Flipping out with Clare

It's been so long...

2010-01-25T00:13:00.003Z

It has been so long since I wrote anything. I've realised that I'm a mix of total emotions. I'm in a dark place and I can't get out... I've decided to write a blog in direct contrast to this one...It is my sad wonderings... my heart break and torture. Until I am able to see the light I will focus on my other writing and bare my soul...... perhaps there is a reason....

The return of the sick note!

2008-11-16T23:08:00.002Z

Once again I have been away for a while... This is partly because I've now lost confidence in my ability to write something anyone will want to read and because I've been ill again!

It all started a couple of weeks ago. I was forcing myself to the gym every night of the week. I was starting to feel smug as I left the office each day with my gym bag over my shoulder and clenching my buttocks as I left in a bid to show all my work colleagues how tight the buns were getting. Unfortunately in my bid to become a gym bunny I was exhausted. Every morning I came in to work confidently plonking my gym bag down and putting my plastic container of fruit that I had bought from the cafe near work onto my desk. But rather confusingly I was being greeted with concerned faces asking if I was alright because I looked ill and tired. I would smile back at them confirming that I was simply exhausted by my work out the night before. As the days went on each morning was the same and by Thursday I was dragging myself to the gym at the end of the day repeating in my head "no pain no gain". By Friday I felt like death. I was now feeling dizzy and slightly spaced out. "This is how fit people feel" I thought. It was very likely my brain was simply rejecting my new found healthiness and was trying to tell my body that I was not feeling well ... in fact I was fit and healthy... and possibly developing proper calf muscles. By lunchtime I was thinking "hmmm maybe I just need some sweets to make me feel less dizzy". I am convinced my body does actually need some bad stuff going into my system regularly and I was obviously detoxing. But I needed to get through the afternoon. I went to the shop and bought a huge bag of sour haribos. These are the sweets that make your eyelids sweat because of the sourness of them but which you can't stop eating when you start. Salt and vinegar crisps have the same effect on me. I did think it was a little unusual I ate the whole bag of sweets in about 10 minutes as despite my love of food I'm not mad on sweets. I prefer savoury stuff.

By 5 pm I thought I think I'll knock the gym and go home for a sleep I was really not feeling very well. I would make up for the gym on the weekend and would go on both Saturday and Sunday. I got in the front door and put on a pizza which I whoofed down as soon as it was out of the oven. I then decided sleep was overcoming me remarkably quickly and I laid down on the sofa. 3 hours later I awoke to a terrible feeling of sickness. I tried to get up but instead found myself rolling onto the floor and promptly started to gag. As I started to be sick I realised how ill I felt and tried to crawl to the toilet. 2 hours later I was still crawling backwards and forwards to the toilet puking all the sweets etc I had eaten. If only I had not eaten so much!!! Eventually I spoke to my mum and decided to call the doctor. I did so and an ambulance then arrived! As I opened the door two young men came in and tried to talk to me whilst I was busy answering in monosyllables between moments of puking into my washing up bowl. Never have I felt so attractive!!! The ambulance men told me the doctor was on her way but they would stay with me in the meantime. They asked if I lived on my own or if they could call my mum. I immediately burst into tears saying my mum lives in England. At this point they asked how old I was and I replied 31. The ambulance man then laughed saying "Oh god I was feeling really sorry for you there I thought you were only 17!". I ignored him.

By the time the doctor arrived I was lying on the floor unable to move continually puking. She informed me that she thought I had the Norwalk virus. She sat beside me as I puked asking me the following questions:

1. "So basically you just woke up and started to chunder?" - The word "chunder" should never be used to someone who is struggling to stop being sick... the word alone makes me feel like something is rising in my throat.
2. "So have you eaten alot today?" "yes" "Oh dear that means you have probably got a good few more hours of chundering!" - This again is not a positive thing to say to someone who is wishing she would just die rather than continuing to be sick".
3. "Well we could admit you into hospital. You could be put in the ward with all the other people who have this virus - we've closed it off - a kind of quarantine. Do you want to go?" "No... puking... I can't think of anything worse... puking... then being with ... puking... a load of people... puking ... who have the same thing..."
4."Shall I give you an anti-sickness injection.. may help but may not... Yes? Ok well you are actually in the perfect position... stay there... just a little scratch." As she jabbed the injection into my bum whilst I had my head over a bowl and my bum in the air I can tell you it was not a little scratch! What a cow!

Eventually she left and for the next 8 hours every 20 minutes I was being sick. In other words there was no maybe about it the injection did not work. I was told I had to be quarantined so no one could visit me. My landlady came in to see me and immediately put her scarf over her mouth to avoid my contagiousness. Over the next week various lovely friends brought over things that I needed... god knows why but I have never needed ice lollies so much. I lived on them. Work called telling me they did not want me in but they would like to cargo some files over to me so I could work from home... how kind of them!! As the days went on my stomach continued to churn and I happily noticed that I was not that hungry.. the norwalk virus diet was working..Note this was only temporary though and as soon as I ate normally the weight attached to my hips as normal!

On Monday I went back into work informing everyone I was no longer contagious and I was fighting fit! I even went to the gym! By Tuesday I felt like I was dying a slow painful death. As I arrived in at work I soon realised I needed to be in bed. I went to the doctor and then drove home. Instead of my normal going to the sofa and lying in agony under a duvet. I went to bed for the whole day. I awoke in the darkness and realised I must be feeling really terrible to not even be able to stomach day time Tv. You know that lovely feeling of smugness you get knowing that everyone is at work and you are under a duvet watching various live television phone ins on the important issues such as "sex for the over seventies", "dealing with the trauma of memory loss" and "gardening tips for a rainy summer" with various experts giving us 30 seconds of advice before cutting off the caller mid question and moving on to the next caller Sue for Somerset.

On Wednesday I dragged myself into work again and spent the rest of the week fighting a bloated stomach after I ate anything at lunchtime. I am finally now starting to feel myself. Well myself minus the gym... my old self! And so it makes me wonder how is that as soon as I start trying to be ultra healthy does it always make me ill? Perhaps I should just embrace my unhealthiness as yet another fault I cannot change...or I can change but which would ultimately make me ill. Hmmm think I'll ponder on that over a bag of crips!

No one ever wished they spent more time at work

2008-10-12T22:12:00.004+01:00

I consider myself to be a fairly driven, ambitious person and yet when I really have time to think about it... I mean I have the time because I am a self confessed lazy person... but when I sit down and think about it I really just want to have nothing to do. I have just spent 2 hours (this is time which I will never get back even if I wanted to!) watching the programme Girls of the Playboy mansion. Now I am not proud of this viewing but I am ever so slightly addicted to this programme. Not because I can relate to it or because I am ANYTHING like the 3 girlfriends that Hugh currently has... although I would happily have their looks and figures (bearing in mind I stopped going to the gym whilst I waited for my official yearly subscription to it through work to start and a month on haven't managed to go back!) but the reason I watch this programme so avidly is because honestly.. I mean honestly that is the life to have! I mean these girls are living a very nice life. Sure they have to occasionaly kiss the wrinkly lips of Hugh Hefner but God we've all had to kiss Nans and Grandads lips and immediately wiped our mouths and minds of the experience so what is the difference? I don't believe any of them other than Holly (the main girlfriend) sleeps with him and so these other girls have it made! Bridget and Kendra basically have dogs to play with, their own rooms which are pink and girly and lots of clothes to wear (ok these are all branded playboy but god so what?It would be a small price to pay!) and they get ready for parties and they get new cars and dress up for fancy dress evenings and hang out with other girlie girls. I mean is this not the life to have? Or is it just me?

We all are in some way selling ourselves for what we want out of life and so their selling of themselves is a bit more basic but I could do the little girlie laugh and play with my hair and kiss wrinkly lips every once in a while for such a nice life! These girls never look tired or jaded... they never worry about money or seem to have arguments. They are emotional so ocassionaly you see them cry but normally because some other play boy bunny has won an award and is so overcome with happiness she cries which sets all the other bunnies off! Their main concern at this time is wiping the mascara from their tear drenched eyes and looking beautiful as they hug and laugh at themselves for crying through the tears. And Hugh just says they are sweet and then they are encouraged to carry on discovering their girlie pursuits. There is no pressure to this lifestyle. Realistically I'm sure I would be a nicer, more laid back person if my only plans for the day were hula hooping, playing with my dogs, bouncing on the trampoline and being nice to an old guy called Hef who actually doesn't seem to be that involved in the day to day activities. It's not a taxing way to live! And if it didn't make me a nice person I could pretend. It would be worth pretending for the lifestyle! God they aren't even expected to iron Hugh's silky pyjamas. Actually I like the idea of a life in pyjamas! What a perfect way to live... constantly dressed for lounging!

So now is this normal for me to feel like this? Is it something to aspire to? I mean should we be encouraging ourselves and our loved ones to go for a life like this? I accept it is not ideal! But let me ask you this... do you think these girls will look back on their time at the playboy mansion fondly? Sure! Why wouldn't they? They live is a bundle of pink fluff, it is fun and they are pandered to... so what is the problem? It is not something I had aspired to as a child but maybe that's because for most of us we never think that we will be able to have this kind of life so we don't bother seeing it as a possibility. Plus I can't imagine telling my parents when they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up with any convinction "I want to be a playboy bunny of course!" and they would look on me with pride in their eyes and say "wow what a wonderful career choice darling!".

Recently my Mum stayed with me in Jersey for 10 days. It was great to have her around and I took 2 days off work to hang out with her for her birthday. The whole time she was here though I was having to do work at home in the evenings and on my two days off I had to work for 6 hours in the day and one day I even went in to see a client for 2 hours. I had no other option. By the end of the week I was exhausted! So I soon felt like the walking dead. I was snappy and distracted by the work I had to do. One evening my mum insisted on watching Coronation Street (for American readers this is our longest running soap opera... as far as I know there is no American equivalent... all I can tell you is some of the actors no longer have to act because they have been in it for so long!) I can't stand Coronation Street. I don't know what it is ... but as soon as the music comes on it makes me feel thoroughly irritated. My mum however loves it and on one night it appears to be on twice on the one night... hell for me when my mum is here! As my Mum wanted to watch the second show I told her I would have a little half hour sleep. A snooze. A power nap if you will. I gave her strict instructions to wake me after Coronation Street and she promised she would with a cup of tea. I was asleep on the sofa in seconds. I was awoken by mum putting the cup of tea down on the coffee table. As she did so I jumped up and said "Shit Mum it's nine fifteen!!!" "So it is." She replied and calmly put the biscuits on the table. I jumped off the sofa and bounded up the stairs two at a time towards the bathroom undoing my jeans as I did so and trying to pull my jeans off without falling over. I put the shower on and jumped in. As I frantically scrubbed myself I realised it was 9.15 pm and not 9.15 in the morning. I hadn't over slept. I had no need to be in the shower rushing as if I was late for work. I stepped out of the shower and sheepishly returned to the living room. My mum looked at me concerned and confused and asked "you ok?". I was ok, I was just over tired and delirious..ok I wasn't delirious but it makes me wonder if my panic over being late and having so much to do at work is normal.I had basically slipped into a coma for 45 minutes on the sofa. This can't be normal. For the rest of the week my brother and sister kept saying that Mum said I was working really hard and long hours. I'm sure she is proud of me but I also knows she worries about me. And so if I told her now I was retiring to be a playboy bunny do you think she'd really mind? If she knew it was a better life? I doubt it. And so I dedicate this to Hugh .... Lots of love your next girlfriend! xx PS If any of you dare tell him my age I blame you for my lack of happiness!!!

Everyone needs a great financial advisor.

2008-09-29T23:29:00.005+01:00

My natural instinct in life is to hate financial advisors. I have met a few in my short (yes short) life. I have normally had to resort to taking advice from these "sorts" when my financial life has turned to disaster. Most of the time when I have had to deal with any kind of financial institution this has normally ended with me either crying or feeling slightly suicidal... at times this has been replaced by pure hatred for the person who sits behind the desk gently tutting at my financial incompetence as they delve through the depths of my various credit cards statements questioning how I spent so much in such a short amount of time. Red faced I try to justify myself by stating that 1.my bank account had been emptied and I was forced to use my credit cards 2. I have a problem. I literally can't stop spending. It was either visit a financial advisor or go to a mental institution (I probably should have picked the latter) 3. I had no idea what had happened having been struck down by amnesia in the preceeding months. I could feel the judgement of me and my spending habits literally oozing out of the pores of this man. He looked disappointed in me without even knowing me and seemed bored with my excuses. Sure he'd heard them all before but there is a code of politeness. I do it with client's all the time. I listen to them knowing that they are justifying their actions and making themselves feel slightly better but the reality is they are lying and it's appropriate for me to seem to believe them at the very least in the first meeting!

So my experience of financial advisors is that they are generally judgemental, slightly smug people who look down their noses and sigh at the level of debt you have got yourself into as they wipe imaginery dust off their Rolex watch. Generally speaking they are making money out of your misfortune. This I don't mind as such as any advisory role does just that. If all was going well they would need you alot more. They would probably downplay your wealth and talk about wealthier client's they see and how to achieve this level of wealth. But the run of the mill people ... people like me... commonly known as "debt ridden scummers" are the ones that they can really vent their anger on without worrying about complaints. After all we need them much more than they need us!

Last Christmas as I stared at my credit card statements and spent alot of time trying to juggle my money in order to pay the minimum payments I knew it was only a matter of time before I would find myself again knocking on the door of the local financial humiliator to try to resolve my financial difficulties. I'm honest when I need help but there is something so very mortifying about going to someone and confessing your financial sins. I am the typical person who earns a decent wage but has a massive ball and chain that I drag around with me. The ball and chain is years of living on a low wage, student loans and credit card therapy. I needed help.

My friend suggested that I go and see someone at a place called Acorn Finance. I was slightly concerned that Acorn suggested they expected people to have little debts. You know the size of an acorn. I was a financial loser. The worst kind. As I had ignored it for far too long. I went to see Andrew (although I'll call him Andreas as the mediterrean name makes the process seem sunnier and alot less dark and painful). Within minutes I was in tears. I told him I was in a mess. Andreas was different from other financial advisors I had seen. He certainly didn't appear to be judging me and I felt as if he had heard it all before. Inside I have no doubt he was thinking "oh my god you financial incompetent!" but he hid it well and was friendly yet I totally believed what he had to say. Before Christmas I was sorted and relieved to think that I would be able to deal with my debts and not get myself into such a situation again.

So 7 months later when I was forced to get in touch with Andreas again I couldn't really see what I could say other than "I've really screwed up!" Ok so by the time I saw him he was a little more judgemental but this time I didn't cry. What was the point? He knew I was a loser so why become a pathetic loser? I wasn't crying when I was building up the credit cards again. And this time I had to accept real responsibility. It was hard. I took it on the chin... Ok I didn't. But I knew that I was just an idiot when it came to money and I would have to deal with my idiotic behaviour. IF there is ever a next time I know he will use 2 words and the first one will begin with P and the second word will be off... This alone makes me fear him. And I'll be honest this is not the sort of man you fear! He's funny and I suspect a bit of a party boy but the difficulty with this sort of person is you know that if you let him down again you would feel really bad! One evening after work I went to see him to discuss the loan arrangements for my new consolidation I arrived at the office after work to a barrage of bad language being shouted through the office. I was sitting in the waiting room as I listened to various c, f and sh words being shouted to a colleague and knew that this was the sort of unprofessional firm I needed to be involved with! These people were perfect for my financial needs! They were approachable and human. They hated their clients and therefore me and it made me love their ethos all the more! A rather embarrassed Andreas came round the corner and greeted me saying that he was unaware I was sitting there. But the reality was it sealed my loyalty to such a ridiculously helpful and hugely unprofessional approach. Now don't get me wrong I'm sure they can be very professional for others. I mean only today Andreas cancelled my appointment to go and hob nob on a golf course with some of his more important clients. His complete honesty immmediately made me feel like I'm in on a secret. I know the flaws, their professionality is wasted on me and I think they know that.

Now to bring a new element of interbreeding to Jersey I then happened to tell Andreas that I was looking for a flat. He told me that his business partner David had a flat to rent. He called him in and I met David who looked like he had just woken up (it was 5pm) and told me his wife deals with it all. After Andreas telling me it was a whole £200 cheaper than it actually was (the lack of accuracy of figures may worry some when it comes to a financial advisor but it appealed to me... why should we get bogged down with accuracy anyway!!).I visited the flat and I now live in it. It is all a bit weird! I wonder if they really wanted me close? Did I have to commit my soul to Acorn now that I've messed up for the second time? Every purchase I make I now think about knowing that I will have to walk it into my flat past the house that David lives in. They've lent me money I have to be seen to be being sensible. It is the old saying of keep your friends close, your enemies even closer... I wonder if the same goes for debtors? It would seem also that Andreas has been to visit David at home and has seen my crap car and then because he knows that he has no real professional image with me he had the cheek to tell me it was crap! He back tracked soon after I told him I was willing to borrow more money to buy a nice car and all we had to do was re-hash the figures. Suddenly my little passion wagon was not so bad! Funny that!

And so I find myself for the first time feeling responsible for ensuring I don't let these people down. I owe it to their honesty and their lack of professional image. I will never find another firm like it I am sure. And ok so they have bothered to move me next door to them to keep an eye on me... which is a little over the top! But I guess it's good for me too... as the guilt of buying is more overwhelming than usual. I may start carrying purchases into my flat in the dark under sheets or black bags when everyone is asleep... it may be the only way to keep the shopping addiction going! The truth is that this is the kind of advice I need... no judgement but the fear of disappointing Andreas and David. However the commitment of a five year loan and living in this flat for possibly five years is not something I can envisage. I may have to escape the cell and move elsewhere at some point... I just pray I don't fall off the wagon. We all need a great financial advisor... but if you can't find one ... get one that at least has a lack of pompousness and the ability to make you feel comfortable. The best kind is one that really just acts like a friend who seems to be mucking around a bit. There is really no need to be all serious about it... we all know it's pathetic that I'm in this situation so let's just accept it... slightly scared I'm now thinking though I may have lost my freedom to these people...They are watching me... Acorn don't stifle me I want to be an Oak tree. Note to self I must read the small print and just make sure I don't have to hand over my soul as collateral for my loan.... oh so what if I do it'll be worth it I guess!

Excuse me... I think I'm lost on the road to nowhere....

2008-09-22T21:32:00.004+01:00

As you all know I am now in my new flat. I have also mentioned it is gorgeous... I have a few problems like sky is not working yet and my internet is tempermental (stop muttering "let it go Clare" - I can't ok? Deal with it)but I am a little further away from work and therefore from town then I used to be. It is picturesque and quaint and most people will remark on what a lovely area it is! It is not unusual to regularly see a person riding their horse past my window and the sound of birds cheeping but PAUSE hang on just one second! I am not used to this!

