I do…but I will worry excessively

I am getting married. Yep, someone enjoys my complicated brain and wants to marry it.

I am not one of those girls who has dreamt about getting married all my life or about being a ‘princess’ for a day, but I guess I’ve always thought it would happen at some point. Not guna lie I have imagined wearing a beautiful dress and walking down an aisle surrounded by all my friends and family. The problem is, in my imagination, I am not me. Not really. The me in my imagination is confident, carefree and feels like she deserves to be the centre of attention.

**update**

I wrote the stuff above in June… It’s now December and I have a husband. I would love to say the wedding was the stuff of dreams… I mean I guess it was. Everyone I love was there, I got to marry my best friend, there was lots of cheese and I had a pretty dress. What kinda ruined it was the fact that I didn’t relax for a second and I didn’t eat (even the cheese) or sleep for a good 3 days because my brain decided it hated me. I can’t be bothered to explain everything… Also I am very aware I may start to sound like a wingey ungrateful bitch. I probably am. But anyways, here are some of the things I worried about:

-that I would wake up the day after the wedding and find out I had no friends anymore on account of them all thinking I would want to spend every second of my life with new husband. I realise this is rediculous but I dreamt this pretty much every night for a good few months.

-that I was somehow doing a diservice to women’s rights or feminism by entering into a patriarcal institution and changing my name. I mean I am far from a feminist but it does upset me that the women has to do all the changing. Don’t get me wrong I am proud to have the same name as my husband, I love him. But society makes it so hard to be the first to do stuff…

-that everyone was in a room together because of us and if the building exploaded, everyone I loved would die. I’m not even going to try to justify this

-that something terrible would happen to one of my family at the wedding. I mean when we arrived, I saw a light that flickered and lost it cos I knew if dad saw it he’d get a migraine and his day would be ruined.

-that we will be forever judged on the style of our wedding decor, or that people didnt like it and are laughing at us.

-that my husband was horrendously scared of his speech but felt like it had to do it anyway. No one should have to feel like that on their wedding day.

-that people had to do so much stuff to help me with it. Yeh so they would probably say they wanted to help but I still worry that I was taking advantage or adding stress to their lives that I shouldn’t be.

-that I didn’t enjoy the day to the level that it deserved (considering how much I love the man I married) and that he would know that and it would make him sad.

I think the biggest impact the wedding had on me was realising just how much I am loved. The cards, presents, support and love from family, friends, work colleagues was amazing and totally overwhelming, and I can honestly say I have never felt so terrified of anything in my entire life. Explain that one!

Christmas shopping with anxiety

Christmas shopping is stressful for everyone (actually I could probably get away with saying ‘for most people’..some people are just way off the scale organised). I love giving people stuff, i love seeing them open stuff I’ve chosen and smiling (or not..), but first i have to get over the hurdle of actually getting them something… Having a brain like mine adds a whole new layer of irrational and downright annoying complications:

1. Where to go

Yeh so internet shopping would seem like the logical solution here (no human interaction and i don’t have to leave my house)…and sometimes when I am organised it is great, however mostly I spend so long stressing about what to buy people, how much to spend etc etc that by the time I get round to internet shopping it is too late (or I fear it will be too late and someone’s present won’t come and they will be upset or assume I am lying when I say it’s in the post). So then I am left with the choice of shopping centre, town, Xmas market or wherever else. Xmas markets are usually a no-go…there are too many people and whilst I can enjoy walking around one at night (with a mug of mulled wine)… having to make present buying decisions whilst people are shoving you around and tutting loudly every time you stop, is not for me. Usually I plump for a nice safe (all in one place with a car park) shopping centre…usually Derby cos I can drive there and park without having (too much of) a nervous breakdown. Also I know where all the shops are, and it’s not too far from home so I can escape whenever I want. Sometimes even here I get the weird glazey eyes, can’t see properly, want to pass out scenario but over the last few years I have learnt to identify this and make it stop before I panic and have to leave.

