It's Wedding season again. Well actually, it's Wedding, engagement, barbeque, baby shower, Christening, happy to be happy season.
Don't get me wrong - I love summer; I love long summer days and reading books in the sunshine and long dog walks and paddles in babbling brooks. All of these things scream the sanctuary of the spring and summer months. But then the invites flock through the post... or the events pages of social media, with the dreaded 'plus one' scrawled or typed at the bottom of the invitation. The simple phrasing loaded with connotations of relationship status and the fear of being the only single attendee. So I find myself contemplating whether or not it is socially acceptable to request to bring the dog with me. For future reference, barbeques are usually always yes, Weddings and Christenings are usually a no go.
What a dilemma for the twenty first century single girl. So on receiving the invites and the facebook event notifications and the text messages; I book a summer haircut, purchase a few summer dresses and a pair of sandals that shred the skin from my feet and I think, perhaps I will invite an actual man and surprise everyone with my ability to commit to a human being. I could scrawl through my phonebook and give every boy I've ever fluttered my eyelids at a call just to say hello or even a flirty text. But then I remember that I have never once fluttered my eyelids and I do think the term of phrase is flutter one's eyelashes, so it becomes apparent that this plan clearly won't work.
Instead, I fire up the internet to trawl through an array of trolls and the socially inept men folk 'near me' to arrange a string of horrific and rather unsuccessful dates. These usually consisting of one drink each followed by an array of bizarre excuses to leave the pub quickly and hope to God not to bump into anyone you know! Imagine having to introduce your soon to be abandoned drinking partner to a work colleague.
So after realising that 'J8Locia' is actually called Steve and definitely is not 'built' or 'toned' in any way, you make a quick get away home to the dog and realise the evening would have been a much happier one spent with a take away in front of the television or even better, curled up in bed with a book.
My brief spells of dating are not to be blamed on my coupled friends, after all, it's the norm. No single protagonist in any major blockbuster remains single and happy. In his or her quest for happiness they find love and those things are, according to this formula co-dependent. Society dictates that I should be creating a 'love nest' by my age and spending my weekends cutting out pictures of wedding dresses and pictures of babies. Instead I'm scrapbooking photos of my Labrador with a page for Airedale Terrier puppies that we may one day add to our odd little animal family. I'm rather happy with my odd little animal family.
As for the RSVP; I shall be attending alone but I'll happily consume the food and the wine that you would have happily provided for the significant other you are fully aware I don't have.
Wednesday, 9 July 2014
Monday, 3 February 2014
Three Moves in Three Months: TheLoathsome Lodgings
Moving is an emotional rollercoaster. The excitement and the stress mingle into a tingling feeling and you spend countless nights laying awake wondering if you are doing the right thing. You worry that you have spent more money than you earn, you worry about liking the neighbours, you worry about the school district, even if you don't have children and the dog walk routes and the local amenities and what day the bins will go out and how long it will take you to remember that new bin day schedule. So then your head explodes and you haven't even begun to decipher the utility bills. All this stress and emotion is then heightened when you haven't actually chosen to move.
Let me talk you through one of the most stressful periods of my life so far in what I hope will be a fairly humorous way. It began in September, when I embarked on a training course for one of the most undervalued professions in the country; teaching. Life was great, I had moved in with a group of friends in the quaint Hampshire countryside, Labrador in tow, I had met a tall, dark and handsome man and I was just starting out in the career of my dreams. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, everything that could go wrong, would go wrong; and one by one those adoring friends left that quaint little countryside home and I was left clutching at unpaid utility bills and conversing with an estate agent who was so unhelpful he couldn't have arranged for a poo to go down the loo.
So in my haste, I thought it might be a good idea to find some lodgings. Once again, in the delightful Hampshire countryside, but this time, much further away from the school that I was working at, I found a lovely elderly supply teacher and her dog. Perfect. So perfect in fact, that the one hour commute would be highly justifiable. At last, some stability in my hectic life. Moving day number two arrives and mum, dad and the tall, dark, handsome man move me into this lady's bungalow in three cars. There are some awkward gestures and words spoken with my new landlady and her observing-from-a-distance lover. She offers a hand and stands in the way of furniture and boxes being moved into my dingy ground-floor bedroom. Luckily, they leave so that my mother can look at me with knowing eyes and ask me what on earth I was thinking and I can plead with them not to leave me there. The first night I head back home with the boy, convincing him I owe him a take-away for helping with another move but really just wanting to be anywhere but my new home. I knew that I had made a terrible mistake. Thankfully, the Labrador went off to stay with mum and dad and remained under the impression that he was on some kind of luxury holiday.