I awake in the morning to the sound of these noises accompanied by the sweet sound of quite a busy road in front of the house. As you all know country roads mean one thing! Men driving like loonies, way to fast and swerving in and out. So I hear this noise and get out of bed cursing the world as I go and when I finally get in my car to get out on to that busy road I'm constantly dicing with death. The entrance to the road is a concealed entrance and has no visibility to see traffic coming either way. I should go back a step to say that the driveway is on a very tight corner so on maneouvering my way to get out of the gateway I'm then faced with a wall that is directly in front of me. With no power steering I huff and puff to move the wheel and reverse two inches, turn the wheel, go forward 2 inches, reverse two inches whilst turning the wheel and go forward again until I have cleared the entrance. This immediately leads me to being hot and bothered as I then risk my life to get onto the road. Honestly I am not exagerrating you cannot see a thing from either direction. This morning I decided to open my windows to see if I could hear a car and then nearly killed myself as my own heap of a car makes so much noise from the engine it drowned out the sound of oncoming vehicles! To be honest it's a game of russian roulette and it involves straining my neck and generally talking to myself saying "can I go, shall I go oh what the hell just close your eyes and go!!!" You can imagine my mood then by the time I get to work. To say that it is not worth even saying hi to me is an understatement. For future reference if you say hi at this point on my arrival I won't answer. Sorry I'm just not capable. Wait an hour and a latte and you may get a grunt... apart from that it's just not worth it. I'm being honest and I'm warning you.

Being Sunday yesterday I decided that I would have a little drive around to get to know the area. I was hoping to drive and come across a nearby shopping mall that no one had mentioned existed and maybe a big supermarket like Tesco which was open all hours of the day and night. The dreams in my head filled my heart with delight as I risked life and limb to get onto the main road. I drove aimlessly whistling to myself. I stayed straight first of all and then did a few right and left turns. Easy enough to remember on a small island? Twenty minutes later I realised that I probably should have bought camping equipment as I was totally lost. I didn't recognise anything as I drove through country lanes covered with trees and wondered what would happen if a spaceship lifted me up and took me and my car into space. No one would have seen me to know where I was. It was completely deserted. An hour and a half later I had discovered two things. One - I have no sense of direction whatsoever and in fact I was tempted just to leave all my possessions and rent a new flat and start again as I would probably never find my way back to my current home and Two - I live in the middle of nowhere! There is no shopping mall. No secret big supermarket. In fact there was not much of anything. How could I get constantly lost on an island that is so small? I always pretend that I am pretty good at directions. I often impress my mum with my ability to get places (though not when I offered to drive her and my auntie to my cousin's wedding and due to a few unfortunate turns on my part they ended up arriving half way through the ceremony! They were the first ones out though so this meant they were the first ones to the reception.... so don't think they had anything really to complain about!)

So here I am in the middle of nowhere. I realised whilst I was driving that probably one life skill that is pretty essential to be successful in life is to have a good sense of direction. I mean we are ruled by directions. Not just to get us from a to b but also in life. Where is this relationship going? What direction in your career are you taking? Answering direct questions. They are all about routes that are taken and they get us to where we need to be. The problem is my sense of direction does cause friction in my life. As I am constantly lost it means I take longer to get there than anyone else. This is whether I'm going to work, trying to grow up or in relationships. I put the time in. Everything takes longer than I'd expect and when I don't know the right directions I guess (with some confidence) normally taken the wrong route first. I do though eventually find my way and upon arrival I find the rest of the world has not only passed me by but they are waiting for me and slightly pissed off about my late arrival! But does it really matter how I get there? I don't arrive in style, I'm normally stressed and bedraggled, late and frowning but I make it. Isn't that what's important?

It is quite nice though living in the middle of nowhere. It's quite anonymous and makes me feel like I'm a little bit of a secret hiding away in my little flat... But to be a hermit like Howard Hughes I suspect it is more appealing if you have lots of good stuff to keep you amused like SKY TV for instance.... I have a need people! Until this need is met I will continue to moan! Or even internet that is reliable. Maybe even a nice car to drive round nowhere in! It's the little perks that make nowhere bearable surely?

And so as I get back on that road tomorrow... sorry IF I get back on that main road tomorrow... it really is that dangerous!... I know that the only direction I'll travel at 8 am is towards work but on the way home who knows? I will continue my quest to find something remotely civilised on this island... remotely modern... It's like being in a desert and seeing a mirage and praying it stays there by the time you get there... that's how I feel about shopping malls or supermarkets.... it looks like it's there... you can see it... you imagine getting out of your car and wandering the large expanse of aisles and aisles of various food, drink and if you are lucky books, clothing, stationary and DVDS but as you approach it disappears before your very eyes... You don't know what happened to it or why it is not there anymore but it's gone... God giveth and god taketh away... the problem is often it leaves us with being on the road to nowhere.

I want my life back... sky tv I miss you!

2008-09-18T22:44:00.007+01:00

Once again my poor blog has been neglected and I have probably lost all my readers in the process ... so for my brother and sister who are no doubt reading this and already know this information I'll bore you again.

In recent weeks I have moved out of my flat and into a new one. My new flat is a lot bigger than the previous one and upon viewing it I immediately decided that it would change my life. No more lying on the floor with my lap top plugged in with lots of wires. This time I was going to do it properly! This time I would have the ability to sit on my sofa (did I not mention it came with a sofa in the flat which is large and soft! -I wasn't aware that sofas could be soft and that you could lie out on them!) I moved in with excitement. The flat is a two storey one bedroom flat which also has a mezzanine floor (a posh word for a half floor which is kind of pointless but nice)in the living room. The first question I asked was "does the flat have sky tv?". As the landlady nodded I knew I had found a HOME!

I have now been living in this flat for 2 weeks and to be honest I'm confused. Don't get me wrong the flat is a dream but somehow I have managed to get myself in a situation where I am no longer lying on the floor next to my laptop but I'm sitting in a dark corner underneath the staircase to the mezzanine floor between the sofa and my tv. There is no room for me to lie down. There is honestly no room for anything. This is the only place I can put my lap top as I don't have wireless. This means that whilst I'm writing this my feet have gone to sleep as they are all caught up underneath my legs. I'm also surrounded by wires and I can't watch TV at the same time.

So has Sky changed my life for the better?... the answer is no. Why I hear you cry? Well my miniscule TV has been moved to my bedroom! Someone at work was selling a 26 inch TV for £10. I assumed it must be broken or else a gift from god. When I arrived to pick up the TV I realised that it weighed as much as a man with a serious obesity problem and as I lugged it down the stairs in high heels and put it in my car I realised that the chances of me getting it out of my car was unlikely. However I managed to get it out several days later after of course, I noticed that the car was struggling to go uphill from the weight of the TV in the back which I had cunningly covered in the back seat with a sheet. I did not want anyone breaking into my £160 car to steal my £10 TV! After getting the TV into the flat I whistled lightly as I prepared for Sky to immediately come on. In my head I started to plan my evening of watching MTV and american sitcoms. So why could I not get it to work? Why does god giveth and taketh away? Surely this was too unfair?

For the next 3 days I tried everything I could think of ... unplugging various leads, cords and plugging in various wires to anything I could find. I invested in a long plug extender thing so that I could have more than two things plugged in at once in the hope it would help with all the items I intended to plug into the area next to the TV (ie my laptop and stereo). But nothing... no sky. I could get up the menu titles but then it would say no signal. I contemplated moving out there and then but I am faced with reality - Sky and I are not meant to be together. I just don't understand it. We are perfect for each other. The mindless programme watching suits my numb brain perfectly and I long to spend quality time with cable tv!

Apart from that my new flat is lovely. I am still at the stage where everything is kept perfectly in place. I even bought new sheets for my bed to make it look extra nice! Ok so the bedroom is about quarter the size of my previous bedroom and therefore I feel a bit like I'm sleeping in a box... but still it looks nice.

Along with that I have no microwave which is a big problem for someone who is as lazy as I am. I wonder how anyone lived without a microwave before? Thank god I didn't live in a time before microwaves! And yet I somehow feel as if I'm living in that time zone now.

I have a place to park at my new flat too! This is an amazing feeling! I no longer have a ten minute walk to get to my car! I just look straight out my front door and there it is...the little car! And ok so I did tell everyone when I moved here I would get the bus to work to save money rather than paying for car parking near work and OK so, as of yet, I've not managed to get the bus as the temptation of hopping into my car and getting to work without having to deal with looking at other people on the way to work on a bus is just too appealing! I can't stand the thought of sitting on a bus listening to some woman (you know the kind the one with the incessant chatter? The one who names people you have never heard of and assumes the person she is talking to knows who she means. So she'll say "Pat is going to come and stay and I said to Julie you know you really must come and see me soon" and some poor sucker will be listening politely wishing she could find the off button for the obnoxious woman who just can't stop spouting out crap particularly as she has never met Pat or Julie or in fact this woman!) You see even the thought of it makes me irrate so why would I put myself through it! Why not just admit that I have not got the patience or the inclination to sit on a bus?... or even run for one as I'm sure to be on the brink of missing it every morning and I will then have to half heartedly run for it before giving up and deciding I may as well just be late for work again!So as long as my car continues running I will be in it on my way to work scowling but in the privacy of my own car!

And so I've realised that everywhere you move has it's own problems. After complaining for a year that I was always lying on the floor in front of my laptop I am now doing the unthinkable which is so much worse! I'm sitting upright at my laptop... it's like torture. Someone save me from a life without wireless and sky tv! I've done my time... give me my life back!

I want to be Gym Bunny!

2008-08-26T20:49:00.007+01:00

If you have the Rocky theme tune anywhere in your CD collection please insert and play Eye of the Tiger or the Rocky theme tune to the first few paragraphs

You are probably wondering why I've suggested that you listen to the Rocky anthems and it is for one reason only...your blogger is getting fit! Well I say getting fit I'm not necessarily getting fit but I have joined a gym! This is a huge feat for me as many of you will know my natural instinct is to be lazy. This means that every one single thing I do in life is an effort or a chore. However, in a bid not to become one of those people who is confined to their house as they are too large to get through the front door I have decided drastic action needs to be taken. I need to at least try to get a body that I'm remotely proud of! At age hmmm hmmm, ok at age 31 I've decided this may be my last chance!

So 2 weeks ago I found myself walking into my local gym red faced and exhausted just looking at the men pumping their pecks in the room nearest the reception desk and asking how to join up. Assuming that I would no doubt not be a member for a great deal of time I decided to join up for a month with my friend. This prevented any possibility of me being locked into a 12 month contract for a gym membership that I am unable to cancel and which then causes huge amounts of guilt every time I walk past the gym. Which as it happens would be a regular occurence as the gym is approximately 13 steps away from my office where I work and next door to the place that supplies my daily lattes! As I signed up for the month I immediately decided the lifting of the pen to fill in the relevant form was enough work and exercise for the first day and my friend and I decided we would go to the induction the following day! The next day arrived and I was exhausted just thinking about it let alone walking the 3 flights of stairs to the changing room but after an hour long induction on the various machines from rowing machines, tread mills to cross trainers with their complicated computer screens and about 45 buttons to play with per machine I had managed to get through the induction which ended with a series of stretches... which I should add hurt somewhat!

The following day dressed in our gym stuff (which is not flattering to anyone unless you are fit first! I will never understand why lycra is a necessity for every gym goer regardless of the cellulite creeping through!) my friend and I went to the room that we decided would be the room we went to each time. This room is perfect for every self conscious, body image hating, depressive gym goer as it is a room in semi darkness save for the small disco ball which flashes lights around the room in various colours. The best thing about this room is that it is dark which disguises any lumps and bumps and your red face that is glowing in the light of the disco ball.

I decided I would start with the bike. I optimistically got onto the bike and started to pedal. "This is not too bad at all" I said to myself as I watched the screens playing the latest euro pop dance anthems. Ok this is not my preferred choice of music but my normal choice is lazy and slow like my mood and therefore not exactly conducive to sweating and exercise! After 2 minutes of cycling I reached for my water and thought to myself "hmmm this is getting a little harder now but I must keep going". I glanced up at the screens focusing on the bikini clad bodies dancing around in front of me in the music videos. Just got to keep focused! I want a body like that! By minute 3 however I had decided that God hates me and that electric shocks were being pumped into the muscles in my limbs. My body started to cease up. I tried to mentally focus and tell myself the lines Rocky once used "NO PAIN, NO GAIN". I repeated this in my head a few times until even my brain was struggling for energy. I'm in hell! My chubby legs tried to continue the fluid motion of cycling but every repetition caused further pain and I wondered if I had actually got any fitness in my limbs at all! I tried another tact. I focused on the idea that my muscles were pushing through the chubbiness... itching to get out and be lean. But after 5 minutes I was losing the will to live and staggered from there to the cross-trainer whilst guzzling the whole bottle of water I had with me. I turned to look at one of the other girls who appeared to be wearing a pristine pink track suit with what I can only describe as the most perfectly formed pair of buns I had ever seen and her pony tail bobbing up and down whilst my sweat soaked hair stuck to my head. Without even a shortness of breath she bounced up and down on the cross trainer looking as though she was actually feeling no pain whatsoever and it was quite fun! Immediate thought... weirdo! What is wrong with her? She smiled at me. But my own lips were sticking to my teeth from all the exercise so I just about managed to raise an eyebrow before realising that even my eyebrows now hurt.

After 40 minutes of sheer hell and hatred welling up inside me I left the gym with my friend. We decided we would do our stretches in the main room with lights! How brave! As we arrived at the part of the gym where people do floor exercises and stretches we were greeted by a very flexible elastic band type of woman who was lying on the floor and throwing her legs over her head. We immediately looked at each other in horror and decided that we would do our pointless stretches in the dressing room.

Arriving at the dressing room we started to stretch out! God I sound like a gym bunny already! As we did so I noted from the corner of my eye someone walking out of the shower. Now don't get me wrong I am entirely comfortable with people loving themselves and feeling comfortable in their own skins but is it really necessary in gym changing rooms for women to leave the shower completely naked whilst holding their folded up towel in their hands rather than covering up their bodies? I tried to avert my eyes but as soon as I did this lady immediately stood directly in front of my eye view and proceeded to moisturise every part of her body. I mean every part. No crevice was left unmoist. I could not do anything other than to pretend to close my eyes whilst feeling the stretch! But even with my eyes closed I felt as though I had seen something I shouldn't have. A vivid image. I hadn't even seen my own body in that much detail and to be honest I wouldn't want to and yet here and now I had a full front, back and almost insides of a woman I had never met! Worst still who I would no doubt see again as it is such a small place in Jersey! Oh my God what if she came in one day and was one of my clients?

From that first visit to the gym I made a conscious effort not to change anywhere in the vicinity of "nakey women". I now go in to the changing rooms eyes half covered to protect them and walk into the toilet, lock the door, cover my eyes, put my stuff in the locker, cover my eyes and walk down the stairs to the safety of the dark room. I'm telling you now if I see Ms perfect buns naked I will probably shoot myself but for now I'm covering all my bases in the hope that I don't have to see anymore flesh and will for the foreseeable future cover my eyes until I least feel my buns are half as bulbous as they are now.

I have now been to the gym 6 times. It is getting marginally easier and I'm forcing myself to get my one month money's worth. I can honestly say I'll never love it but I want to be that person. I want to enjoy the gym and feel naturally energetic. I don't think it will ever happen but I desperately want to be a gym bunny!

Feeling the fear meets the deadline!

2008-08-25T01:05:00.003+01:00

Dear Blog,

I apologise for neglecting you for so long... once again I have been busy. So what have I been doing that makes me so selfish and neglectful? Many things as it happens to all my doubters out there! Yes I may be lazy but sometimes just sometimes life forces me to reject my natural instinct to be lazy and do things! Working to deadlines is something I am used to and I'll be honest with you I am a last minute person! I can't help it! I try to be organised but I really am incapable of starting something until it is absolutely crucial. I'm a crammer of the most annoying kind! When I was a student it wasn't uncommon for me to be up all night working on an essay before I handed it in because (even though I had had 3 weeks to do this) I had not managed to start until the day before. Now some I realise find this an impossible way to live but for me I have to feel the fear, hear the clock ticking, feel the immense panic of not making the deadline and have the feeling that I'm going to fail in order to actually start let alone complete whatever it is that needs to be produced. It's not something I like about myself but it is who I am.

Which brings me to the current situation. I handed in my notice on my flat due to the lack of sky TV - I know I just can't let this go but it has been most traumatic living with 4 channels! But being me I handed in my notice without another flat to go to. I had 6 weeks to find somewhere and after the first 2 weeks I had not even opened the paper to find a flat. 3 weeks before I was due to leave my flat I half heartedly mentioned that I was looking (I say looking but I was putting it off until the crucial point!) for a flat and someone knew someone who was renting somewhere. I went to see it and took it on... Don't get me wrong it is a lovely flat but the downside it is further away from work. This means I will have to get up earlier and that I will probably be later each day for work than I already am. So the last few days have been spent putting off packing. This involves telling everyone I know how stressful moving is, thinking that I need to go to the shop and get some cardboard boxes and telling myself that "hmmm bet they don't have any!" and not actually standing up to go and ask. What's the point? They won't have any! Then I get teary and tell everyone I hate moving and that I've got so much to do I couldn't possibly go to a barbeque or any other social event. The reality is that I probably could have gone if I had been more organised but having decided today "right Clare you need to get moving" I then decided stage one of the big move was a little 2 hour snooze! I need to conserve my energy right? Anyway just thinking about it made me tired. And so when I finally started I did so with a great deal of huffing and puffing, standing with my hands on my hips wondering where to start, walking into each room and wondering how I got so much stuff, making myself a cup of tea and looking round the flat as I did so wondering where to start followed by going to the shop next door and asking for the boxes. Now you are probably wondering was I right? Were there no boxes?

Well I explained I was moving and asked if they had any boxes. The old lady "Beryl" to regular readers (looked teary eyed as I mentioned I was moving and I could actually hear her tightening her purse strings with the realisation that her main customer who regularly spends a fortune in there would not be providing her nest egg anymore)asked her male friend (new man who hangs out in the shop although I am not sure who he is or if he is being paid) to go out the back to get some boxes as I was moving house. Now tell me this. If someone said to you they were moving house would you think they probably need quite big boxes? Or would you do what he did and come out carrying two boxes the size of shoe boxes? Well as I glanced down at the boxes I wondered if actually even a pair of my shoes would fit in the boxes and made a mental note that I would have to use these boxes to pack up my mobile phone and some q tips because that is all it would fit I heard myself saying "Thank you so much! Have you got any others?" To which the response was "none spare". She probably uses all her big boxes to store all her money! So I wandered away with the pathetic boxes and arrived home disheartened. I would have to have another cup of tea before I started as I would need to contemplate how I intended to pack a one bedroom flat into two shoe boxes. Actually this contemplation turned out to be quite fruitful as I decided I would pack what I could in any suitcases I had as the thought of walking up the road to another shop (not far but still!) involved too much energy.

And so I began. I packed my 30 odd pairs of not quite right mediocre jeans into suitcases because even though they are not quite right maybe one day my body will completely change shape and they will look great! You just never know! Now as I had officially started packing I was then getting phone calls from family members asking me how it was going and by this time I was in the groove and irriatedly told them (but this time telling the truth!) I was far too busy to chat and repeated that I hated moving and generally moaned until they said they better let me go to carry on!And suprisingly I have managed to complete my bedroom and my sitting room. This meant that I then had to put the flat back to the way it was before I moved in. This involved taking the repulsive plug in electric fire with it's very own fake log top and putting it back in front of the fire place whilst removing my candles and dried flowers in vases, removing my modern pictures and replacing them with various oil paintings of fruit and empty bottles on a silky looking cloth (which I always think it a bit weird because I never have fruit lying round on a silky table cloth at various heights with a bottle of wine next to it but even weirder is that this painter insisted on putting a pumpkin next to the apples and oranges!) and just generally returning the flat to the old fogey den it was once was. Now I have to live in it like this until next weekend which makes me realise that I will probably end up going to the doctor for anti-depressants.