2. What to buy people

Yeh no shit, this is an issue for us all I know. Do you ask people what they want? If you do and they tell you, is it boring to just buy that? If you don’t buy that, will they get annoyed? If you do, will they be disappointed you have no imagination? If they say they don’t want anything, do they actually mean it or are they just being nice? You have to assume they are just being nice, but what if you get them something and they don’t get you anything back…I wouldn’t care at all but they might… Then there’s the whole what if they don’t like what I buy them? Will they think I’m weird for buying it? What if they love it and then I feel too much pressure to do better next year? My mother in law said to me earlier this year ‘you buy such good presents anna’ which was great and I really appreciated it, but now I’m also panicking about what she is expecting this year.

3. Money

How much do you spend? Do you spend what you think is an appropriate amount, or do you have to think about how much the recipient is likely to spend on you so’s not to offend them? I don’t expect anyone to spend a lot of money on me so i don’t tend to go over the top with my spending… but having said that..sometimes it is easier to chuck money at the situation rather than spend ages creating/selecting a carefully chosen (albeit cheap) gift that they may not like and you may be crushed and wonder why you bothered.

4. Secret Santa

AKA buying presents for people you don’t really know very well and probably wouldn’t buy anything for normally.

Well this is just down right impossible for me sometimes…. cos not only do i have to worry about all of the things i’ve already mentioned, i have to think about novelty, or a theme…. or a very limited budget, or the fact that i know very little about the interests of the person i have selected… Also there is the whole issue of the present giving ceremony…where everyone gathers and stares at you while you open a random present (the staring is the worst) and pretend (or not – sometimes you get lucky) that the beard trimmer is something you’ve always wanted (just to clarify i have never received a beard trimmer as a gift and i too wonder why i have used this example). The worst is the obvious disparity amongst the presents… so there is a £5 limit, and some people stick to this to the penny…others buy a gift so elaborate and present it with a gift box and exquisite wrapping and you know the paper itself probably set them back more than the £5 budget (and i secretly want to punch them in the face cos not only have they not followed the rules, they have also made you look like an unimaginative stingy bastard).

Annoyed…

You know when something happens and you get annoyed for some reason…and then usually the annoyed feeling goes away after a few minutes and you get on with your life….yeh… well sometimes i worry things annoy me way more than normal…things that aren’t even ‘annoying’ things…

The ‘Arguing for the sake of it’ approach

I rang to change some train tickets:

Ticket Man: What is your name?
Me: The tickets are booked under Sue Theaker
Man: Is that you?
Me: No
Man: Who is she?
Me: My mum
Man: Then i have to speak to her
Me: She’s not here, but she paid under my name, with my card and the tickets are for me
Man: I can’t see that on my system so i have to speak to Sue
Me: but i could have just pretended to be Sue
Man: Yes but you didn’t
Me: Fine, so i’ll ring back in 10 minutes and say my name is Sue Theaker and you’ll do it?’
man: No cos i’ll know
Me: yeh but i might get someone else in the call centre and they won’t know
Man: That is not the point
Me: so it’s ok for my mum to use a credit card that doesn’t belong to her to pay for stuff over the phone, but you won’t speak to me cos i have the the wrong name?!
Man: yes
Me: goodbye

The ‘Just plain irrational’ approach

We went to an air show the other day (in Gloucestershire) and while we were waiting on the coach to come home, I saw there was a Belgian coach waiting… It was 6.30 pm by this time and I became irrationally concerned about how the Belgians were going to get home before bed time….to the point where I kept firing questions at Neil ‘do you think the coach is going all the way back tonight?’ ‘Will they be able to sleep on the coach?’ ‘Maybe they will stay at a hotel in England tonight?’ ‘Maybe they are coming back to the air show tomorrow?’. Of course Neil couldn’t answer any of my questions and he is used to my obsessive weirdness so he mainly ignored me. Then I realised I had let the plight of the Belgian tourists stress me out far more than I should have and the fact that there were all these unanswered questions going around in my head for NO LOGICAL REASON made me so mad.

The ‘i really should just shut my mouth’ approach

One time in the gym….I was doing some crunches (people who know me, know i don’t do the gym for fun..), and an instructor came over and told me I was doing it wrong and shouldn’t be holding my head. Instead of just smiling and nodding like a normal person…i got freakishly annoyed with the man and proceeded to tell him that my head would fall off if i didn’t hold it and that my neck is too weak for crunches and that he should be glad i am even at the gym in the first place and if he didn’t go away and leave me alone i would leave.

