Surgery

As I write, I literally have a head full of fluff. Not ‘literally’ as it has come to mean, whereby people actually mean ‘figuratively’. I really do have a head full of fluff. I am not sure what it is made out of, but am reassured by the surgeon that it will dissolve over the next few days. I also figuratively have a head full of fluff, brought on by the same reason, ergo the surgery, which is making this blog rather harder to write than usual. The super strong painkillers aren’t helping matters.

It’s hard to believe right now, with a head full of gunk and weird fluid coming out of my nose, that this will make a difference. I hope it will. The anaesthetist enthused about the operation, he said he’d had the same thing done 10 years ago and it ‘changed his life’. I am tired, headachey and grumpy. And I am HUNGRY, But eating is a vile experience which makes my nose bleed and I can’t taste anything anyway.

The only reasons I am even writing this week is because I am stubborn and bloody minded and resolved to write every Sunday.

I have had health problems for most of my life. Never an incredibly robust child (perhaps due to poor eating habits…) over the years I managed to collect a huge range of allergies (cats. dogs. horses. trees. flowers. grass. dust. several varieties of anti-biotics. the list goes on.) I suffered regularly from bouts of tonsillitis and sinus infections but despite growing up in the 80s where many of my peers had their tonsils and appendixes taken out for a cough, for some reason mine stayed resolutely in situ. It wasn’t until I was hospitalised at the age of 27 with the worst case of tonsillitis of my life (I actually thought I was dying) that they finally came out.

After I had the operation, which in of itself was fine, the recovery was probably one of the worst experiences of my entire life. I was in agony pretty much constantly for a month. I was sure that when I was little and friends of mine had theirs out it was all about missing school and watching cartoons and eating ice cream. It turns out that when you’re an adult it’s all about being signed off work, looking after yourself and having to eat toast and drink water constantly even though swallowing anything is like swallowing broken glass.

At a post-operation appointment I was told that I would also need a sinus operation, as while finally ridding myself of my enormous septic tonsils (the surgeon at the time couldn’t get over them. They wanted to keep them as a training aid) would help prevent recurrent bouts of tonsillitis I’d continue to struggle with my allergies and headaches.

What I didn’t do at that point was pro-actively get on with arranging that operation. What I did do was move house, forget to make a follow up appointment, and quietly dropped the subject, conveniently forgetting all about it. Looking back I wonder if this was a reaction to the horror of recovery from the tonsillectomy. It had been such a dreadful experience perhaps I simply wasn’t capable of putting myself though it again. I also did still suffer from horrible throat infections - nothing as bad as before but the disappointment of discovering that you can still get throat infections without your tonsils was a disillusionment I should have been, but wasn’t, prepared for.

Fast forward. Because we can do that in a blog, the effects are cheap. Just imagine some wiggly-wobbly lines. I have a boyfriend, Mr RDP, who is thoroughly fed up with my constant colds, allergies and headaches. I can’t remember the point at which he snapped, but there’s always a point of snapping when a relatively well person just can’t understand why the other person isn’t Just Well All The Time. WHY? WHY do you have colds ALL THE TIME? WHY ARE THEY SO BAD? And out it came, the information that 8 years ago I was referred for an operation which would, in theory, alleviate much of the suffering and I’d never followed it up because…because…wait, there was definitely a good reason. But after 8 years, I can’t remember what it was.

Mr RDP, being a fan of nagging (he has occasionally blamed his not getting things done on my failure to nag him enough) nagged. And he nagged. Each week he asked “so, have you asked for that referral?”. So I did, just to stop him nagging, which just goes to show that nagging works.

Due to some quirk of the NHS, I had been waiting almost a year for the tonsillectomy 8 years ago. When I tore my knee off last June playing roller derby it took over 6 months to get a diagnoses (“well, you appear to have torn your knee off. But it’s getting better on it’s own.”) For some reason this referral sped through the system. Within a month of the referral I had a scan, and within 3 months of the scan an operation date. And today I sit here, 2 days after the operation, unable to breath or chew or swallow or sleep with a head full of some sort of dissolvable fluff.

There was a minor setback; when the surgeon came and looked at my scan he hummed and harred, wondered away and wondered back with a new consent form, explaining that going by the scan they were going to have to do rather more to me today than I’d originally been admitted for. He must have seen the look of horror on my face as he said “don’t worry, it’s still not as bad as having your tonsils out. And it will make a big difference in the long run”. After the operation he explained carefully and in detail exactly where all the new holes in my face were. Unfortunately I was still coming out of the anaesthetic and now have no idea what he said.

I have to admit, it’s no where near the pain and the agony of the tonsillectomy. As long as nothing touches my nose it doesn’t even hurt that much. It’s just thoroughly uncomfortable and icky. The first relief came when I was able to shower, which I wasn’t allowed to do until 24 hours after the anaesthetic, as I was acutely aware that there was blood in my hair. The painkillers are strong and Mr RDP is looking after me - despite the fact I am a terrible patient. My head does feel lighter, and I am looking forward to the second week of recovery where hopefully I’ll start to feel more normal.

It would help if Mr RDP was also learning BSL, as it’s really difficult for me to speak. Despite my enthusiasm in practising on him the only signs he’s picked up are those for ‘bullshit’ and ‘fart’ which isn’t so useful when I am trying to say “my head hurts please can I have a cup of tea”.

Things I learned this week

  • The NHS are fantastic. I knew this already, but it’s always good to have a reminder.
  • When being admitted to hospital it feels really rather excellent being able to answer the “how many units of alcohol do you drink a week?” question with the answer “none” instead of a lie.
  • I am definitely not one of nature’s bakers.
Comment baking, i am a disaster area, Me Me Me

Undomesticated Goddess

“Cooking? Gardening? Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?
And before you ask Dad for help just remind him about when he thought our Brussels sprouts were cabbages gone to seed…”

This was a comment left by Mother DinosaurPirate on my Facebook page today, in response to a post I made asking if people could identify the plants in our garden from a photograph, so that I knew which ones should be pulled up and which I should leave. She was shocked enough to learn from this blog that I now eat vegetables and make pancakes, but the news that I obsessively vacuum before people come round to our flat and that yesterday I decided, completely of my own volition, to make cupcakes has perhaps made her wonder if I have been taken away by aliens and replaced with a clone.

Interestingly enough when I was very young I had a sort of invisible friend (actually I had several, but that’s perhaps a whole blog post in its own right…) who was my own identical twin sister. I called her Elizabeth. She came out to play whenever I put on a particular princess dress made for me by my Grandmother; when I put the dress on I became Elizabeth. I am sure most children, when inventing their own identical twin imaginary friend, would cast themselves as the good twin and the pretend one as the bad one. Surely that’s the whole point of an imaginary friend.

“Who drank all the medicine?” evil twin. “Who took all the icing sugar out of the cupboard and poured it into puddles made by an overflowing sink in the kitchen to make ‘sugar pools?” evil twin. “Who convinced family friends’ children to leave the house at 3am and play on a thin ice covered lake?” evil twin. Makes sense. However I was not most children and clearly hadn’t thought this through at that stage as I cast Elizabeth as the good twin, and myself as the bad one.

What sort of ridiculous child invents an imaginary twin sister then makes HERSELF the evil twin? It’s true, I was a chaotic, untidy, wilful and stubborn monster of a child. Nonetheless I’d put the sparkly princess dress on and suddenly became helpful, tidy, polite and eager to please.

“Could you tidy your room RockStarDinosaurPirate?”

“I’m not RockStarDinsosaurPirate. I’m Elizabeth. RockStarDinosaurPirate made all this mess, but I’ll tidy it.”

“Will you help me to make dinner RockStarDinosaurPirate?”

“I’m not RockStarDinsosaurPirate. I’m Elizabeth. RockStarDinosaurPirate is naughty and never helps. I’ll help”.

And so I’ve grown into a somewhat chaotic, untidy, wilful and stubborn adult. (I have started to suspect that one of the reasons I’ve managed to not drink for so long, and possibly one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed it so much is because so many people said it would be impossible, and I am stubborn enough to be determined to prove them wrong.) The floor has been where I keep my clothes, documents are filed in their envelopes all over my desk and I’ve always had a regiment of bottles in the shower where I buy new toiletries without quite finishing the old ones but never get around to throwing them away. You’ve already read about my cooking skills.

