HOLIDAYS taken, 1; Mountaineering injuries, 2 (Mama’s flask and my longest nail); Norwegian parties crashed, 1; (Bad) Peter Kay impressions attempted to impress Bolton visitors, too many to mention; Brushes with the law, 3; Brilliant sequel of inspiring singleton’s film watched, 1.
First of all if you haven’t already seen it — go and see Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. There can’t be many who have not already seen the first one, but if you haven’t, catch up. You have no excuse — it was on TV at the weekend.
Bridget’s back, yummy Mark is still yummy and the delectable Daniel Cleaver is as daring, dashing and dirty as ever.
I went to see it last weekend with my college roomies as a perfect start to a not so perfect birthday night out for one of them.
We had it all: Fights with ex boyfriends; accusations of ‘kitty’ thieving, drink-spilling, stair-falling, table-dancing, bouncer-rowing, drunken-crying/shouting/swearing/name calling, taxi evictions, missing friends, voice losing: the list goes on.
It was one of those nights that all you can do in the morning is laugh until your Mariella Frostrup voices have run out.
My morning-after-the-night-before suffering friends was very sorry, both for herself and for the way she’d behaved to me the night before. All I could do was laugh — something that hadn’t gone down well the previous evening.
Was I really going to survive a road trip in some of the most remote parts of Scotland with her the following weekend?
Yes — at last the mini break I’d dreamed of, inspired by Ms Jones herself had materialised. OK so the company wasn’t what I would have chosen (thinking Hugh/Daniel or Colin/Mark would have been more suitable) but it was great all the same.
After planning to go everywhere but, my city friend and I left Thelma and Louise-stylee on a road trip through the Highlands, packing everything from our thermals and waterproofs to our sunglasses and Destiny’s Child CD.
It’s a pity we didn’t manage to meet Brad Pitt in the way like Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis did, but we did fall in with a group of visiting Norwegian music students at an impromptu folk session at the foot of Ben Nevis.
When I say we, I was left attempting to speak to the really mad but endearing Liv (Leevie to her new found friends) who was not unlike Betty from Emmerdale, and her husband Erling (known now as Irving Berlin), while ‘Thelma’ acquainted herself with the very beautiful (‘you should be a model’ type) Kenroger. Although his name was written similarly to that, but probably with an ΓΈ or two, it sounded nothing like that of the great bearded one.
After three renditions of Islands in the Stream, he still didn’t know who were talking about, so we gave up trying to explain who his namesake was. I say we, but you could still hear my friend’s voice in the cold Ben Nevis night air hours later. It was enough to make stranded mountaineers stay where they were.
That day we too donned our walking attire and attempted to scale our neighbouring peak.
One climber shouted: “Now I’m going to show off” as he ran past.
It’s always worrying when people say things like that, especially if you are half way up the Scotland’s highest peak, and it’s snowing, and the only chance of help in the near vicinity is two townies who have already stopped three times for a cuppy.
The same two had the day before got lost on the Aviemore Orbital path and ended up ‘trespassing’ in the Scandinavian Village next to the massive Macdonald hotel resort which takes up half of the town.
This was the same two who later hid underneath a bridge with a bottle of very cheap and very fizzy wine, eating chips out of spoke, and trying to avoid a passing police van and CCTV cameras of the local ‘nitespot’.
It sounds worse than it actually was (honest) but it’s just the kind of thing that happens when we get together.
Talking of getting together — didn’t I say I thought it would be a bad thing if me and my favourite ex saw each other again?
Since our ‘reunion’ I have hardly heard a peep from him, this being bad considering we spoke nearly every day before his visit. I completely understand why — because he is otherwise involved — but those of you who have been in a similar situation will know it doesn’t make any easier when there is a very acceptable and intelligent reason behind people’s actions. Or in this case inactions.
I shall remain an aloof, unavailable ice queen until the moment comes that her realised that I’m his Bridget Jones.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Crying, waiting, wishing, hoping
I LEFT work for lunch today, after battling to finish another Singled Out column. However the original one was far too confusing for even myself to understand.
Think yourselves lucky you’re not being dragged down with all the crazy details of my love life, documented in the original.
The lightning bolt of inspiration came from two groups, one of each sex, hanging around in town until it was time to trudge back up to school for what was probably to be another uneventful afternoon.
The girls, all ponytails and eyeliner, were attempting to match-make for one of their friends. Said friend then attempted to act like she didn’t know or want them to do it, even though it had been planned like a military operation since form class three weeks before.
Cue nervous giggling from the girls when the boys shouted back that the answer was yes. Knowing how these things work, that would probably be how the relationship would be until he worked out just exactly which one he was now betrothed to.
On the other hand, the girl would skip back to school, imagining her new surname, leaving the boy struggling to remember hers.
I’m not totally cynical. I know a few people who met like this at school and are either still together, or enjoyed a long and happy relationship.
I also know a few who met at school, didn’t see each other for years, only to meet up and fall in love all over again years later.
Every time I buried my head into the cushions thinking about my favourite ex over the weekend, Mama chanted: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
I tried to explain that I’ve been absent from him for four years; I don’t need to grow any fonder.
Yes, my pondering paid off and the big reunion which had been promised for several months happened last week, with startling results.
We spoke of our his-and-hers feelings for each other and cut ourselves up over distances and other obstacles in our way.
It was so good to be in his arms again, and to know I was in his thoughts, after all this time. But I knew he was in a very new relationship and so didn’t want to put any pressure on him. I had nothing to lose — except him.