The Overreaction 

Then there was the time i was on holiday with the girls…in spain… and on our first night in the hotel we got told off for being a bit too loud… we weren’t really being that loud to be honest but fair enough…we shut up. The security guard who told us off seemed to have a personal vendetta against us for the rest of the holiday however and a few days later when we were all fast asleep he cam banging on the door. I got up to answer the door cos i was sleeping in the loungy bit of our room. The guard said “I’ve told you girls before, please keep the noise down”…i stared at him, looked down at my PJs, and full on shouted…’FOR GOD’S SAKE (i think i mighta said something worse than this but i don’t like to commit swearing to text) MAN…YOU HAVE JUST WOKEN ME UP TO TELL ME TO BE QUIET, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE WERE DOING, HAVING A SLEEP WALKING PARTY!!!’ whereby the man looked startled and my friend came running over to restrain me and assure the man i wasn’t mentally unstable.

I fear I could go on…

 

 

To be thin…or to be happy?

“So diets are all well and good (well i say that… i’m pretty sure 99% of them don’t work) but i really really hate it when people feel the need to tell me about said diets. I mean, i’m happy for you i really am….but please don’t make me feel bad for eating cake. I like cake.”

This was me last year. This year i am the fattest i’ve ever been. Don’t get me wrong i am not exactly fat…but i look in the mirror and i’m not entirely happy either so i figured that’s bad. Ironic really cos for the last 3 years my appearance is the only think i have liked about myself… now i am less depressed and more jolly (which is GREAT) but just a tiny bit fat. OHHH life is a BASTARD sometimes! (Disclaimer: I am actually very lucky in my life and I should just shut my face…but its all relative)

N bought me a 1950s pin-up photoshoot for my birthday where they do you hair and make up and give you clothes and then you get lots of photos done. It’s for two…and my first thought was ‘it’s ok i’ll just take an ugly friend!’…but alas, all my friends are genuinely beautiful – bitches! Sooo i am having to resort to exercise and a diet. Well my version of a diet anyway.

My version of a diet is a weekday (and sundays) only diet. I mean come on..if you can’t enjoy yourself (i.e eat…that is mainly how i get my enjoyment) on a saturday then what is the point?! So sunday-friday, I have porridge for breakfast, soup and salad (no dressing) for lunch and fish and veg (no potatoes) for tea….that’s hardly anything right!? Also me and a friend get up at 6.15AM EVERY WEEKDAY (well most of em…at least 3 or 4) to go to the gym and it’s made no difference whatsoever!! Well… maybe a bit…but i am really impatient and i fully expected to look like a model by now.

I did a study at work last year on sedentary behaviour…they were trying to suggest that we should all use standing desks and live happily ever after….basically they took loads of measurements, like height, weight, waist measurement, cholesterol, glucose, BMI, fat % and then made us wear monitors for a couple of weeks and measure our steps…and they gave us standing desks. My measurements were all very depressing… my weight and BMI were fine but apparently i am fat on the inside (fat % too high), and my ‘bad’ cholesterol is too high (that’ll be the cheese, but quite frankly i’d rather die than give up cheese).  So anyway after 6 weeks of wearing monitors, and recording steps etc etc they did the measurements again. Absolutely zero improvement…apart from i am now 2cm shorter  (this in itself makes me suspicious of scientific studies). Don’t get me wrong, this was entirely my fault, because unlike the other participants, i was not at all motivated by the step counter and did not go out for a run at 10pm if i hadn’t made my 10,000 target (i average 9000 a day anyway without trying!)…in fact if anything it made me more defiant and lazy….which in turn made me depressed and angry at myself….so i ate more no doubt.