Since we moved into our new flat however some hidden switch seems to have been flicked. I can’t bear the sight of washing up not put away, or dishes in the sink for more than a day. I am constantly pulling cushions and throws back into place over the sofa making tutting noises and bemoaning how the carpet seems to pick up fluff and fibres just a day after I vacuum. I put my possessions away in places I’ve decided they belong and leave little passive aggressive piles of Mr RPD’s possessions on his side of the bed. Last weekend I even bought weedkiller and enthusiastically set to the garden with a trowel I found in the shed, digging out all of the moss and grass in between the stones of our little back garden. I have left the borders, as I have no idea whether the plants in there are weeds or real plants, hence my Facebook request for help. I did spend some time in a local Stuffmonger (you know, a shop that sells lots of stuff, mostly cheap, 60% useful. As oppose to a Niknakerist, which sells lots of stuff, mostly overpriced, 99% useless.) staring at packets of seeds before I slunk away, enthusiasm waning, as I realised seeds have instructions on them considerably more complicated than ‘put in earth. keep sort of damp’.

With guests coming round, the flat pleasingly tidy and a new BBQ purchased (yes, it’s only early Spring and we’re not even into clocks forward times; but we’ve persevered with BBQs in late summer in gale force winds and torrential rain so we’re not going to let little things like early sunsets and chilly evenings stop us) and with Mr R D P happily marinading large amounts of meat, flush with my recent Pancake Success, I decided to make cupcakes. Friends offered some easy recipes for a beginner and a Google search found some easy ones on the internet. I decided on a Nigella recipe which was designed to be really straightforward for children. Then I got distracted by the sidebar ‘related Nigella recipes’, which linked to Maple Buttercream Cupcakes with Bacon Sprinkles.

1 - I am vegetarian

2 - I wanted to make dairy free cupcakes

3 - I don’t even know what buttercream is

therefore it was entirely logical that these were the cupcakes I wanted to make. Being an avid fan of the Great British Bake Off I am aware that baking requires precision and demands that the recipe be followed exactly and to the letter, and that you concentrate on getting the bake right. Therefore it was entirely logical that I swap all the dairy ingredients for soy ones, use wholewheat flour and vegetarian bacon bits and that I watch the Men’s Roller Derby World cup while I baked. I discovered after the cupcakes came out of the oven that a muffin tin is a necessity when baking…

Multi-tasking, yo
Oops.
um. yeah.
Decoration is everything

I covered the cupcakes in silver glitter frosting spray and THINGS FROM SPACE in the hope that they would distract people from the unconventional shapes, and then accosted our poor dinner guests as they arrived. “HELLO, welcome to my flat. LOOK I made vegetarian bacon cupcakes. They don’t bounce like the ones I made 5 years ago. They look kind of crap. But also ROCKETS AND STARS AND SPACE. Please eat one and tell me what it’s like!”.

Bless my friends, and their tolerance for my whims. Every single guest had one. One guest ate TWO. All guest declared them delicious. After allowing about 45 minutes to observe any ill effects (rashes, vomiting, death etc) I braved one myself and bugger me if they weren’t actually really tasty! The texture was weird because you can’t sieve wholewheat flour properly (or maybe you can but I haven’t the patience) but apart from that they were genuinely pleasant to eat. I am definitely going to try again. Hopefully that won’t put friends off coming round.

Next - to send photos of the plants in my garden to garden-savvy friends (and to my Dad - should be safe enough seeing as I don’t plan to grow sprouts or cabbages) for identification so that I can start making the garden a beautiful place, rather than just a bit of concrete with some weeds.

Perhaps rather than aliens replacing me with a clone, I am finally managing to merge the good and evil twins into one person. I’ll never be truly tidy or organised like Imaginary Good Twin Elizabeth; but I’ll settle for being neat enough and being able to make passable cakes that taste nice. And I do so like being chaotic and wilful.

1 Comment baking, i am a disaster area, Me Me Me, the garden

It's the glass that counts, not what you put in to it

This weekend was a big test for my continued sobriety. A combination of a full social calendar and a most unseasonable weather forecast I suspected that my resolve would be sorely tested. I will admit, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. As Friday evening approached I knew I was facing two of my biggest drinking weaknesses:

  1. The Free Drinks
  2. The House Party

1 : The Free Drinks

I work for a local authority. We don’t get work dos, or christmas parties, or client lunches. Our money is your money, so we can’t have big jollies at the expense of the taxpayer. The oft repeated mantra at work is ‘spend it like it’s your own’. Once a year however we put on a celebration for the Foster Carers who work for our borough.

Foster Carers do, in my opinion, one of the most difficult jobs in the world, and they do it for very little pay. It’s a 24 hour job, particularly with children not at school. There’s no lunch break, no 25 days holiday, no bank holidays off. The children they care for are often quite traumatised and need patience and understanding. I am not sure I could do it. A celebration to say thank you is something even the hardest hearted of taxpayers surely can’t begrudge. I support the management team of the fostering service, and along with joining them for dinner I had the pleasure of helping decorate the room, set out flowers, hand out raffle tickets and badger the technical staff until they turned on the glitter ball.

Before the dinner there was a drinks reception, with Prosecco, and we had some wine on the table for dinner. Up until the point when the doors opened and we started welcoming the Carers I thought I’d be fine - I didn’t want to get drunk here. I was at work. I needed to keep my wits about me and represent my department and more importantly some Big Important End Of Level Bosses were there and falling on my face in a pool of tax payer purchased Prosseco in front of senior managers is probably a sacking offence.

When the waiter offered up a tray of shining champagne flutes to colleagues and carers while I took a tumbler of orange juice I felt like a child sitting at the naughty table. When you are wearing a pretty dress and a feathery fascinator and your best make-up and jewellery it just feels wrong to be holding a big heavy tumbler as you play hostess and greet guests. On a whim, I asked if I could have a glass of cranberry juice in a champagne flute. My request got me some odd looks, but as if by magic I felt so much better. I was too busy helping run the event to de-construct why that might have been, but for the rest of the evening I used a wine glass for my table water while the others drank wine. I didn’t feel any lack of confidence and found it perhaps easier to get up and dance and talk to people I didn’t know when I was feeling more confident that I wasn’t going to trip over my dress and slur at them.

2 - The House Party

Feeling great the day after a do with a free drinks reception is one of the big bonuses of being booze free. I was able to be up early and Get Things Done; things which included joining a walk for International Women’s Day. It was a wonderful event, with a great sense of community. Afterwards I joined some of my fellow participants for a pub lunch. It was a beautiful day - unusually warm for March which enabled us to sit in the beer garden - all of my lunch buddies chose fruity ciders which sparkled in the sun. Inspired by my experience of the day before I asked for a wineglass with my Elderflower Pressé. It got some funny looks but again I was able to forget I wasn’t drinking and got on with enjoying my day. I enthusiastically endorsed the Soft Drink In A Wine Glass tip as if it was a tried and tested method.

Before the house party I met up with some old friends for dinner and chose lime and soda again insisting on a wine glass. I was starting to realise that the wine glass was deeply psychological. It felt completely different. It wasn’t just about my drinking companions feeling more comfortable about my being sober because they knew I wasn’t drinking - but somehow it was easier for me to forget that I wasn’t drinking. I was able to just enjoy the company and the conversation without constantly feeling different or on the outside. Somehow a wine glass just feels classier, nicer to hold, easier to drink out of and somehow makes whatever is inside the glass taste nicer.

It makes sense if you think about it - after all, there’s a REASON people drink wine out of them rather than from, say, a giant Sports Direct mug. I was most nervous about the house party - but by the time we arrived everyone else was drunk enough to either not notice or not care that I wasn’t drinking, and there were two other people who also weren’t drinking. One just for a short break, but the other gave up alcohol a few years ago and IS STILL COOL. I have several friends who don’t drink and ARE STILL COOL and whenever I have a wobble or feel like a bit of a loser I remember N and C and how DAMN COOL they are and feel confident again that perhaps I too can be cool and sober. Well, sober anyway.

It was at the house party I started to have a bit of a revelation about my drinking. I noticed that whenever my drink was empty I wandered to the kitchen to re-fill it. After the third or so time I was looking at the options (soda water, a weird squash you will hear more about in a future blog, mango juice or water) and I didn’t really want any of them. It wasn’t that I wanted a vodka or a mojito; it was that I wasn’t thirsty. Why had I gone to get another drink? It was clearly out of habit! I was at a house party, my glass was empty, so I needed to re-fill it. Suddenly it clicked into place why I get so astoundingly hammered at house parties - because whenever the glass was empty I’d get another, regardless of whether I was thirsty or drunk enough or barely coherent. Having a drink in your hand seemed so much more important than having a drink.

