Bristolia

Probably the worst thing about being single are the weekends. During the week everything is pretty fine, I work probably a little later than I should so I don't spend a lot of time alone, but when I come home, I enjoy the time I have to myself.

Weekends are sucky. Weekends are when people in couples are enjoying the weekend being a couple. Saturday mornings break and I still stifle an internal sigh at the thought of two whole days of my own company stretching out before me.

I went to a lot of effort to book in things for the weekends after the break up, and finding myself in London for work on a Friday, I took the opportunity to pop over to Bristol for the weekend to see an old friend.

After being waved off by Paddington at none other than London Paddington Station I plonked my very hungover body down on the train and headed to hitherto uncharted territory.

A word to the un-initiated - Bristol on a hangover isn't the most fun ever. There are a lot of hills in that place. Hills and I do not get on and I was blissfully unaware of what was in store for me. Add to this the fact that my friend appeared determined to make me see every single sight possible in the remaining time we had left before the light disappeared.

Red wine hangover + hills = not a great tourist.

Tourist attractions visited included Cabot Tower - verdict: The spiral staircase might just kill you but the views once you get to the top really are worth it.

...And the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Verdict: Not as big as the Humber Bridge. Sorry. My expectations are high when it comes to suspension bridges. Although it does win points for being a damn sight older than the Humber Bridge.

...And The Downs. Verdict: Well worth a visit for the views over the Avon Gorge. Also an unnatural number of joggers/runners were there. I'm guessing because it's the only place that isn't on a flipping hill. It almost, almost made me want to start running again.

The rest of the weekend was spent visiting various drinking establishments - so many that I couldn't even begin to list or remember them.

All in all - a good introduction to Bristol. The company was....well, let's just say my judgement when it comes to certain people in my life is still seriously compromised...so I'm keen to re-visit again and maybe meet up with some people that I know are genuinely good people - Hayles? Kate? Jen?

The wedding season begins.

Ooh I’ve been a busy little bee since the New Year started. I feel like I’ve been all over the place but I’ve checked my diary and I definitely haven’t been – there must have been some strange glitch in my brain that’s making 2012 difficult to cope with so far.

I managed a whole 3 days back at work before I head off on holiday again. I can’t recommend this enough as it’s made January almost bearable and I see that we’re already in the second week which can only mean that pay-day is coming soon which is always welcome – especially because we get paid a week earlier in December which seems like an excellent idea at the time but means you end up eating dust in the run-up to January’s pay-day.

Anyway. I digress.

The reason for my little jaunt away so soon in 2012 was that I was heading down to a wedding. I know. They’ve started early this year. It is a mildly terrifying thought but I think we’re ok because so far there’s only 2 weddings booked in this year which is a much less horrifying prospect than last year.

The Person’s cousin was getting married so this meant I was faced with the prospect of being faced with all his family in one go. I’ve met most of them before to be fair, but there’s something about the thought of all of them in one room that makes your heart beat that little bit faster.

Trips down South can only mean one thing to me – massive expense because of stupid train fares – and I nearly died when I realised that I was looking at £100 ticket from Hull to the Sussex but thanks to the Megabus, which could get me to London, and booking train tickets from London in October, I managed to bring the journey in under £40. Although you pay the price by travelling for much longer time period – it’s a bit of a toss up at times.

I arrived late afternoon in Bognor. The Person gets mad when I call it Bognor because it isn’t really Bognor but for argument’s sake, let’s just call it that and let him rage away to himself when he reads this on his computer screen.

I am beside myself with the fact that his Dad’s house is literally round the corner from the beach. It’s a thrill that I think only someone who’s never grown up on the coast can have. I get unreasonably excited about it and within minutes of arriving I’m begging The Person to take me to see it. I’m so jealous that people have the sea right on their doorstep, it’s so wonderful.

The wedding was a little further away, near Balcombe, at the rather marvellous Highley Manor. Probably the best location for a wedding. Ever. All dark wood and big roaring fireplaces and leather settees and wing-backed chairs. The whole venue is hired out, so the rooms are all taken up by wedding guests too, meaning that you have the whole place to yourself.

