Navy Pants: A conversation with a school friend

Hannah: I saw on your blog that you’re going to run a half marathon - well done you. I wish I could do something like that.

Me: Gee thanks, but you totally could too. Come on, do it with us. (Have already become running evangelist and bore when unable to run one mile.)

Hannah: No really, couldn’t do it. Not a runner. Can’t run fast enough. In fact, run at half the speed of Usain Bolt. (Seems very specific quip)

Me: What?

Hannah: Yes, I remember when I ran the 100 metres at school in 1996. It took me 18 seconds. Usain can run it in 9.

Me: Doesn’t seem that slow to me.

Hannah: Well that was when I was 12. I'm not sure could maintain that speed now. Anyway -you would say that – you ran it in 14.

Me: 14? (Wonder how I have forgotten this fact and mourn missed opportunity of athletics career.)

Hannah: Yes, 14 seconds. I remember thinking how fast you were. I also remember you doing the long-jump and falling face down into the sand.

Me: Oh. (Imaginary athletics career comes to abrupt end.)

Hannah: Do you remember the navy pants?

Me: Yes. I have still not recovered.

(Navy pants were the gym briefs our school forced us to wear for athletics. Our all girls school field shared a fence with the local comp. Our lunch breaks fell at different times, which meant our athletic attempts were often witnessed by large crowds of the neighbouring school. Who heckled. The school told us it was character building.) 

Hannah: Ah, it was character building.

Me: If you say so.

Hannah: You know this half marathon, you’re running it with Nat aren’t you?

Me: Yes.

Hannah: Oh, it’s just that I can remember her in athletics too. Yes, I remember her doing the 800 metres and throwing up at the end of it.

Me: Great. (we’re both going to die and will never make it.)

Hannah: You know, you could always run it in navy pants. 

Fair weather jogger

I have agreed to do something unthinkable.

I have signed up for a half marathon. This really is remarkably out of character, and the only reason I am writing about it is to ensure that I don’t shamelessly bail out. 

Dear reader, please do not think I am becoming one of ‘those’ people. You know the ones – they wax lyrical about how wonderful running makes them feel and use words like ‘free’ and ‘rush’ and ‘relaxed. I feel none of the above. I feel only sweaty, red in the face, and closer to death than I’d ordinarily like.

No I am not one of those people. I rarely feel the need to push myself, experience any kind of burn or commit to punishing schedules. In fact, now I am wondering how I can get out it - I do have an old knee injury come to think of it.

In January a friend announced that he was going to run the Great North Run this September. He has just emigrated to Australia. I wonder if I will go to similar lengths to avoid my ordeal?

Surprisingly this will not be my first race. A few years ago I ran a 10k. Well I say ran, jogged is a far more representative verb. Anyway, at the end of the run (no doubt due to endorphins and hysteria) I felt like I could have kept going. Please remember that it is very easy to say that you could have kept going once you are wrapped in tin foil and sipping lucozade. It is on this hunch, 3 years ago, that I ‘could have plodded on a little further’, that I have signed up to run 13 blooming miles.

This is a disaster.  

                            

I will be humiliated as my bottom wobbles in my joggers. I will become a running bore who is only able to talk about ‘distance tracking’. I will probably have to do a little more than download the Nike Plus app and buy a new running bra. But that can wait until tomorrow, I've made a start at least.

On Nagging

“You don’t know what you are letting yourself in for,” The Boyfriend’s mother told me when he moved in.


She was right. I didn't.


The Boyfriend produces a vast quantity of crumbs. To the point where I have begun to wonder if maybe he is a loaf of bread.


He keeps leaving windows unlocked – posing a serious risk of burglary. The other night he set the smoke alarm off at 3am due to a pork related incident.


I do not ask questions. But instead huff back to bed when I discover there is not, thankfully, a fire.


He tells me the following day that he thinks he ‘got off lightly for that one.’

Because to comment on being awoken at 3am, by the smoke alarm, owing to unattended grilled pork could only be the act of a NAGGING WOMAN, couldn’t it? 


Women get most of the bad press when it comes to rowing. Men, if we are to stereotype, occasionally explode in fury. Women are more frequently annoyed by so-called minutiae. We are ‘apparently’ the ones who niggle and poke and prod and berate all day… We are the ones, in short, who nag.