I am not a scientist and do not profess to know anything about running scientific studies, but if their point was to measure how ‘good’ standing desks are…i assumed they would monitor how long we used them for… They didn’t and consequently i used mine very little (it hurt my back and my feet and made me feel like i was going to pass out…also it is impossible to concentrate standing up….and i like to be as close to the floor as possible where it’s safe….in fact i think i’d be fine without a desk at all)

I asked them if their study took into account different behaviours and the physiological impact of what they were doing on participants…they said no, so i suppose i have to understand that i am just the exception to the rule and should not read too much into it. On the plus side…since i have no longer been involved in the study, i have lost weight and am far more healthy…..and i did my photoshoot….and after the initial ‘oh my god this is soo cringe i want to die’ it was awesome.

 

 

Networking: Lies, manipulation and ‘agendas’?

So I am lucky enough to have friends (woo go me! people see through my weirdness and like me), but I didn’t ‘try’ to make them (Just to clarify incase you now think i’m an obnoxious twat,  I don’t mean I am so awesome people just come to me), I mean, I just act like me and people either like that or they don’t. I think everyone is like this….and  all the best friends are made without you even realising you are ‘making friends’. Networking is a whole different sitch.

Networking is unnecessary (Disclaimer: it’s clearly not unnecessary, otherwise business people wouldn’t continually bang on about how useful it is… and if i was any good at it  i would probably think it’s great….but as i’m not…it seems entirely pointless to me). To me, networking is designed to make normal people (i think i’ve just described myself as normal!) feel like inferior losers. Mostly when i have to attend events and i look at the agenda, it is not the workshops or lectures or  even group work that bothers me…its the breaks. 20 minutes for coffee!!…no one needs 20 minutes to grab a coffee, wee and sit back down…so you are forced to endure 18 painful minutes of standing around trying to avoid eye contact with various strangers, failing and then having to ask unnecessary questions like ‘oh how did you get here?’, ‘where are you from?’, ‘weather is awful isn’t it?’ over and over again. (or hiding in the toilet or going for a walk in the middle of nowhere…which is invariably what i end up doing)

I realise i am not alone in my dislike of networking at events, but it seems to me that most people can hide it better than me…it doesn’t help that one of the default conversations is about kids and i don’t have any….(when you start comparing your dog to other people’s children it gets messy). Anyway i recently went on some networking training and now i’m an expert (clearly that is a lie). Here’s some top tips for successful networking:

•  When you introduce yourself, do it like James Bond (cos that won’t make you feel awkward at all) ” Hi i’m Anna… Anna Theaker”
• When you shake hands with someone, make sure ‘your fleshy bit touches their fleshy bit’ (ewww…shaking hands will never be the same again)
• Always enter an open 2! or a 3 or  a 4 or a 5 for that matter (find a gap in a group and squish yourself into it – nod along to the conversation even if you have no idea what they are talking about)
• When you are introducing someone, if you don’t know their name, point at them and they will say it, as if by magic (if this doesn’t work you look like a dick, but i am assured it’s fool proof)
• Don’t give someone a business card unless they ask for it (as if i would, i don’t want strangers having my number)
• If someone is boring you, don’t just walk off and leave them standing there like a loser, suggest you go over to get some food from the buffet and then accidentally on purpose lose them in the crowd. (I happened to have a cold this day…so genuinely had to keep dashing off to get a tissue…i think this is probably frowned upon as a method of ‘losing people’ but largely preferable to snotting everywhere i’m sure)
• Find out stuff about people and use it to start conversations (but not in a stalker-ish way)
• The weather, how you travelled here, what you do, the food, the venue, the agenda for the day etc, are all acceptable starting topics. (Not ‘how much you dislike networking’…which ironically has got conversations going for me in the past)
• Take a hint – if a person is clearly not interested in continuing a conversation, leave them and find someone who is (obvs sticking to the above mentioned ‘exit strategy’)

To conclude, i think what i’m saying is…networking is not for me. At least being taught how to network is not for me. I get what i need out of these events…and usually i end up talking to more people than i ever think i will….but i do it being me…not being a ‘networker’.