The Person and I have been to a few weddings now so we’re definitely getting a feel for what does and doesn’t work as a wedding guest. Something that does work? Booze. And lots of it. The bar prices were actually a little bit frightening (£10.50 for a pint of Guinness, a gin and tonic and an alcohol-free beer – my little Northern soul blanched a little bit, we don’t pay those kinds of prices up here!) but there was nothing to worry about because they had allocated a generous portion of the wedding budget to keeping us liquored up, meaning that that round was the only money I spent that night. Always good in my books. Lots of champagne, lots of wine at the tables, free bar for part of the day for those people who don’t like champagne or wine = very happy guests.

Wedding favours came in the form of Lotto tickets for that night’s draw (unfortunately neither of us were winners although I haven’t heard if anyone else was lucky) and the tables were all named after 80s tv shows (we were on Duck Tales). Photos of the bride and bridegroom were throughout the venue and there was a little sweet bar for people to fill up on throughout the day and night. They had a band to provide the entertainment which was an excellent move, they had us all whipped up into a frenzy and dancing our socks and shoes off – it’s the first time I’ve been to a wedding with a proper band (minus the jazz band debacle of the New Year’s Eve wedding of 2010) and it was definitely one of the things that have been squirreled away in the girly portion of my brain that occasionally surfaces and thinks about what my wedding might look like if I ever get married.

(By the way, that whole providing your guests with lots of booze thing? Not so good the morning after when you want to put a gun to your head just to stop the hammering in your brain and are faced with an absolutely mammoth journey back home thanks to your desire to save money.)

Wedding Dos and Don'ts

I’m not the biggest fan of New Year’s Eve normally. Whilst I’m always up for a big night out, don’t you find that the nights out that you hype up in your head tend to be the worst? New Year’s Eve is the biggest hyped night of the year, it’s no wonder the poor sod never quite lives up to my expectations.

2010’s NYE saw a first for me however, my first NYE Wedding. The Person That I Don’t Talk About On My Blog (I really need to think of a better nickname for him) lives in the deepest, darkest South of England and one of his childhood friend’s was tying the knot so I braved my way down there to join him for some belated Christmas celebrating.

I was pretty pleased about the wedding being on NYE – you can’t go wrong with a wedding can you? They’re always fun.

Well.

I have come up with a list of Wedding Dos and Don’ts for anyone who’s planning an upcoming wedding.

DO choose a beautiful setting and they don’t come more beautiful than Arundel Cathedral (even if it is at the top of the world’s steepest hill)

DO remember to warn people that Catholic weddings go on for approximately a million years. I had completely forgotten and wanted to eat my own arm off when it got past the 1 hour mark. I almost went up to get a blessing when they were taking Communion because I felt I deserved having sat through all of it.

DO have possibly the most awesome wedding car ever.

DO exercise the bride's prerogative to be late, but DON'T take the piss. 10 minutes is fine. Half an hour, not so much.

DON’T invite people to the wedding ceremony and reception but tell them there’s no room for them at the wedding breakfast. People will feel obliged to attend the wedding ceremony and will then be left with hours and hours of dead space to try and fill. And linked to this...

DON’T have your wedding on New Year’s Eve if you’re not going to feed them. Pubs stop serving food early on New Year’s Eve, meaning that the guests not eating with you will be forced into a tea room because it’s the only place open. (But thank god it was a tea room that served wine.)

DON’T have a jazz band with the combined age of 93 providing the only entertainment all night. Yes it may be classy but it gets incredibly samey after about half an hour, what’s wrong with just having a bit of cheesy disco?!

DO feed your guests in the evening. Small home-made pies does not a buffet make. Especially when your Lost Guests only managed to find a tea room serving food.

DO give all your guests Chinese Lanterns to set off after midnight. It was a nice touch, even if people did go slightly insane in the rush to the little bonfire to light them and nearly set themselves alight.

