Happy 101

Some time ago, the rather delightful Nic at Nic’s Notebook gave me the Happy 101 award. Now I know what some of you may be thinking, “She’s already got that one, she blogged about it before”. But you see technically technically I got that award on the old blog and really, seeing as this is a fresh new start I think that all awards are cancelled and can be received anew on this blog instead.

That’s my line, and I’m sticking to it.

The problem I have is that I’ve already passed on these awards to all of you who’ve been crazy kind enough to stick with me into this new blog so I don’t really have anyone to pass it on to but I did think on one little person who is new to the blogging business and might appreciate a little award love.

So I present this to you...Lucy from Tete en l’air.

*applause*

So I'm afraid Lucy you now have the dubious honour of passing this on to other people and also listing 10 things that make you happy. Them’s the rules. Plus you get this pretty little picture to put on your blog. Happy days.

So. What makes me happy?

1. CRISPS. It should be apparent to all who have read this blog for only a short time the depth and breadth of my love for these salty snacks. Even though my intake has dramatically reduced since starting Weightwatchers (I’d forgotten you could actually buy single packs of crisps I’d been buying family sized bags and eating them in one go for so long) I still get a crisp fix most days.

2. CATS. The love for cats should be as apparent as the love for crisps. I’m not a one cat woman, my love goes out to all felines – Fred and Lily, Maggie and Maud, Eddie and any cat who comes within 12 feet of me which I will, without exception, try and touch.

3. LOSING WEIGHT. Sorry but it’s true. I was asked in my meeting this week how I felt now that I’ve lost 3 stone and I said that I felt happier. I was starting to become a miserable little bitch when I was overweight (granted there were relationship problems thrown into the mix as well) and it’s hard to be happy for other people when you’re miserable yourself. I feel like a happier person generally nowadays.

4. THE GYM. My god, what’s happened to me?! I’ve had my soul stolen by an invasion of the gym-snatchers. But I’ve found that I do enjoy working out now – I like feeling like I’ve really exercised and done something and I like that I am making slow but sure improvements in my stamina and strength the more I go. The gym is also a lot more pleasurable now that I’ve lost weight, my fitness has improved dramatically now that I’m not lugging all that extra mass around.

5. SOUP. Now that I’m completely over my irrational soup fear it’s become my best friend and I’m all up for trying out new recipes. What makes me particularly happy is that I can make it and freeze it in batches so I don’t have to think about what I’m having for lunch each day.

6. CROCHET. I’ve finally mastered something other than a granny square! Ok, so it’s a granny stripe (pictures coming next week hopefully) but still it’s something different. I love the process of crocheting, and that it builds up very quickly, making it more immediately satisfying than cross stitch or embroidery can be.

7. AUTUMN. I’m pretty sure the blogosphere is over-represented by people who like Autumn, it’s all anyone’s been talking about lately. Unless it really is just everyone’s favourite season? I will join the hordes and out myself as an Autumn lover – I’m all in favour of seasons that encourage us to layer up and cover our bodies in clothes.

8. THE APPRENTICE. I’m so pleased this is back on the telly box. It makes me so happy to watch it because I can think to myself that however badly my life might be going I can be reassured that I’m not as big of a tit as some of those contestants are. (Anyone see the first episode this week? Dan as Project Manager? He’s done an excellent job at talking himself out of future employment. What an idiot.)

9. BOOKS. You know I can’t get enough of them. You all quietly tolerate my monthly book updates and I am thankful for that (but don’t worry this was a 2010 feature only!).

10. TRAIN JOURNEYS. Makes me sound like a bit of a mentalist but I swear I have valid reasons. I’m not brilliant at sitting still and always, especially lately, seem to be rushing about places and seeing people and doing things. Train journeys are like a gift of time – you are forced to sit down in one place, quietly for an extended period of time, without having to feel like you should be up and doing something more productive. Plus, there’s the whole excitement of reaching your final destination to take into consideration.

