Musing on meat and burglars: Conversations with The Boyfriend

Missing Meat.

The Boyfriend: (on spotting sausages in the fridge) So it’s over then?

Me: What’s over?

The Boyfriend:  No meat week.

Me: excuse me?

The Boyfriend: Yeah – I’ve been craving a bacon sandwich all week, and I've realised it’s because we’ve had vegetarian food all week.

Me: Come on, that lentil curry was lovely.

The Boyfriend: Oh of course. Just not as lovely as say – a chicken curry.

Me: Love, you had black pudding yesterday.

The Boyfriend: So I did.

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If I had a hammer.

Lounging in the bedroom, front door bangs with the wind.

Me: Oh, don’t worry it’s just the burglars.

The Boyfriend: Well if it is, I've got protection.

Me: What?

The Boyfriend: Yeh, the other night I thought I heard someone breaking in, so I got a hammer – it’s under the bed.

Me: Right.

The Boyfriend: I’ll show you. (reaches under bed and produces hammer.)

The Boyfriend:  But don’t worry – I put some tacs down there too – so if ever anything happens and I have to use it, we can just say that I’d been hanging pictures.

Me: That’s alright then.

The things we do

 I have signed up for boot camp. This is wholeheartedly out of character for 3 main reasons.

1.       I do not like being told what to do.

2.       I do not like being shouted at.

3.       I do not agree with group punishment.

And group punishment this is. We assemble in a local park. White van men yell helpful encouragement such as ‘left-right-left right’ through their windows as they drive past. We run, squat, lunge and burpee – all hideously painful torture techniques designed to make women realise that the perfect body is definitely not worth this level of effort.

We leap up and down. I watch women’s bottoms wobble furiously and jump higher. Because it is damp, we are inadvertently ‘bringing up the worms’ in a kind of mad exercise worm -dance.

We must now ‘drop and give him 20.’ I am horrified that I am paying good money to be given this kind of instruction, but not quite as horrified as when I find I have my hands and face in wormy wet grass.

I am now rolling around in mud. Actually rolling - as I do a press up, and then flail around on the ground until repeating. My hoodie has grass stains on the elbows. I am inhaling grass and wondering if we have any Vanish stain remover left under the sink.

Oh shit, I’m going to be sick.

That would be really embarrassing. Luckily someone has already thrown up by the tree. But she is hard-core and has now resumed the jumping squat. I would have to go home, and never return.

I am not sick.

I do not like burpees. No-one has ever looked back on their life and thought ‘I wish I’d done more burpees.’ I think wars might have started over enforced burpees.

And then it is over. I limp home – damp, yet victorious.

I walk in the flat and am so hungry that I eat an entire lump of cheese straight out the fridge. I have walked wet muddy grass all over the carpet and created a damp patch from my large wet bottom on the sofa.

If only I had energy left to clean.

Email is evil

Last week I attended a talk by Tom Chatfied, on ‘How to Thrive in the Digital Age.’ It was part of an event by the School of Life. You should check it out – I’ve put the web address at the bottom – but for now, back to the point, this talk by Tom Chatfield.

One of Tom’s throwaway comments was, ‘I’m not saying email is evil – although I could make a pretty good case for it.”

And it’s got me thinking.

Email. Bloody email. Let me check my email. Email me. Did you get my email? The sender of my email wants a read receipt to prove I read it. This email has a red flag and has been deemed urgent. Your inbox is almost full. 

Have you ever asked yourself: what does email want? This might sound like a silly question; email - after all  - is not a thinking sentient being with needs or wants? Or is it?

The conclusion I have reached is quite simple: EMAIL WANTS YOU TO SEND MORE EMAIL.

Reply. Copy everyone in. Forward. Blind copy. (naughty) Reply to the reply. Empty your inbox – only to fill up everyone else’s. Why phone? It takes five seconds to accomplish in an e-mail something that takes minutes on the phone. Shun conversing – who needs words like hello and goodbye or to have to pretend to have some semblance of interest in the person on the other end of the line?

No me neither.

Suggest a lunch date? I’ll need an email to confirm that invitation. Thank you very much.

I have 112 unanswered e-mail messages. Every time I start to reply to one a new e-mail icon bobs up and down and I’m compelled to check whether anything good or interesting has arrived. It hasn’t. 

I replace conversation with smiley faces which express my emotions in dots and brackets. I accidentally send a smiley face to a colleague. I fail to respond to a red flag.