One night in Torbaydos a.k.a. The Night I Fell Off the Wagon.

My problem is that I'm not very good at exercising self restraint. The phrases "I'll just have one" or "I'll just have a small bit" just don't seem to appear in my vocabulary. I'm an all or nothing girl. That's why it's just safer to not surround myself with temptation. It's best for me not to buy a multipack of crisps so they last me for the week. Because they won't last me for the week. They'll last for 2 days, maybe 3 if I'm lucky. I can't buy a packet of biscuits without shoving the whole lot in my mouth so it's easier to just not buy biscuits. I had hoped that now I'm eating much more sensibly I would somehow miraculously discover the ability to not plough my way through a massive bag of Sensations in one go but so far that hasn't happened.


The same rule used to apply for alcohol. I'm your classic binge drinker. I will never have just one glass of wine. I'll have 1 case bottle instead. I've never been the kind of person that will go "Ooh I'll have a lovely glass of wine in the bath". Nope. I drank to get drunk. If it wasn't a big night out, that was fine, I just wouldn't drink, I had no interest in just having one glass of wine, I'm not desperate for the taste of alcohol. In some ways this has been useful since going on the warfarin because it's meant that, to be honest, I haven't missed alcohol that much - I only drank once in a Sheffield flood, it just happened that when I drank, I drank.

I've been lucky in that I have a friend who is also a warfarin addict so I've been able to turn to her for advice. I asked her how she coped on big nights out when she was the only one sober and she informed me that she was a bad girl who, on those nights when it was a big occasion, she would just not take her warfarin, have a drink and hope that the alcohol thinned her blood out enough. I was dubious. I am a rule follower after all and the Doctor said I could only have one drink.

But.

I went down to Torquay. I knew that drinking would be involved. And, seeing as my INR has stabilised a little bit in the past month or so (hurray!) I decided that I would try this little bit of trickery out. I would forgo my warfarin, have a few drinks instead of just the one glass of wine and everything would be alright. I did feel a little dubious about it but my cousin assured me that everything would be fine and she is literally the only person I know that can use the phrase "Trust me, I'm a Doctor".

Except I forgot didn't I. I forgot that there was no way I was "just going to have an extra couple of glasses of wine". Because I can't do that.

And so I fell off the wagon.

And let me tell you. When I fall. I fall.

I was like Phil Mitchell getting addicted to crack. I was like a kid in toyshop. I was like a bunch of army lads on leave. I might as well have just asked for a top shelf drink. I managed to consume over one evening:

- gin and tonics
- wine

- margarhitas

- jaegerbombers

- vodka and coke

And I have no idea how many of the above I had.

I'm not proud. It was not big and it was most certainly not clever and my hangover the next day punished me (although I have to confess that I didn't feel more hungover than I would have been on any other big night out, I thought I would be much worse considering this would be the first time I'd had a mental night out since the beginning of May).

But more than that, I felt like crap because I knew that I was drinking for all the wrong reasons. I went back to my old ways of using alcohol as my safety blanket, as my secret confidence booster and I should know better than that, I should be able to handle myself in a group of strangers without being drunk. I've done alright with it so far but this night out was tough - I was surrounded by ridiculously good looking people and if they weren't good looking, they were clever and doing worthwhile jobs. It's bad enough that I was out with a load of Doctors but when the only other person who isn't a Doctor works with a freakin' bomb disposal unit in the army, you can start to feel more than a little pathetic that you do nothing really worthwhile with your life.

Lots of good looking people + lots of talent = levels of self-loathing through the roof

So I drank to care less that I was the fattest person there (and this is after losing 2.5 stone, if I'd been in this situation a few months previously I'd have probably ended the night by throwing myself in the harbour) and I drank to care less that I was having to talk to strangers, and I drank to make myself not care about either of these situations.

And I ended up becoming the person that I don't really like. I was like the person that I've been observing on my nights out when sober - I was too loud and probably obnoxious and my sarcasm levels went absolutely through the roof. My sarcasm can get me in trouble at the best of times but when I'm drunk the opportunities for me to come across as a complete bitch are many.