So why do we nag? Well, frankly it’s because we can see, in blinding clarity, the consequences of your actions. If you leave the window open and we are burgled, we will not be insured and will have to replace all our stuff. This is upsetting, expensive and completely avoidable.


So is burning down the house.


So Boyfriend, the next time I advance at you with a list of complaints, I am not trying to moan, nag or otherwise berate.


Rather I am trying to keep us alive.


Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some crumbs to tidy up. We don’t want rats now do we...

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.

In defence of libraries

I am writing this post from the library. I know, I know,  I have broadband and a laptop at home - but my local library does not have laundry to be done, floors to be hovered and daytime tv to distract me.

It just has lots of lovely books.

The library I am in right now, at 4pm on a Friday afternoon is in Leith, (a relatively colourful part of town,) and it is packed out.

I remember going to the library as a kid. Long Knowle Library was a small red box of a building, near to my primary school in Wolverhampton,  that smelt a lot like bleach. And in that library I remember attending writing workshops in half term, idolising Roald Dahl, and discovering the joy of being allowed to take 5 of these wonderful books home with me.

I had books at home too. A whole bookcase full of them. I so loved the library that I turned my own bookshelf into a library. Each book was coded up with a piece of paper stuck with sellotape onto the spine and could be borrowed by a friend. A Winnie the Pooh book-plate was proudly stuck in the front cover of each: ‘Rachel owns this book.'

I remember Stephen Charles borrowing my beloved ‘Please Mrs Butler’ book of poems. He tippexed on the pages. That was the day my library closed.

The closing of my bookshelf library in 1992 was no disaster. The closing of our communities’ libraries is a very different matter.

Sitting here, on this PC that I am using for free, I look around. What are the other adults doing here? I look at the two men either side of me. They are jobhunting online. 

On the other side of the computer bank are a group of adults working with a library employee. Eavesdropping reveals that this is a CV clinic.

A gentleman from the local council is in the foyer to answer resident's questions at a drop in clinic. 

Kids are coming after school to borrow books. Horrid Henry is a popular choice. 

3 out of 10 children in the UK do not own a single book. There’s no coded library bookshelves in their home. But here, in this small library in Leith, they can come in and borrow books. And books, let us not forget, open the doors to new worlds, people you’d never meet, thoughts you never believed possible. They fuel the imagination.

So Mr. Cameron. Please stop closing our libraries. For the communities that need them the most, libraries offer a place to look for jobs, to seek advice, to be part of community, to access books.

Every library that closes only acts to remind us that the gulf between the haves and the have-nots continues to grow, and that should be worrying us all.

Otherwise engaged

There comes a moment in every late twenty-something’s life, when she looks around and realises everyone is getting married.

Last weekend was my moment.

The University besties are happily hitched (you can read all about always being the bridesmaid here) but in my school friends I had hoped that we had a few years yet.

Seems not.

For on a Friday night,  whilst catching up in our favourite curry house in Wolverhampton, drinking beer from a wine glass, one friend casually said: “So, ladies, what’s the etiquette on engagement rings?”

I almost choked on my aloo gobi.

Turns out, said friend and her partner are in discussions about this very matter. And she is non too pleased with his views on the ring. “He said he was going to spend £500. I mean £500?”

Seems he doesn’t know that one to two months' salary is the norm for these matters. Although it might be worth mentioning that this norm seems to stem from De Beers' marketing department, who I’d say have a somewhat vested interest.

“Oh no I quite agree,” added another friend (apparently planning her engagement this summer) “It’s one month’s salary, or £1000: whichever is greater.”

Friend B’s fiancé to be is soon to qualify as a doctor. My advice to him is: BUY THE RING AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE before your salary sees a dramatic spike skywards.

“But how can I tell him that £500 isn’t enough, without sounding, well, like a snob?”

By now ‘soon to be doctor’s wife’ had put away several wine glasses of beer, and had the perfect response.

“Just say, (adopts sinister whisper) £500? F**k you.”

Perhaps this seems a tad on the harsh side in the sober light of day.

But my friends are not alone. Getting married is synonymous with haemorrhaging cash.