What was interesting is that I actually went back and found the post when I got this award originally just to see what my 10 things that made me happy then were. I think I can basically conclude that crisps, books and cats are the only constants in my life!

Fur fix

I am being a surrogate Mum again, this time not for three guinea pigs, but for my favourite ‘Children’.


The Fred and the Lily.

Have you missed them? I have. I miss my regular Fredders and Bilster time and miss being able to have them at the flat and generally laugh at them doing stupid things. I feel like since I split up with the ex I see them less although I know that this can’t really be the case because I’m sure I see more of my Mum now (and if I don’t I seriously need to reassess my position as Best Daughter Ever). It’s bizarre. But I definitely feel there has been an absence of them on this blog since I started it.

I must rectify that immediately.

Mum is off to see my sister until Sunday so I have my little suitcase packed up (yes it does need to be a suitcase to include laptop and clothes and food and wool and embroidery thread and all other components of my transportable world) and I cannot wait to get to Mum’s house to see my favourite furry faces.

I love them an awful lot you know. My voice goes very creepy and high pitched when I talk about them and I usually end any story about them screwing my face up and saying “I just want to squish their little faces!”

(Hey I’m a self-confessed Crazy Cat Lady. You can’t judge.)

I love them so much that when I go to stay with them I talk to them.

And put blankets on them.

And shove my cameras in their face so much that they start to look as if they’re giving me evils in their photos.

And I love them despite the fact that when I try and take a picture of me with them they move forward and take up the whole ruddy photo with their face so you can only see my ear.

I'm a happy bunny.

Anybody out there?

So the other week when I was in Liverpool, being greatly embarrassed at the hotel’s attempts to get my boss and in the honeymoon suite, I decided to take a little look around the Metropolitan Cathedral, which was right outside our training venue.

I had visited the cathedral once before when I was 18 on an English A-level trip (which incidentally had nothing to do with English, I’ve never really understood why we all went away, I think it was jealousy on the part of the English department that the A-level Geographers used to get to go to Switzerland) and I remembered not being a fan at all. I had been completely taken away with the Anglican cathedral, further down the road, and this place was all modern and felt a little alien. What was the pulpit doing in the middle?! I wasn’t a fan at all.

However I think the 27 year old me can appreciate it a little bit more than the 18 year old me.

What looks like an extremely odd building from the outside – all stone and angles and spiky bits and quite frankly scary looking doors – is transformed into a rather breathtaking space inside. Rather than being cold and jarring, it actually feels kind of cosy inside and despite its enormous size, kind of intimate.

Scary looking front door

Most of this I’m convinced is down to the clever use of stained glass throughout. The light in the cathedral is stunning and even though there aren’t big massive windows inside, it doesn’t feel dark and dank and cold, something that more traditional churches suffer from I think. There’s also a more modern take on the use of stained glass, it doesn’t all have to be pictures of lambs to the slaughter or disciples falling on their knees, these are just simple pieces of plain coloured glass.

Apologies for crappy, shaky photos. Although you're allowed to take photos, I just felt a bit wrong doing it, know what I mean?!

At the very top of the cathedral, in the wigwam bit that you can see from the outside, the glass gently turns through the spectrum so that as you walk around the perimeter of the pews, you see a different colour and the light shines through in a different way.

It’s funny really, it wasn’t how I remember it at all. I remembered this strange, spacecraft type building, but actually it’s just like any other church, just round instead of square. There are chapels and places for contemplation all around the outside and it doesn’t feel odd once you’re in there. You feel like you would in any other church.

Which is where my problems arise.

I like churches. I like them a lot and it’s hard to explain why. I don’t know if it’s because they’re peaceful and quiet. I don’t know if it’s because they always feel a little bit special, I like to think of all that the people went through to build something like that just to go in and talk to God. And then I come a bit undone. I feel as if I shouldn’t really be there, appreciating it all. What right do I have to sit and marvel at the work someone’s put in to building a house of God when I don’t even know if there is a God? I feel like an interloper, intruding on a place which really should be marked Out of Bounds to the likes of me. I actually feel guilty sometimes, I hope that God doesn’t mind that I was in there when I’m not even sure if he exists and don’t have any sort of relationship with him.