 

Squares

The other day i had a full on debate with a stranger on facebook about sqaures. There were three waffles (the potato kind) in a line and the meme said how many squares? and i said none cos they aren’t perfect squares cos of the whole squishy potato sitch…and she said “it doesn’t say they have to be perfect squares!” and i was like “actually lady (i didn’t say lady but i added it here for comic effect)…a square, by definition, is a shape with four equal sides and four right angles…so actually all squares are perfect”

I love squares

Cornwall, Beaches, Sheep and Compost Toilets (yes they actually are a thing)

When I decided to book a week in Cornwall back in March…i realised pretty quickly that going to Cornwall isn’t the cheap holiday option…a caravan for a week cost £600!! a caravan…seriously! So we ended up booking a Yurt through Air BnB (which is a fab site btw – you should try it!). I’d seen yurts on tv and had an image in my head of some kinda Caribbean cosy retreat ( Yes i realise how ridiculous that sounds)…safe to say it wasn’t the Caribbean (more mongolian actually) but it was really lovely and there was a real bed 🙂 The same cannot be said for the toilet and shower situation….compost toilets…seems so hippie and cool and back to nature….i can assure you it doesn’t feel cool at 4am when you are fumbling around in the dark trying to wee in a hole and cover it with sawdust. I learnt the art of fast weeing…mainly cos i was holding my breath and terrified something would emerge from said hole and get me! It was kinda like those toilets that you get in castles…you know like a bench with holes in it that you sit on. The best bit was the disco lights (the only form of light) they had strung up around the shed…which flickered so madly that if you didn’t die from being attacked by a toilet monster you’d probably end up epileptic.  The shower was much better – in that it was clean and warm and looked like it had experienced some modern technology…the problem was the shower was in the campsite owners house… and you had to knock on the door and ask to use it. This was fine (the campsite owners were lovely and very accommodating)…until I left my bra in the shower and had to do the walk of shame to collect it the next day…i didn’t have many showers.

Anyway we had a fab week in Cornwall in the end, weather was good (for england) and Geoffrey loved his first beach experience.

Stuff that happened:

• Geoffrey discovered sand and preceded to run round and round in circles like he was on drugs, until we ended up tangled in a big mess of dog leads and legs
• We realised we are not cut out for starting fires….and had to burn an entire toilet role and most of the leaflets in a tourist information centre in order to start our (small) log burner.
• Log burners are ridiculously hot and it was like sleeping next to the sun
• Geoffrey and I had a hilarious encounter with a little boy (probs about 6) which went like this:
  • Boy: Can i stroke your dog?
  • Me: Yes course you can
  • Boy: does he like water? can i give him some water? *pulls over water bowl and tries to stuff dogs face into it*
  • Me: Ermm
  • Boy: He’s not drinking it…does he like it? Do dogs prefer dirty water?
  • Me: *laughs* actually i think Geoffrey does (he always drinks puddles)
  • Boy: *pulls up weed, shoves it, soil and all into the water bowl and swishes it round*
  • Boy’s Mum: ALEX WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?! NO DOG IS GOING TO WANT TO DRINK THAT NOW!!
  • Boy: *looks sheepishly at bowl and is dragged away by mum*
  • Me: Oops…
• Geoffrey chased a sheep. I was overwhelmingly disappointed in him and refused to acknowledge his existence for nearly a whole day.
• 
• We ate a lot of food

My friends are the best

So me and my besties continually have a conversation going over text…sometimes i zone out and go back to my phone only to find unread 200 messages… but sometimes they are hilarious. I saved this one from a few months ago…just found it so thought i’d share 🙂

GP: Well I forgot my laptop charger so I’m home again lol

Me: Good work GP

KL: Aw kids right old mess ain’t ya

GP: Yep I might crash and burn or flip out cry and kill someone. Mess angry. Rach is poorly poorly. What’s up with you and Theaks? There’s gotta be something?! Lol

Me: erm…lost my pedometer…?

KL: Pretty sure my right foot bone is growing. I need to find my foot chart

GP: thats serious ken

KL: Nah. It sonetimes stops me from falling over. When I walk like a stupid which is often

GP: Lol

Me: see Gail it could be worse, you could have a serious foot issue or have lost your pedometer

KL:I think I’ve got two new belly moles too…If that helps. But my mole chart was on the back of my foot chart! I like to keep track of them in case a new one pops up that looks like cancer. I assume I’ll know when I see it

Me: do u have a boob chart? you know to track mysterious lumpy bits

KL:…I do not…Spose that would be sensible

Me: i swear my boobs are all mysterious lumpy bits, mum tells me its a family sitch. OOOOH GAIL i DOOO HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM!!! i have to sing ‘let it go’ to a park full of people in july! i will most liekly poo on stage

Me: that will be a MAJOR PROBLEM

KL: Can I come see you poo?