Sorry, but Rachel is offline and will not be responding to her emails. She has concluded they are evil.

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The School of Life have a website http://www.theschooloflife.com/

I’m sure they also have an email address, but you’ll have to find that out for yourself.

Injured in action

I've sustained an injury.

If I told you that I’d sustained this on my first training run you wouldn’t believe me. You’d think I was making it up for a witty ‘silly old me’ blog post. The problem is that I’m not making it up.

I’ve done something to my foot. This does not sound too serious until you realise that the walking process relies heavily on really being able to put your full weight on your foot. If you do not do this, your knee develops an injury too.

By proxy I've hurt my knee.

And it was going so well. I ran 1.8 miles according to my Nike app. I say ‘ran’, I mean I survived. Ok, so I had to sit on a bench by the river for a couple of minutes after a mile, and yes I was somewhat thwarted by a stitch in my right side. And fine, I walked a bit. BUT, it was my first run and as I felt the bottom wobbling was under control, I had deemed it a success.

I should have known the next day I would be unable to walk, let alone run. 

This is not my first exercise related injury. I have a weak ankle after a mountaineering sprain. A dodgy knee from a previous attempt to run places. And I’ve never quite recovered psychologically after falling off a cliff whilst abseiling.

I should probably just stay at home. Safe and sound.

For now I’ll hobble off to see someone who knows what’s wrong with it, and will eat cake and curse the day I ever considered self-improvement.

Do not disturb

I’m an introvert in disguise. To those who know me this may come as a surprise. I like to chat, laugh loudly and appear, to all extents and purposes, to be a sociable being.


But it’s not true. It’s a facade. No, at the core, I’m utterly anti-social.


I need time to retreat, recuperate, restore the energies I am constantly depleting. I am always charging around, doing something – at work, with friends, and all the points in between.


And every now and then I crack. I flee. I swoon dramatically and announce in a manner not dissimilar from Greto Garbo, “I want to be alone.” I need to barricade myself in the house – every door, window, curtain shut against the outside world – and press myself into the farthest corner of the sofa. Me and my book. Perhaps some alone time with the Wire box-set.


I love social interaction. Really, I do. But for me it’s the quality, not the quantity of social interactions that really matters. And, however weird it seems to you extroverts out there,  I really do enjoy my own company.

 Besides, you're never alone with twitter.

So enough of your jibber-jabber. I need rest,  recuperation and peace and blooming quiet.


Maybe I won’t close my doors on the world quite yet — but although I’d love to stay and chat, I’m afraid there’s a book at home that isn’t going to read itself.

A little holiday magic

I have just returned from a week’s holidaying.  I went to France where it rained and, owing to taking food with us, we ate Tesco cheese and drank Spanish wine. Philistines, I know.

The rainy days got The Boyfriend and me reminiscing about one particular holiday of note.

Our holiday in the Caravan of no Comfort.

Times had been tight. It was a Sun £9.50 holiday. You know the one where you collect the tokens. I remember the paperwork arriving. There were several upgrade options available. My then housemate, 'Big Dave', talked me out of parting with any more money.

“Rach it’s a con. You’ve bought the cheap holiday and now they’re trying to tempt you into spending money. (He read the paperwork) Look – it’s double the price. Don’t do it.”

I have still not forgiven him for this advice. 

The caravans that are given to the people who have collected the Sun tokens are not the ones you see in the brochures. No, they are the ones that were decorated (and last cleaned) in 1971.

A week’s rain on the roof of a caravan is relatively annoying. Especially when the bed is so hard you cannot sleep. And so narrow you cannot turn over for fear of going clean through the caravan wall.

The sofas were so narrow you could not sit on them.

The kitchen was so small that The Boyfriend almost set it on fire whilst cooking. Who knew kitchen roll was so flammable? Luckily it flew with ease out of the very small window. (Regular readers - yes, this is the same one that likes to torch pork chops during the night – I really should learn.)

The only thing on this holiday that was not small was the vast amusement arcade where hundreds of winking, bleeping, slot machines competed with the psychedelic carpet for our attention.

But don’t worry, all was not lost.

Seeing an illusionist fail to make his assistant re-appear at the Cabaret show made it all worth it.  All £9.50's worth.

PS. I know you’ll be delighted to hear that the Sun’s token holidays are still available. The bad news is that they’ve gone up in price. 

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.