good old days

have you noticed how some people suddenly get old after a fall? it happened to my nan. she was in her early 70s, a sprightly little thing who used to refer to the biddies in Sainsbury's as 'old dears' (she probably had a couple of years on them at least!), when she slipped on a wet drain cover on the way to my mum's. and overnight she went from being an out-and-about elderly lady to old stay-indoors curtain twitcher. now she watches so many soaps i think she's forgotten that she actually has a tv and is instead living in some weird 'emmerdale/albert sq' hinterland, interrupted by phonecalls from people purporting to be family members.
i only mention the fall as i fell arse over tit up the kerb outside my house last night. i don't know what happened (the winey supper probably had some involvement) but i suddenly found myself divebombing to the floor, generously allowing my elbow and hip to cushion the blow. fortunately i haven't turned into a curtain twitcher yet. unless of course i am actually some old granddad who spends so much time watching this soap about life in an office that the boundaries of reality and fantasy have merged, in which case, hasn't the weather been awful, and who are you and what do you want?
whatever. my hip hurts.

they haven't changed the date!

are you surrounded by people without calendars or sense of time, like i am? everyone keeps saying 'I can't believe it's already Christmas' as if some joker has decided to bring it forward by a couple of months. someone in the office just said they needed to buy their xmas cards, to which i replied that i'd already posted mine. 'you're early,' she informed me. 'it's xmas day two weeks today,' i pointed out (with the merest hint of smugness). you'd think i'd told her i'd peed in the last cup of tea i made her, by the look on her face. suffice to say, she, like many others, was labouring under the impression that this Xmas had been postponed until Feb 2009 so she still had plenty of time to get everything done. she was last seen hotfooting it to Hamley's. i shouldn't imagine she'll be back much before xmas eve.
i've finished most of my present buying, too. the only things i've still got to by are a box of chocolates for my nan (who's just come out as a Christmas hater – meaning she hates xmas rather than being a seasonal misanthropist, which she is all year round) and something little for my mum.

come fly with me

'My god, what's that? It looks like airline food!' said one of my colleagues as I sat down with the sandwiches that arrived in today's hamper delivery. (We get a lot of food, beauty stuff and random clothes sent in to the magazine.) She's right, it does look like airline food. And not of the easyJet variety either. I love airline food. I really do. I don't worry about what I eat while I'm in the air so it always feels like a treat to have bread AND butter, and creamy sauces that I'd never normally go for. Actually I just really like flying. From getting to the airport (really early so I can shop and have a drink before boarding) to sitting in the departure lounge people watching. It's hilarious what people consider adequate or appropriate to fly in. Crop tops and tracksuit bottoms. Flipflops, when it's snowing outside. Nighties. Clown outfits…
I'm always vaguely excited when I'm travelling alone and I take my seat on the plane or train. I always wonder if the man of my dreams is going to be sitting in the seat next to mine and whether we'll bond over a glass of fizz. It never happens of course. The fattest person I see while people spotting in the lounge is invariably the one holding the next boarding pass sequence number to mine.
So, what I'm eating looks like posh airline food. The same colleague also asked: 'Are you trying to up it to 20%?' The it in question is my body fat. I had it analysed today and can admit to having a mere 5%! That's the same as a McCain oven chip! My trainer was gutted – he's wobbling around with 12%!
If only I could convince my 5% to distribute itself around my body, rather than crowd round my belly life would be swell!

how long have you got?

Dear Mr Apple,
I love your ipods. In fact I've just bought my third. What I don't love is the fact that I now have to transfer all my songs from my external hard drive into my itunes. AND IT IS GOING TO TAKE ME AGES. Forget that rubbish about for ever being the amount of time it would take for a bird to move all the grains of sand from one beach to another. For ever is just about how long it will take me to upload my music library to my latest gismo. Well, I suppose it will give me something to do in the evenings now the nights have closed in.
Here is a totally non-related list of things I keep doing that I wish I wouldn't:
Sitting on the seats by the heater on the 214 to Liverpool Street.
Having jacket potato with tuna mayo for lunch - it really repeats on me.
Overestimating how long it will take me to walk to yoga – I always seem to get there about 20 minutes early.
Forgetting to take my moisturiser out with me – my face is like a turtle's at the moment.
Saying 'Bugger' all the time.

