Summer, sleep and weddings....

Having arrived home to another British Gas bill on my door step... for some reason my mum decided to post it on to me I had something to eat and then decided to lay down for a little snooze. This is one of my favourite pastimes and sometimes I think whole chunks of my life are missing to these little naps! I have always felt like a particularly tired person. Getting up is a constant effort and fighting off sleep for the rest of the day is the norm for me. Generally speaking I cannot talk to anyone until I have had at least 2 cups of tea in the morning or some other form of caffeine injection. I remember once my friend had come to sleep over my house for the first time. I was about 14 years old. When we woke up she started chattering happily. I stared at her with a disgusted look on my face and she continued talking! Why would anyone do that? As she tried to engage me with conversation I managed to ignore her for 30 minutes and then started to grunt to various things she said. I realise to some this may appear a little harsh but I normally have snotty words going through my head of irritation in the morning and it was either ignore, grunt or a tirade of abuse. After about 45 minutes I noticed she had left my room and gone downstairs. Relief washed over me as I realised I would no longer have to deal with her upbeat chirpiness until I was ready.... Then I could hear quiet sobs and the cooing of my mother comforting her... "I think I've upset Clare and she's not talking to me!".... "Now now don't be silly she's always like this in the mornings.. you didn't try to speak to her did you? Oh dear just leave her for a while until she wakes up!" Strangely she did come round many times after that but she never said a word until I spoke to her!

On the days my sister and I used to walk to school together we would often take turns closing our eyes whilst the other one led the way so that we could get some extra sleep and I often came home from school and had a little sleep before dinner. The down side of this of course was I was then totally irritated by people's eating habits at the table as I had not been awake for long enough. I wanted to eat in silence but my family insisted on chatting! I have at times contemplated what it would be like to push a yoghurt pot in my mother's face as she slowly spoons the yoghurt into her mouth in slow, even perfectly timed spoonfuls. Even now when I visit her if she eats a yoghurt she tends to leave the room. It's not that I'm a bully... it's just that I have a very low irritation threshold and one which when the criteria is met cannot be stopped.

I had one summer in particular that I remember my irritation levels were at their lowest. Everything annoyed me. I complained about everything from the bins that smelt all over the city when I was out shopping to the way my shoes always make my feet blister in the heat. It is not unusual for my ankles to swell up bulbously so that I look like an old woman with her ankles hanging over the straps of her sandals. This particular summer was the summer everyone I knew was getting married. I should add not only was everyone getting married but everyone was asking me to be bridesmaid. I spent the whole summer yo yo dieting to get into the range of 4 dresses that I was due to be wearing for the occassions which went from size 8 dresses to size 12 dress. The size 8 dress and size 12 dress weddings were about a month apart so I went from living off the sweat of a strawberry or the pip of a grape and having regular seaweed wraps which made me wee for 24 hours solidly to eating big macs and blocks of cheese whilst lying down and avoiding exercise in the space of a month. Every wedding was different. I had the catholic wedding of my sister where the priest kept saying my name instead of the brides and in which I wore a lilac dress in size 10, to the Quaker wedding where I was late by 30 minutes as our taxi had got lost and the first part of the wedding video is everyone asking where I am and the bride sitting outside in the car to the church of england wedding where I was expected to be size 8 in a gold fitted dress with the biggest hair do in the world. I had various bouquets and did various readings at the services. By the end of the summer I was joking to my family that I could start a business called "rent a bridesmaid".

As my brother and I spent hours coming up with ideas for the business we laughed at our own jokes - own dresses in various colours, no hymn book required, any denomination acceptable, own bouquets, willing to read from any gospel. "Been let down by your bridesmaid... call rent-a-bridesmaid". As the summer ended all the jokes about "always a bridesmaid never a bride" were solidified when my best friend gave me her bouquet rather than threw it into the crowd as she thought I needed it more than anyone else! The summer was over and relief crept through me... no more weddings to attend, no more stinky bins from the heat, no more blistered bulbous feet as I was back in my comfy boots so all that was left was the normal morning blues and my mum's love of yoghurt.

As we hit october I received a phone call from "Take a break" magazine. This very important, efficient sounding woman rang and told me that they wanted to do a 2 page spread on my business "Rent-a-bridesmaid". I didn't have the heart to tell her this was a joke as she asked for details of the website address. It turned out my mum had decided that the magazine would be interested in my idea. As I created my fake business out of my jokey emails with my brother the lady on the phone was delighted and interested. I fobbed her off saying the website was under construction and I would get back to her at a later date. After phoning my mum and demanding an explanation I was embarrassed to even think about it and left it at that....

"My mum was in the doctors surgery reading take a break and saw a picture of you as a bridesmaid saying you were going to start a business called rent a bridesmaid". My friend was laughing as she told me that her mum had brought the magazine home to show her. I rang my mum in a state of despair imagining all the various people i knew in doctor's surgeries all over the country reading about this embarrassing situation! My mum was thrilled! She told me that they had given her £75 for this little picture on the inside cover and a little explanation of how I was forever a bridesmaid... Oh the shame!

And so that is why I find summer irritating! Even my own jokes at my sad misfortune come back to haunt me and I am spending the whole winter cringing about the summer. It is exhausting way to live and so as I approach the summer I intend to sleep more. By sleeping more I will then be able to avoid any invitations to weddings or any other happy event and just live my life without the torture of it all!