I had a day last week where I looked at the step counter on my phone and it said ‘789’.

For an ENTIRE DAY.

Gawd.

789 steps. What’s the matter with me??

(Can I just say, in my defence, that I don’t have anything on my wrist, so it does only count steps I do whilst I have my phone on me and not things like walking into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, but still.)

NOT GOOD.

I was about to say it because it’s winter – the cold etc – but then I checked myself, because it’s not really that at all, I’m just a lazy bones. I don’t play any sports, I do not RUN, (*shudders*), and unless it’s towards the packet of rich tea fingers on the floor by my chair then stretching doesn’t feature high on my list of activities either.

In fact, my own laziness was a big part of the motivation behind me getting an office a couple of years ago. When you work at home those 789 step days can become a common occurrence. At least now, (most days), I walk to my office and back. Unless it’s pouring with rain. Or I can think of another legitimate excuse.

But still. It’s a bit lame.

What’s especially lame is that once I’m actually out and walking, I really quite enjoy it. It’s a bit like the washing up – it STARES at you, taunting you, making you imagine how AWFUL it’s going to be, but it’s never as bad once you start.

I’m going to hit 40 in a few months though, and I really don’t want to become one of those middle aged ladies who groans getting in and out of chairs.

(‘Become’ – ha!)

So I have decided to take action.

It’s clearly not enough for me to HAVE a step counter, I need other people to SEE my step counter. I need to be shamed into taking action. I need to feel that competitive instinct – the one that doesn’t let small children beat me at SNAP.

(They don’t learn if you let them win.)

So I’ve downloaded the Sport Relief app.

Sport relief app View Post

You know when something happens that just makes you despair of humanity? Well that.

Here’s what happened. (I deleted the actual messages as I was so cross, so this is roughly what went down.)

I had arranged a brunch date with a guy I met online. We’d exchanged a few messages, but he seemed keen to meet. Fine. All good. And then I got a cold, which turned into a horrible cough. Anyone who knows me knows I get horrible coughs. I had visions of coughing and spluttering eggs benedict in his face.

It was not sexy.

So a few days before we were due to meet I let him know that I wasn’t feeling well.

‘Are you trying to tell me something?’ he said.

‘Well yes,’ I replied, ‘I’m trying to tell you I’m not well. I wanted to warn you, in case I didn’t get better.’

‘Right,’ he said, ‘only if you’re fobbing me off then I’d rather you were just up front about it.’

‘I’m not fobbing you off,’ I said, bristling. ‘I have a cough. I’m telling you, that’s all. Would you like an audio file?’

‘It’s just that six ladies since November have suddenly developed coughs a couple of days before we’re meant to go out, so I’d rather you were just honest with me if you’re going to cancel and then I’m never going to hear from you again.’

I was annoyed. I don’t care how many people have said what to him. That’s not me is it?

online dating View Post

I was doing a bit of research this week for a new list.

As you may know, back in 2013 (GAH!) I made a list of 40 things I wanted to do before I turned 40, an event which has rather crept up on me and appears to be happening THIS APRIL.

I’ll be writing more about that at some point, but in the meantime I have started thinking about my next list – 50 things to do before 50. Obviously it will include things like ‘stagger about a bit at the fact that I am in my 40s’, but I also want it to have some fun and unusual things on it, so I was doing some Googling.

I happened upon this list from American Cosmopolitan, (which I should have realised was a bad sign), of ‘50 things every woman should do before she dies.’

Given the publication, I guess I should have expected things like ‘learn to give the perfect blow job at the same time as achieving the dream thigh gap with this one miracle exercise’, but it still made me cross.

Here are some of the things that American Cosmopolitan thinks we should aspire to, some KEY LIFE GOALS for women:

  • Put a streak in your hair, or dye all of it
  • Learn to make one full meal
  • Eat dessert for breakfast
  • Eat a huge piece of cake (or candy bar or ice cream cone or whatever your favourite dessert is) and feel wonderful about it
  • Make a whole cake for no reason other than to sit there and attack it with forks alone/with your roommate/boyfriend
  • Just completely lose it at customer service when they’re being dicks  
  • Spend an entire day eating nothing but crap
  • Speak in public

krispy kreme

Well, I think already we are feeling EMPOWERED aren’t we ladies?? View Post

I’ve been single now for coming up five months.

On the one hand I am perfectly happy – work is good, I’m settling into my house, and have the kitties obviously. Who could fail to be happy with three cats of their very own to stroke every single day? I love being able to do everything on my own terms, have all the kittens on the bed without anyone raising their eyebrows at me, spend all my spare money on yellow velvet armchairs from eBay, all that jazz.

But also sometimes I feel lonely.

When I say this to people, or words to this effect, there isn’t a huge amount of sympathy.

‘You don’t need a man!’ people say. (Normally married people. Cheers guys.)

‘Embrace being single!’ (Okay…)

‘You’re perfectly fine just you!’ (Obviously.)

I do know all those things. I don’t NEED a man. I am perfectly capable of doing all the things that need to be done, I have loving friends and family, I can work a drill and I can kick back with a puzzle as well as the next person. I GET IT.

But still, sometimes I feel lonely.

Not in a way where I feel physically alone, but a little bit like something is missing. Just sometimes. Not like I’m sobbing into a tub of Ben & Jerry’s every night or anything, but from time to time it would be nice to have someone squeeze my hand and exchange a glance that’s just for me.

And this is OKAY. View Post

This week we went down to Cornwall to stay with my Dad and Step-Mum for a bit of post-Christmas family time. On Wednesday evening we settled down to a game of Balderdash, my Dad’s favourite.

For those of you who don’t know, Balderdash is a game where you each make up an alternative definition of a word, a law, an acronym – things like that – with the aim of convincing the other players that yours is the correct one.

So, it was my turn to be the ‘dasher’, who’s the person that reads out the clue, and while everyone else was writing down their ideas I had a look at the other categories on the card. I looked at the acronym – B.H.G.A. I turned the card over the see what it was.

British Hang Gliding Association.

Cool.

EXCEPT WAIT, WHAT??

British HANG Gliding Association?? What on earth is HANG gliding? View Post

I was checking my direct messages on Twitter yesterday. I have it set up so that anyone can message me, even if I don’t follow them, so that I can be contacted by potential clients, bloggers asking for advice, fans wanting signed photos, that sort of thing.

One message was a photo.

‘That’s weird,’ I thought to myself, ‘is that just a hand?’

I looked again. It was a cupped hand, palm up.

‘What’s he holding?’ I wondered, ‘is that Caesar salad dressing?’

Oh.

(Not salad dressing.)

So my question here is, what the actual hell?? In what world is this is a normal thing to send a woman you have never even spoken to before? What part of someone’s brain tells them that this is okay? View Post