Upon that realisation I put my glass down and rejoined the party, deciding to only drink when I actually wanted a drink. I made it til the early hours of the morning before I started flagging. Fortunately for me most of my friends appear to be entirely charming drunkards, and it wasn’t a case of needing to escape lary behaviour. I was simply at a point where I’d had a lovely evening and was ready for bed.

On the walk home Mr RDP (who had been drinking like a champion, safe in the knowledge I’d be able to carry him home) and I discussed the habit of constantly refilling the glass at a party. He wondered whether it was partly to do with being slightly socially awkward (although I suspect many of my friends would admit to being somewhat socially awkward) and having a glass in your hand gives you an ‘out’ to a conversation when you run out of things to say. “Oh look, my glass is empty, I’d better get another” is better than “I have run out of conversation. I’m going to go this way now”. Normally I would have thought that being sober would make conversation harder because sober I’m so terribly dull. But being sober at the party I actually found conversations more interesting - I had a longer attention span, and could really focus on people’s answers. Once I’d realised I didn’t need to constantly have a drink in my hand I settled down more and paid attention to trying to enjoy the party, not just the drinking.

I am starting to discover that the clumsy, awkward, charmingly scatty person that I think I am when I am drunk is actually pretty much the person I am sober. The only difference is the false confidence of the alcohol, stripping away your inhibitions because you can blame stuff on being drunk. Being unable to blame falling over or getting mixed up in conversation on being drunk means that I am having to learn to be more mindful of what I say, how I react, and also to develop a better ability to laugh at myself when I say stupid things or fall over or knock drinks out of people’s hands. If I say or do something stupid I have to own it there and then and either apologise or get over it, and then get to wake up in the morning and not have waves of anxiety - false alcohol driven over-confidence takes its payment in the form of double the shame the next day.

I started the weekend wondering if I’d make it to Sunday booze free, but instead discovered that I don’t need to have a couple of bottles of wine inside of me to feel better about myself, or to feel like I am fun or interesting. In fact, I don’t even need to have wine inside the wine glass. Drunk me is sober me, but with fewer memories and a sore head in the morning. Lime and soda in a wine glass is lime and soda, but COOLER.

2 Comments Drinking

Can't cook, shan't cook

This weekend I made pancakes. This sounds like such a simple statement, right? Millions of people make pancakes in March for pancake day. People make pancakes all the time. They aren’t really particularly complex. The thing is, I don’t. I am in my mid thirties and I have never made pancakes. In fact, I don’t really cook at all. I’ve ‘helped’ other people make pancakes. I ‘help’ Mr RDP cook often. ‘Helping’ generally means chopping, stirring, getting ingredients all over the floor and eating the tastiest raw ingredients when the person cooking isn’t looking.

I have in the past set fire to kitchens on at least 4 occasions. Two of those were within the same week, in the same kitchen, setting fire to something I’d placed on top of the grill while using it to cook veggie sausages. One was trying to make toast under the grill and forgetting. Others generally involve forgetting that I am heating something up, having wondered away and seen something shiny.

I have cooked meals for past partners so bad that they’ve suggested we get takeaway instead. One ex loves to bring out the hilarious tale of how, early in our relationship, I asked if he wanted some food before we went out to a club. I returned from the kitchen with 10 vegetarian frankfurters on a plate and a bottle of ketchup. Another enjoys reminding me of the time I tried to made a veggie spaghetti bolognese but didn’t rinse the sieve properly and the whole dish tasted of Fairy liquid. I tried to make cupcakes once for a charity bake sale. They tasted like jelly beans, with a not dissimilar texture. They bounced when you dropped them.

My inability/reluctance to cook, or in fact eat much at all, goes way back. I was a picky eater for most of my early years, working out rather early on that ‘moo cow’ and ‘baa lamb’ were both the cute animals outside my window and the meat on my plate. From that point on I would only eat meat as long as it didn’t look like meat, which meant that my diet consisted of processed things like chicken nuggets and fishfingers. I would also refuse all vegetables, convinced that I did’t like them. I’d only eat melted cheese. I didn’t like crunchy or crispy things as I didn’t like noisy food.

As I grew, my diet became more limited as I discovered what a ‘vegetarian’ was and started to insist I wanted to be one. It reached the point where the only things I would eat was soup or pasta and sauce. When after years of badgering Mummy Dinosaur finally capitulated. “FINE you can be a vegetarian. But seeing as you don’t like vegetables you’d better learn how to cook, because I’m not cooking separate things for you. What are you going to live on? Soup?”. And thus from the age of 13 to the age of 23 I pretty much lived on condensed soup and pasta, with the occasional veggie sausage. At university I would make a big batch of condensed-soup-pasta on a Sunday night and eat it throughout the week.

This continued up until I moved in with a close friend who, after several weeks of watching me eat nothing but pasta and veggie sausages, snapped and made it her life’s mission to get me eating vegetables. Each week she’d cook something delicious, place it in front of me and wander off. “Eat it, or don’t. But at least try it, because I cooked it for you so if you don’t eat it you’re basically a massive dickhead”. Within the space of a month, I discovered a whole new world of vegetably things that were actually tasty. Spinach! Peppers! Red Onion! Leeks! Who knew. I started to wonder why I’d refused so steadfastly as a child to eat all of these things, and how that stubborn refusal had turned in adulthood to a belief that I hated vegetables.

My inability and/or reluctance to cook certainly doesn’t come from the paternal side. My Dad’s family are part Italian - food is important. It must be tasty and plentiful. My Dad is an excellent cook - when my parents ran a B&B in my childhood I remember sumptuous meals - roast dinners, shepherd’s pie, faggots and mash.
My dearly missed Grandmother GG was known for her feasts. She’d make vast 3 and 4 course meals, make sure everyone had seconds and thirds of everything and there were always at least 4 choices of dessert. One Christmas of family legend everyone had eaten so much that no one could move, lolling on the sofas groaning and replete; GG entered from the kitchen and breezily asked “Cheese and biscuits anyone?” after a loaded silence my uncle J said “oh piss off mum”.

On the maternal side, Mummy Dinosaur can cook very well - but I’ve always suspected she doesn’t really enjoy it. She likes having cooked something that people enjoy, but she doesn’t like all the faff and preparation, and definitely doesn’t like the clearing up afterwards. She now runs a B&B in South Africa with Step-Daveosaur. He does the cooked breakfasts, she makes the fruit salad, they pay someone to clean up; a perfect arrangement. It appears I take after my mother.

Mr RDP loves to cook. He’ll get excited about recipes and ingredients, always slightly changing a dish to make it his own. He understands seasoning and temperatures and the difference between leaving a lid on or off. My approach to seasoning is to just put smoked paprika on everything. Even a BBQ isn’t a simple affair for Mr RDP. My BBQs usually involve me discovering that disposable BBQs are on offer in the supermarket, the weather is nice, RESULT, I don’t have to wash up later. He needs several days to prepare so he can make complicated marinades and sauces and an Excel spreadsheet with all the exact timings for each dish.

Mr RDP has, in the course of our relationship, gently encouraged, forcefully hinted and downright nagged at me to learn to cook. I’ve made the odd simple pasta sauce here and there but my repertoire remains basic. I can cook a veggie spag bol, a stir fry and a basic noodle ramen. It’s all I know and I am terrified of following recipes. Therefore it was with some shock and a fair amount of trepidation that he reacted to my announcement yesterday morning that I was “going to make PANCAKES. Proper ones. Dairy free. With wholemeal flour and almond milk”.

I don’t know why I wanted to make pancakes. I’d never made them before. I had a vague sense that they weren’t complicated. So I Googled, found a recipe and hit the supermarket. My very first pancake was too thick and didn’t cook in the middle. The second I left for too long and it burnt. The third was going really well until I over-enthusiastically flipped it and it broke in half. The fourth? LOOKED LIKE A PANCAKE. After 10 minutes, I had a little stack of small, unevenly sized and misshapen pancakes. I piled them up, added blueberries, maple syrup and some melted dark chocolate mixed with soy cream (we hadn’t been able to find nut & dairy free chocolate spread. I have low dairy tolerance, Mr RDP doesn’t do nuts).