I had to go and sleep there eventually, so my first night there goes by with very little sleep. I awake to my pre-dawn alarm to get ready for a day on the front line as a trainee teacher, I shower, eat my breakfast and leave the house before 7am making as little noise as possible. Later that evening, I return to finish my work, cook my dinner and go to sleep, but I am confronted by my new housemate. Now, her request was a strange one; but one that began my frantic realisation that I needed somewhere else to live quickly. She asked me, quite politely at first, not to shower in the mornings because the sound of the water was quite disruptive. Not knowing really how to answer a request like this I sheepishly told her that this wasn't really possible, as part of the expectations of a trainee teacher is that one arrives at school on time, clean and bad body odour free. Quite basic really. The strange requests then became demands, and soon I was not allowed to use the oven or flush the toilet if I had only done a wee, or park near her car if she was planning to go out, or wash my clothes in warm water. To inflict these rules, the hot water had been turned off before dawn, so as I approached my 6am shower one morning, I came to find a trickle of ice cold water. Who is this woman I found myself cohabiting with? She belonged in a pre-19th Century boarding school and after day three I was trawling around Southsea after dark viewing bedsits that were once crime scenes and probably would be again very soon. I returned to my lonely lodgings that night, climbed into bed and began typing away on the laptop, when, ever so slowly, the door creeks open. This is it. I am going to be killed. In creeps the landlady's married lover. A hunched figure peered around the door and stared, I froze, unfroze and began to calculate objects near enough to throw and heavy enough to leave a mark. He quickly retreated muttering excuses and in a few seconds of bravery I flung the door back open and demanded an explanation. The excuse that the trespasser made was this, he was not aware that I was home. The verdict, these peculiar people are snooping through my belongings while I am at school. So possessions packed into a Mini Cooper and a Renault Clio the following night, the significant other helped me escape while the lady was elsewhere, although to this day I am convinced that we were watched from behind a painting or from the eyes of some hideous gargoyle.
For quite a few weeks, between the marking and the planning and the commuting and the reading and the rest of the many tasks that come with learning how to be a teacher, I lived between his house and a friend's sofa until I came into a stroke of luck. When some friends had an opening in their student house I jumped at the opportunity to live with these sane individuals. For now, I have climbed out of the vortex in which I couldn't stop moving house. Thanks to my new housemates and true friends, things are finally beginning to settle down and out of this experience, I have learned not to move in with people who advertise their spare rooms on the internet.
Let me talk you through one of the most stressful periods of my life so far in what I hope will be a fairly humorous way. It began in September, when I embarked on a training course for one of the most undervalued professions in the country; teaching. Life was great, I had moved in with a group of friends in the quaint Hampshire countryside, Labrador in tow, I had met a tall, dark and handsome man and I was just starting out in the career of my dreams. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, everything that could go wrong, would go wrong; and one by one those adoring friends left that quaint little countryside home and I was left clutching at unpaid utility bills and conversing with an estate agent who was so unhelpful he couldn't have arranged for a poo to go down the loo.
So in my haste, I thought it might be a good idea to find some lodgings. Once again, in the delightful Hampshire countryside, but this time, much further away from the school that I was working at, I found a lovely elderly supply teacher and her dog. Perfect. So perfect in fact, that the one hour commute would be highly justifiable. At last, some stability in my hectic life. Moving day number two arrives and mum, dad and the tall, dark, handsome man move me into this lady's bungalow in three cars. There are some awkward gestures and words spoken with my new landlady and her observing-from-a-distance lover. She offers a hand and stands in the way of furniture and boxes being moved into my dingy ground-floor bedroom. Luckily, they leave so that my mother can look at me with knowing eyes and ask me what on earth I was thinking and I can plead with them not to leave me there. The first night I head back home with the boy, convincing him I owe him a take-away for helping with another move but really just wanting to be anywhere but my new home. I knew that I had made a terrible mistake. Thankfully, the Labrador went off to stay with mum and dad and remained under the impression that he was on some kind of luxury holiday.
I had to go and sleep there eventually, so my first night there goes by with very little sleep. I awake to my pre-dawn alarm to get ready for a day on the front line as a trainee teacher, I shower, eat my breakfast and leave the house before 7am making as little noise as possible. Later that evening, I return to finish my work, cook my dinner and go to sleep, but I am confronted by my new housemate. Now, her request was a strange one; but one that began my frantic realisation that I needed somewhere else to live quickly. She asked me, quite politely at first, not to shower in the mornings because the sound of the water was quite disruptive. Not knowing really how to answer a request like this I sheepishly told her that this wasn't really possible, as part of the expectations of a trainee teacher is that one arrives at school on time, clean and bad body odour free. Quite basic really. The strange requests then became demands, and soon I was not allowed to use the oven or flush the toilet if I had only done a wee, or park near her car if she was planning to go out, or wash my clothes in warm water. To inflict these rules, the hot water had been turned off before dawn, so as I approached my 6am shower one morning, I came to find a trickle of ice cold water. Who is this woman I found myself cohabiting with? She belonged in a pre-19th Century boarding school and after day three I was trawling around Southsea after dark viewing bedsits that were once crime scenes and probably would be again very soon. I returned to my lonely lodgings that night, climbed into bed and began typing away on the laptop, when, ever so slowly, the door creeks open. This is it. I am going to be killed. In creeps the landlady's married lover. A hunched figure peered around the door and stared, I froze, unfroze and began to calculate objects near enough to throw and heavy enough to leave a mark. He quickly retreated muttering excuses and in a few seconds of bravery I flung the door back open and demanded an explanation. The excuse that the trespasser made was this, he was not aware that I was home. The verdict, these peculiar people are snooping through my belongings while I am at school. So possessions packed into a Mini Cooper and a Renault Clio the following night, the significant other helped me escape while the lady was elsewhere, although to this day I am convinced that we were watched from behind a painting or from the eyes of some hideous gargoyle.
For quite a few weeks, between the marking and the planning and the commuting and the reading and the rest of the many tasks that come with learning how to be a teacher, I lived between his house and a friend's sofa until I came into a stroke of luck. When some friends had an opening in their student house I jumped at the opportunity to live with these sane individuals. For now, I have climbed out of the vortex in which I couldn't stop moving house. Thanks to my new housemates and true friends, things are finally beginning to settle down and out of this experience, I have learned not to move in with people who advertise their spare rooms on the internet.
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