I have now spoken to my mum to get the necessary sympathy and cooing about how her poor daughter is having to do all this moving and how she wishes she could be there. I then proceeded to tell her (despite earlier announcing I couldn't face packing and how awful an experience it is) that actually I don't have much stuff after all to which she replied "Basically you have make up, clothes and books and not alot else. But then you do have rather alot of stuff in my spare room!" This always immediately gets my back up! Not because I sound rather pathetic that all my worldly possessions are make up I use, books I've read and clothes that don't fit me but that she insists that I always have alot of stuff at her house! I refuse to believe this. Yes it is true I have some stuff there but isn't that what you are supposed to have at your parents house. Shouldn't they be lovingly looking at their child possessions stroking them and thinking how lovely that they are in my house cluttering up my spare room as it reminds me that my darling daughter has once touched these items and how special she is? No? Well that's what I like to believe anyway instead I fear that she dislikes the fact that her tiny 2nd bedroom is full of my stuff! Let's bear in mind that as soon as I left home to move to university my mum left her house and moved into a tiny flat perhaps just to make sure I didn't move back home! As I tried to ignore the fact that my mum was suggesting my stuff was not a joy to her I then told her that once again I was far too busy to continue our chat and got back to the important cooing and sympathy before getting off the phone to make another cup of tea!

Tomorrow I will be packing up my kitchen and my bathroom and I have the added stress of no boxes, no newspaper to pack the breakables in and no motivation! And if I'm honest the real reason for this is I'm not moving till Saturday... I don't feel the fear and therefore the fact that I'm forcing myself to be organised is so unnatural that I can almost guarantee tomorrow I'll feel very snoozy and will convince himself that I did so much today it would be wrong to do more tomorrow! There is just no real incentive to be organised.....

Levi Stress!

2008-08-17T23:18:00.003+01:00

At the moment I am feeling particularly frustrated by life. Discontentment surrounds me. It's not just the everyday things like balancing your cheque book (which if I'm honest I can't really do as due to mismanaging my finances when I was young resulted in the bank taking away my cheque book and so all my adult life I've lived without one!) nor is it job stresses... although that is part of it! It is more to do with the lack of quality in life. As life gets more expensive and we all want more, more, more I still can't fathom why everything lacks a certain quality.

My main frustration involves things I buy. It seems to me that you work hard for your money and you see things you want. You crave it and work out how you are going to buy it. THEN YOU GET IT! Your life is complete and suddenly your self esteem is raised.... at least for the few minutes that it is brand spanking new and therefore perfect. It is only minutes later when you notice a fault that you feel disheartened and irritated by what only can be described as the crap quality.

For the last few months I have been looking for the perfect pair of jeans. You know the kind every once in a while you buy a pair of jeans that just fit right. They are like your second skin and you reach for them every day when you need to feel good about yourself. They have kept their colour, they seem to expand perfectly to your ever-increasing waist line and they just look better with age... a Sean Connery of jeans if you like. After a whole year of wearing them you notice they are starting to fray... but it adds to their character! And then the fatal starts to happen you realise that you need a replacement. Not just a replacement but an equivalent pair. Apart from they don't sell the exact ones anymore and so the quest starts. You search every shop, you enter hot changing rooms and squeeze yourself into the same size jeans ... only of course, the shops have changed their sizings and instead they are a lot tighter than before. Yet you know that they have changed their sizings because the old faithfuls still fit perfectly! And so it goes on the never ending quest for the next perfect jeans.

So I am now at this stage. I have been on this quest for some months now apart from the unthinkable has happened and there is a hole in the old faithfuls just below the bum cheek so I know I can't wear them (well I can but if I do I will have to write this blog from my prison cell as I will be arrested for exposing myself!)... but I can't throw them away either. As you fail to find the exact replica you find yourself buying various other jeans which are not quite perfect but which will see you through until your eureka moment when you find the new perfect replacement.

Which brings me to the current situation. I found a pair of jeans of mediocre quality but quite nice. They fit ok but they do that thing where they shrink in the wash each time so I then spend a lot of time pulling them up with all the strength in my upper arms, then pushing the pockets back in, then I start doing lunges round the room. Not for any exercise reason although thinking about it, it does count doesn't it? It's exercise right? It makes my heart race as the tightness of the jeans is unbearable at this stage and normally builds up a sweat and I immediately start feeling uncomfortable about how much tighter the jeans have got. Then I have to start trying to stretch the area round the knees which for some reason always crunkle up at the wrong part. And then the lunges continue because the crotch of the jeans has not gone back to the correct place and is hanging down mid thigh. And then just as I am ready and have managed to get the correct fitting the unthinkable happens! The zip ceases to work! Every time I pull it up it comes back down rapidly. It is either wear these jeans with a long top and therefore hide the fact that I'm flying low or just start searching for a different equally ill fitting pair of jeans to wear. One time I opted for the first and wore a long top but as I went through security at the airport and was then pulled over to be frisked I realised it was a bad idea as the woman patted down my legs and then was face to face with my open zip. As I tried to explain the jeans had broken she just gave me that slightly odd look of a mix of sympathy and being slightly frightened. And so now I tend to start looking for another pair of jeans to wear in my overflowing wardrobe of ill fitting ones! Those jeans were taken back to the shop and exchanged for a replica... because although they are only mediocre they would do until the day my life will change ... when I find a new pair of perfect jeans! I will not give up.

As I repeated the above a week later by lunging around the room etc after the new jeans were washed I finally reached the final stage when what should happen but the button then snapped off. Close to tears and feeling pretty frustrated that God insists on making my life with jeans so difficult I found myself back at the shop exchanging them whilst being looked at cynically because by now the shop assistant thinks I am in fact a bit of a con artist who is just wearing jeans, breaking them deliberately so I can get a new pair and she is also looking me up and down. I know what she's thinking! I can even hear her thoughts "Maybe you should just get a bigger size love". But the bigger size gapes at the back and then everytime I sit down the whole world sees my knickers which is a form of abuse on the public. It may work for Britney but I'll be honest I am not willing to risk it in normal every day life. In fact thong showing is equivalent to builders bums. It's not funny, it's not clever and it can't be comfortable.

So when the lady agreed to exchange the jeans I spotted another pair but this time a black pair. Hmmm interesting. Maybe I could get the perfect pair of black jeans! I arrived home and was suitably impressed with the fit. I will be able to tell more when they are washed but so far so good. That evening when I went out with friends I happily strode out in my new jeans spotting my reflection in the window and thinking maybe these were the ones that would solve all my problems of the jean area. How could I be so wrong? As I left the house I nearly tripped and fell as my heel on my shoe caught the back of the jeans and immediately created a hole in the hem of the jeans. Feeling fed up I perservered hoping that this would just give the jeans character. Unfortunately it then started to rain. As it did I noticed the colour of the jeans literally staining my feet (which were in open toe sandals for any foot fetish readers!). By the time I went to the toilet for the first time in the evening I noticed that the whole of the lower part of my body was now stained with black dye. This was fine as noone could see it but as the evening went on and the jeans were still slightly damp from the rain the dye was now leaking onto my fingers whenever I touched my jeans and staining my arms when I was not concentrating and had lent on arms on my knees. By the time I got home I looked like I had not had a wash in days and I have spent the whole day today scrubbing my skin to remove the staining and subsequently caused bruised feeling bright red skin all over my arms and legs.

So the quest is continuing and my life is far from complete. The quality is not how it used to be and like any other person who is lacking in their lives I will not give up on my journey to find the best jean partnership since cowboys and jeans. Lonely girl looking for fun, loyalty and a comfortable relationship seeks jeans, perfect fit and hardwearing with a good sense of humour. If you are out there jeans I'm looking for you... stay where you are I coming to get you!

Sunday Blues...

2008-08-10T21:04:00.005+01:00

From the moment I woke up this morning... sorry I keep forgetting I have promised honesty from my blog... From the moment I woke up this afternoon (oh the shame!)I have had a niggling feeling. At first I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Had I forgotten something? What was this feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach? I ran my fingers across my frown lines and realised that soon I would have to get those frown lines filled or half my fingers may get lost in them!What is it that was putting me in this mood that made me feel I was so angry I could break down a wall? (If only I had the energy to do so! Or more to the point if only I lived in some kind of warehouse where it didn't really matter if I broke down a wall because I could put one of the scary flapping plastic sheets up that Crockett and Tubbs always found in the warehouses that they went to when they were uncovering a drug gang in Miami Vice).

I got out of bed and made a hot cup of tea and sat down waiting for me to realise what it was that put me in such a foul mood. I make the point of saying it is a hot cup of tea for those of you out there who drink the putrid iced tea and call yourselves tea drinkers(you know who you are!). You wouldn't drink a boiling cup of Coke or Sprite why drink cold tea? I noticed a noise in my flat and nearly called out to find out what it was but realised it was my own groaning and then it hit me... It was SUNDAY! Which means tomorrow is Monday... which means the following;

1. Getting up early.
2. Wearing uncomfortable clothes.
3. Sitting at a desk all day rather than being in my preferred horizontal posture of lying down.
4. Answering calls and putting on a fake smile as taught by people giving those annoying courses about how to answer a phone and sound professional yet approachable.
5. Listening to peoples problems which don't get me wrong are very important to them but which have no relevance to the divorce proceedings I am preparing for them. "Yes I understand he was supposed to bring the dog back from his contact with the dog fed and he didn't and I think it is terrible that he took your dog to the dump and then the nearest swamp before bringing him home but really all I can do is write to his lawyer about this... no an injunction is not possible in these circumstances..."
6. Sit at a computer all day writing letters about equally irrelevant happenings and having to act like I care and this is extremely important and just generally quibbling over possessions that my client doesn't really want but doesn't want her husband to have!
7. Hearing the sound of the pigeons cooing in the air conditioning vent and wondering how many diseases I am catching from these pigeons throughout the day.
8. Listening to the inane phone conversations of work colleagues with their various husbands talking about irrelevant matters.

I could go on but the point of telling you all this is because when you work in open plan offices you learn the skill of blocking things out. You no longer feel self conscious when you make a personal call to shout at various electricity companies who just won't stop threatening to issue court proceedings against you for an account you never had with them. You quickly lose all your dignity and privacy as very soon every one in the office knows your habits. They know the way you work, the way you handle situations and how many times you go to the toilet each day. However, when you feel a bit unfocused (this happens oh I don't know about 100 times a week) or you just don't know where to start or what annoying person to speak to first you find that all of a sudden everyone's conversations and movements cannot be ignored. In fact they are magnified and amplified.

One particular day as I was busy preparing for a two day court hearing and feeling pretty stressed about the whole thing,I had had numerous conversations with a particular lady who worked in my office who insisted on coming over to my desk at various intervals to talk to me about unrelated matters. As I nodded in all the right places whilst she told me that her cat had pulled a rabbit into her hallway in the night and she woke up to a smeared carpet of rabbit remnants I tried to keep my coffee down at the thought of this. Yuk! I then started to rest my hands over my keyboard to show that I was poised for working and that this conversation was stopping me from doing that as I visualised her hallway in graphic details. (Think the film the Shining with the two twins in the hallway but no twins just a rabbit!)I was horrified when she told me that she had left the rabbit there and she would have to clean it up when she returned home because she didn't want to be late which completely amazed me because she always arrived about an hour early for work each day! Or so I'm told!I've never arrived that early and don't intend to!

When this particular colleague left my desk I returned to my work and tried to get the dead rabbit visions out of my mind. After what seemed like only a few minutes she was back beside my desk informing me that she didn't know what kind of car insurance she should get for her car. It turned out she had two cars but intended on selling one at a later date. However this brought up numerous dilemnas for her. Did she just insure one car? Did she get separate insurances? Should she try and get what is called "fleet insurance" to cover more than one car? I'll be honest with you I had no opinion then and I have no opinion on this subject now. But I will say this I never want to have another conversation like this in my life. I just didn't know what to say without screaming as so all I said was "hmmm I don't know that's a difficult one". I heard others in the office sniggering as they for some reason had no problem saying to her "I'm too busy to discuss this" and handing her things to do. I however would have to work my lunch hour to make up for the time I was wasting listening to this drivel.

After numerous returns by this woman and further discussions regarding her car insurance I was on the brink of crying out of pure frustration or just ringing security and asking them to escort her from the building or better still escort me!
It was soon lunchtime and I breathed a sigh of relief when she left to go and get her lunch. Within 10 minutes she was back. I tried to focus but she then insisted on ringing up various insurance companies and discussing at great length with them her dilemnas followed by repeating the various quotes she was getting before writing them down. Her voice seemed louder than normal and it was actually managing to fill my brain so I was unable to think. She was taking over my thoughts!

When her conversations were over I breathed a sigh of relief as she was silent for a few minutes before she returned to my desk. She then stood by me with a notepad and flicked through the pages informing me of the various quotes she had been given and repeating that she didn't know what to do. Again I nodded and told her it was a "difficult one and who knows what to do for the best". She returned to her desk again and I could hear her frantically texting. I'm guessing that she was texting her husband because ten seconds later he rang and a 20 minute loud conversation with her husband ensued regarding what the insurance companies had said. By the middle of this conversation I had stopped working and just stared at her back as her head bobbed up and down whilst she relayed the intricacies of car insurance to her husband. It wasn't until she put the phone down and I had put my fingers over my keyboard again to start work that I noticed she had not even put the phone receiver down. Oh no to save time she held the button and redialed the insurance companies to discuss things further after her discussions with her husband! At this point I decided that all I could do was pray for lightning to strike me. She had beaten me. I had lost the battle of sanity and could take no more.

And so it is days like this that torture me... days that make me want to retire early. And when I say early I mean tomorrow. These are the days that fill me with dread on a Sunday and make me lose the enjoyment of a day off because from the moment I wake up I realise that tomorrow I have to listen to all of this ... this .... well if I'm honest all of this crap! And I can't bear it. Perhaps I can ask about whether I can be given some headphones that they wear on gameshows when you are not allowed to hear the other persons answers... or better still a sound proof booth to sit in to work!

Did I mention I think I might be starting to hate work and people?! Well not all people but certainly some. So as I prepare for the week ahead I realise that it's not just Sunday blues but is now an extension into Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday blues... but I do like Fridays... then again who doesn't?

Shopping in my pyjamas and the business acumen of Beryl!

2008-08-06T22:42:00.004+01:00

As some of you will know I live in Jersey in the Channel Islands. It's a pretty strange place to move to but one that people are always interested in. It suits my personality because it doesn't really know where it fits in. It's part of the United Kingdom but it doesn't consider itself British. It's actually closer to France than England. It's a small island that is quite stubborn in it's loneliness and self sufficiency. It's kind of like a place that really doesn't want to get involved. It has actually got involved when it didn't want to like when the Germans occupied it in the Second World War but generally speaking it stands alone and proud! I admire it for that reason! It's the James Dean of the United Kingdom. A bit of a rebel and proud to be so. It has it's own bank notes and it's own courts. It also has no tax on cars and there is a maximum speed of 40 miles an hour all over the island. So you can imagine it is not a very fast pace of life. There are tax breaks over here and you are likely to earn more gross salary anyway! On the other hand it has a rather weird system where you have to obtain a kind of licence to buy a property here. You can get it through your job or you can get it by living on the island for a mere 12 years! If you get it through your job when you leave you are stripped of your licence. You have basically deserted them so they wash their hands of you! Ah my loyalty point again! Yes Jersey gives you no loyalty if you give them none. Also if you get the licence through work your rent will still be more expensive. You have not deserved your right to very cheap rent and so the cost of living can be quite pricey.

Generally speaking it is a lovely place to live. You are surrounded by lovely beaches (I know it's a bit obvious as it's an island but I'm building a picture for you here!) The weather is a fraction better than the UK in that it doesn't rain every day and when the weather is nice it's like being on a fabulous holiday.

So how could I find this place frustrating? Well as you will all know I live without any sky TV due to my sky dish being ripped off my wall without notice (I'm sorry I need to let this go I know but it is imbedded in my soul as a tormented memory of a life I could have with sky tv!).I find it hard to move on sometimes!

Apart from that there is another thing that drives me to complete despair and this is the lack of supermarkets! How can a place in the world today function without a big supermarket? Basically all the grocery shops are little shops or expensive boutique style grocery stores. The little shop next to my apartment is owned by a lovely but nosey woman called Beryl. She must be about 80 years old and she works a 13 hour day every day! Her shop is about as expensive as Harrods. This shop has pretty much everything you could possibly need but at the most extorninate prices. She handwrites all the prices on the packaging and rings them up on her till with delight sometimes even commenting on how expensive her own stock is but in a way that suggests it is completely out of control! So when I recently paid £4.50 for the smallest block of cheese I have ever seen and which I could eat in 2 bites. (You should know I have a real problem with cheese in that I can never just buy a block and put it in my fridge! Oh no! Once I have cheese I go backwards and forwards throughout the evening wrapping and unwrapping the cheese as it gets smaller and smaller cutting bits off and shoving them into my mouth. As I watch it getting smaller I think to myself "I'll save that for tomorrow" but as I'm wrapping the last miniscule bit back up I then say to myself "Sod it there's no point leaving that tiny bit" and I shove it in my mouth and swiftly chuck the packaging in the bin feeling slightly guilty but at the same time wishing I had more!)Anyway as I bought this smallest block of cheese known to man for £4.50 from Beryl she smiled a slightly evil smile and said "My goodness cheese is so expensive these days!" I grunted yes knowing that the problem was it would be finished by the time I had managed to think about what I would use it for as I cut small portions off it to make it last. How does she do it and make a profit?!

When my brother came to see me he went into the shop to buy a few things which would normally cost £5 but came to £9 and when he handed her a £20 note Beryl gave him change for a £10 note. He questioned her about this but then gave in as he felt sorry for her as she seems so old and frail. That's how I think she makes her fortune apart from her overpriced goods. She plays on her cuteness but this is a canny old lady! I try to give her exact change now! It's for the best! It really wouldn't suprise me at all if she was actually a young entrepreneur dressed up as an old woman as a ploy to make her millions!

I used to walk past her shop on my way to and from work but she would then start noticing when I was late or early for work... sorry who am I kidding she noticed that I was late for work and started asking what time I started work. I already suffer from guilt. Why put myself through it? So now I walk the long way to work which makes me later than before but leaves only my work colleagues noticing my lateness! I don't need the woman who runs the little shop next door making me feel worse than I already do.