Leaving him at the train station was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It was the big romantic moment I’ve yearned for, but I wanted it to be so different. Absence indeed.
The trouble with my city-based girlfriend is that there is not enough distance between her and the ex who she will always love, no matter what he does. I feel if she did distance herself he would realise he wanted her back. But he knows how and she is weak.
Another friend is an ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ success story.
She met my college neighbour back in the day and instantly felt a connection. The trouble is she was too committed to another friend who was very vocal in her admiration for this species.
Years later, they met randomly in a nightclub and have now been living together for more than six months. The down side to this is she’s now finding out just what her mum went through living with her.
I can vouch for her not being the most tidiest person in the world. This weekend I think she left half her suitcase all over my bedroom floor and half a packet of noodles all over my kitchen.
But at home with her man she is of the view that it’s not acceptable to leave three-day old plates in a sink of cold, dirty water because you want to watch the football or play the guitar.
She says: “I’m in no way obsessive. I can quite easily finish my dinner and leave my plate next to me for hours. I do also have a slight problem with putting my clothes by and so the bedroom can sometimes resemble a giant jumble sale.
“But like most people, or actually most women, I have a level on the untidiness scale that I can’t let my surroundings drop below. If something will attract insects and/or make the place smell, I want it moved.”
Unfortunately, her boyfriend has no such level: “I can come home from work and find him quite happily sitting amongst old food boxes, empty bottles and wet towels. Then when I start to tidy up, he says: ‘I’ll do it in a minute’.”
“Now, I said those exact words to my mum and dad (who was very tidy actually) and I know that I really did intend to do it in a minute. Or after watching repeated repeats of Buffy, or painting my nails, or after New Year. And I realise now they knew that too, which is why they got so annoyed.”
Now it’s got to the stage when even if he tidies up, she knows it’s only to stop her going on about it for a few hours, and that she’ll come home tomorrow to find the living room scattered with the potential contents of her bin.
“And that’s why I have to pre-emptively nag,” she explained: “It’s just a bid to hammer home the tidying up message.
“Before I begin hammering things into his head.”
Think yourselves lucky you’re not being dragged down with all the crazy details of my love life, documented in the original.
The lightning bolt of inspiration came from two groups, one of each sex, hanging around in town until it was time to trudge back up to school for what was probably to be another uneventful afternoon.
The girls, all ponytails and eyeliner, were attempting to match-make for one of their friends. Said friend then attempted to act like she didn’t know or want them to do it, even though it had been planned like a military operation since form class three weeks before.
Cue nervous giggling from the girls when the boys shouted back that the answer was yes. Knowing how these things work, that would probably be how the relationship would be until he worked out just exactly which one he was now betrothed to.
On the other hand, the girl would skip back to school, imagining her new surname, leaving the boy struggling to remember hers.
I’m not totally cynical. I know a few people who met like this at school and are either still together, or enjoyed a long and happy relationship.
I also know a few who met at school, didn’t see each other for years, only to meet up and fall in love all over again years later.
Every time I buried my head into the cushions thinking about my favourite ex over the weekend, Mama chanted: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
I tried to explain that I’ve been absent from him for four years; I don’t need to grow any fonder.
Yes, my pondering paid off and the big reunion which had been promised for several months happened last week, with startling results.
We spoke of our his-and-hers feelings for each other and cut ourselves up over distances and other obstacles in our way.
It was so good to be in his arms again, and to know I was in his thoughts, after all this time. But I knew he was in a very new relationship and so didn’t want to put any pressure on him. I had nothing to lose — except him.
Leaving him at the train station was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It was the big romantic moment I’ve yearned for, but I wanted it to be so different. Absence indeed.
The trouble with my city-based girlfriend is that there is not enough distance between her and the ex who she will always love, no matter what he does. I feel if she did distance herself he would realise he wanted her back. But he knows how and she is weak.
Another friend is an ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ success story.
She met my college neighbour back in the day and instantly felt a connection. The trouble is she was too committed to another friend who was very vocal in her admiration for this species.
Years later, they met randomly in a nightclub and have now been living together for more than six months. The down side to this is she’s now finding out just what her mum went through living with her.
I can vouch for her not being the most tidiest person in the world. This weekend I think she left half her suitcase all over my bedroom floor and half a packet of noodles all over my kitchen.
But at home with her man she is of the view that it’s not acceptable to leave three-day old plates in a sink of cold, dirty water because you want to watch the football or play the guitar.
She says: “I’m in no way obsessive. I can quite easily finish my dinner and leave my plate next to me for hours. I do also have a slight problem with putting my clothes by and so the bedroom can sometimes resemble a giant jumble sale.
“But like most people, or actually most women, I have a level on the untidiness scale that I can’t let my surroundings drop below. If something will attract insects and/or make the place smell, I want it moved.”
Unfortunately, her boyfriend has no such level: “I can come home from work and find him quite happily sitting amongst old food boxes, empty bottles and wet towels. Then when I start to tidy up, he says: ‘I’ll do it in a minute’.”
“Now, I said those exact words to my mum and dad (who was very tidy actually) and I know that I really did intend to do it in a minute. Or after watching repeated repeats of Buffy, or painting my nails, or after New Year. And I realise now they knew that too, which is why they got so annoyed.”
Now it’s got to the stage when even if he tidies up, she knows it’s only to stop her going on about it for a few hours, and that she’ll come home tomorrow to find the living room scattered with the potential contents of her bin.
“And that’s why I have to pre-emptively nag,” she explained: “It’s just a bid to hammer home the tidying up message.
“Before I begin hammering things into his head.”
