but it’s a bit out of the way to travel just for pork products.

    I must find a good butcher; my reliance on branded sausages that you can buy at the supermarket it shameful and unsatisfactory. Tonight’s dinner was roasted veggies with sausages and onion gravy. Roasted parsnip, carrot and beetroot with olive oil, sea salt and chilli – delish, but the sausages let the whole thing down.

    I suppose my sausage disappointment puts the whole impending armageddon into perspective. It’s clear to me that North Korea has finally cracked because pie boy isn’t getting quality sausages. Derbyshire should send a drone over there for an emergency sausage drop to ease the mood. Then again, the whole thing might get misconstrued as an act of aggression and the Dales could get nuked.

    Ah well. Oops.

    Sociable
    I have to be vivacious tomorrow. This will be good for me, I’m sure of it. I’m off into the big city for a birthday celebration at the place where, of all places, I met the person who I hope will get nuked in Cromford. Stop it. I’ve no idea how many people will be there; I don’t think I’ll know any of them. This means that I have to be nice. For fuck’s sake.

    Socialising with people who are used to me is great. They’re comfortable with my little quirks and I enjoy them taking the piss out of me. I can live in Tina world and come out with whatever rubbish blurts out and I know they won’t be offended because they know that deep down, I’m a kind soul with a strange brain. Strangers are different. Strangers bring stress. They don’t say stranger danger for nothing!

    Added to this “Oh balls, I need to meet new people” is the “should I have a drink?” dilemma. Things were great when I was teetotal, I didn’t drink and that was it, but now I’ve gone and ruined all that by allowing myself the option again. If I don’t drink, would I feel that I ought to give people a lift into Manchester? If I do drink, will I make a tit of myself? This is all complicated by the fact that a bunch of us are meeting up at my sister’s and then travelling into town.

    This whole thing is causing me stupid amounts of stress. It’s ridiculous that a social butterfly like me, somebody who is so at ease with themselves, should be undergoing this anxiety.

    And I’ve no idea what I’m going to wear or what to choose from the menu, which I’ve obviously already studied extensively.

    What would CBT Tina say?

  • Shut the fuck up. You’re going out for a meal, not into battle against the Taliban.
  • Drive to your sister’s and take the bus into town. You then have the option of drinking or not. Your sister can come and get you for your car the following day if you decide to drink and take the bus home. What’s the bloody problem with that? Grow the fuck up!
  • Wear what makes you feel comfortable and happy, but not pyjamas. Nice undies, comfortable trousers or jeans, pretty top. Wrap up warm, mind, that easterly wind is still there.
  • Eat whatever you fancy. The menu is good. Whatever you choose will be nice. Pick something with your eyes closed and surprise yourself. Dick.


    • I like CBT Tina. I wish I could be more like her.

    A pig shat in my head
    With tomorrow well under way, I’m still suffering from a headache that started in the early hours of today, or was it yesterday? Whatever. It’s emanating from my neck, into my ear and into my head. I think the only thing for it is an early night, lots of water and a good night’s sleep.

    Unfortunately, it’s now 1.40am, I’ve had four bottles of beer, and the little dog will have me awake within seven hours. Added to this is a compulsion to read up on the crimes of Ted Bundy. Things aren’t looking good for a productive day tomorrow/today/whatever.

    CBT Tina is very disappointed in me right now. I’d better go before she starts shaking her head and wagging her finger at me again. Bitch.

    Living in the love of the common pervert

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    4

    You know, you write a perfectly innocent post about enjoying long walks in the local woods with your canine companion, then your blog gets some Google traffic from people searching for “Secret life of doggers” after Channel 4 show a documentary of the same title.

    People are clearly perverts. I’m outraged that my fine and morally fibrous musings should attract such attention.

    Dogging
    I’m not at all sure of the etiquette, but if it means you pick people up for sex while walking your dog, then I’ve got no hope; not with my furry little companion. He’d probably try to have sex with whomever caught my fancy… and then empty his anal glands on their trousers. I assume that people who are up for that sort of activity might be acceptable of all sorts of eventuality, but I’m certain that that would be a step too far.

    Arrested development
    Somewhere between the ages of 18 months and 42 years, a vital developmental switch just didn’t turn on for me. This “you’re a girl, so you should like pink, wear dresses and play with dolls” thing was never activated in me. It must be a recessive gene or something, but when my sister was messing about with Girl’s World and worrying about makeup and shit, I just didn’t get it. My schoolfriends had dolls and I was utterly bewildered by their fascination in these bits of plastic that were quite frankly weird and often scary.

    I was confused: why would anybody play with a doll that was supposed to be a baby, which by definition is crap and useless, when you could play with Eagle-eyed Action Man and throw him from the top of the stairs and watch his parachute open. There was Lego: you could MAKE stuff! There was paper and coloured pencils and pens and you could DRAW stuff. What the hell could you do with a doll that mimicked a baby? Oh, of course, you could pretend to be its mum, because we all recognised that our mums had the best lives going: household budgeting; meal planning; childcare; cooking; cleaning; more cleaning; educating; pastoral duties; ad infinitum. Jeez – who in their right mind would want to be a mum?

    So no, I never wanted that, ever.

    Something strange has happened to me over the past year though: I’ve really grown to like the Barbie cartoons and films. They’re really good. At last, at the age of 42 and a bit, I have discovered the magic of Barbie!

    Of course, I can thank my niece for this, and my iPad. When the little one stays over, she creeps into my bed the following morning. This morning I woke at 9am to find her next to me.

    “Can we play on the iPad now please?”

    “Yeah, sure, here you go. What do you want to do with it?”

    “Can we have a look at YouTube for Barbie?”

    “Absolutely!”

    And so, I had an extra two hours of snoozing, all thanks to Barbie.

    Praise.

    To do
    I have a to do list. My life is one big mañana, but I need to get my act together. It’s easier to do stuff that’s obviously manageable, so here goes:

  • Cancel my TV subscription with Virgin. I never watch anything other than Channel 4 (because I’m a pervert). So I’ve bought myself a little indoor aerial and I’ve ordered a freeview recording, rewinding, pausing box thing that’ll pay for itself in three months.
  • Make an appointment for a contact lens check up. I wear these bastard little gel things occasionally, rarely in fact, but I need to go for a check up to ensure that the four times I get to wear them each year isn’t damaging my eyes
  • Laundry
  • Bury Jeff the weeping fig – he’s finally given up the ghost. I think I’ll replace him with an aspidistra
  • Unfriend Kim Jong Un on Facebook. That little fucker is just an attention-seeking twat and it’s the best way to deal with him

    • I need sleep. All this inconsequential sex in woodland car parks has wiped me out.