One particular day I went to the shop which is approximately 12 steps from my apartment and I was having a lazy Saturday. At 3pm I was still in my pyjamas which I had convinced myself actually look like jogging bottoms. At least I thought I could get away with it! As I entered the shop which was packed with queues of people spending their hard earned money in Beryl's shop she was happily ringing up people's purchases at a slow speed and managing to distract customers of the prices with her cute lonely old person's chit chat when she immediately said hello to me. The whole shop turned round to look at me in my pyjamas (that looked like jogging bottoms - they would never know- I probably looked like I'd just come back from the gym! Little did they know I chuckled inwardly to myself!) but this was the moment I realised that Beryl was no fool and maybe just a little bit of a spiteful woman when she stopped ringing up her expensive stock and said in a loud voice "You just got out of bed have you?" Everyone stared at me with a kind of pity and kind of shock! They obviously had all been out early enjoying their day off but each to their own. I enjoy snoozing! I looked behind me wishing that there was someone behind me who was blattantly in their stripy pyjamas or nightdress and slippers but no typically I was alone to brace this comment. So being me all I could think of was "No I've just been to the gym". The disbelieving looks met me as I looked down at the flip flops on my feet which were not exactly gym wear and realised that I might just might have sleepies in my eyes. I was certain that my hair had that"just got out of bed look" with a pony tail that had without a doubt been slept in! But I decided I had to be confident to pull this off. Beryl couldn't let it go though and said " you look like you only just got up!" I ignored her and to avoid the stares set about picking up various goods I didn't need at high prices to act like I was busily shopping and to distract myself and others from my embarrassment and obvious sleepy look! I realised what an amazing business acumen Beryl has! It was yet another way of getting me to spend more! And I did.

As I walked away with a bag of items... yes one bag!... which came to £34 and which didn't actually manage to give me more than one meal which actually went together I made a mental note to start a petition to get a big supermarket over here. One which opened 24 hours so it was not abnormal to see people in their pyjamas (that look like jogging bottoms, honestly they do!) and where all the staff are in a daze due to how boring their job is and won't recognise you from week to week. They don't care what you buy, what you are wearing or how much you spend they just want to get home so that they don't have to sit there ringing things through their tills.

As "Beryl" the young twenty something entrepreneur takes off his Beryl suit and gets into bed to count his money tonight I wish him luck because he must be making a fortune and anyway Jersey is not ready for big supermarkets as they like to support their own but for those of us who love the anonominity of big supermarkets please give us a break sometimes! Please put some bargains on your shelves especially for us so that we don't feel robbed everytime we go into your shop! It's not a good feeling and we hate thinking it because you are dressed as an old woman and it makes us feel like a nasty bully picking on an old lady albeit a very rich one probably!

What a difference a blog makes!

2008-08-05T22:15:00.004+01:00

To those of you who read my blog regularly you might be wondering where the hell I've been and if I am just one of those fickle bloggers who starts a blog and doesn't continue when I have had enough nice comments to feed my ego... You may think we were just getting to know her what's going on or you may think "thank bloody god she has finally stopped moaning!" But for those of you who genuinely wondered I have been a bit down in the dumps. I'll be honest with you this happens to me sometimes and I can't shake it... everything seems difficult and nothing is really that funny; it's more frustrating! However, when I get over my moodiness I can normally look back and laugh at how difficult life can be!

And no offence to people who read this blog but you have all been so nice to me and complimentary, it can be a pressure! I've even accused my brother and sister of creating loads of accounts and putting comments on under different names to make me feel good. Their response was basically "we have lives Clare .. we don't have the time or inclination to make up comments on your blog to make you feel good!" First of all my immediate reaction is "What? They have lives?! How did that happen?!" I remember the days when being the baby of the family (which I am!) meant you got the most attention and everyone humoured me for being the cute little one! Now I'm told they have lives! I guess it's ok ... I mean I'm happy for them that they have lives but I am a little more than concerned that my neice at the age of 6 has a better social life than me! Whenever I ring her she is either at one of her many friend's houses playing or the friend is at her house or she is attending one of the many birthday parties of her friends, or going to bop or brownies or doing something else which involves her socialising! This means that cool Auntie Clare is suddenly boring! She speaks to me on the phone and asks me what i'm doing and the only thing I can ever say is "I'm on the phone to you!" To which she says "What were you doing before that?" and more often than not I say watching TV and she groans and says "boring .... bye".

Now don't get me wrong it has been lovely hearing such kind comments from you all but I almost feel that I'm waiting for the time you all turn against me! I mean I almost feel that if you met me you might be disappointed. I'm not bubbly ... regular readers will know I'm a self confessed grumpy person! I'm sarcastic by nature and generally weary of life. Very close friends think I'm funny and my family think I'm hilarious but then they have to love me! But I'm certainly an acquired taste! I find big groups of people a nightmare and even though I have been to university and am known as being pretty opinionated...put me in a room with a group of people and my mind goes completely blank. Not just struggling to think of things to say but almost as if I have been struck down with a terrible disorder that makes me completely mute and not have a thought in my head! I recently saw a video of myself and was struck by how awkward I am and to be honest how weird my mannerisms are... I appear to do lots of funny hand movements which I am not conscious of but then I am also know for my ability to bend just the end of my finger tips while the rest of my fingers are completely straight! Now you may wonder how I ever discovered such a skill and how useful this is? All I can tell you is I was a kid once and all in all a bit of an oddball! I spent hours figuring out how to do this with all my fingers and now I try and tell people how useful it is for giving directions. All you have to do is say straight ahead and on the left and it only takes one finger and bending my finger tip. Ok I admit that this has had little use to date but one day it may make me my fortune. You just never know!

Basically what I'm saying is I started writing this blog on my brother's advice in order to tell the world (ok that may be going a little too far but to tell a few people!) my frustrations rather than letting it all build up. While I can laugh about things I also am very aware of the fact that I'm a stress head! Little things in life can make me throw a tantrum like a three year old and so as I watch my nephew and neices(all under the age of 6) throw their tantrums I completely feel their frustration. The difference between them and me is they will probably grow out of it! As my blog got going I started to get readers and I have been excited about my blog ever since! When I see the comments or notice the amount of profile views I immediately tell all my family because it is nice to know that people are listening. The pressure builds though when I realise that I am only as good as my last blog... that I may be writing about things that annoy people or may eventually come to a stage where the only readers are my family. Although that would be ok because I never expected anyone else to bother it still means that, well don't go getting all big headed now, but I would miss you all!

I've always felt in life that friendships are transitory to a certain extent. This is less by choice than circumstance. Friends have let me down many times. People have hurt me but I've learnt that you can live without them and sometimes you meet better people or sometimes worse! I always have this feeling that when people discover the real me they suddenly find plenty to criticise! What were my alluring or exciting attributes soon become my faults. And so there is always a part of me in every friendship where I wonder if I will be found out for the difficult person I can be. The great thing about this blog is that I haven't actually hidden that! I've not tried to give you all a good impression. Sorry that's a bit rude of me but I haven't! Not because I don't think you are worth it but because I wanted to be honest! You all by now know I'm moody and frustrated with life and yet I do still find life amusing for all it's difficulties.

I am learning with every year I get older that I can work on my faults but that fundamentally I am who I am. I can't change myself and there are parts of me that are funny or different. I don't fit the mould always. I'm not your typical lawyer. I will go the extra mile for anyone and I have total loyalty to people I care about. However I am learning to demand loyalty from others which can make life hard when my expectations are not met! So now you are probably all scared wondering what will happen when you don't read my blog! I demand loyalty I tell you! The reality is I am not going to be everyone's favourite person nor am I going to get a massive ego about people who care enough to read this. I appreciate all your support! I will however give you this promise today that I will keep my blog going and will continue to try and amuse you when I can. All I ask is that you bear with me on down days or when I have a sense of humour failure because it won't last long and I will do my best to continue to see life from the funny side! What a difference a blog makes!

Reality sucks but it can be really funny!

2008-07-31T00:53:00.005+01:00

I have to say that since starting to write this blog I have discovered a change in myself. I am more aware of what is happening in my life and how funny life sometimes is. In the midst of pain and suffering the world over there is always something to laugh about... most of the time!

In my family we embrace our faults and quirks. It makes us the people we are! For every quirk that you have you are that little bit more memorable and in a way more appealing to our family. When my brother and my sister and I are together we love to make fun of our parents. I don't know why but they are so very amusing! We tell each other what our Mum has said and we have a voice that we put on which sounds a bit like the Queen of England and in this voice she rolls her "rs". In our impression she says things like "the public house that he frequents" and so on. It makes me laugh every time. Even when we tell each other text messages that she has sent us we use this voice. For our Dad we have an american accent. He is actually from Dublin but spent years in America. So again when we talk about him we say things like "poor guy!" We don't do it for anyone else just our parents or at least not to my knowledge! My brother and sister may have a voice for me but they have never let on! Each of us is ridiculed lovingly for our quirks. Mine is for my moodiness and general bad temperedness. My sister is for her drama and moodiness. Some of the funniest times of my life are my sister as a teenager like when she was dragging her text books down the stairs in a big bin bag after her last exam even before she got the results and saying she would not need these anymore! My brother is just generally hilarious! He is one of those people with a Simpsons sense of humour. He is self critical and is the sort of person that always made you laugh in church. Mum often separated us as I could not contain my laughter when my brother would deliberately clap to songs ultra loudly and out of the beat of the rest of the church.

Even in our toughest times we are always able to find some dark humour in it. I can honestly say that some of the hardest times in my life are sources of great amusement to me. I'll give you an example. About 3 years ago I had a wisdom tooth removed in a rather barbaric way in a small town in Norfolk. It actually involved (I kid you not! Although there is always at least one story like this floating around!) the dentist injecting my gum, pulling on my tooth with my mouth wide open, realising that he didn't have enough leverage to remove it and actually putting his knee on the arm of the dentist chair as he removed my tooth using both hands and a pair of pliers whilst making the grunting noises of a body builder lifting an extra heavy weight. Approximately 4 minutes later I was shoved out the door having paid £120 for this, let's call it "procedure" with wadding covered in blood hanging out of my mouth. Sorry if any of you are squeamish!

By the time I arrived home I could barely stand but had been told by the dentist I would be allowed to go back to work the next day. The next day came and I was starting to resemble a chipmunk storing a winter's full of nuts in his cheek. I didn't go to work... it was not fair on the public! As the days went on my cheek got bigger and bigger until I eventually lost my chin to the swelling. Everyday by way of update and to get lots of sympathy I would send my mother a picture message on my phone with a suitably pained expression on my face (Come on! I'm not pathetic we all do it!) and she would immediately ring me and coo down the phone how much pain I must be in. Not to labour a point here but I was in pain and my mouth tasted like what I imagine a soldier's sock tastes of when he has been in the trenches solidly for 6 days!

After a week of my swollen face increasing in size daily and various trips to the doctor my mum came to stay with me to look after me. The doctor had told me I probably had a "little infection" and not to worry. A few days later I appeared to be slipping in and out of consciousness as my mother spoke to me. She then noticed a line of poison (Not sure if it actually was a line of poison? Is there such a thing?) travelling down from my cheek towards my heart... doesn't this sound dramatic? So my mum insisted we went to the hospital. When we arrived it was a smallish hospital in King's lynn and they told me I had a high temperature but there was nothing they could do for me so they would have to send me to another hospital 50 miles away. So with my elephant man face I got in the ambulance and we were driven to the hospital where I was admitted some 4 hours later.

As I laid in bed after they had informed me I had a massive abscess in my cheek under the stitches. Oh did I not mention that in the four minutes of my procedure the dentist also had time to stitch up my wound? (As an aside point this was not the first time I had been hosptialised with an abscess. I did have one before on my hip from an injection which involved me being in hosptial for three weeks. As if that wasn't bad enough I was put on a bowel ward where people were having their bowels removed. A young, rather good looking trainee doctor was sent to examine me and whilst doing his internal for 5 minutes unquestioned by me- think bowel ward and you'll get the drift- he said he couldn't feel the abscess so he thought it was gone... to which I replied "It's on my hip". He told me, red faced, it was always good to do an internal and that everything was fine down there.) Anyway at the hospital they removed some of the stitches from my gum and the doctor who wrote everything down on what I can only describe as a screwed up cocktail bar's napkin and scrunched it in his pocket, told me I now had septicemia. I finally got to the ward. This was not a particularly vibrant ward as I was the youngest person by about oh I don't know...60 years! Bearing in mind the fact that my aunt told my mum that my university graduation photo looked like a 12 year old graduating I looked even younger with my swollen cheek.

The following day my whole family arrived in force; my mum, sister, brother, brother-in-law and father. I knew by this time I was in serious trouble if they were all here! Nonetheless I enjoyed my sister and brother sitting on the bed making fun of my bulbous cheek. As the evening drew on though I was aware of the fact that I couldn't really follow their conversation and I felt like I was slipping down into the mattress.Not just in a "oh how comfortable way" but as though the mattress was sucking me into it. Weird huh? I was later told by my brother and sister that whilst they carried on chattering my eyes started to roll and they realised I was not at all well and they started to panic. In the only way brothers and sisters can do they reverted to times when we were younger and pretended everything was normal and continued to chatter. This technique was also employed when my brother was babysitting us one night and a man tried to break into our house. We huddled in front of the tv with the sound up trying to ignore what was going on!

As I laid in the hospital bed thinking I was possibly delirious I then remember my father coming to speak to me and sitting with my brother and sister. At this point he decided it was a good idea to ask his ailing lawyer daughter law questions! I know this is totally reasonable! I mean what an opportunity! I could barely focus as I tried to grasp exactly what he was saying. Ever trying to impress I tried to conjure up the thoughts in my brain of legal matters but realised that at that point I wasn't even sure I knew my own name! After trying to put together anything that resembled a sentence I decided on the only strategy I could think of and that was to try to cry... I say "try to" as I didn't even have the energy to do so and so whimpered that I did not think it was really the best time for me to give legal advice.

The next thing I remember in that hospital bed was being violently sick and my sister carrying sick bowls to me on a regular basis whilst my brother put cold towels on my neck and back. Where were the nurses I hear you ask? Oh they were too busy either chatting or having tea breaks or just generally ignoring the annoying young girl who was "pretending" to be sick! So when it was eventually announced that I was going to have to have an emergency operation to have my abscess removed and they might have to cut the side of my cheek to do so, my mum went into terror mode and was begging the doctor (yes the doctor of the crumpled up napkin fame!) not to cut my cheek unless it was the last resort.

Looking back now there are serious low points in my life but puking puss has to be the ultimate of low! However the hilariousness of my family dealing with it the only way they knew how by acting as if nothing was happening always makes me laugh! It always makes me giggle that faced with adversity they respond by laughing and joking. Apparently one of their funniest nights ever was whilst I was in surgery they were down in the lobby having not slept for 24 hours in hysterics as my Dad twirled in front of them remarking how thin he was! Oh how sorry I am I missed that! Typical!

Upon arriving back from surgery and very groggy I was not particularly sure if I was living in reality or not. By the time I was back on the ward and saw my concerned parents leering at me with concerned looks on their faces I decided I was in fact dead! I had to be. I had not seen these two people together since I was a teenager so there was only one answer. I was dead... was it heaven or hell? I wasn't entirely sure but I knew one thing they looked old and concerned and as it was dark in the ward apart from the light from the corridor they had a glow around them. In reality this was the glow from the corridor but in a dazed state I was convinced they were ghosts or angels of something out of this world. I looked up at them and immediately said "So i'm dead then?" In my head I was thinking this is so bloody typical! I'm going to die from having a wisdom tooth removed by a hic dentist! I haven't even had a chance to go to Hawaii(one of my dreams!) or find out what exactly my brother and sister had been laughing and joking about when I was incoherent!I would not be remembered for the face I had but as an overgrown chipmunk with no chin! It was just so unfair.

I was still not convinced that I was alive when my mum told me I was until the nurse came in to me when they left and told me off for worrying my "elderly parents". I remember laughing out loud and thinking to myself "elderly" god they are not even 60! What a joke! And I knew then that I had to be alive because they did seem old and I needed to tell my brother and sister about this! Once the pain kicked in from laughing I was sure... bloody typical I'm not dead, I'm alive and in pain!!!

So dark times in our lives are not necessarily funny. In fact, sometimes, they are quite tragic but we have laughed till we cried during those times. When we are ill something funny seems to just happen to lighten the mood like when my brother took my sister some soup up to her in bed as she was unwell and then because his mouth was watering with hunger dribbled into it as he passed it to her.

Sometimes you feel like you shouldn't be laughing which makes it all the funnier and that's how we get through it! Reality sucks but it can be really funny!

The embarrassment of an Ebay seller!

2008-07-30T01:50:00.005+01:00

Now one of the really bizarre things about me is that I love to read... Ok so anyone reading this blog probably enjoys reading as well! But if the truth is told I can't live with out it! I spend all day long reading and writing letters in my job and then I come home and spend large amounts of time lying on the floor in front of my laptop with all its connecting wires reading things on the internet or thinking of what I can write on my blog! Now to some this may not seem too odd but if you add on top of all that reading the fact that I also read approximately 2 novels a week (sometimes more!) you probably are starting to see how ridiculous I am... I mean how do I find time to sustain relationships with anyone? How do I have friends? I could really freak you out and tell you in a low creepy voice that the characters in books are my friends but that is not the case! I promise! No, I, in fact, find the time to continue to talk to people and snooze my life away... The worrying thing is when I go to bed at night and see that I have 150 pages left of a book I think "right ok then I'm near the end I may as well finish it tonight". Recently when my Mum came to stay with me I told her proudly of the amount of books I read thinking she was bound to be impressed. After all this was the woman who taught me to read at 3, took me to the library regularly when I was little and encouraged me in spelling competitions. She too is a big reader. So with a big grin on my face I told her in a boastful voice "Do you know Mum I'm getting through about 2 novels a week at the moment" to which she looked at me with a concerned look on her face and replied "Have you told your doctor that?". Now don't get me wrong I adore my Mum but I didn't quite understand why I would share this particular information with my doctor who surely is more worried about hearing physical symptoms of illness and not my reading capabilities? However, my mum later explained that in fact she thought that amount of reading was over the top and I must be suffering from depression! I've never heard of reading as a symptom of a depressive illness but I will research this fact and I promise if I find out the answer is that my mother is right, I am concerned for myself and all of you and suspect we should set up a support group for all us depressed readers out there!

I'll be honest I am more likely to be depressed about what I see on the news then characters in a book although I often do get emotionally attached to some of the characters... (Stop adding up my symptoms ok? I promise I am not a lunatic nor am I suffering from a depressive disorder!). I do, of course, have my depressive moments, who doesn't? But let's not get depressive moments and my bad moods and irritation mixed up! Being grumpy is my personality and not an illness!!!

As I read so much I am constantly over run with a stupid amount of books. I live on my own so it doesn't particularly matter but I also try to keep my possessions down to a car load so that I can move with ease! Just a funny thing I do to ensure I can get away quick and with minimum effort. I'm not on the run and would never leave without warning but I hate moving with a passion and in the last few years seem to be constantly moving.

Anyway, in a bid to get rid of some of these books I discovered Ebay! I swear I have not been stuck in another time frame until recently, I just was a late starter when it came to the internet so I have only really just discovered it. I curse having to take pictures of all the books and think of interesting things to say about them in the listings but once it is done I spend many a happy moment clicking on and off my ebay summary to check if anyone is watching them.