The first attempt

I served them to Mr RDP with pride. He had the look of a parent that, having said “what a lovely picture” now realises that the picture will have to stay on the fridge FOREVER. Having encouraged me to take an interest in cooking, he now had to eat the result. We survived to tell the tale. Not only were they not bad, they were actually rather tasty.

This morning, buoyed by my success the previous evening I decided that I would make a pancake brunch and set to the ingredients with an enthusiasm I didn’t think I was able to muster when it comes to cooking. After a shaky start I achieved two breakfast brunch stacks. I largely gave myself the misshapen monstrosity early attempts, giving Mr RDP the ones that looked like pancakes you might actually want to eat.

Unconventional, but tasty. No, really.
brunch me baby

I admit, there was a moment in Sainsbury’s where I was staring at a wall of flour, googling on my phone to check whether ‘wholewheat’ and ‘wholemeal’ meant the same thing, and wondering what on earth ‘baking soda’ actually was, when I was tempted to just buy the 99p bottle of pre-made pancake mix. I am glad I didn’t - not only because mine were handmade and healthier, but because now I have the ingredients in the cupboard I can make MORE PANCAKES.

Ok, it isn’t much. I follow a few food bloggers and to put these sad attempts next to one of Jack Munroe’s amazing austerity dishes or one of Cookwitch’s foodporn creations is just embarrassing. But I am unspeakably proud of having MADE something. I followed a RECIPE and didn’t set fire to anything, or break anything, or make anyone sick. I actually made something really tasty, and I enjoyed making it. I might even try giving cupcakes a go again. Hopefully this time they won’t double up as a squash ball.

4 Comments i am a disaster area, Me Me Me

It's all fun and games

I thought I had a breakthrough last night. We headed to our new local, a lovely big pub with artfully tatty decorations, mis-matched furniture and an excellent drink selection. Looking at the available options I realised they had my favourite beer (I am not generally a beer drinker but this one tastes like a Piña colada) and really wanted one. Not to get drunk, but just to drink it. That was a new experience. My breakthrough was short-lived however. It’s a popular pub so we managed to get a table only by hovering nearby people who looked like they were leaving. As they left and we sat down I saw the drink they’d left behind - a bottle of wine and two glasses and I felt that familar pang; the desire to get completely ratted. The desire was so strong it shocked me.

I didn’t drink last night, opting instead for ginger beers and lime and sodas, but still stayed out all night and had a great time. I didn’t find my ability to chat, laugh or enjoy my time with friends in any way impaired by sobriety. I am clearly getting there and the time away from drinking is giving me whole new perspectives on my relationship with alcohol. What has been unexpected though, is how it is also giving me new perspectives on our relationship with drinking as a culture.

If you are reading this, you are on the internet. If you are on the internet, there’s a fair chance you will have heard of ‘NekNomination’, a drinking game which works via social media. If you are reading this by, I don’t know, osmosis or psychokinetic powers then maybe you’re not on the internet and haven’t heard of it. So for my unusual psychic readers - it’s a very simple drinking game where you down a pint of something alcoholic, then nominate two other people to also down a pint of something alcoholic. The difference between NekNominate and your average party drinking game is that NekNominate is played via social media. The pint-downing is filmed, as is the subsequent nomination. It’s then posted on social media and the nominees then have 24 hours to also down a pint of something. There’s been a lot of press over NekNomination over the past few weeks due to the game apparently being the cause of a number of deaths of young participants.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ll probably not be remotely shocked at the confession that I LOVE drinking games. I’ve made some great friendships over the years and had some of the best and most hilarious outings through drinking games. My favourites are probably ‘Ring of Fire’ - where you use a pack of cards and ascribe a truth, dare, action or challenge to each card and take turns picking the card - and ‘One to Ten’ which is pretty much impossible to explain but involves having to count to ten as a group but with each person saying a number each without agreeing who says which number and without two or more people saying a number at the same time. If you get to ten, the person who said ‘ten’ can change any number to a word, phrase or action. Both of these games have led to great times, and terrible hangovers.

Generally, the whole point of a drinking game isn’t really to win the game. The point of the game is to GET REALLY DRUNK. Therefore even if there is a loser, you’re all winners at the end, because you’re all REALLY DRUNK. The losers are the people that decided not to play the drinking game, as not only are they not REALLY DRUNK they also now have to put up with a group of obnoxiously REALLY DRUNK people.

Having said that, I have actually played both Ring of Fire and One to Ten as NON drinking games - I originally learned One to Ten as a drama/group work concentration game and introduced it to friends as a drinking game later - and can confirm they are just as hilarious sober as drunk - that is if you are able to be uninhibited enough sober to do silly things and laugh until you make weird snorting noises. You know, the sort of laughter where you actually need to stop because you can’t breathe and it hurts. I’ve had these experiences sober as well as REALLY DRUNK.

NekNomination is a very different sort of drinking game. You don’t have to be at a party, in a social space. It is played over social media, and the drinking within 24 hours rule means you could be drinking at any day of the week; not just as part of a weekend bender. Unlike my favourite drinking games, you can’t play it without booze; there’d be no point. It’s got that added pressure of direct nomination. Someone has nominated you so you HAVE to do it, or everyone will clearly see you failed. It reminds me a little of those stupid chain letters I used to receive as a child in the pre-computer days (yes, I am that old) where you had to painstakingly copy out the same letter to 7 of your friends or you have BROKEN THE CHAIN and you will NEVER FIND PEACE and small kittens in a desert somewhere will DIE.

I have a dark sort of fascination with NekNomination, which I think is entirely linked to my booze-free state. If I hadn’t decided to go booze free, I would probably already have been nominated several times by now. If I hadn’t, I would probably have really been hoping I would be. While I always hated those chain letters, and generally refuse to pass anything like that on on a matter of principle, I’d have probably got stuck into this chain game with the same huge boozy enthusiasm I get stuck into all drinking games, and with a similar justification of my over-drinking habits (I HAVE to do it, I was NOMINATED). It would be hugely hypocritical of me therefore to condemn those taking part as mindless idiots. Indeed, people I am am close to have taken part; including Baby Sister Dinosaur which gave me such a severe case of mixed feelings I couldn’t even put it into words for several weeks.

While I am aware that this no-drinking thing is very much my own journey, I have to also acknowledge the affect it has had on other people and how it has affected my view of other people’s drinking habits. Once you step outside something which is considered perfectly normal, you start to realise that it’s not actually that normal. Some friends have been almost offended by my abstinence, as if I am making a comment on their drinking habits. Others have missed the seriousness of my situation, asking me why I can’t just drink in moderation (I don’t know why I can’t. I just can’t. That’s the point.) But the thing I have noticed is how entrenched our relationship with excessive drinking is - how normalised getting REALLY DRUNK is. It’s actually more of a transgression in our culture to be sober than to get so drunk you fall over. If you don’t get so drunk you fall over then you’re doing it wrong.

NekNomination is a really visual clear representation of this binge drinking culture - it’s like a microcosm of the peer pressure to drink, and how excessive drinking is seen as perfectly normal and fine. Those that have died allegedly playing this game, by newspaper accounts, seemed to have taken it a LOT further than the average participant - one tried to drink an entire pint of vodka. Another jumped into a freezing river. These deaths are horrible, and shocking; but the media discussions around it have been very much around how the deaths and the problems are because of the game itself. But I don’t think you can look at this game as the problem; the game is a representation of a culture in which problematic drinking is not seen as being problematic at all. NekNomination is a product of our drinking culture; a symptom of a wider issue.

Baby sister dinosaur and I have both acknowledged that we won’t bother having a drink at all if we don’t intend to get drunk. My whole reason for drinking is to get hammered. And that is seen as perfectly normal in our culture. Should it be? This is a question I’ve never even considered before - it’s a question I’ve only started asking myself in the last few weeks as I reach the 2 month mark of abstinence.

How long have I suspected my drinking was problematic? If I am brutally honest, I would say nearly 7 years. And yet this is the first time I’ve gone without drinking alcohol for more that two weeks, pretty much since I started drinking 20 odd years ago. Everything around me told me my drinking was ok. Even now, I am finding it hard to avoid alcohol not because I really want a drink, but because the pressure on me to conform and ‘just have a few drinks’ is immense. NekNomination isn’t a new and dangerous craze that is killing young reckless people - it’s a drinking game which is perfectly in keeping with our current age; played by social media and fired by peer pressure, successful because “getting drunk” is virtually synonymous with “having a drink”. The reason it is dangerous is because our perceptions of alcohol and its dangers are flawed, and our relationship with alcohol deeply complex as a culture.