And I always feel terribly guilty if I go and light a candle, which I nearly always do. I don’t know why I do it, is it just because I’m in a church and I remember doing it when I was small? Do I do it as an insurance policy – “Just in case you are there God I just want you to make sure these people are ok up there”. Do I do it just to remind myself that there are people I just need to take a minute to remember?

It’s a funny bunch of conflicted feelings I get from going into church, from initial “Oh this is lovely and peaceful” to then feeling sad and thinking “I wish I could get out of this what the people who really believe in God must get out of it” before moving on feeling guilty, “They know I don’t believe you know, I should stop stealing all the sacredness and leave some for real believers.”

Maybe it’s better that I just stay clear of churches.

Working up a sweat

So I am now a member of a new gym. Whilst my old gym served a purpose, namely that it was cheap and close to where I lived, it really wasn’t a particularly pleasant place. Dark and dingy and cramped with limited equipment and a man who used to shout at you if you talked.


When my gym friend and I heard that there was a new fancier gym which could be ours for the taking for the same price as our rubbish gym we decided to go for it immediately.

It’s rather beautiful. Lots of treadmills (instead of the two you would have to fight for at the old place) and bikes and cross trainers and machines we’d never even seen before. And the weights machines? Oh the weights machines –weights machines for biceps and triceps and forceps (no?), hell there’s even a machine for your bum. Amazing.

And the best thing? You can escape from the horrible grunty groany men who like to parade in front of the mirrors and grimace and gurn while they lift ridiculous weights and surreptitiously check each other out. They have their own section of the gym, tucked away from everyone else. Go and be grunty elsewhere horrid boys. It’s even lit less well than the rest of the gym, you seriously can ignore them, it’s brilliant.

There’s a huge area to do your free weights or do your sit-ups (or if you’re me, do 20 sit-ups and then spend the rest of the time crying and clutching my stomach, why are my abs so ridiculously useless?!).

All that would be great and would be more than enough but it gets better. There are classes. Included in the monthly price. Classes?! Classes?! Could life get any sweeter? I want to try out everything, immediately, especially the Zumba classes. I have been banging on about Zumba for a very long time, ever since I couldn’t sleep and watched infomercials which must have brainwashed me in the early hours of the morning. I just need to find a time to go.

Gym friend and I signed up for just whatever we could find that was available – Pump. (I cannot say this with a straight face. It’s just impossible.)

We had no idea what it was and as the day approached I started to get a little panicky. I’ve never done an exercise class before and was wondering what we’d let ourselves in for. Turns out we couldn’t have picked a better class to start – Pump isn’t an aerobic class but is a kind of free-weight toning class you do lots of repetitive lifting to music and exercise different parts of your arms, shoulders, chest, legs and abs. We worked away and by the end I was feeling pretty knackered but more or less ok.

(Although I should tell you it was a concerted effort to keep my umbrella above my head as my arms were feeling a little disassociated from my body.)

Although it was great, I kind of like to really feel like I’ve done something. I need to feel gross and sweaty and ashamed to be seen in public after I’ve done a workout so I’m on the lookout for something a little more exerting and I’m thinking I might give spinning a go, the problem is finding a time when I can fit the class in, I’m not really one for arranging my life around the gym, it’s going to have to find a way to fit in around me I’m afraid.

But all of this for £20 a month makes me a happy girl.

Patchwork Blanket - Finished.

This little patchwork bad boy is finished. Let’s hear a hurrah!

