In Good Company

Every time I go back to my home town of Wolverhampton, I look forward to seeing the school girls. These are friends whom I have known since the age of 11, and together we lived through pre-ghd hairstyles, dreadful boyfriends, and several years of PE in ‘navy pants.’ 

Nowadays it seems as natural to discuss the bank’s base rate as it does the best place to get your foundation. Anyway, you know you’re getting on when one of you says:

“Look at that girl without a coat.

For the record she also didn’t seem to be sporting much of a skirt.

Does she not realise it’s November?

Longing look at bare arms.

Remember when we didn't wear coats?”

Much hilarity was enjoyed. In fact, we almost certainly ruined the Friday night dinner of several couples with our raucous behaviour.

I thought I’d share my highlights.

On Parking.

Friend 1: “You know I’m a bit worried about my car.”

Friend 2: “Why’s that?”

Friend 1: “Well I parked it somewhere that said ‘clamping in operation.’"

Friend 2: “why did you do that?”

Friend 1: “ well I was driving to my work’s car park, but then someone else’s work car park was nearer, so I just dumped it there.”

Friend 2: “Right.”

Friend 1: “Yes and the sign said clamping was in operation – but what kind of clamper works on a Friday night? It’ll be fine.”

Friend 2: “This sounds worryingly like the time you parked in the bay reserved for charging an electric car in Birmingham.”

Friend 1: Laughs “Oh god”

Friend 2: “Yes you had 2 lovely tickets for that one.”

Friend 1: “You know I remember that I couldn’t believe my luck getting such a good parking spot. I’d been driving for ages and it was so convenient.”

Friend 2: “Wasn’t there a sign?”

Friend 2: “Turns out yes. And a big, well, flashing plug. I thought how handy it was to have an emergency i-phone charger in the carpark.”

I am pleased to report that the evening passed without a clamping or ticketing incident.

On being born in the 1990s.

Friend 1: “My ex has got a new girlfriend.”

Friend 2: “Oh no, I’m sorry love.”

Friend 1: “No, it’s fine. Well, it’s not fine, but I wrote a poem about it today.”

Friend 2: “A poem?”

Friend 1: “Yes.”

Friend 2: “Dare I ask, what about?”

Friend 1: “Well her twitter name game me a clue about her date of birth.”

Friend 2: “You’re stalking her on twitter?”

Friend 1: “Not stalking no. Researching.”

Friend 2: “Oh that’s alright then.”

Friend 1: “I know. Anyway. Turns out, she’s young.”

Friend 2: “Uhuh.”

Friend 1: “Yes, so the title is ‘Born in the 90s.”

Friend 2: “Have you ever thought you might have missed your calling as a feminist beat poet?”

Friend 1: “Now you mention it….”

So if you were in Made in Thai in Wolverhampton on Friday night, that was what we were all laughing at.

And if you weren't, you can read about what happened on one of our previous meet ups here.

On approaching adulthood

“I believe that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”

                                                                                                               Margaret Atwood

This quote is written on a card on my desk. It was a gift from a friend who often hears me utter the phrase, ‘When I grow up..”

Well, in a worrying turn of events, I fear that I may, without me having even noticed, grown up.

Let us examine the evidence.

1. I live with a boy
2. I pay bills like ‘rent’ ‘council tax’ and ‘electricity.’
3. I have a dedicated ring-binder that contains the paperwork related to the above.
4. I have a real professional job where I am required to wear smart clothing and keep my hair neat.
5. I listen to radio 2.

On Life

Which leads me to the important question – what do I want to be when I grow up? I’ve included this image before, but I love it so much and it seemed relevant to include it again. Happy. I want to be happy. 

Someone who knows first hand about helping people to find out what this means to them is Michelle Woodhall, who likes to dance, has an excellent fringe and whose business is all about helping people discover the life they want to live.

She’s a life planner, which is different to a life coach or a councillor, “I support my clients to work out what their dreams are in a gentle and effective way. Rather than focusing on goals, I work to uncover passions and dreams and then find ways to incorporate the things that would make them happy into their life.”

She tells me that most people know deep down ‘what they want from life’ but most are putting it off until they retire.  