If you were nominated, would you do it? If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you? You know, if all of my friends jumped off a bridge on a regular basis, and if jumping off the bridge was something everyone did every weekend, and if NOT jumping off the bridge marked you as boring and no fun, then yes. I probably would jump off that bridge. And I probably wouldn’t even stop to ask myself why.

Comment my opinions let me show you them

storm clouds and silver linings

It’s funny how sometimes the worst situations can actually bring out the best in the world around you; how sometimes an unexpectedly positive aftermath of the most unsettling or upsetting of events can almost make you glad the dreadful thing happened. This week was one of those weeks. It started with a very sick kitty indeed, making a stop at a £200 set of new locks via a pickpocket before the final destination of renewed faith in humanity…

With our usual excellent planning skills Mr RDP and I accidentally adopted a rescue kitten in the same week we moved in to our new flat. Much deliberation was had over what to name him - I favour silly names like ‘Pumpkin’, Mr Darcy’ or ‘Schmetterling’. Mr RDP likes unlikely human names, such as ‘Steve’, ‘Bruce’ or ‘Rob’. We toyed for a Yiddish word for a while - perhaps ‘Dybbuk’ or ‘Lokshen’; but finally settled on ‘Manny’. For Mr RDP that means he’s named after a character from his favourite computer game, Grim Fandango. For me he’s named after Manny from Black Books. This means that I constantly say things to him like “did you eat all my bees?” and “you’re a LONELY soldier”.

Mr RDP has never had a pet before, and so having a small furry monster around the place is a whole new experience. I had numerous pets as a child - as a small dinosaur I lived in the West Country where my parents ran a B&B. At one point we had a dog, three cats, a hamster and numerous goldfish. I went through goldfish at a rapid pace because, well, three cats. When my parents divorced mum and I kept two of the cats - one a clawless toothless softhearted old lady called Mungo, who had been a somewhat untraditional wedding present to my parents, the other a younger scrappy character called Sooty, an unwise 4th birthday present to me. Both sadly were put down when I was a teenager due to a series of unfortunate events and I’d not wanted to own a pet since; partly due to trauma avoidance, partly because they require more care and attention and money than I was prepared to give, and mostly because I am horribly allergic to all furry animals. I build up a tolerance to specific animals if I am around them often, but it takes weeks of sneezing and sniffling and red eyes and itchyness. However, Mr RDP had fallen in love at first sight with the-furmonster-subsequently-known-as-Manny so despite all my “are you sure? It’s a big responsibility…” type concerns, the kitten moved in to the new flat on the same day as us.

Within 2 weeks of the three of us taking up residence together, Manny fell ill. Having been an absolute terror, running all over the place and eating everything in sight (apart from cucumber, which is thus far the only thing that he won’t try to eat), when we came home from work to find him curled up in a sad little ball, shrinking from our touch and refusing even Cat Crack (aka Dreamies) we knew something was seriously wrong . The vet was concerned at his presentation and high temperature and admitted him for an overnight stay so he could go on an antibiotic drip. Poor little furball. On the way home in the car I realised I was desperately worried, and that I’d fallen in love with the little monster despite my own better judgement. How do cats do that?
They are basically furry little psychopaths who are only nice to us because we give them food. And yet we love them.

Fortunately he was fine and recovered overnight, so when I got the call from the Vet the next day that I could pick him up at 5 I arranged to leave work early and rushed home to get the cat box and hopped on the train - Mr RDP being once again away for the weekend (how does he always manage to time being away when Things Go Wrong?)

Mr RDP had suggested I get a cab home, but I figured the train journey was so easy - only a 5 minute walk at either end - that I would SAVE MONEY by just getting the train. Remeber that, ladies and gentlemen. I was trying to SAVE MONEY. When I got off the train near our flat and went to touch out with my Osytercard I experienced that feeling. You know the one - like a horrible cold dead hand slowly encircling your heart and giving it a slow and delibrate squeeze. The feeling you get when you realise your wallet is no longer in your bag. Your wallet containing your Osytercard. All of your cash. Your bank card. and your HOUSE KEYS. Then that feeling when you can’t quite feel your arms or feet or knees when you realise that not only do you not have your house keys, but that you have absolutely no way of getting into your house, because your other half is away. And you’ve not got around to giving a locally living friend a spare set of keys, despite talking about it for weeks. Fortunately, I’d taken my phone out of my wallet to take a photograph of the cat to send to MR RDP, so at least I had that and so poor Mr RDP received an hysterical phonecall from the Rockstar Dinosaur Pirate who was standing in the middle of a street in East London with a cat in a box, no money and no way to get into the flat for the next two days.

Mr RDP gave me the audio equivalent of a couple of slaps to the face to snap me out of my panicked hysterics and told me to find somewhere warm to settle while he called the locksmith. Stumbling along the street I passed a new coffee shop and more or less fell through the doorway.

The owners of the café fed me. I was given tea, cake, sandwiches. Manny stole most of the cake - so at least I knew he was feeling better. They offered their wireless password and their phone so I could call the police and cancel my cards. They gave me a tissue to sob into and let me sit in the cafe for an hour while waiting for the locksmith even though they knew I couldn’t pay them anything. They even offered to lend me money and made sure I had somewhere safe to go for the night. I started sobbing all over again at their kindness.

Once the locksmith arrived I discovered that Mr RDP and I had originally bought very good locks indeed. With a spate of burglaries in our local area recently, it’s good to know that it took a professional locksmith well over an hour to break into the flat. Of course with a spate of burglaries in the local area recently, a guy noisily breaking into a flat for an hour attracts rather a lot of attention. I was deeply embarrassed. I felt like I was wearing a sign that said HI. YES. WE’VE JUST MOVED IN. SORRY CHAPS. THERE GOES THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. Several neighbours all around me came out to see what the noise was and I apologised profusely to every one of them. And yet, none of them were cross or annoyed by the noise - just concerned for this tearful cold girl, alone in the street with a cat in a box.

I was given a card for a builder by the man opposite so we could get a better front door. A chap down the road with a lovely big dog had a long chat with the cat. I was offered tea by several of them which I initially refused out of embarrassment until one neighbour insisted that I mustn’t stand out on the street and ushered me into her house while the locksmith carried on breaking into ours. Thus I found myself in my neighbour’s flat with a mug of peppermint tea in my hand, watching Kung Fu Panda with her son.

The next day I called the train station as recommended by the police - they had my purse. It had been a gift, and means a great deal to me, so to have it back in my hands was a relief. The station staff let me travel on the train for free to collect it, as I had no means to pay for the journey. The purse itself had been emptied of most things of monetary value (except for my Costa Coffee card with £8 on it. HAH opportunistic scumbag, you may take my keys but you’ll never take my soy latte) but bank and oyster cards are replaceable, and our locks were already replaced. The station staff had found the purse on the floor, someone clearly having nabbed it, taken what they could and thrown the purse itself away. I went into my bank where the staff were exceptional, allowing me to take cash out over the counter having verified my account information with the phone banking people. With enough money to get by until a new bank card arrived, I bought a small bunch of flowers and popped into the coffee shop that had rescued me the day before.

The owner was so touched by what I considered a small gestures compared to the kindness they’d shown me the day before. Her reaction had me in tears again as I walked away. “You didn’t need to say thank you” she told me. “We’re neighbours. That is what neighbours do. They help each other. You would do the same for me if I were in need”.

London has a bad reputation when it comes to community spirit. Apparently no one speaks to each other. You mustn’t make eye contact on the tube. Or in lifts. Or on the streets. In fact, just avoid eye contact at all times, with everyone. Apparently no one knows their neighbours names. When I first moved to London friends said they could tell I grew up in the countryside because I still said “thank you” to bus drivers and started conversations with shop assistants.

I am not sure that it is true that Londoners are so unfriendly. With the day to day routine perhaps Londoners aren’t generally that friendly, or open or welcoming. But at times of stress or trouble London can be at it’s best - as demonstrated by the aftermath of the London Riots’ ‘broom army’.