After a few auctions I admit I started to get greedy and was soon hunting round for other items I could sell. At last I decided on various beauty products and a couple of pairs of shoes. One pair of shoes in particular were a lovely pair of strappy sandals (well I would say that as a seller- but actually they were quite nice!)I don't really know why I had never worn them but I hadn't and so I put them up for sale. I was thrilled when I noticed that I have 4 watchers and various questions asking about the shoes. On the 3rd day of the auction I got an email from someone saying that they liked the shoes but couldn't see them well enough in the photo. Immediately I downloaded another photo and sent it off. This time the person responded that they were lovely but couldn't understand how the straps worked. Could I put them on my feet and take a picture? Now to some of you who are a bit less trusting at this point you might have heard alarm bells but all I could see were the £ signs for the money I could make on these shoes if I sold them right! I was wearing my mankiest pair of pyjama bottoms and some very thermal socks and I took the socks off, rolled up the pyjama bottoms, put the shoe on (slightly cringing at the sock mark my sock had left indented into my leg) and started to take pictures. It took me quite a while as I had to crane my foot to the side so that I could see the reflection in the long mirror in my bedroom and then take the picture.

After much huffing and puffing I sent the pictures saying "this is the best I can do! Sorry!". I immediately got a response saying "Oh can you not just zoom in a little more so that I can see the detail? Ps Lovely toes". Now I know I probably should have done something differently at this point but I already knew I had probably gone too far. Was I imagining that this was a little weird? Was I just being unkind to feel uncomfortable? No! I would carry on and sell these shoes to this very nice, interested prospective buyer. I went through the same process again cursing myself that I had put my sock back on and so had another indent in my leg to match the one slightly higher up and made a note to self to get some less tight but warm socks! This time I spent ages taking photos of every conceivable angle, moving my foot in odd positions and taking pictures of every detail of the shoe in zoom. Finally after 40 minutes I returned to my laptop and emailed the photos with a short message " Sorry for the delay. This really is all I can do now. I am starting to feel embarrassed and am cringing at my feet! Please bid if you want them. Thanks for your interest!". Immediately I got a reply saying "Gorgeous. You have beautiful toes. I have had some great pleasure from your photos. Thank you so much but I never wanted the shoes. I would love to see more of you if your toes are anything to go by." At this point I wanted to cry. Not because of anything other than my own stupidity. Still I was reluctant to give up on the sale! I immediately emailed back "So you got me to go through all that so that you could see my feet. That is really unkind. (And finally)So you don't want the shoes then?" How pathetic am I? As you can see I always find it difficult to give up on things! To which I got a swift response "No. Sorry but thank you I've had a great night!"

As I watched in horror as the sale slipped out of my hands I also realised that this situation was very embarrassing. Yes I had naively fallen for it through my own greed but also because my feet have always been embarrassing!The realisation of the ridiculousness of my evening was hitting me hard. I imagined my work colleagues sitting at home having normal evenings whilst I was embarrassing myself taking pictures of my feet! They are chubby feet that are actually very wide and square. They have short stubby toes and I often think this is from squeezing myself into shoes that are too small. They are far from alluring! I called my mother who did the respectable thing and said "You poor thing! Oh you are far too trusting Clare, you really are! You must report him as he obviously has a sexual fetish!" and then I rang my sister who did what you would expect any self respecting older sister to do... she burst out laughing... immediately shouted to tell her husband the hilarity of my evening and then proceeded to make fun of the whole situation before remembering we weren't 14 anymore and said seriously, "Mum's right you probably should report him".

And so I did. I wasn't sure if it was necessary as I wasn't sure anyone else would be so stupid. I was reluctant to because I was embarrassed and yet I still did it in case it was the right thing to do. As I wrote my humiliating email to Ebay support I imagined an office full of people laughing their heads off at my misfortune and cringed some more. However I did get a notably sympathetic response and was told that I should get some support for this violation if I felt I needed it! I didn't. But I did learn a lesson about how easy it is to do things without thinking of the consequences in excitment to get a sale. I am pleased to report I did get a sale from a girl who just wanted the shoes and was not interested in my feet and she loved them! So in future I will not go to such lengths to sell things. If they want them, they want them... minimum effort! I haven't given up ebay but I concentrate more on the books then other things. So if the man who got great pleasure (oh yuk yuk yuk!!!) from my feet is out there reading this... (actually bit freaky if he is!) please delete the photos of my stubby feet from your inbox. The thought of finding my feet on a foot fetish website one day is awful! If I had known that they might be seen by others I undoubtedly would have painted my toe nails with fresh paint, got rid of the sock mark and maybe even added a toe ring! Be fair now!

The art of snoozing and time management

2008-07-24T23:38:00.004+01:00

As I have explained before I am a lawyer and although it is something I worked very hard to achieve I bizarrely forget that I am. You see the thing is when you plan to become a lawyer you kind of think that when you finally become one your whole life will change. First of all you will suddenly develop a maturity you never had, you will be stylish and look like Ally McBeale. You will be full of energy and have a real sense of purpose. You will sympathise when necessary and you will show strength of character when faced with what you blattantly can see is an injustice. You will probably regularly attend the gym and will be super organised and a whizz at time management.

The reality however is that you are exactly the same as you were before but people's expectations of your knowledge and ability increase. As for time management I am still useless. My main problem is the mornings. It's not because I don't wake up in time... actually who am I kidding? It's because I don't wake up in time! I snooze alarms for over an hour. One goes off at 7am (I groan and turn over)and the other at 7.10am. This is torture but one I have to put myself through. If I get out of bed by 8.20 I know I'll be late. Most mornings I get out of bed at 8.25am. When I was training and working in a firm I was lucky enough to live 15 miles away and on a very unreliable bus route. This meant I always had an excuse for being late for work. However I knew that people (you know the ones - the ones who get into work for 8.15am for no apparent reason... they are also the ones that never yawn in work and they always have their own mug for tea, teabags in a container in their desk and various treats of a low fat variety to eat during the day) generally didn't appreciate the fact that I was late. Truth was I could get the early bus and sleep all the way as I normally did anyway or I could get the bus that got me in after 9am and sleep all the way. The later bus allowed me to have an extra half hour in bed... you do the math!

When I went for my job interview for my first job as a qualified lawyer I arrived 45 minutes late for the interview due to bad traffic and not leaving myself enough time. They were very sympathetic to this and offered me the job anyway! My view from then on was they knew exactly what my faults were and they were prepared for me to be late every morning. And I was. Again I had an excuse because I lived 46 miles away. When I moved to the town where my firm was however it became a little more difficult to explain myself. Particularly when there was another woman who worked for us who was always late but she was also a darling of the company and everyone she worked with. She would come in with her basket on her arm and would hand out various vegetables that she had picked that morning. So she got away with it. I started to get noticed. When I pulled into the car park I knew how late I was by whether there was a parking space and whether or not the other late woman was already parked.

Imagine my alarm when this firm decided to send me on a time management course in London. The course started at 10 am so I knew I had to wake up early. Not to mention the fact I had to get the train which took about 2 hours and I had to find the venue. As I stormed through the door of the course where other simiarly useless time managers were seated and had arrived on time... I was roughly 2 and a half hours late! The course leader had the cheek to then seem disgusted! But I hadn't even done the course yet so how could I be expected to be a good time manager?! I was brazen in my lateness and sat down as they discussed how we all needed to allow ourselves enough time to get places. I spent the rest of the day pinching myself and drinking strong coffee in order to stay awake. I then left early (My god people don't judge me I had a train to catch!) with the time management course notes under my arm. I then fell asleep on the train and when I changed trains somehow managed to leave the course notes on the train. For the rest of the 2 years I worked at that firm I remained truthful to myself... I continued my late arrival and continued to deal with it in a brazen way! What other option did I have? If a time management course couldn't even inspire me or save me I was doomed to be a late arriver!

It is not that I like to be late or even enjoy rushing to catch planes, trains, arrive on time for a friend's wedding or generally being cursed until I arrive. I have every intention when I go to bed to be up on time and to be sitting at my desk before 9am. However as I struggle to wake up for the first hour of the day everything takes longer. I think this is a disease or certainly a condition and one which I can't control. Other people have other problems. But as I struggle to make up the time I've missed by being late I actually reckon I am more efficient at work... certainly in the moments I am not fighting sleep. This is because I am always behind schedule and revising lists that I have written to compensate for my late arrival! I even go to bed making plans in my head for things that I will do when I wake up early and have extra time... however I have never done any of those things but it doesn't mean I never will! I'm hoping that as I get older I will start to suffer from that whole wake up early, funny how I only need 4 hours sleep as I get older thing! That way I will have plenty of time and I will manage it well! Until I get older however you all just have to bear with me. I will be late... I even set my watch so that it says it is five minutes later than it is in a bid to scare myself when I look at the time. However the only thing this does is make me take the five minutes off and then think to myself it's ok I've got at least another five minutes!

We are always told life is too short and that we shouldn't sleep our lives away but if you like to sleep and you love a little snooze in the afternoon (for 20 minutes but you wake 3 hours later) then so what? If that is how you work, accept it... it's not fun fighting sleep all the time but for some us it is a reality! It's not professional, it's not lazy, it's not boring... it's just a love of sleep... it's just me! I'm sorry but when I'm old perhaps I will be living on just the 4 hours a night and then you will all be wishing I will just shut up and go to sleep! Alternatively I might be the old woman who drops off mid conversation and not realise... Who knows? Whichever one it is I just have to accept it...snoozing and me is the best combination!

Ground hog day... is the joke on me???

2008-07-23T23:35:00.004+01:00

Ok so since the last time I wrote I have turned 31 though decided to leave it saying I'm 30 on my profile... mainly because what's the harm? In fact now wishing I had opted for a lower number... let's face it no one really would have known especially with my airbrushed picture!

Also since I last wrote my car has had a bit of a hit. Basically I pulled in in order to turn round and go back the way I came. I should point out my car is a white rust heap and there was a massive BMW jeep who was parked up next to me. The owner of the vehicle came out of the building and jumped in his car and immediately started reversing. Bearing in mind I was directly behind him you would think this was a bit of a stupid idea but to be honest the stupidity of what later happened has nothing on this! So he started to reverse without looking behind him and I knew immediately he was going to hit me. As he started to reverse I started to panic and although everything was happening quickly on the other hand I could see what was going to happen so time moved incredibly slowly. As I tried to quickly put my car into reverse.... not an easy task as the lever is very stiff and so there really is nothing quick about this car... particularly when you live in Jersey and the maximum speed limit on the island is 40mph. However I couldn't put it in reverse in time...my next thought of survival and protection for my car was "Ok hit the horn as hard as you can and shout in your own car". I knew he wouldn't hear me shouting "Stop reversing you idiot I'm behind you!!!" but as my horn didn't seem to make any noise as I pounded it he was more likely to hear me shouting than anything else. As I banged repeatedly on the horn I realised that it was the first time I had attempted to use it and like many other things in the car it didn't work. So instead I just had to sit there and watch him reverse into the side of my car and break the light.

As soon as the car had been hit the driver of the other car got out and immediately started shouting at me, "What the hell are you doing? You just drove into my car?" I actually laughed. Not because I had, nor because I thought it was funny my car was now damaged but that he was actually going to try and pull this one on me! My response was "you are kidding me!" I was stationary and my car was in park! He carried on ranting and raving at me while a vein in his forehead started to pulsate. I responded and got out of the car to face up to him. As I balanced on my flip flops...sorry did I not mention one of my flip flops rather bizarrely broke as I got out of the car... and I forced myself to stand up to him while I considered the fact that for no reason what so ever my flip flop had broken and now I would have to storm down to the shop I bought them in and get them exhanged. The injustice of his words were slowly but surely ravishing my temper and I was forced to behave in a frenzy of accusations. I told him that he was being ridiculous and how dare he suggest that I drove into his car. He then said that it wasn't his fault that he couldn't see my car out of his wing mirrors.... Sorry was it my fault? I really ought to make sure whenever I park that I can always been seen by wing mirrors. I told him that I had never had anyone hit my car before and I wasn't really sure what to do. Eventually as if he was giving me some kind of charity he said "Look ok ok we can sort this. Here is my card, get it fixed and I'll pay for it." I snatched his card of him and huffed and puffed as I got in my car before warning him that I would now be reversing and I would appreciate it if he would let me move my car before reversing himself. He didn't seem to take to kindly to this... but hey it was nice to get the final bit of sarcasm in after he had accused me of driving into him!

As I drove off my car was making the normal rattling noises together with some new noises which sounded a little like things falling off the car but I tried not to worry as I went to park my car in the extortionant car park which is a mere 10 minute walk from my apartment.

As I got home I was in a bad mood. Ok this is not particularly abnormal but I just wonder how bad moods develop so quickly and then set up a mortgage in your nervous system for the rest of the day. My mum was staying with me for a few days so she knew better than to talk to me. Next thing I knew there was a loud buzz of my door bell. I opened the door to the guys who were coming again about the shutters on my flat. Regular readers will know of the shutter guys who came to fix the shutters without notice and who I asked to leave when I discovered they had cut the cable on my sky tv dish (see Whatever happens you are not taking my sky dish!) Anyway it was different men this time but I couldn't stop myself I treated them as if they were responsible for their work colleagues. They asked me to open my back gate so that they could take off the bolts from the shutters. I agreed but as the locks are totally golden brown with rust I was unable to pull them across. It had taken about half an hour to get them on anyway! Eventually one of the men said "how bout i just jump over". I grunted and returned to the house. After all I had again had no notice of this and furthermore the agent of the property had told me that noone comes round without notice!

Now bearing in mind I only have 4 tv channels now and they are very fuzzy... when the men removed the bolts i could hear my mum saying "oh great now you've made the tv go funny". As the wrath of my protective mother started I could hear she was telling the men off for making the tv fuzzier than it was before. She then had them fiddling with the cut cable to try and get her a better picture on my tiny but faithful tv as she drank a cup of tea and ate biscuits and barked instructions at them "better, no worse again, better, there, stay there that's it... no it's gone again". After 10 minutes my tv was returned to the slightly fuzzy but not terribly fuzzy and we could once again make out most of the people on the tv. Eventually the men left and left the bolts off my gates once again so when i have a spare half hour and the cuts from the last time have healed I will go out and lock the gate again!

Now Mum has returned home and as soon as she got home she called me to tell me that she had a card through her door saying that British Gas have been trying to get hold of me at her address and that they had sent a representative round to talk to me! As fury grabbed hold of me ... you may recall that I have NEVER had an account with these people I rang the number given and luckily Keith (the British Gas guy) didn't answer and so I left a snotty message asking him to ring me and explaining again that I NEVER HAD AN ACCOUNT WITH THEM!!! (See Electric Nights if you want the full story on my British Gas torture... )

So I sometimes wonder if someone is playing a big joke on me... perhaps I'm in a tv show like the Truman show or perhaps God has a very sick sense of humour?... all I know is that there are days when life pushes you to extremes! This day is one of them... a groundhog day or just an average day in the life of Clare! The point is whoever it is that is responsible for this ... it's not funny anymore!!!! I refuse to be beaten and I will NOT end up in a mental institution because of British Gas! I will live without electricity if I have to as a mark of independence!I can take it!

Growing old... gracefully! The wrong side of 30!

2008-07-18T19:49:00.005+01:00

Oh my god it's my birthday on Monday and I am going to be 31! My twenties feel like a distant memory and I just can't fathom how it all happened. One day I was old enough to be considered an adult; to live on my own, have my own bank account and money (or lack of it!) and spend my overdraft any way I desired! I could build up my own credit card debts and spend money before I earned it. I could wear whatever I wanted - god I could even get a tattoo! (I didn't - got a bit of a problem with needles!) This is probably a stupid thing to say but I never in a million years thought I would be 31! I mean I remember when my parents were in there thirties which means I was old enough when they were in their thirties to have memories of it! And they seemed so old - middle aged and uncool! Actually to be fair they were quite cool at the time but looking back now they weren't that cool at all!

When I was around 18 and I went to university I really felt young but old enough to realise I wasn't really a child anymore... except when I was not well and needed my mum! (To be fair that hasn't changed even at this age!) And then when I got to the age of about 23 I thought this is it I'm an adult. But if i'm honest I really didn't think I would get any older! This was as old as I was going to be. I was always the youngest in my year at school, I was the youngest child, the little sister, my mum's baby so how on earth am I now the wrong side of 30?! There is no way back. I now have 9 more years of being in my thirties and then... I can't even say what comes then but you know what it is! On the eve of my tenth birthday I remember bursting into tears at the thought of the next day being double digits. It took me ages to come to terms with it and this has been a constant battle. All my life I have struggled to accept my age... I seriously don't understand where all the time has gone! I can understand every other person in the world ageing but not myself. I have blond hair so I don't have to contend with going grey but other things are still a concern. I've noticed that my eyes have many more wrinkles, that I can't cope with late nights like I used to and that weight goes on easily but doesn't come off... at all! Yet on the inside I feel exactly the same! Apart from a little more jaded and able to deal with things but apart from that I am the same person I have always been!

So what were my plans when I was younger? What did I expect at this age? The answer is I had no idea because I honestly, honestly never thought I'd be this old! I don't know if I've exceeded my expectations or not and I don't know if I'm doing what I ought to be because who would have thought I'd ever get to this?

When I see kids I love them. I honestly do. They are so much fun and I love their outlook on life yet I don't understand how they will grow up to be my age. The thing is for ages when I saw my niece she used to treat me like I was her age and my sister (her mum) was old. I played with her and encouraged her thoughts on this. It was great! Then it dawned on her when she went to school that I am actually old! I was once walking down to the shop and a young teenager said "out the way the lady wants to get past". I looked behind me assuming that there must be a woman trying to get past me but there was no one there. After a few seconds the realisation hit me! The cheeky kid was talking to me! How dare he? How could he think I was a lady? I immediately stared at him with my best look of death stare and said "I'm not a lady- I'M A GIRL". He snorted and I stomped off with my best youthful flick of my hair!

So as I sit here tonight preparing myself for my last few days of being 30 I realise that I have to put a positive spin on this one! The plan is this... as I get older I will become the grumpy old woman I have always admired! You know the ones who complain about everything and expect to go to the front of the queue by virtue of the fact that they have lived on this earth longer. The ones who can moan about life and the youth of today without really meaning it but enjoying the shock and disdain from the young people around them. The ones who are rude and make you feel immediately like a child when you are with them because they know best... and you are slightly scared of their sharp tongues so you just want to keep quiet in case they decide you are their next victim!

When my Grandad had cancer he was still as chirpy and funny as always but he was also more blunt then he ever was before. He dealt with his illness without complaint and had the war time spirit that you would expect from someone who lived through the 2nd World War. One day someone came to the door selling something or other and asked how my grandad was. My grandad replied "I'm dying. How are you?" To this day I still think how amazing it would be to just say whatever was in your head. Not to hurt people but just because you are comfortable in your own skin and you know your own mind and you are not scared of the world as you have lived in it. For those 70 or 80 years that we live , the world is our world alone. It doesn't belong to anyone else and when you leave it - yes it goes on for those you care about but it ceases to belong to you anymore. So as I approach my 31st year I realise you may as well just be who you are while you live here because this world belongs to you for a limited time and so you have to just grow into it.

Love, relationships and the heart break diet!

2008-07-16T21:26:00.004+01:00

As I am a family lawyer I spend a lot of time listening to people's relationship problems. Within a few months of doing this job I realised that everyone's relationships are different and what we are all striving for is the same thing... to be able to be with someone who will not let us down but will also support us in everything we do. Along with that however are the expectations of relationships from films and tv. We see celebrities walking hand in hand in blissful love within a few days of meeting each other and our view of what real love is meant to be is immediately distorted.