I won't lie. I had an amazing night. It was hilarious and I wouldn't change it for the world. It was just that afterwards, as the sea wind was blowing my hangover round my head, I realised that I don't want to go back to being that person. I don't want to go on a bender like that again. And I hope that this realisation is enough to finally knock the notion of self restraint in to my head.

I just need to find self-confidence some other way but have no idea how.

Reckon Phil Mitchell will lend me his crack pipe?

(Obviously joking. Don't do drugs kids)

The English Riviera

So I've thought and I've thought and I've decided that I can't write everything that I want to write in one post. So I will do a lovely "oooh look at these nice pictures" post and then tomorrow (hopefully) I'll do a lovely "oooh look at what happens when I decide I'm going to drink again" post.

So I travelled down to Torquay this weekend to see my favourite cousin. I hate that I don't get to see her more often - she's the closest I've got to having a sister. Yes, ok, I do actually have a sister, but she's 13 years older than me and we have very different personalities, whereas me and my cousin are only separated by 15 months or so and are pretty much the same person. All I want to do really is look after her, I worry about her you know. I know she's perfectly capable of looking after herself but there's something about our relationship that brings the protective side of me out.

To be honest if she were any old random on the street I'd kind of want to slap her. Stupidly pretty with a grotesquely amazing figure, blonde, a freakin' Doctor, she can dance, she can cook - seriously, anyone else would be getting a poke in the eye round about now. Instead I am stupidly proud of her and would be quite happy to walk down the street with a sign above my head saying "Hey everyone! This is MY cousin!"

But. She lives at the other end of the universe. Also known as Devon. So I have to content myself with seeing her a couple of times a year instead.

This was my first time down to Torquay in particular and I had high hopes, but the weather gods decided to literally rain on my parade and it sheeted it down most of the weekend. It wasn't just the weather that I had to contend with though, I had to deal with...

Killer seagulls.

Growing up, I thought I knew seagulls pretty well. I saw them occassionally, heard their call, life was good. Until I went down to Exmouth to visit a friend and came across something that bore a striking resemblance to an albatross or pterodactyl on the beach. I don't know what goes on down south but those seagulls are ridiculously massive. And they scare the crap out of me. I'm pretty sturdy, I don't start flapping and screaming when a flock of pigeons flies within 10 feet of me, but these...things...are enough to bring me out in a cold sweat.

And it got worse. Not just normal seagulls - but baby killer seagulls were all over the place. Don't be fooled by their cute grey feathers - they want to peck your eyes out and feast on your flesh.

We did manage to trip to see the sea on Sunday, dragging our ridiculously hungover asses to Babbacombe, and more specifically Oddicombe Beach.

Things you should know about Babbacombe and Oddicombe Beach:

1. There is a crazily steep road down to a car park by the beach. And when I say crazily steep I mean I was surprised there wasn't an Alton Towers rep at the top, taking £35 off you and reminding you to make sure your harness was fastened securely. It was ridiculous. And actually rendered me speechless until the horror was over.

2. The Buccaneer Arms does not serve guacamole with its nachos - despite saying so on the menu - but it does do good cheesy chips and the loveliest lady ever will serve you.

3.There is a lovely funicular railway that will take you all the way down to Oddicombe Beach and it is staffed by the happiest, friendliest people you'll ever meet.

4. You should probably go to Oddicombe Beach soon because the cliff surrounding it is disappearing fast.

5. People are mental and will still go swimming in the sea even when it's raining. Granted it wasn't freezing, but come on people!

6. You can buy the most brilliant tacky tea towels from the souvenir shop for £1.50. Win.

First impressions of Torquay? Pretty damn good. It would be undoubtedly more charming if the sun was shining and if we didn't spend most of the time wishing the throbbing in our heads would subside, but not even the old lady who was walking in front of us and proceeded to wet herself could dampen (pun intended) my spirits.