While a stressful (and expensive) experience, it has reminded me, a West Country girl at heart, that a smile and a kind word can go much further than you realise. I am determined to pay it back - and forward - for my community by trying to be a good neighbour. I am going to start by making sure I take everyone I know to that little coffee shop on the corner, and by putting a thank you card thorough my neighbour’s door. Strong communities start with small kindnesses.

3 Comments i am a disaster area, Me Me Me

no spoke without fire*

I have been cycling to work since around 2006. It started as a vague attempt to get fitter and save money, but ended up becoming something I genuinely enjoyed. Nowadays I only commute by public transport if I really have to and it makes me so grumpy and irritable that’s it’s best all round for everyone if I just get on my bike. The biggest unexpected benefit of cycling to work was far fewer illnesses - not just because you are a little fitter and healthier but because you are not in the plague pits of the tube or a London bus during rush hour. One zombie-lurgy ridden commuter sneezing on the tube can infect the entire carriage. I try not to think too hard about what sort of gross things that might be living on the seats or handrails.

I took the cycling proficiency test as a child, and cycled pretty much everywhere up until my bike was stolen shortly after graduating from University. With my massive graduate debt and having got a job far from where I was living I didn’t bother to replace it. Therefore before I took the plunge into full time cycle commuting six years later I dusted off my copy of the highway code and re-familiarised myself with the rules of the road.

Full Disclosure: I don’t drive. In fact, I can’t drive. I owned a copy of the highway code from taking driving lessons in my early twenties. I struggled a great deal with the driving lessons. An hour into my second lesson my driving instructor said, “It’s ok, some people just aren’t meant to drive” which in retrospect was not as reassuring as he probably intended it to be. My problem with driving wasn’t about using the road so much as using the car. I couldn’t understand the gears. I couldn’t get a sense of how much space on the road I took up. I didn’t like not being able to feel or see where I was on the road, or be able to judge or control my speed. Reversing was completely unfathomable. I particularly didn’t like the way I couldn’t trust any other bugger on the road.

Cycling is completely different - you know where you are and how much space you take up because you can see it, you don’t have to sense it. You know exactly how fast you’re going because you can feel it, and you can control your speed with your own body. Cycling feels so natural to me, and every bike I’ve owned that I’ve truly loved has felt like an extension of my own body. Having a bike you love stolen almost feels like someone has stolen a part of you.

I enjoyed commuting by bicycle from my very fist week - discovering new parts of London by accident when getting lost, exploring different routes (fast ones by main road, longer but safer back streets, pretty but muddy off-the-beaten-track routes…) and was never without my battered A-Z in my bike bag (this has been replaced with a smartphone with GPS navigation app - because we LIVE IN THE FUTURE). It amused and irritated me in equal measure when people said “Oh you’re so BRAVE cycling in London. I wouldn’t dare!” or “Isn’t cycling very dangerous?”. I always reassured those people that it was wonderful - as long as you knew what you were doing and cycled safely it was no more dangerous than walking to work. I had a few near misses over the years - a few car doors nearly opened into my face; a few incidents where I was run off the road by boy racers or white van men; one nasty incident where I was actually groped by a man in a van while trying to turn right off a main road. But the near misses were occasional and the benefits of cycling to work far outweighed the downsides.

Things have started to change though, which is strange because over the last couple of years cycling has become hugely more popular - particularly in London and in the area in which I live/work in East London.

While cycling has become more popular over the last few years it also feels like it’s become far more dangerous. I am having near misses regularly, and experience considerably more aggression from motorists. I am regularly run off the road by irritated, angry or oblivious drivers and am frequently verbally abused, often being told that I ‘don’t belong on the road’.

I’ve thought a lot about why this might be. There’s been much discussion over the last few months about cyclist safety, following a series of tragic accidents where 6 cyclists were killed in London within a fortnight. Every article, be it pro-cyclist or pro-car ended up the same - with a big debate in the comments section full of the same complaints. Motorists don’t look. They don’t indicate. Cyclists run red lights and don’t stop for pedestrians. Cyclists are too slow and get in the way. Motorists drive in bike lanes. Cyclists ride on pavements. Motorists kill baby seals. Cyclists steal the souls of first born sons. And so on.

I personally feel that part of the problem is this increasing media and Government rhetoric that pitches the cyclist in opposition to the motorist which actually creates conflict and defensiveness on both sides. Setting up cyclists and motorists against each other in to some sort of War of the Road is only going to exacerbate the problem and prevents meaningful change.

Personally I am a law abiding cyclist who obeys road signs and crossings and rides to the highway code. I find cyclists who run red lights and have no regard for other road users hugely frustrating. I also find pedestrians who run out in front of me on a red pedestrian light, and drivers who run red lights hugely frustrating. I don’t dislike ALL car drivers, or ALL pedestrians, or ALL cyclists simply because I witness SOME of them doing Really Stupid Annoying Shit. A rhetoric which encourages Group A to hate Group B (and vice versa) because some of the Other Group occasionally do Really Stupid Annoying Shit is unhelpful and ultimately dangerous. It has the effect that people can feel justified in shitty behaviour towards each other. A motorist feels it’s ok to cut in front of a cyclist or pass by too fast or too close because “fucking cyclists go through red lights bastards” and a cyclist feels it’s ok to scrape the side of a car or shout WANKER at someone because “fucking motorists never look and they all hate cyclists”. Don’t even get me started on the motorists who feel I shouldn’t be on the road because they “pay road tax”.

As a law abiding road user, I try to share the roads, and would like all road users to do the same, be they cyclists, motorists or pedestrians. I am fed up to the back teeth of every discussion - both in real life and online - of how to increase safety for cyclists being derailed by circular debates on who is the worst road user. Poor road use by some cyclists should not be an argument against putting in safer cycle routes or improving existing dangerous ones. Poor road use by some motorists should not be an argument for banning cars from certain areas. To be effective it is vital that changes to the transport infrastructure in London are made holistically; taking into account the needs of the most vulnerable road users (pedestrians and cyclists) as well as those of the majority of road users (car drivers) and the needs of London’s economy (public transport, delivery vehicles, HGVs). And I say that as a cyclist. A fully integrated transport system is possible, but to truly visualise what that could be like we have to drop the Them vs Us/Road Entitlement mentality.

Having said all that I am going to be a massive hypocrite, but this is my blog and I’ll do what I like, YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME. I have a few requests to make of my fellow road users, and to try to lessen the hypocrisy slightly I will make three requests from each group.

Pedestrians:

  • It’s Stop, Look, Listen. Not Listen, I Can’t Hear Anything So I’ll Suddenly Step Off The Kerb With No Warning While Texting Oh Shit I’ve Just Been Hit By A Cyclist.
  • Your child is not a canary. Please look before shoving your pushchair out into the road.
  • A cyclepath is a CYCLEpath. The clue is in the name. No, I am not cycling on the pavement, and it’s not called Smallchildonascooterpath.

Motorists:

  • They are called INDICATORS because they INDICATE. If you don’t INDICATE how is anyone to know where you’re going? Magical unicorn mind reading powers?
  • Please learn what this sign means and stop making rude gestures at me for cycling down this street the opposite way to you.
  • This is rule 163 of the highway code and it’s a good one. Please to be following.

Cyclists:

  • If you see this sign, GET OFF YOUR SODDING BIKE YOU BASTARD.
  • Look behind you regularly, especially if you are planning to move to the right. It is possible that someone is trying to overtake you, and if it’s a cyclist you won’t hear them. If you’re listening to music on headphones you won’t hear anything at all, so how about you especially look behind you if you’re wearing headphones. Or just don’t wear them.
  • Don’t go through red lights. They are either red to allow pedestrians to cross or to allow traffic to pass in the other direction. Also, it’s stupid and dangerous. Oh, and ILLEGAL.

I could go on, but I’d be here all night. And really, all of my bug bears and annoyances of other people on the road could be resolved thusly:

All road users:

  • Obey the highway code
  • Share the road
  • Use some common sense.

Actually, I could boil that down to one rule, which I try to obey every time I am out on my bike:

  • Don’t be a dickhead.

Thanks to Mr RPD for the punny title.

2 Comments Cycling, my opinions let me show you them

The benefits of clarity, the price of Tch

The last week of Dry January has been an easy one for me - very few opportunities or temptations as Mr RockstarDinosaurPirate and I are moving into a little flat he’s just bought - he’s on the first rung of a very expensive property ladder. Therefore this week has featured mainly planning, packing, and occasionally camping out in the flat enjoying the empty space before it’s taken over by all of our possessions (we have so much stuff. Oh god. So. Much. Stuff.) The activity and minor stress of the week has left little space for drinking, and I haven’t wanted one.