KL: Wait, that sounded wrong

Me: if you want….i spose

KL: Just to be clear I will avert my eyes if pooping occurs…Then create a diversion so you can flee

Me: That’s what friends are foooor *burst into song*

GP: Lol Ken u need to make a chart for that! I never check my boobs. Or my moles. And I do have a million of them. Literally

Me: i’m going to send you all my BOOB HQ updates from now on

KL: I had a mole that appeared one day then changed colour then went then came back. I got worried hence the chart. I told mum all worried she asked me if I fell asleep on chocolate. That was one time!

Me: LMAO

GP: Lmao. But when a new one comes they come gradually don’t they so I guess that’s what they do

KL: That one appeared all solid and dark one day… He’s gone now… It wasn’t chocolate I checked

Pause

KL: Imagine if moles were because of tiny skin moles that lived in the blood and pop up and make molehills on you

Me: maybe they are

CM: Lmao guys

Me: have you ever had this thing where you drink coke and its too cold so it makes your throat feel like you’ve just swallowed a load of fluff?

CM: Um I sneeze when I eat mint if that helps?

KL: I can’t say that I have

KL: Lol are you allergic to mint

Me: i feel like there is fluff stuck in my throat

Me: i think i’m dying

CM: It just catches me by surprise

CM: Also u lot seem bridesmaids right? U know the song at the end that they sing?

Me: erm dunno if i have

KL: Warm the coke up? Microwave!

KL: I forget what song is at the end

CM: I thought this was appropriate for us all today as we are all

Fucked in some way shape or form at the minute http://youtu.be/zOK7ijzywgs

RA: Ha! This conversation is cheering me up no end!

 

Chat conversation end

A typical family weekend…

So a few weeks ago me and my family (Dad, Mum, Auntie, Uncle and Cousin) went to the 50th birthday party of a lady called M..who is German and who used to spend every summer with my grandparents (I forget why) so was kinda like my mum and aunties sister….
The party wasn’t at her house it was at a random old couple’s mansion (I forget how they fit into the story…i think they were/are friends with my grandma and lived near to her when my mum was little)..The lady (C) was lovely, one of those people who just makes you feel welcome without even trying. There were also like a million dogs wandering around so I was right at home – pretty sure some of them didn’t even live there (evidently she makes dogs as welcome as humans). The garden was also ace…the sort of garden you could spend ages just wandering around in (in fact we did).

Anyway back to the point….It was M’s 50th birthday. Started out pretty normal – drinks, nibbles, awkward networking with strangers and people who ‘haven’t seen you since you were in nappies’. But then lots of weird stuff kept happening…

Firstly a crazy scottish man started a massive fire in the garden and it got a bit out of hand, i asked him about the fire and he said he wanted to burn some garden rubbish…i resisted the urge to point out to him that it may have been better to do this when they weren’t holding a party, and therefore the garden wasn’t full of people battling to keep ash out of their eyes, face and wine glasses….largely this was due to him introducing me to his insanely ace dog, which kind of made the fire seem insignificant. Yes i am obsessed with dogs.

I was forced into an awkward conversation with a guy because someone found out he went to the same university as me (20 years before) and assumed we’d have soo much in common?! (that reminds me of a time when i was out with N’s work friends and this lady says to me…”OMG you have similar boots on to my daughter..you must go and talk to her!!!” erm realllly…why???) Anyway this guy described himself as a jock – i didn’t even know what a jock was…(well actually i thought it was one of those irritating men you see on American High School films) but obviously i didn’t want to admit this..so i just kind of smiled and stared at him for a bit….turns out he just meant he did sport…and then i was like….oh sport…this conversation is going nowhere.