*Hurrah*

He hasn’t taken me too long to get sorted actually, started on 31st August and finished on 27th September so just under a month. But let’s remember that;

a) I had a week long holiday which meant I could spend a lot of time on it

b) I had a boring work trip to Liverpool which involved me spending whole evenings in a hotel room with nothing else to do but crochet.

c) I had an ill-fated day waiting in for a parcel that never turned up so spent a whole day on it

d) It’s only bloody small



The final size comes out at about half a single bed, maybe a little more (actually it's a lot more, that's my double bed it's on). It’s more than big enough to go over your lap, I would know I had lots of fun being warm beneath it when I was doing my edging and if I curl up into a little ball it covers me completely (yes I did a test. No there aren’t photos) and my friend is easily half the size of me so I reckon it will do the job just fine.

Only downside is that I really don’t want to give it to her. Like really don’t. I want to keep it.

I guess I will just have to make one for myself when Christmas is over and I can make things just for me again.

The edging did end up being pretty monstrous – I weighed up for a long time about whether to do more squares or not. At the end of the day it came down to cost. I didn’t want to do more squares but then have to buy more wool to do the edging, especially as I couldn’t even be sure the same colours would be available from the cheapazoid basket at my local wool shop. So I decided to go round a few times instead, finishing off with some red wool which I thought would complement the red wool I used on the underside to join the squares together.

Then I spent a long time taking photos and complaining that it’s TOO DARK to take photos now and I couldn’t get any that properly showed off the colours.

I am pleased with him. He’s a happy little number. And special because I designed him all by little self.

So there we have it. I can officially tick one person off my Christmas present list. Get in. And it’s only cost me £10. If you don’t factor in labour, because if you did you would have to charge people trillions of pounds. I think this is what you call a labour of love you know.

So.

What next?

Why I hate changing rooms

Ok. So losing this weight (38lbs so far thank you very much) has been great. I feel a little happier in myself and the gym is a slightly more pleasurable experience now that I don’t nearly die on the treadmill. But there’s one huge downside.

Clothes.

I’m not a girly girl. There are few things I hate more in life than shopping. The idea of a long day of aimless wandering in shops brings me out in a cold sweat. I don’t do aimless. I do planned. If I know what I want I’m sorted, “I need a pair of jeans” I can tell myself and off I will go and find a pair of jeans. Shopping trips last a couple of hours, three max, and then I have the rest of my day to enjoy.

Now I find myself in a strange situation of having lost a lot of weight but having no idea what suits me or if I can get away with wearing something now that I’m a little thinner. All too often you see someone squeezed in a bit of lycra, splurging on all sides, proudly proclaiming “I’ve lost 3 stone!” Brilliant for you but that doesn’t mean jeggings are your friend love.

Far worse than any of this however is my one true horror. The changing room. Why are they such devilishly awful places? Why do they have terrible lighting and horrendous mirrors? And why are they so freakin’ small?!

One incident more than any other demonstrates my terrible experiences with changing rooms...

Earlier in the year I was heading for a night out. My weight having ever so slowly crept up and up and up and up I realised that I really didn’t have a lot to wear and certainly nothing that I felt comfortable in. I went into Next to have a look and saw something floral and floaty. I figured it would do, and locating my size I ran into the changing room.

I squeezed into the cubicle, and got my top off, the whole time remaining completely paranoid that people could see in (why do the curtains never fully go all the way across?!) and in total fear that someone would walk in on me (that did actually happen to me once in Primark. While I was trying on bras. Seriously.)

I got the top off its hanger and tried to pull it on. It wasn’t really going anywhere. “My god please don’t tell me I’m this fat” I prayed to whichever god was listening. Then I realised that I was being an idiot and there was a zip on the side. Down came the zip and I tried again but was sweating with the exertion and nearly in tears because it really was a struggle to get on.

I zipped it up and looked at myself. Not too bad, it didn’t look horrendous, but what the hell was with this extra piece of fabric down on my left hand side, what could that be for, where was it supposed to go?

And then I realised...

It was a leg hole.

I had just shoved my whole body through one leg hole of a playsuit.

I was torn between being immensely relieved that the reason I had difficulties getting it on wasn’t because I was ridiculously fat and being immensely horrified that someone would even make a playsuit in my size. There is no way that someone of my size back then (and I would argue, my size now) should be wearing a playsuit.