Mr RDP completed in the week that it was revealed that the average house price in Hackney, where I lived happily for years before moving in with Mr RDP and where I work, is HALF A MILLION. Don’t get me wrong, I love Hackney, I think it’s great, but HALF A MILLION? House prices are high across the country, but in London they are insane. BabySisterDinosaur (my half sister is in her mid twenties and she’ll be my baby sister for ever. Even when she’s sixty and I’m seventymumble.) has also recently bought a flat, but in North Devon. The comparison size for size, cost for cost, finish for finish from her place to Mr RDP’s place is not favourable. By comparison, hers is a sprawling perfect palace at a teeny price. Not, of course, if you factor in wage difference etc etc, but it’s hard not to make that comparison.

Daddy RockstarDinosaurPirate and The Wicked Stepmother (a long used and utterly inaccurate nickname for her, for she is not at all wicked, and is in fact completely lovely) came to visit this weekend Daddy Dinosaur is a builder by trade, and he spent several hours happily knocking on internal walls, poking things, making ‘humph’ and ‘tch’ noises, scrambling around in the loft (to my alarm; he’s 60 and needs an artificial hip) and drawing on the walls. They also live in North Devon, and were shocked at the comparison to BabySisterDinosaur’s flat. I had a copy of a local paper and showed them some of the other properties that are going in our area, where prices have risen about 20% in the last 6 months (partially due to Hackney becoming so unaffordable). You would naturally expect prices in London to be more, and living here I guess I get a little desensitised to it. Seeing the folks’ reaction to it from the perspective of outsiders really brought it into focus. Especially when Dad started pointing out all the things in the flat that needed doing up, fixing, changing and improving and how much these things might cost.

Due to excellent planning, entirely typical of the RockstarDinosaurPirate household, Mr RDP is away for the weekend with some old schoolfriends, back late tonight, with the removal van arriving tomorrow. While ‘camping’ at the new place, we discovered that there was a gas leak. This resulted in me camping at the new place on my own for most of the weekend while gas men make ‘tch’ noises at the boiler (illegal) and the pipework (nonsensical). The costs of buying the place itself was bad enough, but all the ‘tch’ noises I’ve heard this weekend seem to add up to lots of ££££. I have been astounded at all the things a survey *doesn’t* bring up.

I suspect that if I wasn’t on my non drinking trip, while camping I would have got myself a bottle of wine or some boozy ginger beers, thinking that they’d cheer me up and make the weekend more fun and bearable - but in the cold light of sobriety it’s clear that actually they would have made me less able to cope with the ‘tch’ news and the early mornings and the bad news. The clarity brought by lack of booze-fog has made being a Practical Grownup so much easier.

Ok, so perhaps being in my pyjamas on a Saturday night by 6pm and watching Miss Marple isn’t the most rock and roll ways to spend a Saturday night, but I didn’t feel sad, or anxious, or lonely. BabySisterDinosaur even commented on my FB this week that “You’re so happy all the time when you don’t drink!”. I made a joke about it on the time, but have been thinking about that comment a lot - have I? Has it been easier to cope with stress and ‘tch’ when you just have to get on and COPE, and not go fuck it, I’ll have a glass of wine to chill out? This is something I’ll have to think about as the months go by. I have had problems in the past with anxiety and depression, and there are clear links between mental health issues and alcohol. I’d never even considered in the early days of my non-drinking experiment that a side effect could be improved mental happiness. I’d been more worried about people thinking I am boring, not going out as I wouldn’t know what to say or how to have fun, and getting more depressed. But perhaps the opposite is true.

Judging by the about of ‘tching’ I can hear from the gas men in the kitchen right now, I am going to be glad I am not spending money on booze as much of it might be needed to go into this flat, and glad of increased resilience over the next few months.

1 Comment Drinking, Me Me Me

Reward and Punishment

This week has been hard. My job can be pretty stressful at times, and this week - Friday in particular - was really tough.

By the end of Friday I wanted a glass of wine (and wine isn’t usually my go-to drink of choice) so badly that it made me grumpy. Of course the result of the week and that day in particular being stressful contributed to that grumpiness, but the fact I wasn’t able to relieve that stress and grump with a class of wine made it worse.

I am pleased that at no point did I seriously consider just giving in and having a booze - that wasn’t an option and never even entered my mind - but I was keenly aware of how much I wanted one, how I felt I deserved one, and how I ‘knew’ that nothing else would achieve the same result.

I asked on my facebook: “Work day from HELL. What can I do after work that will achieve the same result as a large glass of wine without being alcoholic or fattening?”

Some of the answers (I suspect some may be more serious than others)

  • Go to the Gym
  • Listen to loud music
  • Crystal Meth
  • Valium
  • Spliff
  • Drive really fast
  • Karaoke
  • Trampolining
  • Cocaine
  • Just have a bloody drink woman

I think you will notice a theme to the list without my assistance. I realised as the evening wore on that the things I most wanted to do in the absence of a large glass of wine was

  1. Eat ALL OF THE BREAD
  2. Eat ALL OF THE CHOCOLATE
  3. Buy ALL OF THE SHOES

In short, my brain appears to be wired to find relaxation/pleasure/reward in drinking, eating carbs, eating sugar and spending money on pretty-but-pointless things. If I am going to survive this year without growing much fatter, poorer or running out of space to keep shoes I’ll never wear then I am going to have to find alternative coping mechanisms - because while Friday was a considerably more stressful day at work than usual there will be many more over the coming year which will need to be Coped With.

There were a number of people that suggested gym classes - and it appears my gym does offer an interesting sounding class on a Friday evening. I shall experiment with this and report back. It is going to be difficult though because unlike wine, carbs, sugar and shoes my brain’s reward centre does not see gym classes or exercise as any sort of reward; in fact it’s quite the opposite. I have to FORCE myself to the gym. Once I am there, and once the class kicks in, I generally do enjoy it, get those little wooshy work out endorphins and feel all smug and relieved afterwards. But those don’t last until my next workout session and I have to go through it all over again, cajoling and bribing myself to go to the gym, trying to remind myself that I’ll enjoy it once I am there (or if not I’ll be glad afterwards that I did it). It’s a battle to get my brain to accept that working out is Good Thing.

I don’t have to dig too deeply to work out why I have such a strong aversion to exercise.

The whole experience of PE, from having to be in public in gym knickers to being shouted at in front of the class for coming last in Cross Country, is one of the single most dreadful experiences in my whole life, and has genuinely affected me well into adulthood.

If you were sporty at school or good at games, you may not understand. But for those of us who were not terribly good at any of it, PE was HELL.

The assumption is that those of us who aren’t fast runners, or that can’t hit a hockey ball in a straight line, or can’t jump a long way into a sandpit are just NOT TRYING. It’s not that we aren’t any good at it, or have poor co-ordination, or painful feet, or any other reason. No. We’re just NOT TRYING.

And, as a result, PE for those of us who clearly AREN’T TRYING was a regular session of ritualised embarrassment, ridicule and punishment. The girls who were good at tennis, or hockey, or lacrosse, or cross-country, or track-and-field; they got encouragement and support. Those of us that weren’t could never please. Our individual improvement didn’t matter, that we’d maybe run 5 minutes faster in cross country this week that last week. It didn’t matter because we weren’t good at it. SO there was no point trying to improve yourself, because you’d never be as good as the golden sporty ones.

The emphasis was very much on the school winning against other schools, or Your class win against Other class, or if you went somewhere really posh, that your house won against the other houses. If you couldn’t help your fellow students win things against The Other Ones, then you were useless.

There was no education about how your muscles worked. About how important it is to keep hydrated as you exercise. How exercise affects your health and well being. There was no encouragement to the non-sporty (NOT TRYING!) ones to exercise for the sake of fitness itself. There was in fact no encouragement to exercise for the sake of fitness itself at all. As a result, the sporty ones got fitter because they liked to, and the non sporty ones got the impression that exercise FUCKING SUCKS.

Is it any wonder, really, that so many of us leave school firmly associating exercise with pain, humiliation and just general awfulness? Is it any wonder that so many of us even now have a MASSIVE mental block about going to the gym?