We are told that we are supposed to be constantly in lust with each other, never argue and if we do end the argument surrounded by broken plates we should find ourselves in each others arms once again realising the importance of our love. The reality however is very different. If you have got to the stage of broken plates it will take weeks to get over. One or both of you will resent each other for letting it get to that stage and one or both of you will resent the other for making you give in! It was an important point you were making... certainly important enough for you to lose your mind over... I mean in what other circumstances would someone irritate you so much that you would consider breaking china?...and yet an hour later you have apologised and told your loved one that you were just being silly after all! Unless of course you have got to the stage where you actually know in your mind that you are in the wrong and probably should have not let it get out of control but you can't seriously back down now without looking like a freak so it is likely you are just going to have to stick with it till the other person can take no more of your stupidity and will just accept it.

When client's come into my office there are 4 types of people I see; the angry hurt ones, the devastated ones who can't eat or sleep, the ones who have moved on and are already having a baby with their new partner who happens to be their old partner's best friend and finally and perhaps the scariest type of all...the ones who have lost all sense of rational. These people are normally very sane and capable human beings who have lived their lives without so much as an embarrassing moment but faced with the reality of heart break and rejection become the opposite of their former selves. As the months go on you watch as they start their own healing process which normally starts with hoping that their ex will come back even though they haven't even looked behind them. It continues with hatred and paranoia. Their ex is sleeping with everyone and even their lawyer (me) is probably on the side of their ex! Followed by an intense case of lunacy. It starts with the lawyer of the ex writing to me and telling me to ask my client to stop text messaging their client. Followed by the next letter accusing your client of shouting abuse in the street which then escalates to the client sending tempting sexual text messages to lure the ex back into their arms and away from the new partner to finally being told that the lawyer for the other side will be issuing an injunction to keep my client away as they have tried to run their ex and new partner down in the street in her renault megane or have sent a dead snake through the letter box.

The question is what brings us all to this level of stupidity in matters of the heart? How is it that a relationship failing with one person in our lives can makes us feel that the world has ended and that someone is standing on our chest and stopping us from breathing? How can our brains which functioned normally when we were together with that person end up filled with thoughts of that person as soon as they leave? And WHY on earth can we manage to live on nothing but fresh air when we are heart broken but when we are happy in relationships find it impossible not to scoff our faces with donuts or crisps? The heartbreak diet remains a mystery to me... why when we are so unhappy does the one thing that we have always wanted happen...? We get thin! And why does it happen when we can't enjoy it? As we try and force ourselves to swallow food to stop ourselves from feeling nauteous why is it all such an effort when a few weeks earlier we were eating non stop and watching our increasing waist lines unable to control our gluttony!? My thinnest times are always my saddest and yet when I am relatively happy I am striving to be thin... oh one of the great ironies of life?

The other great mystery of heart break is how are we not totally dehydrated from our tears? Where do they all come from as our grief stricken bodies curl up regularly throughout the day to cry as though we are in physical pain? And also why does it feel like physical pain which is totally unbearable and for which the only relief is sleep? When you finally do get to sleep from pure exhaustion of no food, energy wasted on plans to get the partner back or get revenge on them and all those tears you then find yourself waking up early having only managed about 2 hours sleep whilst you dream of your ex.

At the start of any break up you watch your client change as sanity disappears and bitterness or depression sets in. Believe me as people go I have an amazing ability to sympathise with people... I immediately take my client's side and believe all they tell me. But in their bid to rid themselves of blame for the break up they sell themselves as perfect people which I soon realise they are not. We are all capable of hurting our partners but the reality is that most of the time people it seems to me just forget to concentrate on their relationships. When we first meet someone the early days are filled with thoughts of that person and the relationship. As everyday life kicks in and you realise the person you have been with has lots of faults and possibly is not nice all the time and has smelly feet or gets unattractive spots on their bum from time to time you realise that they are not as perfect as you thought they were in the early days. For most people these days this realisation leads to discontentment followed by pure resentment and dislike. It is only when the relationship breaks down that they think hmmm maybe they were lovely after all.... maybe I didn't realise it all till it's too late. Before you know it you are back to stage one where you are thinking of them all the time and wondering where it all went wrong. Unfortunately the other person is normally relieved to be away from all the criticism and is in the grips of someone else who is thinking of them all the time....love and relationships are complicated things!

The good thing about my job is that you see people at their worst. I don't mean I like seeing people in pain but it is interesting to watch the human condition and realise that on a basic level we are all the same. You watch them as they crumble and take it all out on you... and this is when you really know you are doing your job! I often say to client's if you feel like ranting and raving call me and tell me I'm to blame rather than sending a package of dog poo through the post and being arrested for it. I don't take it personally. I have had client's hang up on me and call me every name under the sun. But when the divorce is over and the finances are sorted and the person has moved on normally realising that their ex was wrong for them after all you see them in the street and they look completely sane again. They are no longer brandishing their mobile phones ready to text 67 messages to their ex partner imploring them to return and followed by abusive texts about their mother when they get no response. They are getting on with their lives as though nothing has happened and for them maybe life will always be different and they will always have a sense that people will let them down but for the majority of them life goes on with a semblance of normality. I on the other hand may listen for months to their moaning and grievances and memories of their gymnastic style sex life with an understanding look on my face whilst thinking not only have I heard this all before but nothing shocks me and sometimes wondering do they ever leave my office and think hmmm I wonder how Clare is? She looks a bit tired or sad.... because no to them I could be a stuffed toy gorilla sitting in a chair nodding and consoling them... it really wouldn't matter! They just need me to be on their side and if they think I may be wavering in loyalty they need me as the person they can take their frustration out on! Break ups hurt but they are a reality of life... you can lose your sanity and make a fool of yourself every day during it but no one will judge you because we have all been there and we could all be back there at any time!

Life before laptops ... was there one?

2008-07-15T23:02:00.004+01:00

Since living in Jersey I have discovered the internet.... I know it's ten years later than the rest of the world but I couldn't get to grips with it before! My brother works in computers and I had a natural inclination to switch off whenever he spoke about it. I remember the first time he ever told me about the internet. He explained it was called the "World Wide Web" and soon it would be taking over. It would provide an online resource of information which we could get at the click of a button. Cynically I thought he was a lunatic! He was obviously getting over excited about this and let's be honest he thought robots were going to be in every home by the year 2000 and unless I'm behind the times I haven't got a robot who cooks me dinner... although to be honest that would be nice! I always worry a robot at home would end up needy though and develop feelings and then the next thing you know you would be comforting them on the sofa, rubbing their hard metallic bodies as a row of lights flashed on and off signifying tears and they sobbed in a techno voice " I can't believe robot 46254 doesn't love me!" And so when my brother told me about the internet I just couldn't take it seriously.

10 years on when everyone else has been using the internet over the last decade I'm finally understanding it and can't understand what we did before it!

The same goes for mobile phones. My Dad and brother were always ahead of their time and we had mobile phones at home way before anyone else did. They were huge. The size of a large oversized hand bag but in the shape of a massive brick and as heavy as bricks too. Dad and my brother would walk around carrying these huge phones which had a curly telephone wire from the battery to the large heavy battery and base and act as though they were extremely mobile peices of equipment. Of course the rest of us in the family were humiliated as we watched our brother and Dad walk around shopping malls with these ridiculous phones! Of course we had two of these things! I honestly thought they would never take off but they did and would you believe it I have 3 mobiles and various sim cards to cover me when I visit Ireland or anywhere else! I remember when I got my first one and no one else really had one. My brother had insisted I got one. As my mobile rang in the middle of a lecture at college I tried to ignore it. I could see if vibrating in the pocket of my bag and worse still everyone was looking round to try and figure out where the noise came from. I looked on trying to pretend I couldn't hear it and everyone else was just deluded but as the blush crept up my face it was hard not to know that I was the guilty culprit with the mobile phone. I however never admitted it and continued to pretend I knew nothing about it. I was thoroughly embarrassed by the whole experience!

Devices like mobile phones and computers were a constant in my family. My brother had a really early apple computer in which he spent most of the time poring over a book whilst he wrote various codes and then the word "run" only for it to return the words "syntax error". It was a source of constant frustration for him and as my mum told him "never do anything with Computers when you are older there is no money in it!" he continued his obsession with all things technological. Even as kids we were always pretending tictac boxes were walkie talkies and that we were talking to each other. My brother also had one of those massive calculator watches which he would constantly add things up with. So I was not suprised at all when my brother decided it would be funny to wind up our parents and put fake "bugs" round the house. The idea was that we would make them think someone was bugging them and that all their conversations were being recorded. We set about making our bugs by taking the spongy bits off headphones from our walkmans (before the days of discmans and way before the days of mp3 players) and we would then use the speaker bits and cut the cords. We then attached them in subtle places with blu tack. We started under tables and hidden in cupboards but as our non observant parents didn't notice them we took it to the next level. For the next 2 months everywhere you looked there would be a bug attached with blu tack. It started on the bed frame of our parents to the inside of lampshades moving on further to the outside of lampshades, the edge of the bath, the inside of our dad's briefcase and finally to the steering wheel of our Dad's car. It was only at this point that Dad started to notice and started to cover his mouth and whisper to us that he thought he was being bugged. We looked at him like he was crazy and carried on until the paranoia had really set in for Dad and we were bored. So the next obvious move was to send him a fake letter stating that his breath had been smelt and they would like to bottle his halitosis for medical reasons. Again Dad was horrified....but for us it was hilarious.

As I battled to adapting to a computer literate world, I had a friend at school who was so intelligent I was in awe of her. As I sat next to her in French I tended to look over and check what I was doing against her work which would mean that if I was doing something different I was invariably wrong. This caused problems one day as I realised I had written her name on the front of my new note book. I tried to cover it up but didn't manage to in time! She looked at me disgusted when she saw what I had done and immediately said with a curled lip "Have you put my name on your notebook?" I just looked at her blankly and nodded. She ignored me and sat somewhere else after that. As I explained to my family how intelligent this girl was and how I wished I was more like her they seemed not to understand the level of intelligence. So I explained to them that I imagined all her thoughts came up in a computer language in front of her eyes and had various graphs etc coming up in her head. She would then process this information in milli-seconds and as her eyes moved there would be a computer sounding whizz go through her head. After that they soon realised this girl was really bright and seemed impressed that she may actually be a human computer...Perhaps she was a robot who knows?

So for all of us technology has been present for some time but I am only just really getting it. I never would have thought I would get into it but now this evening I have been playing around with my new touch screen mobile phone which I got on the weekend and wondering why we ever bothered with hard buttons on our phone when we can have the smoothness of a touch screen! How did it happen? And what will happen to the next generation. My nephew is already pointing his Dad's mobile at things and saying "See my shoes Auntie Clare" as he doesn't understand that not every phone has a feature that means I can see him on video. But the concern is how will technology keep going...? How will it increase our need for it... more importantly what is next? I could really do with something that would get me dressed me in the morning so I didn't have to put in the energy to do so... but with our problems with obesity in this world is technology going to make it worse? All I know is right now I'm loving technology!!! Life before laptops... was there one?

The Transformation through make up and beauty products

2008-07-09T22:35:00.004+01:00

For the last few days I have lost my identity to a fringe. I decided to have a fringe cut in my hair on Saturday and after been puffed, blowdried and had 3 different colours put in my hair I left the hairdresser looking completely unlike myself when I arrived. Since Saturday I have walked past mirrors or windows and caught a glimpse of myself - unrecognisable to myself and others- and jumped wondering who the person I see is.... almost as though someone is right beside me and I haven't noticed... someone has taken my shadow. It also reminds me of that programme Quantum Leap where the main character is always going through time and landing in someone elses body... the down side of this was he never knew what he looked like until he looked in the mirror and spent the rest of the episode dressed in woman's clothes normally with his hairy legs. Now on Wednesday I am slowly getting used to my new hair do and it is a "do"... not quite a "bonce" but certainly a "do". As I bump into people I haven't seen for over a week they say "Ah you've had your hair done! looks nice" and now I'm coming across as though I'm bored of the compliments or that I just know I look good as I wave my hand and say "thanks". The problem is I'm not too sure about it as I've lost my identity. I am for the next week or so a "do" or a "fringe" until my face grows into my hair!

It's funny but for a time when my mum used to go and have her hair done each week I used to say that she had gone for a barnet bashing because most weeks she would not have her hair cut and would just have it washed and blow dried. I found this hilarious as it seemed like for 2 days a week before she washed it she had big hair. Most of the time she walked out of a hair dresser with hair that was twice as big as it was before she went in. However one time I went to have my hair cut and I came out looking like I had styled myself as a librarian. As I looked in my reflection the hairdresser stared in horror at what she'd done but then smiled calmly and told me it was lovely as it was a cleopatra hair cut. The problem is for at least the last 100 years as far as I'm aware Cleopatra has not been a style icon! That particular hair do not only took the longest time ever to grow out but made me refuse to go to the hairdresser again for at least a year after.

As there were 3 women in my house growing up it was commonplace for bad hair cuts to take over our lives at some point. My poor sister had a perm one time which she tried to wash out as soon as she got home as the tight curls made her look like a poodle. It was also not uncommon for either me or my sister to rush out the bathroom crying and hysterical after we had left our hair dye on for too long and it had either gone white or ginger. In a bid to rid myself of this problem area in my life I decided to have a short hair cut from the ages of 14 to 18. This was my rebellious stage. As I prided myself on not caring that my hair was short and I was not like all the other girls at school I was horrified at different stages when someone would ask my mum whilst I sat next to her what her son's name was. She would say this is my daughter Clare... she just wears her hair short. I would be deeply wounded but the reality was I did look like a boy but I didn't run crying out of the bathroom or hair dresser anymore!

It wasn't only hair that has been a problem to us! We have battled weight, bad dresses and dodgy fake tans. We have done it all! One time after putting some fake tan on my face I then developed a migraine. I have these headaches since I was little and the only thing that will solve him even at this age is to have someone stroke my head as I lie in darkness with a cold wet flannel on my face. I should make it very clear I have an allergy to flannels. I never use them and I never have them in my bathroom. The remind me of hankerchiefs which I also find completely disgusting. It seems wrong to blow your nose on a bit of material and to put it up your sleeve or in your pocket. In fact even as I write I am gagging slightly. Flannels have the same effect. They smell damp and of old soap. They can get crusty when the dry and when I am at my mum's having a bath and her flannel slips from the hook above the bath and into the water I cringe! So there I was having just applied the fake tan and with a migraine so I laid down on my bed and put the flannel over my head. I fell asleep and woke in the morning. As I looked in the mirror while I got ready for work I saw on my face were streaks of fake tan. Not just faint ones but orange streaks all over my face like a mask. I immediately tried to scrub it off. Now for those of you that have ever used fake tan you will know this is completely impossible and so as I scrubbed my face just got red underneath the orange streaks. I read the back of the fake tan and apparently you should not wet your skin after putting it on for at least 12 hours. I of course had not only slept with a damp flannel on my face but also had woken up twice in the night to re wet it! As I arrived at work with my orange and red face which I tried to cover up with thick foundation I realised that no one said a word.

You see the thing is when someone has done something really stupid like this to themselves normally people won't mention it. They wouldn't dare. The shock for them is enough and they realise that it is likely it could happen to them at some point. When my dad first went grey he used to dye his hair jet black. One day before he went to an important dinner with my mum he decided to quickly dye his hair before he went. As he confidently put the dye on without reading the instructions he let the dye drip down on to his forehead in numerous large drips. For some reason it didn't occur to him that this would stain and so when he had completed the dye job we all went into the bathroom and watched my mother trying to remove the drip stains which even went down his nose with a brillo pad. Realising it would not come off but unable to delay the dinner my father and mother attended with dad in all his glory. Apparently everyone politely ignored the dark black drip stains on his ultra white skin. Dad did what any confident person would do and instead of feeling uncomfortable he made himself the life and soul of the dinner. He did not shy away from talking or try to cover up the stains - no he was the centre of attention as usual and chatted away reminding everyone how great he is - stains or no stains!

When my sister got married my mum and I decided we would get our make up done professionally. When we arrived the youngest woman in the salon did my mum's make up and the oldest woman did mine! This meant that when my mum turned to me with bright pink lipstick on asking me if it looked alright I responded that she looked like a clown and the colour was changed. I however was covered in peach and blue colours. As the woman remarked on "my broken capillaries" I wanted to slap her. But it wasn't until she moved me over to stand by the window as she pointed out in a disgusted voice that i was "so pale". She spent the next 20 minutes rubbing blusher onto my cheeks from a make brush in long sweeping upward motion. As she repeated this time and time again and my face started to burn I was starting to get that feeling of immense torture that you can only get from repetitive motion on your skin. My grandmother used to stroke my arm as a child with her slightly sharp nails. This was enjoyable for a few minutes but after 30 minutes I would be close to tears as I tried to politely pull away as my skin crawled with irritation. As I left that beauty salon after payin £40 I grabbed a tissue from the reception desk and said to my mum through gritted teeth " get me home so that I can get this stuff off my face". By the time I was in the taxi with my face sore from all the blusher I was already wiping the caked make up off my face so that I could redo as soon as I got home.

All the people I know have had these experiences... or if not they are better at hiding them. I do think that these are the things that seem so important at the time but that you look back on and laugh. From the breaking of the heel on your shoe (happened more than once to me!) to the rip in your trousers that you don't realise for a number of hours and that no one tells you about to the dodgy hair cuts and dye jobs. In a quest to look better sometimes exactly the opposite will happen but it is only temporary and you will always go back to looking slightly crap like you did before.

"The Last Shot"... the O'Connor Heirloom

2008-07-06T02:50:00.008+01:00

One of the funny things about my family is we have very few possessions. If I can't move house in a car load I start to panic. By not being able to fit everything in a car it means that I have to stay put. I immediately start to realise that I'm in fact not able to leave in the space of a few hours... not that I ever would... but what if I had to? The thought of not being able to drive away from one place with all my worldly possessions to another scares me somewhat and yet I also have a shopping addiction so you can explain that irony. Of course the fact I can't open my car boot of my car is a concern but I'm trying not to let it take over too much. I figure the seats can be put down for more room. I think part of the reason I am like this is my family have a habit of good times turning into terrible times. We are the comeback family. We flog a dead horse for as long as possible. We simply find it difficult to let go of things when we are failing at them. This is not as depressing as it sounds. It's merely a case of never giving up. This I believe is why I have such loyalty to my own tv... the guilt of getting rid of it is too much to bear. And why should I give up on it when it never gave up on me?

Because of this we find ourselves not worrying too much about savings or expensive things and focus on the sentimental. Which brings me to the things that I possess. I have a birthday card from my parents from my 3rd birthday. I have set of green vases with yellow small swirls round the top which belonged to my grandad and when we cleared his house no one wanted them. Because noone wanted them they became my most favourite possession. The patheticness of them made me love them even more. My mum describes them as hideous. I however have bought duvet sets to match them and decorated whole rooms based on these vases.

