I just had the following conversation with my mother:
Mum: Do you know how much I pay for a sandwich in that shop?
Me: No… how much?
Mum: 85p!
Me(trying unsuccessfully to be funny):I bet that’s because they have a plentiful supply of human flesh.
Mum: Oh, I don’t think so. They just have good value produce.
Should I be worried that she didn’t even blink?
I’m so very, very cold. My nose has gone numb. My fingers are corpselike and bloodless. My feet, although they are ensconced in thick woolly socks, will not transmit feeling through the frost-bitten nerve endings, and I keep falling over. My arctic fleece is not sufficient to keep in the warmth. My ears may drop off. If it didn’t mean venturing outside to get kindling and wood, I’d try to light a fire, but I’m too cold to do anything.
May I remind you that it is AUGUST. It’s the bloody Bank Holiday – that time of year when whole families decamp to the seaside. The country is awash with caravan owners, weaving dangerously to-and-fro on the motorway, and clogging up the country’s arteries with unstable vehicular appendages.
Children are supposed to be frolicking in the surf this weekend, gazed upon by a furious sun, the broiling, burnished skies above them free of clouds. I’m not a great fan of swimming on our coastline as it is. It always seems to be typical of the British determination to ignore the real weather and try to fool the gods by venturing out in ludicrously inadequate clothing, and then to pretend to their small children that splashing about in the artic run-off is fun. This weekend though, I expect everyone will be wrapped up warm and cosy somewhere other than the rainswept beaches*.
And it’s even colder in here. I don’t know what it is about my Mum’s house, but it acts like a selfish child at playgroup who hogs all the toys. It seems to suck warmth into its walls, and keep it there so that no-one else can use it.
My mother steadfastly refuses to notice, and wanders about the house Eskimo-like. I’ve often thought that she’s in denial about things like normal temperatures, but this takes the biscuit. And now that the lovely warm aga in the kitchen has been taken out, it’s like the frozen Siberian tundra in there as well, except less windy.
Roll on Windhoek. The weather forecast today is sunny. In fact, check it out. I’ve never seen my BBC weather home page look more appealing.
*I have actually just checked the weather forecast for the rest of the country, and it appears I’m in the only pocket of damp chill east of Ireland. Even in Great Yarmouth, temple of seaside tack, the temperature is a respectable 26 degrees. Bah. I’m off to light a fire.
I love crumpets. There’s something so enormously comforting about the way that the butter dribbles through the holes and pools on the plate. I’ve just eaten two of them, and I can feel a warm smear of butter and honey on my lower lip. I almost wish I had a beard, so that I could save it for later*.
I also love yoga, which is why I can’t understand why I seem to be finding excuses not to do it. (“I’ll do some yoga later, right now I REALLY need to write a post, as I have something very important to say about, er… crumpets, for which the world cannot possibly wait.â€)
Yesterday was a frantic exercise in packing – it took me just over two hours to throw all my worldly belongings into boxes, while the BF, who came in from a party at 3.30am, lay about in bed, groaning, and getting eyeliner all over my pillows. I coerced my lovely flatmate into driving me down to Wales with everything all stuffed willy-nilly in the back of his boot. We spent the journey down the motorway with my stitched portrait of Chairman Mao (a gift, not a political statement) proudly staring out of the back of the car at all and sundry.
I’m so tense that I look as if someone has surgically attached my collarbones to the underside of my chin. Yoga would sort me out, but I’m procrastinating again. Just the thought of doing breathing exercises makes me hunch over like a little old lady, and run for the booze cabinet teapot. I think some perverse part of me must actually like feeling stressed. Twisted.
Anyway, as it’s Wales, it is naturally raining, so it won’t be so bad sitting inside, finishing off the 23 page Community Fund report that I started working on three months ago, and which I have promised to finish for my previous employers. I should have just sprinted from the building, scattering papers behind me, shouting “Ahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaa! It’s all yours, suckers!†but it seems that I have a conscience.
I’m a fool.
*For some reason that thought has simultaneously revolted me, and made me giggle wildly. I’m definitely losing the plot.
This course is heavy duty. They dress it up with lots of interesting practical work - one group exercise on facilitation techniques yesterday left me weeping and incapable with mirth - but it’s hard work, and goes on from 9am to 8pm every day. Except Thursday when we’re all going bowling.
Harborne Hall also turns me into a walking dustbin. I can’t stop eating. I had a full cooked breakfast followed by yoghurt and prunes yesterday, and by 11am my stomach was doing a little food dance. Eating three enormous meals a day may feed my brain cells but it doesn’t do alot for my waistline, and neither does the beer. My stomach is expanding gratuitously.
I also feel incredibly close to the ten people in my group. I had a moment of sadness last night when I realised that after Friday I’m not going to see most of them again - we’re all going to be flung out across the globe like water from a spun unbrella.
Anyway, I’m having a ball. But I’m too knackered, and too busy to post much, so I’ll be back next week.
Right. I wonder what’s for breakfast…
I Just wanted to apologise for the boringness of the previous post. I was obviously still infused with the spirit of Milton Keynes Coachway. I imagine the atmosphere lingers a little like nictotine on net curtains. Insidious.
The waiting room doubled as a filthy greasy spoon, and was filled with heavy smokers and screaming children waiting to get on a bus to Blackpool. The edges of the room were fetchingly decorated with fat, lank women in grey tracksuits. All the mugs were free on a job lot from a local haulage company. I almost expected to turn round and see the woman from the beginning of Withnail and I - you know, the one who dribbles egg down her front while tucking into a fry sandwich.
Don’t make me go back.