I really enjoy the gym classes I go to, I know I do, I feel great during them, after them, and I sleep better, feel better and am much fitter. But making myself go is such a massive effort of will, because I have it deeply ingrained deeply into my very soul that I HATE PE, and PE = EXERCISE and therefore I HATE EXERCISE.

Alcohol, chocolate and shopping are a different kettle of fish though. All the marketing aimed at us tells us that these will make us better and happier INSTANTLY, but I’m a fairly intelligent marketing-cynical woman and I don’t think it’s the marketing that makes my brain and body yearn for high fat high sugar high spend mental rewards. While I know where my deep seated fear/hatred of working out comes from, I don’t know how it came to the point where my whole being demands these unhealthy and unwise rewards for getting through a difficult day. Was is something from my childhood, whereby pudding was only allowed if I ate the vegetables? I do know I was a very picky eater. Where chocolate was only allowed if I’d been good? I don’t remember sweets being used as rewards so much as a child, but I do remember gifts being used as bribes. I remember Mum promising me a new Garfield toy if I was good at a family gathering once. I remember for university essays I would buy a massive bag of mini eggs and allow myself one for every 200 words. Do we all have this unhealthy reward reaction, or is it just some of us who learn that booze/sugar/shoes are the reward for life, rather than *life* being the reward for life? This all needs exploring in more depth and perhaps this time off the alcohol will help give me the time and the clarity of thought to really unpick it.

As for the fear of working out, this is something I managed to lose while I was playing roller derby and learning that my body was a tool and a weapon, and was powerful in its own right, and I learned to love my body and what it could do. Over the months after the injury and retirement I have lost that along the way and need to rediscover it. I know where the work-out fear comes from though, and I know how to beat it. I do think however that a link between the rising obesity of young people in this country has something to do with PE in schools and the sorts of experiences I had.

Perhaps a solution to the so called ‘obesity crisis’ is to shift the emphasis on PE in schools away from ‘winning’ and overall achievement to a greater emphasis on personal fitness, on how your muscles work, on how to keep fit, and most importantly, that exercise can be fun, and that it can make you feel really good, and that it is a means to its own reward - not because you can allow yourself some cake afterwards. Working out IS the cake. As it were.

I have struggled for most of my life with my weight and fitness. If anyone at school had said to me ‘it’s really not whether you win, or how fast you run. It’s about getting your body moving so that it gets stronger, and you feel better’ I think it would have made a HUGE difference.

If I was queen of the universe, PE would become ‘Health and Fitness’ and would consist of a much wider breadth of sports covered, it would focus on individual improvement over school attainment, and would teach children how important exercise is, and that exercise is fun.

And I’d make gym knickers and communal changing rooms illegal.

4 Comments From The Vaults, Me Me Me

Sugar logic

Three weekends in and I’ve still not hit the wall. I’m still enjoying not drinking, and while last weekend had some wobbles there were few this weekend.

The closest I came to a wobble this week was on the countdown to 5pm at work, with a colleague’s leaving drinks and a wedding reception to attend. As the weekend drew nearer I started to feel like there is slightly less joy to that weekend countdown when there’s no glass of wine on the other side of 5 o’clock. It did make me wonder why I have such a strong association with the end of the working week and a booze drink. I think this is pretty typical of our culture; we see that glass of wine/beer/G&T etc as a reward, as a gift to ourself for our hard work. I love my job but it can be stressful at times and my office environment is full of people doing REALLY stressful jobs and there is definitely a link between having that rewarding drink and unwinding and letting all the crap of the week go so you can enjoy the weekend. Some of the drunkest nights I’ve had have been Friday after work drinks with colleagues. I suspect as the year goes on and this gets harder (and I am sure it will, once the novelty wears off) I am going to have to ensure that I make plans for Friday nights or Saturday morning so that I have something to look forward to that isn’t alcoholic.

The wedding reception was tricky at first - it was a low key affair being held in a craft beer pub in Hackney (there are many many craft beer pubs in Hackney. If you throw a brick in Hackney and don’t hit a craft beer pub or a microbrewery it’s probably because the brick hit a hipster first.) We arrived before the wedding party and I felt a little awkward holding my lime and soda surrounded by many drunk trendy people, students and Craft Beards (which is what I call people REALLY into Craft Beer). This was the first time I’ve found it hard to get into the party mood while sober - I couldn’t quite get comfortable, or find my way into conversations. This was exactly what I’ve always been worried out - that I am a boring person, bereft of charm and conversational skills. Being drunk has always been like having layer of liquid confidence - a sparkling armour that makes you hilarious and fun; and if you’re NOT hilarious and fun then at least everyone else is drunk, and you can always say later ‘god, how embarrassing, I was SOOO drunk.” This moment was always going to come, and I suspect there will be more, so it was good to get the first one over and done with. This is also exactly why I need to do this. I can’t go through life drinking just so I feel interesting. I need to learn to be interesting without being drunk. Or perhaps get up enough self esteem to believe I already am.

On Saturday I had a good hair day. These don’t happen often. I insisted that Mr RockstarDinosarPirate and I go out, because I couldn’t waste a good hair day on a quiet night in. As it turned out this good hair day coincided with a flying visit from Mr RockstarDinosarPirate ‘s beer blogging friend’s Dad Mr F, over from Colorado which is even more Craft Beer obsessed than Hackney. Mr F loves his booze. Mr RockstarDinosarPirate and I were in Colorado for his birthday earlier this year and Mr F has more drinking stamina than people a third of his age and can be very insistent that you join in. How many of your friends’ Dads make you do tequila shots at 3am at an afterparty? (The day after his birthday we had a flight to New York with one of the worst hangovers I’ve ever had.) Mr F was very keen to see us and we arranged to meet them in Brewdog. On the plus side, this meant that my Good Hair got to go out. On the downside, it meant I needed a strategy for Saying No to Mr F. We decided telling him I’d given up for at least 3 months wouldn’t work. We considered trying the Medication Strategy (sad face I am on antibiotics) but that wouldn’t work either. We thought perhaps just accept any drink purchased for me and pretending to drink it whilst sneakily pouring it into Mr RockstarDinosarPirate’s glass. In the end we went for simply making sure I always had a drink in my hand, so the topic never came up. It worked, but mainly because by the time we met up Mr F and family had been drinking for much of the day already and probably didn’t even notice that I was sober.

Non-alcoholic options in bars (in London, at least) are definitely getting more interesting. But then perhaps they’ve always been interesting and I’ve just never asked. Why would I? I’m too busy seeing what rums they have. Brewdog had a delicious sugar free cola from Hamburg. Unfortunately due to the ‘always have a drink in hand’ strategy this meant I had more than was probably wise, and the caffeine hit meant I was up watching You Tube videos of Penn and Teller until long after Mr RockstarDinosarPirate had drifted into a somewhat craft beer induced slumber. At my colleague’s leaving drinks I discovered ‘Raw Fyah’ - a super spicy ginger beer made locally in Hackney. Super tasty (and I have to admit it would be lovely mixed with a spiced rum) but again too many and I’d have a sugar high of epic proportions. I don’t want to exchange an alcohol problem for a sugar one. But at least there are more interesting options out there for the non boozers than your basic J2O or a lime and soda.

Sundays are fast becoming a joy. When you’re not shattered or hungover the weekends seem longer, and whereas Sundays used to be recovery space in between PARTY TIME and OH GOD MONDAY - usually involving a duvet, a pizza and some sort of Netflix marathon - they are turning into an occasion to see friends, see London and try new things. Today was a real treat - afternoon tea with some Dry January pals. We put on party dresses and makeup and treated ourselves to tea and cake as a reward for our effort at sobriety, and shared some of our experiences. It’s clearly not just me who is loving Sundays, and it was interesting to hear that most of them are also sleeping better. I’ve always been a terrible sleeper but for the last two weeks have found it much easier to get to sleep and stay asleep. I’ve been waking up feeling rested rather than ragged and drained. After stuffing ourself with cake and scones the sugar high hit us like a train. I’ve always had a sweet tooth but never noticed sugar highs with such intensity before; we wondered if we were noticing it more because none of us had had alcohol for weeks. We then went on a sugar crazed spending spree of epic proportions - buying bags, makeup and perfume and justifying it all as being money that we’d SAVED by not drinking so therefore TECHNICALLY all of this is FREE STUFF. Sugar logic is potentially as dangerous as alcohol logic - and at least with alcohol logic it’s at night so most of the shops are shut and the worse purchasing decision you can make is a Pot Noodle.

7 Comments The List