I also have a book that I loved when I was little called "the detective guidebook". This book revolutionised my life as it made me cynical and suspicious about everything. I soon realised that the majority of people in life are "up to something". It was like my bible of childhood as I realised early on that men in macks are not to be trusted. I also have a tiny naked doll with a massive head and ginger hair... god only knows where her clothes went to... and a little plastic mermaid and seal which my brother gave me when I was about five for my birthday. These are just things I can't get rid of. I've lost friends, jobs and my mind at different times but I always know exactly where these things are! My brother has one of my grandad's dirty old pipes. He always knows exactly where this is and regularly takes it out and puts it in his mouth when he is thinking. His car keys however are a permanent mystery.

There are things that I know I will get in the future that I will not want particularly but will hold onto for the rest of my life. I'll give you an example. As a child I told my Irish Catholic grandmother that I loved the 2 pictures she had in her bedroom. Both are large black and white pictures. One is of Jesus dressed in a white gown holding his heart between his hands signifying the Sacred Heart. The other is of the Virgin Mary holding her heart. The gruesome thing about these pictures are that the hearts they are holding are real looking pumping bloody hearts that look as if they have been very recently ripped out of someone. There is a glow around these pictures which can be seen eerily when the lights are off. Their eyes peirce into you and the whole concept of the pictures are frightening and unnerving. My grandmother is now in her nineties. Her memory is practically gone and she always says she doesn't recognise me when she sees me ... but the one thing that never fades from her memory is the fact that I liked those pictures! She has told me a few hundred times that she has told everyone when she dies I will get those pictures. And so one day no doubt above the green vases will be the pictures of the sacred heart which will then move from house to house filling all children who visit with fear.

In our various moves over the years my family have lost things, things were broken, things destroyed but there is one thing that for some unknown reason remains unscathed. This is our "heirloom"! It is a china drinks dispenser in the shape of a dog. This dog has been in every house I ever remember. He is brown and white and looks like life has dealt him a hard blow. He has given up. There is a big tear coming from his big droopy eyes and he looks dejected and well if i'm honest and I hope he doesn't mind me saying... he's suicidal! His paw is up holding a gun above his head and this can be removed with a cork at the bottom of it to dispense the drink. At the bottom is a wind up musical box with the words printed "the last shot". As kids we loved this dog but we were very concerned about him having the gun above his head so instead we always had it turned round to face the ground and for safety reasons we tied a small red and white check ribbon round the gun to stop the trigger being pulled... just in case. All three of us kids love this heirloom. It signifies everything about our family. The patheticness of the dog, giving it your last shot and the fact that we don't want him to give up!

Now our mother for some reason unknown to us and one which we would never understand anyway hates this dog. Which is quite unfortunate for her because it lives in her house! Numerous times I have had to lift the heirloom out of a box going to the charity shop or boot sale. Every time my mum tries to get rid of it I immediately ring my brother and sister and dobb her in! We all get defensive and protective and tell our mum it's our heirloom and she can never get rid of it. The lack of respect she shows for it by calling it junk of course makes us love it all the more! We unite against our parent as a show of solidarity for the dog.

To some "the last shot" may seem tacky or distasteful. For us it is part of our make up as a family. Our loyalty to it knows no bounds and I always have a sneaky suspicion that "the last shot" will be the one thing that makes our family rich in some way. I suspect it has the combination to a safe where our ancestors buried their gold bullion. When us three kids used to play my brother used to pretend to fall down the stairs and when he got to the bottom he always used to pretend to be dying. As he lay on his back feigning death he would always grab one of us by the arm and say in a slow dying voice "the treasure is hidden in a safe. The combination to the safe is 4, 6.... "and before he could finish he would fake die! My sister and I would try to resucitate him but he never came back to life to tell us the full combination. I used to think why when he is fighting death does he always start with the treasure is hidden in a safe? Why didn't he shorten it so he had time to give the full combination?

And so I expect that the full combination to the safe my brother so often referred to is in fact in the depths of the music box of "the last shot". I doubt any of us however would be prepared to break it to find out and so we will remain paupers with all our junk but we will be loyal till the end!

I dedicate this blog to "the last shot" - You have brought much joy to 3 O'Connor kids ... we will not forsake you!

The "Dolly" Lama

2008-07-06T01:06:00.008+01:00

Well I promised I would tell you the reason I found myself in Coventry airport. It is not somewhere I intend to go again but was necessary to get to Birmingham the cheapest way possible. My oldest friend had bought tickets to go and see Dolly Parton.

Now let me just make this clear. We are only 30 - well she is a little older but we are still ultra cool people ok? When I was young I lived in Florida...I really am truly glamorous I know. My parents were 80's dreamers and in a rather crazy way we moved from Bury St Edmunds to Florida when I was three. The relevance of this is purely to explain why I was attending a Dolly Parton concert and not to boast! I loved country music and remember squidging my feet into a pair of cowboy boots and convincing my parents that they fit perfectly despite the fact they were in fact 2 sizes smaller than the rest of my shoes. My Dad also loved country music and when we used to drive around in the car with the windows closed whilst my dad chuffed away on cigarettes filling the car and make us all feel car sick we listened to Anne Murray and Dolly! Oh the abuse I hear you cry! I'm sure it was toxic in the car but we never objected although my mum had a permanent smokers cough despite having never smoked. Although I should also say this was what we were told as she skipped hurriedly passed her honeymoon photo showing her holding a cigarette as though she was filming for a marlboro advert.

When I became friends with this particular girl in high school I kept my "dirty secret" of enjoying Dolly Parton until I had lured her into a solid friendship. Before she could turn her back on me and once I knew plenty of embarrassing things about her which I could use against her. I like to pretend because of Dolly's song "D-i-v-o-r-c-e" I became the lawyer I am but I think it is more likely because I wasn't particularly interested in any of the areas of law I learnt. After my confession of being a country music lover I begged for forgiveness. My friend however shared my fascination and soon became a bigger Dolly fan than I was. And so a few months ago she rang me with the news of the tickets. After spending an alarming £44 on my return ticket to Coventry, I arrived and shared a taxi with a girl who was also luckily going to the train station. I realised my luck was in as she headed for the only taxi outside and I asked if she was going to the station and she said yes. I had no shame when I bundled into the taxi realising I would have to count up my change from the bottom of my bag to try and share the cab fare. As I tried to be polite I tried to engage in small talk about the flight before realising she was actually ignoring me and was in fact on her mobile phone. Relief washed over me as I realised that I didn't have to be polite and I could sit in silence listening to her dragging out her conversation to avoid having to talk to me. It was a dream come true. You know sometimes there is nothing worse than the stilted conversations that you end up having with strangers. She felt that she was better off for not speaking to me but to be honest she was giving me a present of silence.

After arriving in Birmingham and meeting my friend we went to the hotel and got ready for the concert. She happily got a pink cowboy hat out of her bag from the last Dolly concert she went to and told me that it didn't actually fit her head. I however could wear it. My immediate reaction was I would not be wearing this hat! But as I looked at my reflection in the Comfort Inn hotel's mirror I made a mental note to start wearing more hats. Particularly of the cowboy variety!

We got to the concert and took our seats as the sound of an announcement filled the arena stating that we could not take pictures. This annoyed me as let's be honest any pictures we take we are hardly going to make any money out of... not to mention the fact that I had bought a new camera and felt irritated that I would not be allowed to take pictures of this ageing crooner. The steward sat looking at the crowd ready to pounce on anyone that looked that they would be disobeying the rules. He took his job very seriously scanning the crowd for offenders. From what I could make out during the concert he did not accept reoffending. If he had told you once not to take photos you were out of time. One strike you were out! He had authority and he was waiting for one of us to try and test him! The protection of Dolly from pictures had him focused. As the concert started I looked round at the crowd. It was a weird mix with numerous people wearing cowboy hats and acting as if they dressed like that all the time. Men were in levi's, cow boy boots and shoe string ties and women were wearing the obligatory pink dolly hat. However, when Dolly appeared it was like the whole audience was sitting in church. There was not a stir in the crowd. No one sang or clapped. Perhaps they were all scared of the steward who glared every time you even took a sip of your drink in case there was a camera attached to the glass or perhaps Dolly was some sort of saviour to people. Whatever it was these people were serious.

At one point I wondered if the 45 year old man beside me was actually alive as he was so quiet and still. However he really let lose during "nine to five" when I caught him do 3 consequetive taps of his foot. Two men in their twenties were behind us acting as though they were forced there by their parents. However, a couple of times I heard them singing at the tops of their voices and could not contain myself from turning round and glaring at them. Not only because they were not particularly good singers and they were singing loudly into my ear but because they too were "ultra cool" like we were and yet they pretended not to be! My friend was bouncing in and out of her seat with excitement which was making the whole row of seats bounce. I realised Dolly had her work cut out with this crowd!

As she got onto her old hits... the "golden oldies" I decided that I would try my luck at taking a photo. Trembling and excited by my sheer disregard for the rules I got my camera ready and waited until the steward was busy telling someone off behind us and with his back to us. I now suspect that the stewards throughout the arena had a high tech monitoring system of the crowd and quite possibly had tapped into our thought processes as each of us walked through the door of the arena. "Please leave your thoughts at the door and go and take your seat." (Which reminds me of the time my brother told me about yet another one of Richard Branson's new business ventures and I tried to convince my brother that Richard Branson was now buying people's souls).With my thoughts now under the ownership of the stewards and with our steward's senses heightened to those even considering putting Dolly's figure into the frame of a picture I knew immediately I would be caught. However I was determined. As she came into the frame I glanced over at the steward to see him still telling off one of the crowd. My finger pressed down on the button to seal my fate. Within seconds the steward was leaning over the people next to me and in a no nonsense way insisted that I listened to his strong words, "If I catch you again taking a photo you are out and I'm taking your camera off you". I tried to look innocent as I still had the camera in my hand but felt the strength of his wrath. This man had power! I immediately put the camera in my bag and decided to retire from my criminal life and to rehabilitate. I later thought about it and wondered what kind of jurisdiction this man had for taking my possession off me. This was not a weapon of destruction but merely capturing a memory.

It seems to me that when you don't break the rules often you are not very good at breaking rules at all. I was always rubbish at breaking rules! When I wrote on a wall with a pen in my parents room as a child I cunningly wrote my sister's name as a way of taking the heat off me... of course it was obvious my sister was not stupid enough to write her own name on the wall to incriminate herself and so I was immediately convicted of this crime. The rest of the concert was spent under the accusing eyes of the authorities. I felt the shame as everyone else continued to sit quietly and under control. Where was their passion and their drive? Why did they conform so easily and more importantly why did I feel as if I'd let the whole crowd down...."there's always one that breaks the rules and makes the rest of us suffer!"

I felt shunned by the crowd. It appeared that noone would meet my eye and people shook their heads when I tried to make eye contact! The immense disapproval was alarming... but I had my picture. I had broken the rules and I was walking away with one picture. Dolly was captured on film by me but for others she was in their hearts...

When we left the concert I was shocked by the crowds of people waiting for buses or taxis, dressed completely normally and scowling due to people pushing past them and yet everyone of these people looked moody and self righteous but wearing their pink spangly cowboy hats. For one night only these people got on with their normal lives on the way home but under the guise of being Betty Sue, Tammy Jo and Billy Bob. I, however was going home as I came in ... just as Clare.... but now Clare the criminal, the rule breaker, the one who let the crowd down, the one with the past. I imagine I would not be allowed in the fan club now... maybe I'll start my own for other Dolly fans who are outlaws too... maybe she could write a song about it.

The pain of being kicked by a feather

2008-07-03T16:50:00.003+01:00

So I have officially met the most annoying couple in the universe today... I was on my way back from Coventry .... another story that I will fill you in on later today. Having arrived at the airport, hot and tired I waited in the ridiculously slow queue to check in on my flight to Jersey. I got the distinct impression this airport was not particularly used to passengers as they had to have 2 people on each desk. One vacant looking girl to look at your passport and print your boarding pass and then a drippy looking boy on each desk who had the very important job of putting the labels on your luggage!I asked for a window seat and glared at them throughout their job... inwardly and I accept probably outwardly sighing as though I was extremely short on time... even though I already knew my flight was in fact delayed and I was early. Although these people working on the desk were particulary annoying they had nothing on the couple that I spotted in the departure lounge...

As I sat down with my packet of crisps and my magazine I saw a girl walk past who immediately irritated my very soul. Let me just tell you how irritating this girl truly was at first glance. She had long blonde, just got out of bed in a very sexy way hair - not like when I get out of bed and I can't even run my fingers through for being so matted - but the kind of hair that my Grandad used to describe as looking sucked. Every hair is separated with lose curls. On girls who have this hair they spend a great deal of time flicking their hair in the faces of people behind them, pulling their hair round to the side to show off their tanned necks and twirling their hair in a kind of Oh i'm so cute way! However this was not the main annoying thing about her. She was my age and wearing white hot pants showing off her beautifully tanned legs which were long and enviable. Even this is not the main annoying thing! She was very aware of how good her legs looked and she "teamed" her shorts (Sorry just love that expression) with a pair of mid calf tan coloured ugg boots. Not the cheap £10 version from new look that I own - oh no the real ugg boots. Even this however was not enough to be irritating to the extreme irritation I feel! She was also wearing a mocha coloured jumper and carrying a beautiful perfectly new but fashionably worn looking prada bag. Out of this bag spilled hello magazine, perfumes and various beauty products. Jealousy you may think but I promise it is so much more than that. She was followed by her boyfriend.

Now let me fill you on this boyfriend... he was wearing expensive looking dark jeans on his relatively short legs. He had a black v neck t shirt that showed his unhairy tanned chest. But even this didn't annoy until I looked up at his hair. He too had wavy, sucked looking dark hair which was probably a style from a top london salon but from the back looked like an old woman's hair do after she has had a blowdry and set. As they stood near the gate before boarding yes I admit I was slightly irritated by their look but nothing could really make me dislike them without knowing them. They flirted and chatted and she spent a lot of time kicking her toned tanned leg onto the chair and pointing at non existant let's say grazes which her boyfriend (let's call him "the bonce") would then look at and rub. As we were called to board I was a little relieved that they were no longer in my sight. If people annoy me even slightly I develop a sick fascination with them. I stare, I watch, I take in every detail. I'll even move closer if I have to to gain some more insight into them so that I can be even more irritated.

When I got on the plane I looked for my "window" seat. When I arrived at 10F (my seat) who should be sitting in the seat but the bonce next to his girlfriend. I immediately said " oh sorry I think you are sitting in my seat". To which the bonce replied "oh it doesn't really matter does it?"As I fumed in my head... "well yes it does actually I asked for a window seat"... I replied "well it's my seat". "Yeh but there's no point us moving now is there? We're settled." I should point out she was already pushing up the armrest between them and lying on his lap!

I sat down in a huff next to this couple and she eventually sat up for take off and insisted on having her legs crossed so they touched mine and flicked quickly through hello magazine with her perfect finger nails. As she flicked her hair into my face and flicked the magazine pages over my magazine in my lap I wondered how hatred really starts to form.

I closed my eyes to ignore the couple as they hogged the window so I couldn't see out past their obnoxious hair styles. As we headed towards jersey the air stewardess brought round the duty free. As they approached I got some money out to buy something. I could hear them saying that there was only one bottle of the perfume i wanted left to each other. I turned to the girl for god knows what reason and said "did she say there was only one bottle of chanel left? " She nodded. As the duty free approached us the air stewardess looked at me and said "can I get you anything" to which the sucked hair girl replied whilst actually clicking her fingers "yes could i have your last bottle of chanel please". She was passed this and took it in front of my face whilst ordering 6 bottles of spirits for her and the bonce. I sighed loudly at the injustice of this and wanted to rip the perfume out of her hands. Instead I put my money away and told the airstewardess I did not want anything. As I sat back in my seat the girl lent forward to put her chanel in her prada bag and her ugg boot kicked me to which she promptly said insincerely "Oh i'm so sorry darlin!" Now of all the things for her to be sorry about the soft ugg boot kick was not the one! She could have been sorry for buying my perfume, letting her boyfriend nick my seat, hogging the window or just generally making her legs the main focus of the flight... but oh no! She was really sorry for kicking me with her soft, furry ugg boot... almost like kicking me with a feather. OW!

By the time we landed I could barely contain my annoyance as I scowled every time either of the couple breathed. When the seat belt signs went off she insisted on jumping up to get her other bag from the over head compartment which involved me standing up without even an excuse me from her and she promptly got her bag down, swung her hair in my face and then swung the prada bag over her shoulder catching my lip on the edge of it. No apology necessary.... remember she has already apologised for kicking me with her super soft ugg boot!

And so I got off the plane and went to get my baggage and the couple were across from me... I watched her splaying her legs all over the place as he kept kissing her head and every few minutes they would wave frantically at a person waiting for them through the doors. I found the sick fascination of their annoying beings taking over once again. Of course, their louis vuitton bag arrived before my tiny primark hold all arrived which intensified my feelings.

Now I don't know if I am jealous of the nice things they had, the tanned toned legs she displayed or if I just felt an immense overpowering irritation for this couple... all i do know is that by the time I returned home I was still feeling the irritation and wondered how two people with such big hair ever found each other... despite it all I suspect they were a perfect match. I however, hope I never see them again in this lifetime!

Summer, sleep and weddings....

2008-07-01T22:41:00.003+01:00

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!

You can't bank on it!

2008-06-30T13:07:00.005+01:00

I am not from a wealthy family... rich in love not in monetary terms. I should point out that one of my favourite sayings is "champagne dreams, beer money". I love this phrase because it sums up the kind of family we are. We know what we would like to have if we had the money. When we get a sniff of money, a hint that we are even getting some we have it spent in our heads together with any extra overdraft facility that we may get before we even know the figure. Even then there will not be enough money to fulfill the requirements! Once we receive the money within seconds it is spent, dished out and we are in debit before the day is out. Our debts remain the same and will have been added to and somehow we will have a new credit card that has exceeded the maximum.

Banks hate us... to be fair the feeling is mutual. My brother and I are similar personalities. We get a bit of money and share it normally leaving ourselves short. We both live away from our families so we immediately open our flybe/easyjet accounts and start paying for flights for various loved ones to visit us. We may even just give money to each other to pay for something rash or inappropriate. It is not uncommon for us to have a windfall and buy each other a used car, a couple of flights, a holiday even or even more importantly a new laptop. And this maybe... just may be the reason banks don't like us. We are risky customers.

Sure they like it when the money comes in, encourage us to borrow but yet are fickle and unloyal when we reach problems.

After various money transactions my brother and I spend the rest of our time paying each other back. Transferring money by Western Union normally involving the quick transaction of waiting in a long queue on a lunch time knowing that the other needs the money by 2pm, behind various people who are simply using the Bureau De Change. Then comes the hard bit... where will my brother be able to pick it up or send it from. He lives on the border of Southern and Northern Ireland and so you have to guess where he will be. If you guess the South you can guarantee he will ring you from Belfast and inform you that Western Union have no knowledge of the transaction. A quick 2 hour drive with irritated phone calls to mobiles ensues and he arrives just as the Western Union are either starting their training afternoon or are closing for the day. This means he misses his deadline... or I miss mine.

Regardless of this however banks have no sympathy. Our letters detailing payment plans are notorious. Our countless revised offers of these plans are met with little if no sympathy and charges are accrued by payments turning up just 30 seconds too late before that important cheque goes out.