The engagement is just the beginning, for thereafter lies the interrogation about the ‘big day.’ “Will you have a big wedding?” they will ask, looking at you as if you have become a giant living cashpoint. What they mean is: will you pay for 300 people to hate your wedding dress and whisper about your back-fat?

No, I wouldn’t either. 

The average cost of a UK wedding is £21,000. £21,000. Why, oh why, would I spend 21k on a wedding, when I’m trying to buy things – like, oh let me think, a house!

Call me selfish, but the idea of eloping for a two person ceremony followed by a fabulous five star holiday sounds like a far better option to me.

Whichever way I look at it, spending 20 grand on a wedding for £2000 of John Lewis goods is bad economics. I’ll buy my own toaster, thanks.

So ladies, I’m afraid I can’t agree with you on the ring. Surely it’s just the love that counts?

Although saying that, if anyone ever buys me one from Elizabeth Duke, I might have to reconsider my position.

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Finally, I hope you’ll allow me to close with the words of a fellow Wolverhampton-er, Caitlin Moran:

“Perhaps we should just junk the whole idea of getting married in the first place. I’m generally against anything where you’re supposed to change your name. When else do you get named something else? On joining a nunnery, or becoming a porn star. As an ostensibly joyful celebration of love, that’s pretty bad company to be in.”

If you haven’t read Caitlin Moran’s: How To Be a Woman you really should. 

Rach does TV: A week of documentaries.

It’s been a busy week.

This week’s Coppers was the last in series, and saw a gentler method of policing in the sleepy Scottish Highlands. In fact, it was so sleepy that a former Glasgow copper told us that when he first moved from the inner-city, ‘I thought my radio didnae work.’ 

No mate, there’s just no crime.

So in Pitlochry, which made the town from Heartbeat look like Downtown LA, we did get to witness a Saturday night drug bust. One lad, caught outside the local pub was in possession of a small amount of crack. Luckily, he was caught in Pitlochry, and as such benefited from the ‘slap on the wrist’ approach to drug-crime. Turns out the coppers knew the lad’s family, so as long as he headed straight home, avoiding the pub on his way, they’d say no more about it.

Right.

Tuesday saw the controversial Channel 4 Documentary, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, which this week featured surprisingly few weddings. Of course there was still ample airtime given to large dresses, fake tan and ‘bling.’

This episode focused primarily on the plight of the girls in the gypsy communities, highlighting the fact that very few stay in school beyond the age of ten or eleven. Mary, an 8 year old preparing for her first Holy Communion, seemed to have never even heard the term GCSE.

One teenager, Angel, offered a glimpse of hope for the whole of womenkind. She had continued her education in the hope of a life beyond child-baring and housewifery. The tragedy was that she was bullied by both sides for her choice.  Her school peers excluded her as a pikey, her community couldn’t understand her choice.

For the rest of the girls, the future held marriage, babies and bleach - a life of semi-servitude at the beck and call of men who rarely seem to deserve it.

And finally, last night saw Making Bradford British.

This much publicised documentary declared itself to be an attempt to discover what "Britishness" is and whether multiculturalism can really be achieved.

So what happened?

Less than one minute it, and over his pint a ‘gentleman’ barks, “If a dog’s born in a stable, it doesn’t make it a horse does it?” I can only assume that in this intellectual metaphor the dog was a ‘non-white’ person and the horse was the essence of being ‘British.’

Brilliant, best get a bigot in the opening credits I always think.

8 people, all of whom were born and bred in Bradford, and all of whom had failed the British citizenship, were put in a house together.

“I cannot think how any intelligent, rational person can be a racist,” said Maura, a posh 66 year old magistrate. No Maura, neither can I. Cue talk of ‘paki-bashing’ and arguments about trips to the mosque.

“The colour of your skin is absolutely irrelevant, but if you’re a dick head – you’re a dick head,” was Maura’s forceful conclusion.

And I couldn’t agree more, but all in all people got on. Because through conversation and compromise came understanding.

Until next week of course, when they’re moving into each other’s homes and communities, and I’ve got a funny feeling the dick heads might be out in force.

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For twitter commentary on all hard hitting (and less hard hitting) channel 4 documentaries, follow me @brownrach