festive overhang

I'm so busy at work at the moment that I have to keep taking 'breath breaks'. These are similar to fag breaks but rather than tabs involve having to take myself off to the loo to centre myself, breathe deeply and decide which item on my to do list is more urgent. The fact that I am taking five minutes out of my oh-so-hectic schedule to update my blog says more about my ability to multitask and prioritise than anything about my workload. Anyway, the Christmas countdown has begun, and with it the onlsaught. The month ahead is set to be a blur of client lunches, friendly (read pissed) catch-up supper with mates and work functions all offset with my 'praying mantis on a treadmill' punishing gym routine. Funny choice of word, punishing. Odd to think that you (I) would actively 'treat harshly or roughly' yourself (myself) in pursuit of health, vitality and, let's be honest here, a flatter stomach. Mind you, I've never denied that I exercise for vanity and sanity in equal measure.
Which brings me on to one of my favourite rants. Other people can stuff their faces on chocolate, crisps, lard sandwiches and greazy kebabs without putting on a pound while lovely little me only has to think of a Malteser for my roll of belly flab to hang further over my trousers. And I exercise more than anyone I've ever met. I'm like the Jesus of the running machine! I jog endlessly so that others may gauge without their midriffs expanding. Think of me next time you pop a Pringle.

am i normal?

I was in the stationers today, waiting to pay for my Pritt stick (which makes me sound like I buy lots of them, which I don't). By the cash desk was a pot of enticing silver- and gold-ink pens and a pad next to them to 'try before you buy' (please excuse the inverted commas and brackets, I can't help myself). As I stood queueing I was overcome by a sudden urge to start writing filthy swear words on the pad in lovely metallic pen. I drifted off in a reverie of obscenity before the man behind the counter informed me 'only £2.99 innit'. I didn't buy one. Or scribble any incriminating rantings.
Obscenities used to figure on my Tube journey to work too. If I'd had enough of my book/Metro/Sunday supplement that I still hadn't got round to read by Thursday, I'd have a 'swear break'. This consisted of looking around the carriage and thinking of the rudest/vilest/most horrible things I could say to each person. My comments were usually based on physical attributes. I'm sure you can imagine. I used to counter this, and the potential damage it might do to my karma/aura/chances of getting into heaven/face if I forget myself and start saying things out loud, by having a 'love break' where I'd look round the carriage and think of the nicest thing I could say to everyone. Worryingly I found this much harder!
You'd never guess by looking at me that there's such a foul-mouthed monster dying to get out.

I left my liver in Barcelona

Just back from a weekend in Barcelona. I can’t quite believe I lived there for nine whole years. Going back in total tourist mode was a delight – I’d forgotten how beautiful the place is, as it’s easy to do when a city becomes the backdrop for the day-to-day whirl that is your life. It was funny to go somewhere so familiar yet so different. We did a lot of walking – a lot of the time I knew where I was going but not what I was going to find there: a city changes a phenomenal amount in 10 years. Where once there were bars selling paintstripper grade wine for a few pesetas and as much pan con tomate as you can eat there are Starbucks and foccacerias. Instead of grotty old pensiones there are boutique hotels. And tourists a gogo. (Mind you, if you’ve been to Camden recently you’ll know that for every one we export we import two of theirs).
Needless to say I consumed my own body weight in alcohol. Now, you know me – I’m good with hangovers and believe that if you are big and bad enough to go out and get messy, you are big and bad enough to get up the next day and do what it is you have to do but the one I woke up with yesterday was a killer. It was a lot bigger than the sum of the drinks that made it. My belly hurt, my brain hurt, my eyes probably would have hurt if I’d been able to find them. I felt that if only I could be sick/cry/sleep for six hours/die I’d be fine. Bizarrely it was the old hair of the dog that saved me – a mercy dash to the airport to hand over some keys to some friends who should have been in Buenos Aires (don’t ask) turned into a mini drinking session in the airport bar (called ARS!) had me feeling right as rain in no time.