A bit later on all the Germans burst into song and a man came out with playing an accordion…it kind of felt like one of those moments in a musical when everyone just randomly starts singing and they all know the words…even tho its a made up song…they were signing in rounds and everything…then a lady recited a German poem and the Germans were all weeing themselves laughing…. obvs we had no idea what she was on about being all english etc, so we just stood around smiling like loons….

Anyway we decided to leave when the guitars came out…i personally would have like to have stayed….the random music and dancing looked way fun…but it was quite late. We said goodbye and C showed me the bedroom I could stay in when I next visit (I pretended this was not weird given that i had only met her 3 hours previously).

Ohhh i nearly forgot the best bit!!!! When we were sitting around drinking earlier, a lady (the neighbour) came over and said to me and my cousin ‘do you want to come to my house and watch my tits?’….we just stared at her for a bit and wondered what kind of party this was turning out to be….but then it turned out she was talking about blue tits and she had a camera in her bird box. Apparently, as she went on to tell us, she is ”continuously on tit-watch”

Anyway so that was the day…Mum assures me her entire childhood was like this…..which probably explains a lot!

All cultured out….

So I had a weekend of ‘culture’ in London this weekend… i’ve decided (well i think i already knew, but i’ve confirmed) that i am really not great at museums. I would say my attention span has probably remained the same since the age of 2 and therefore whilst i am interested in stuff, i soon lose the will.

One time (off topic but it illustrates my point), i went to visit a friend who i used to live with at Uni…his girlfriend decided we would have a tour of London’s art gallerias including the Tate and the national portrait gallery. I’ve never understood paintings…i mean they are either so abstract that they don’t mean anything…or they are so realistic you may as well have taken a photo. Don’t get me wrong this attitude is entirely because I can’t paint and i don’t understand art so i’m jealous, but even so i’m not much into looking at paintings. Anyway…we spent an obscene amount of time looking at portraits and i was trying so hard to at least try and look amused but to no avail. The final straw was when i was standing looking at a picture of William Shakespeare and this girl came up to me and said ‘That’s Shakespeare you know, he’s a famous playwright’. A) It clearly said William Shakespeare under the painting and B) I know who bloody Shakespeare is!! Clearly i look even more stupid than i thought! After that i realised it was futile even trying to look interested,  i thought i may as well live up to the girls expectations…i bought myself a cosmo magazine and sat in the corner of the gallery and read it.

Anyway back to this weekend…we went on a tour of the Houses of Parliament. it was nothing like i expected…i’m not sure what i was expecting really but i kinda thought it’d all be more modern. I know this is ridiculous given the building but all you see on TV is the PM question time stuff.

Stuff i learnt about HoP:

• The PM Question time room is teeny tiny compared to how big they make it look on the TV
• The public can view PM Qs and there is a dedicated gallery for them
• They had to put a glass screen in front of said gallery cos Tony Blair got a face full of flour one time
• The Queen has a giant room especially for her to get dressed in that she only uses once a year (What a waste)
• It is freakishly old and traditional and they do weird stuff like voting by running into little rooms when a siren goes off

After HoP the others wanted to go to Churchill’s War Rooms…i decided two museums was too much for one day so went off on my own to find coffee and read my book (yep…living on the edge). London on a Saturday is a bad time to try and find a nice quiet coffee shop. In my desperation to escape the crowds, i found myself in a cocktail bar on a boat. Obviously all ideas about coffee went out the window at that point…. It was lovely…admittedly I looked a bit like a loser by myself…even more so when the barman asked me who i was meeting and i was like….ermmmm.

The next day it rained. A lot. We went to Bletchley park…which is mostly outside. Highlights included:

• Realising that flip flops are inappropriate footwear for walking around outside in the rain
• Nearly falling over on several occasions due to above footwear
• Having my first afternoon tea…with 3 boys
• Realising that i don’t much care for afternoon tea… sandwiches without crusts just don’t do it for me, and whoever thought cucumber and bread were a good combination is a nutter
• Seeing all the cool stuff from the Imitation Game film
• Practising my coding skills
• Finding a Costa when i thought all hope was lost

So there we have it, my cultural weekend in London. I think i have done my bit for the year.