As I left the changing rooms the member of staff asked me “Was that any good for you?” and I felt I could shake my head and say emphatically, “No. No that was not good for me.”

My changing room fear continues unabated.

Freedom Festival 2010 - only about a month late

Continuing my recent theme of “Let’s tell people about things that have happened in Hull well after the event instead of beforehand when it might actually be useful”, I would like to tell you quickly about the Freedom Festival which took place over 2 days on 10th/11th September. (I did have every intention of posting about this the day I went on holiday but didn’t want to rush it and write something rubbish.)

I seem doomed to not really be around in Hull when the Freedom Festival takes place. Last year I was in Manchester for most of it and only saw Florence + the Machine and this year I ended up meeting up with my brother and sister-in-law to give them the blanket for the new baby and didn’t get around to going and seeing everything.

I cannot believe I missed McFly who have suddenly become ridiculously fit, meaning that I no longer feel shame for actually liking them (seriously, what happened to the lead singer – I don’t know them well enough to know their names, but HELL-o!). And I missed The Saturdays again. And Aleesha Dixon and a whole host of people I probably should know, but don’t because I don’t listen to the radio anymore.

(And did I mention all this is free?)

I only ended up getting into town for the final act which was Foals. I’m sorry if you know them and can’t believe I don’t but I really have never heard of them. I know, I suck at life. Were they good? Meh. It’s difficult watching a band you have absolutely no idea about and don’t recognise any of the songs. I know that I had a good time watching them but I don’t remember any of the songs even a little bit. Not a good omen. But everyone else seemed to like them, so I’m going with the notion that the majority of people who do get to listen to the radio while they’re in work and in their cars, like Foals, so therefore, they must be good.

Foals - no really, it is, it's just an appalling photo

What I really wanted to see was the French street theatre company, Plasticiens Volants, who use giant inflatable puppets to tell a story, high above the heads of those watching below.

They were due to start at 10pm and I had no real idea what to expect, by about 10.15pm I was starting to whinge. I was woefully underdressed for the occasion and starting to feel the cold. “When’s it going to staaaaaaaart?!” I moaned at my companions. At that moment I turned round and nearly fell over as I saw a giant inflatable head come floating into Queens Gardens, shortly followed by two fishies. They came in and amongst us, the puppeteers are attached to the inflatables with strings and run in and out of the crowd, making the puppets swoop down on unsuspecting victims. It was actually a little bit scary.

Then a big giant eel appeared and chased the fishies about. The fishies retreated to what can only be described as giant inflatable weeds while the eel bobbed about on the outside. Then, from the other side of the park appeared a beautiful lady with cat’s heads for breasts (yes, really) and she battled with the eel, forcing him among the reeds where he died.

The pretty cat-breast-lady did not escape unscathed. She appeared to get a puncture halfway through her battle which I seriously hope was not because of the morons who kept leaping up trying to grab at the inflatables. I dread to think how much that was going to cost to get punctured.

I’m not brilliant at interpretive street theatre. I quite like words to go with what I’m seeing and I’m still not entirely sure what the hell was going on. I appears that eel = bad and cat-breast lady = good. And I’m pretty sure the fishes were on the side of cat-breast lady. I’m not entirely sure where the giant head came into things though. I’ve had a look on their website and I still can’t figure out what story we were being told – but I did see cat-breast lady in Babilonia which unfortunately doesn’t have an English translation. I think we maybe just got a select few of the characters they use, rather than the full shazam – for some reason on their list of performances they haven’t included the Freedom Festival, which is a shame.

Anyway. It was exciting. And different. And only mildly scary.

(And did I mention it was free?)

And to round it all off there were fireworks which always goes down well. Who doesn’t like ooh-ing and aah-ing and clapping their hands and jumping up and down like some kind of moron?

Next year, I’m clearing the diary.

(It’s free you know.)