UNTIL THEY RETIRE. So, the way things are going, by the time I reach retirement they’ll be no such concept, and even if there is, there’s far too much of a risk I won’t get there – what with all the red meat and good living.

No, I’m definitely not prepared to wait that long, and the way I’m getting on with the office printer, I probably won’t last the week.

So what do I want life to be like when I’m a grown up?

I’d like:

More time outside

The chance to write more

To live near the beach

To see friends and family more often

To travel more

To live in a cottage with wooden floors and a brightly coloured front door

Perhaps with Michelle’s help, I can make it happen. You’ll just have to watch this space.

If you’d like to explore your dreams, feel stuck or fancy doing something different, you should check out Michelle’s website here.

Early nights and veg

Can I ask you a quick question?

 

Am I boring? 

Just tell me if I am. I can take it, honestly.

Yesterday The Boyfriend said the following:

“Life with you is all early nights and (long pause) veg.”

Early nights and veg?

I’m 28. This does not sound good.

I mean it’s probably true that since our shacking up The Boyfriend’s vegetable intake has increased. We do eat a lot of broccoli.

And yes, ok, I like eight hours uninterrupted sleep. As I have a job to get up and go to, this usually involves going to bed somewhere around 11pm.

But does this make me boring? Isn’t this what everyone does?

Am I eating my five a day and getting enough sleep whilst everyone else’s week is packed full of nights on the town and riotous merriment? I went out two nights in a row last weekend, and it’s taken five days of quiet time to recover and restore my equilibrium.

Nowadays I’m more likely to be worrying about how I will dry the towels, (an ongoing saga) the cost of electricity, or when the optimum time is to exchange my tesco vouchers.

But it’s ok.

By getting enough sleep I am keeping myself well in body and mind. If you never eat any vegetables you will encourage particularly horrible cancers to take up residence in your body and you might die. I am avoiding this by eating my daily broccoli and, in turn, am prolonging The Boyfriend’s life. He should be grateful.

Anyway, the good news is we’ve found a solution to the towels.

We kiss over our new drying rack.  Fade-out. End.

Is it really inevitable?

This weekend I was accused of ‘turning into my mother.’ The crime in question was my suggesting that I might postpone leaving the house until the washing machine had finished.

This in indeed something my mother would do.

I foolishly thought that I had a few years of independent thought and deed before that one hit me. In fact I thought I had 4 good years before I knew the exact way to hang up washing, iron a shirt and where exactly the scissors were at any given moment.

I say 4 years because Hallmark have been doing some research – no doubt rigorously conducted by team of sociologists and qualitative research teams that they have on hand at all times – which has revealed that 32 is the age at which women turn into their mothers. This disturbs me more than a little.

Whilst we’re on the topic, I do also keep finding myself involuntarily tidying. Whole evenings are suddenly being lost to this hidden art. Tidying is a relatively new discovery for me, and something I have previously considered quite a waste of time. My mother has an altogether different opinion of tidying.

I grew up in house where spillage was a serious crime, shoes were swiftly removed at the front door, and if you left anything unattended, even for a moment, it was swept into the dishwasher/ washbasket / bin. Like every good child I rebelled wholeheartedly against this.

I have been known to leave a case fully packed until the next holiday rolled around. I have thrown pans into the dustbin because I could not face removing the scrambled egg burnt onto the bottom. I have been out and bought new underwear to avoid laundering. (In my defence on the final one, I did not have a washing machine in my own home.)

All of these things would result in serious tones of disapproval from my mother.

Of course many of my mother’s traits are apparent. I’ve got the ability to witter on, the financially ruining love of shopping and the compulsion to always take fresh products in the supermarket from the back of the shelf and check the sell by date.

But when do I get the good stuff? The efficiency, the managerial competence, the discipline, a life free of chaos? My mum doesn’t need to watch a ‘how to change a lightbulb video’ on you tube before she attempts the task. When do I learn to do DIY without first scouring the internet?

The good news is that I did in fact leave the house before the washing machine had finished. I decided that life is short, and whilst I would love to have a home that is immaculate, and a laundry basket that never overflows, I’m just not quite ready to put in the appropriate level of effort.