One time my brother had fallen out with Barclays bank. This was due to charges and various other upsets that the bank did not take responsibility for. In a state of fury as I waited for him outside I could hear his raised voice, could feel the foul temper before he left the building and the words echoing through the halls of the bank and out onto the street "That's it! I'm through with your bank- close all my accounts!" I wanted to Rugby tackle him to the floor and gag him with his beautiful louis vuitton man bag.... bit like a folder with a zip that requires him to carry it under his arm like a woman's clutch bag. Instead I just nodded in agreement as he left the bank and started to walk quickly down the road swearing about the bank. And then I watched it... the realisation... the pure horror as the reality of what he had done hit him. I watched him look down at the cheques (personal ones which would take at least 5 days to clear and unfortunately there was at least one bank holiday and a weekend in between!) that he held crumpled up in his clenched fist.... "Oh great, bloody great! I've got no bank account! No one will even give me one now!".

I stepped in with a solution to solve all our problems. I had a spare account at Natwest which I had had since a child. He could use mine as we had the same initials. No problem! Confidently we deposited the cheques into my account and waited for the 8 days to pass before he had the money.... Disaster was averted. We treated ourselves to lunch. We talked about how I would give him the card for the account etc.

After a month or two I had handed my brother my cheque book which I had signed each cheque of so he could send off the cheques without discussing with me and pay his bills. All sounds like it was working doesn't it? Oh you fools! A day came when my brother asked me to go to the bank and see whether a cheque had been deposited. He gave me the cheque book as he did not have the card on him and I confidently strode up to the counter. The lady asked for the bank account details and without thinking I handed over the cheque book. As she flicked through the pages she noticed I had signed every cheque. She looked at me as though I was the biggest idiot she had ever seen. "What are you thinking? Have you signed every cheque?" As the embarrassment crept up my cheeks I snottily replied, "Yes was I not supposed to? It saves time when I'm writing cheques". After a long lecture about the dangers of this I silently cursed the queue who were scoffing behind me. When she thought I was suitably embarrassed she checked my account and discovered that there were charges and an unagreed overdraft. At least one of the cheques we'd deposited had bounced.

I was immediately glared at and asked to get away from the counter to discuss my account with a manager. After a whispered conversation between the woman and the manager I continued to stand tall and confident while my brother poked his head in the branch and mouthed "Y-o-u o-k?".

The manager took me aside and told me in no uncertain terms that I was not managing my account properly and they were closing my account with immediate effect. I was told to hand over the cheque book and return the card in the next 7 days. As I started to rant and rave of the sheer injustice of this all and even convincing myself that I was in fact a wonderful banking customer I was promptly asked to leave the branch before they called security.

As I arrived outside my brother muttered " They closed your account didn't they?" "Yep 'fraid so!". The reality really started to hit when I realised that previously that week I had kicked up a storm in Barclays about my own account and their inability to transfer my loan payment at the designated time (remember I had already spent this at least a week earlier in my head and now they were delaying it!) and had stormed out in a replica scene of my brother stating that "I want my account closed and I'm writing to the Ombudsman".

As we were left debating what we would without bank accounts my brother suggested Alliance & Leicester. We went in for our joint interview and walked out with new accounts and new credit cards. We even got a free (let's call it plasticy) looking wallet each to put our cards into. A few months later I debated why I couldn't sustain a banking relationship when they refused to change my address and so I was not alerted to being overdrawn by £7 and subsequently incurring £230 in charges before they took away my card and my account. My brother lost his banking facilities a week later with them.

The reality is we do have "champagne dreams and beer money" In fact some would say we have Champagne dreams and Pepsi money. The point is we are great at finding money and spending it....we just don't know why the banks have got it in for us!

Electric nights!

2008-06-29T20:40:00.001+01:00

The first flat I had on my own was a small studio loft conversion. It was charming in its basicness... it had a coin operated electricity box in the kitchen which regularly got the pound coins stuck in it and I would be left with no electricity all night until I could ring the landlord... who I might add regularly ignored me. Eventually when he did ring me back the instructions were intricate and long winded. This involved applying WD40 with a cotton bud. This worked with amazing results. The coins slid in with ease and the lights were restored.

Little did I know that this was a time when electricity for me was easy! Never have I had it so easy! The next flat I had was a one bedroom flat with separate kitchen, bathroom and a living room. I was really moving up in the world particularly when I opened my first electricity account in my own name with Powergen. I noticed that within a few months I was getting lots of bills of different amounts each month but as I had a direct debit set up I thought nothing of it. I was paying every month so there would be no problem. Oh how could I have been so foolish? Eventually people started to call from Powergen asking for money. I would calmly explain I was paying by direct debit each month and therefore owed nothing. By the 3rd week of these regular phone calls my patience was waning. Funny thing is I don't honestly know how I stayed so patient. I imagine it was purely because I knew the payments were leaving my account. I was in the right there was nothing for me to fear!

As time went on the phone calls became nastier and were followed by letters threatening court proceedings and final notices. Eventually my evenings were spent with my temper rising as I read the letters and waited on the phone in a queue to speak to an advisor in India or some other far off place. One evening as the sheer frustration welled inside me like a volcano simmering before eruption I waited on the phone for 3 hours to speak to an advisor. I thought about hanging up many times in the 3 hours but instead I refused to let it beat me. My heart beat got louder and quickened with every passing second and my face was getting brighter and hotter as I listened to Sade over and over on the recorded message. Never have I liked that woman's voice crooning since. Instead of being easy listening it drives me to a state of insanity! My leg started to shake as it did in exams and I started to have imaginary conversations in my head with the call operative. I decided in my hysteria that they personally were controlling my electricity supply! I hated them already. I was ready for war. The armour was there, the passion was lit, all I needed now was an opponent I could battle.

"The offices are now closed, please ring back on Monday to Saturday between the hours of 8am and 8pm." I heard this interrupt the smooth, dulcit tones of Sade but could not believe what I was hearing. Had my anger caused me to halucinate? Was I hearing things? I listened as the message repeated itself! 3 HOURS, 3 HOURS OF MY LIFE I WILL NEVER GET BACK! And now, now(!) the office was closed! I threw my phone to the floor and burst into hysterical sobs as I had no one else to argue with! How could they do this? How could they leave me with everything unsaid! I would have to start again tomorrow. I would wait ALL DAY if I had to! I would speak to someone and that person alone would be made responsible.

Another similar night followed. Feeling exhausted on the 3rd night I phoned. Weary and broken down I eventually got a nasally voice answer the phone "Powergen - How can I help you?" Voice shaking with anger and exhaustion I started to explain the situation. Suddenly the lady butted in and her voice had changed from a sing song voice to a woman abused or personally insulted. She informed me that I had 5 accounts open in the one property. Frustrated and whiny voice from me responded "Why would I do that? I have one flat, one account with you and one direct debit that I pay for each month". A short sharp reply followed " You can't just go round opening electricity accounts all over the place, turning lights on and off and not paying for your consumption!"My mouth opened in shock and heard all the things I should be saying in my head but from my mouth came the voice of a whiny teenager " I didn't! I swear it! ". I was told someone would call me back once they'd looked into it.

Two years later and having moved to another property my time with Powergen had been over for 18 months. The relationship had ended but the baggage came with me. Powergen continued for 18 months to refuse our relationship was over and refused to let me leave with dignity. They believed I had multiple electricity relationships with them and they had all found out about each other. I spent evenings of teary phone calls from my electricity company who were begging for me to give them answers and accept that we were something we never were! Eventually Energywatch got involved and I was sent an apology for my treatment. I could finally move on.

And I did. I went straight to British Gas for my electricity and my Gas at my first 3 bedroom property. Confidently I paid my direct debit and then a year later, out of the blue- I couldn't believe it! Look who was coming back into my life! Powergen had started to write to me again. This time for my house. I ignored it and ignored it and paid British Gas every month. Finally after various court notices I spoke to Energy Watch again. By this time 2 years had passed and I was now living in Jersey. Suddenly Energy Watch informed me I was getting a refund from British Gas as Powergen were the ones supplying the property. This couldn't be. How could I continue to be involved? I wanted out of this relationship. I felt as though I was under the spell of the Moonies or some other cult but this was an electricity company! They just kept bringing me back to them. Finally I got my refund and paid Powergen. Suddenly it was over. The end of an era.

Yet British Gas were now starting to get needy. They didn't want to accept that we had never been anything more than just acquaintances! They thought I had a relationship with them. In fact they were charging me for a another house on my road. Having discovered this I was given a swift apology. A few months passed and it started again. My stalker is back! My electricity company wants to be involved with me as I started to get bills again from British Gas- the company who never supplied me with Electricity. Cunningly I changed my correspondence address to my mothers as I feared that I may have a break down if I continued to see an envelope marked British Gas. My mother now rings me and breaks the news of yet another billl for electricity I have never used and for the property across the road from my old house which has the illuminations of blackpool as a replica in their front garden. I however, am looking into solar power for my next property or maybe a wind turbine... whatever it is there has to be a better way!

So British Gas and Powergen if you are listening... it's not you, it's me - IT'S OVER. I'm sorry I've moved on!

A picture... sometimes...lies!

2008-06-28T12:00:00.001+01:00

Once when I was little my mum said to me "What's wrong with you now face ache?" I should point out that I had been naughty and winding her up all day... she didn't normally speak to me like this but I remember the shock of her saying it! Since then however I love the whole concept... my face aching with moodiness. I suspect most may be traumatised by this but to be honest I've embraced it. Obviously thinking about my face actually aching with pain is a whole different idea and one which I do not care to embrace.

Recently my friend who does photography for a hobbie asked if she could take a few photos of my eye... weird idea I know but I agreed. As she moved the camera on it's tripod so that my eyelashes were touching the lense she snapped away and told me off for not opening my eye wide enough. When claustrophia set in she eventually moved the camera away and chatting happily went on snapping my photo but using my whole face. Irritation was rising and after a minute or two I said I'd had enough. Later that evening she sent me a picture of my whole face (it is the one you see here on my profile) and I looked at it shocked. My skin care routine was so successful. People always were telling me I looked younger than my age and I now realised why! I looked like I had no concerns in the world! My life had been blessed with happiness and a carefree lifestyle or that was the impression that my face cream with collagen had produced. I was thrilled with my wrinkle free face. How had I not noticed before the smooth texture of my youthful skin? I was tempted to forward it to Oil of Olay or Avon and force them for me to become the face of their products.

Minutes later I received an email... "Do you like the photo? I took the wrinkles away from your eyes, changed the colour of your skin tone and whitened your teeth". It occured to me that maybe just maybe I had been conned! I was confused...what an illusion! Or was I deluded? It couldn't be! This was the person I wanted to be not a wrinkled, tired looking 30 year old. She then sent the original photo and showed how she changed it. This was more of a shock then the previous one... the wrinkles were there - in fact I looked exhausted, pasty and like i'd had a hard life! Oh the shame that my life and general grumpiness existed through the smile on my face!

When I went to the Law Society to be admitted as a solicitor - I always find it funny that you are "admitted"... you get "admitted" into mental institutions or hospitals... oh yeh and law! - my whole family attended. My Dad had not turned up to anything else but arrived at this. At the end we decided to have a family photo... first one in probably about 20 years! The hilarious thing about this photo was that my father looked wealthy and proud. His chest was puffed out and pride and self appreciation made him tall and healthy. In the photo this was a man who had made it! The rest of us looked ill, pasty as if the sun had never touched our skin and tormented by life. My neice who is gorgeous looked like what I can only describe as a scrag bag. Forced smiles and an atmosphere of snottiness came through the picture! You know in the eighties english people had that look... think old Eastenders episodes. Everyone is pale and poor looking. Clothes looked market bought and the characters skin looked weathered. Acne was commonplace or if not then scars from previous bouts. A spot was never just a spot it was a boil. People looked slightly grubby and you imagined they might have a kind of musty smell about them. They also looked cold. As if the sunlight never warmed them up and that they always had a cold. You knew that they rubbed their noses on their sleeves rather than tissues. So now you have the picture. We looked like the cast of eastenders surrounded by a wealthy character who was my Dad. He would be the character who buys the Queen Vic and drove a Jag round the square. Not Ian Beale more like David Wicks.... So there you go my family photo was another con... I should point out that we are a clean family so the grubby ill look we had was totally unwarranted!

When I went on a nightmare holiday with a group of 10 girls they insisted we had a group photo done which would then be turned into a calendar. As they giggled with excitement I groaned as they stated it should have the caption the "Norfolk Broads". Things were made worse when the photo that they liked the best had me in it with my mouth open and my eyes shut. I tried to persuade them, argued that I looked terrible etc. Eventually to shut us up the photographer said "don't worry I can superimpose your face from one of the other photos on to this one. It will look great!" I doubted that! However it seemed like the only option that or a full scale war! One of the girls then suggested we had captions coming out of our mouths of the current holiday song which was being played in every holiday bar - "I'm horny, horny horny horny...so horny". I cringed as reality hit that I was a party to this tacky idea! When we later that day went to pick up the "holiday calendar" I wanted to cry! My head was so obviously superimposed on it looked like it was detached from the rest of my body. And of course the only caption on the calendar was coming out of my mouth in a bubble saying "i'm horny, horny, horny, horny!". The horror and the shame was too much to bear. Everyone loved the calendar and for the rest of the year every house I visited there it was - the calendar of horror!

Pictures can lie... my profile picture does... but why not allow it so that I can delude myself and others. I'm guessing you would all by shocked by the reality. The truth is out and it makes me mad... a picture telling a thousand words... hmmm don't think so ... my family don't live in Walford and the only words that picture was stating was this is not a true portrayl. And so the picture is not up in anyone's house.. instead it is ... actually don't know where it is and don't want to!!! I would rather just have the memory for that ocassion! Yes it's annoying that that is the only picture we have of the ocassion but who needs it!

Whatever happens you are not taking my sky dish!

2008-06-25T01:03:00.001+01:00

So the morning started as expected... I woke up to the sound of both my mobile phone alarms going off one after the other for a whole hour as I hit snooze on each one. No I am not a drug dealer I am just one of those unfortunate people who for some reason always has a mobile phone contract that she can't get out of... if i'm not spending £300 a month on phone contracts I am either in a coma or dead. Eventually I got out of bed in the usual way... close to tears and whinging. I have never grown out of the thing you do when you are a child where you whinge at your parents as soon as you wake up.

I jumped in the shower already realising that I was going to be late for work and stepped out of the shower onto the wet floor... my shower head has been spraying all over the floor for months now but my landlord has done nothing about it.I left the bathroom with a towel wrapped round me and immediately slipped in the water on the floor. I felt my hip crack out of its socket and felt annoyed that not only was the shower still leaking but that after 3 months I continued to slip every day.

I was out of the house quickly and ran...did i say ran.. i meant walked in a half comatose state to work. I picked up a latte and my trusty banana and walked into the office. I was greeted by numerous head nods and sat down at my desk.... I should point out that I sit next to my manager so she can keep an eye on me, below the air conditioning vent that has pigeons in it cooing all day and below the cctv camera... instinctively I roll up my sleeves... I don't know why but I have a thing about looking dodgy on cctv cameras and I immediately do everything in front of one like a magician proving that I am not sticking post its or envelopes up my jumper. I ran to court in my high heel shoes which squeak when I walk... did i not mention I am the poorest solicitor I know and new look shoes for £15 bought on line are the best I can do. Oh the glamour!I am sweating profusely... I use that word "profusely" as it always makes me laugh.... At the end of court I decide that I will work from home for the rest of the day... this is because I have bronchitis again for the second time in 2 months.. This means I have a constant temperature and have a hacking cough which even irritates me.

I arrive home ready for a quiet afternoon and the front door of my flat is open. As I walk in I spot two young men sitting in my living room.They told me they are here to fix the shutters on my flat.... these have been broken after a big storm 3 or 4 months ago in which waves from the beach....(YES YES I know I do live on the beach but I'll be honest I would rather have sky tv then a view!) or should i say the tsunami type waves were crashing over my balcony and hitting my windows. My mum was staying with me at the time and kept saying we must put our shoes on in case we have to leave the flat.... I remember thinking how ridiculous if I'm caught in a wave fully clothed fighting for my life the last thing i want on is shoes to slow down my swimming!

Anyway I immediately snapped at the work men and told them that I had received no notice of their arrival. I grabbed my phone and rang the agent who said I should have been told. After a ... let's call it ... heated conversation I sat down on my floor near my lap top to start working. The mere presence of these men irritated me and I was waiting for just one thing to push me over the edge. The agent rang... like an answer to a prayer to the saint of moodiness... to inform me that my landlord would also be attending the property today. I complained that I was ill and she informed me that she would ask him to put it off for another day. She then said that he would come on Thursday.... flip out averted.

I leaned over to turn on my tiny tv.... you know the kind you had in your bedroom when you were 14 that immediately lost the front flap and remote so you have to touch the tiny spindly buttons to change the channel. I wanted to put Mtv on to calm my nerves. I looked in confusion as the words " no signal" flashed up on my tiny screen. Irritation rising I glanced out the window and saw that there was no sky dish on the wall... looking down in horror I realised it was on the floor.

I flung open the patio doors and snapped at the men "Put my sky dish back up now". Response -" no can do, cut the wire, management agent don't want sky dishes up anymore!". I could feel it rising ... I couldn't control it and I needed to just go with it! "I've had no notice of this you will have to find a way to put the dish back up now!". at 18 years old this guy looked at me as if I was a crazed lunatic, "don't take it out on us- we are just doing our job- told to take it down." i started to rant and rave about how I paid for my sky dish and they couldn't just remove it... this was met with a smirk. At this point I did the only thing a self respecting lunatic could do and told them to get off my property. They could not complete the job and I wanted them away from my flat. They started to pack up their stuff as I unplugged the various things they had charging at my socket and throw it out the door. I slammed the patio door shut. As I did so I watched ... let's call him "the smirker" reach out to pick up my sky dish to take with him! Like a mother saving her child from falling I knew I had to protect the only thing that now linked me to the life I once had... the life where I had sky tv! I threw opened the door and like a crazed woman with my arms flapping lunged for my rusty barnacle encrusted sky dish shouting the words "whatever happens you are not taking my sky dish!!!" He tugged for a moment or two and then I think he may have realised that I was not someone to be messed with. He put it down and i returned to the flat while they continued to pack away muttering words such as "lunatic, jumped up bitch and who does she think she is" I immediately informed them that the window was open and I could hear everything they said. I told them to get off my property or I would call the police. They left and I rang the agent to rant and rave about sky and how I now had no tv channels. Ok so they didn't steal my kidney but that in some ways would have been easier to cope with... I have a spare one of those!

As I lay down on the floor ready to watch anything I could find on my lap top I started to fall into a deep sleep... I was then awoken by the sounds of 2 men talking on my back porch... Embarrassed to be laying on the floor I did what I think you will agree was the only acceptable thing to do and unashamedly gorped out my window. I could see it was the landlord and another man talking about my flat. I had been told he would not attend.... but why was I suprised. I knew they had seen me lying on the floor and rather than be embarrassed I decided the best option was to moodily close my curtains whilst staring at them as if they were ruining my meditation. They looked shocked and I lay back down in privacy.

Then the child outside started to bounce his ball against the concrete. I woke up thinking that chinese torture was being done on my head by the shutter guys... no it was just some annoying kid who found the ball bouncing comforting. .. I however felt like pushing my head through my patio door purely as a way of showing the world how upset I really am... how irritating life is... and most of all how I'm not afraid to show it.