As for the scrambled egg pan, I haven’t had to throw one of those out in a while. Not since the discovery of non-stick you’ll understand.

 

A Mid-Youth Crisis

I have always wondered what I would do when I grew up.

Today, a work colleague told me that I really needed to write a will. This made me worry on two fronts.  Firstly, do I look ill to you? And secondly, and most disconcertingly, does this mean I have suddenly fallen into the grey and murky territory of being a grown up?

A friend posted the following as her Facebook status this week: ‘Lucy knows she is finally an adult because she thinks that dreadlocks are gross. When did that happen?!’

Lucy, I don’t know when it happened.

It wasn’t that long ago that I bleached my hair so many times it snapped off and had no self-imposed rules about the times of day that drinking was appropriate.

Nowadays my boyfriend tells me I dress like a mum. A ‘trendy yummy mummy’ he adds, but a mum none the less. 

And now you mention it, I am going off pubs with loud music, like to get 7 hours decent sleep as a minimum and own a waterproof jacket. (I can’t yet admit it’s a cagoule, but come on readers, I do live in Scotland?)

What is happening to me?

I recently read that the reason adults ask kids ‘what they want to be when they grow up’, is because they’re looking for inspiration. I liked this idea. We all had a dream of what being a grown up would be like, and I often wonder how many of us actually pursued our dreams of being astronauts or Blue Peter Presenters.

My career ambitions and plans for grown up life have progressed something like this:

Aged 5, quit ballet lessons after 4 weeks. The school hall was cold and the teacher mean. Career in the National Ballet finished before it could even begin.

Aged 8, holding lessons in my bedroom, giving difficult spelling tests to teddy bears and awarding gold stars accordingly.  Desperate to be a teacher. (As the child of two teachers this stage was inevitable. Over the following 20 years they have totally beaten this desire out of me.)

Aged 12, discover TV show Silent Witness, and long to be Dr Sam Ryan, a clinical pathologist.

Aged 15, find my natural leaning is not towards science and that I cannot even bear the gore of Casualty. Perhaps cutting open dead people will not be quite what I’m expecting. Back to the drawing board.

Aged 16, complete one week of work experience at my aunt’s solicitors' practice. It is mind numbingly dull. She mainly speaks into a dictaphone and passes this to her secretary. Conclude that law is not for me.

Aged 17, following a successful foray into GCSE graphic design, a career in art is the future. Changing Rooms is all over the TV, so an interior design company it is. Enter into discussions with a school friend, and the brainchild ‘Corbishley-Brown Design’ is born. When I thus suggest I might study interior design at university, my grandparents are almost shocked into an early grave.

Aged 18, absolutely no idea what to do with my life. Take the obvious choice and study English Literature and History of Art at university. My, how useful that has been. Happy side effects were: happiest years of life, the discovery of g&t and reading as a full time pursuit.

Aged 21, manage to avoid the path of university friends into one of the following careers: 1. Accountancy 2. Management consultancy 3. Auditing 4. Law 5. Teaching. Unfortunately am living at home and working for a Life Coaching Company. There is a weekly group ‘pat on the back’, ‘nominations’ for the staff members who have gone ‘above and beyond’, and a staff lottery drawn from the ‘box of luck.’ Is this what working life is like? I am living The Office and want a refund on my degree.

Aged 22, decide working for a living is overrated. Travel.

Aged 27 ½ (Present Day) Am being told I need to write a will by a colleague.

This is the same colleague who recently saw a photograph of me in my University days and gasped at how young I looked. The only thing keeping me from ending it now is the fact that I got ID-ed in the supermarket yesterday.

Have concluded that office life is not for me. Googling ‘How to become a Blue Peter Presenter’ has become a daily occurrence. Am upset that my year is mapped ahead of me by a list of who is on milk duty for each week of it. The last time I was on milk duty was back when I was awarding pupil of the week to my teddies.

That’s it, I’m taking action. Things are not panning out how I’d intended and I’m not prepared to stand back and watch myself turn into a grown up against my will. The cagoule is going in the bin, I’m revolting against the milk rota and cranking up the radio volume.

And as for what I’m going to do when I’m a grown up? Well, we’ll worry about that when I get there.