Mistletoe and Wine

'Tis the season of Christmas parties, abundant hangovers, and random snogging - sadly, I've missed out on most of it, being neither still at an office (no random snogging at the office party, generally, given there were only four men who worked there), nor in London early enough to capitalise on invites from mates till Saturday, when I attended two. So the Christmas party this year was really the weekend that I spent in Sheffield with friends a couple of weeks ago (followed by my last weekend in Scotland, spent in the Borders, with actual SNOW. Yeah, Scotland knows how to do December: 100 mile an hour winds and snow).

I rocked up at lunchtime on the Friday, to be whisked off to Chatsworth by my friend Lucy, to gaze at 20 foot high Christmas trees, huge tables fully laid up with the family silver and a fantastic room where you could write a wish on a label and tie it to a pillar - best not to start reading any of them if you're feeling at all 'seasonally affected', as they were all either ridiculously sweet or terribly sad. My wish was probably that Ash would win Masterchef and Harry would win Strictly, both of which came to pass, so it definitely works.

Feeling suitably festive, we headed off for dinner with our friend Shelly, her mum and her stepdad, after which Lucy and I decided to go 'out out' (as Micky Flanagan would say) to a bar down the road. I was warned it would be a total meat market. 'Bring it on!' I thought, 'I'm wearing a frock and everything!' It's amazing how liberated you feel when you know you're not going to have to tackle hills and cobbles, plus a howling gale and probably lashing rain on a night out. You can wear shoes that are in some way ladylike. Heck, you can even discard the cardigan if you want to. It's practically akin to ditching the corsets and grabbing a Flapper dress. And getting a job! Like Lady Sybil in Downton! Well, maybe not that liberating, but you get the idea.

As the bar was rammed, we stationed ourselves in a less crowded courtyard bit outside. We were first approached by two chaps, one of whom looked quite a lot like Alexander Armstrong from Armstrong and Miller (or the chap from the Pimm's ad, if that's more your bag, reference-wise), who I've always thought looks like a fun type. (Yeah, I have a thing for raging poshos, what of it?) We had a good old natter; 'Why did you come over to talk to us?' I eventually asked AA. 'I liked your specs', he said, 'I thought they looked cool.' Crikey! No-one's ever said that before. He lost points, however when, on finding out how old I was, he asked if I had kids/husband. I said no to both. His third question: 'Are you a lesbian, then?' Oh MEN. Men. Men. Seriously, can you not have a bit of a think about things before you say them? Is being married really the only way one can prove one's a card-carrying heterosexual? If I were a lesbian, d'you not think I'd be in a gay bar, trying to find a nice lady, instead of here, surrounded by drunk men? He was 42 and had never been married, did that make him gay?

Luckily for him, my inner Germaine Greer was out somewhere else - possibly opining on the Late Review about an opera performed entirely by dwarves, or critiquing Come Dine with Me - the Late Review's quite random these days. I laughed instead and told him to stop being such a fuckwit. He eventually offered me his number. He lived in Coventry. 'What am I going to do with that?' I said. Again, why do men do this? If you're the one who's interested in me, ask for my bloody number. As modern women, we have enough on our plate. We have to have Stressful Jobs (people look down on you if you have an easy job; they think it's a waste of the three years you spent at university, getting into debt). We have to have houses with tasteful stuff in, which have to be kept clean and tidy. Unless you're me, in which case you invite people round every three months just to force you to clean and tidy the house. We have to keep up with everything from the Leveson enquiry to global warming, apps to Twitter and the Man Booker Prize. We are expected to look groomed, primed and primped to within an inch of our lives. We're also trying to fit in trips to the gym three times a week, so that we don't have to wear hessian sacks to cover up all our unsightly bits. And see all our friends and family. It's no wonder you keep reading about those women who get up at 5.30am just to get it all done. And now we have to phone you as well? Give me a break. I've read the bloody Rules - that's still your job.

I left it at, 'I'm an old fashioned girl. You'd have to call me' (why I wanted a man who harboured suspicions I was a lesbian to call me I've no idea; actually, I knew if he took my number he wouldn't call me, so I didn't have anything to lose or gain by giving up the information. Anyway, despite the lesbian thing, I did think he was quite fun.)

Following on from this, Lucy and I were approached by a Young Man. Now, this one really was young. We both rolled our eyes as he came in with a classic, 'I need your advice' line, and proceeded to tell us an extremely long-winded story about his 'brother'. It was approximately the length of The Lord of the Rings. Halfway through I told him to get to the point - I could feel my life ebbing away. He eventually ground to a halt. Lucy and I gave our 'advice' - we were feeling in a generous and humouring sort of mood (God knows, I've tried some random conversational gambits in my time). I then asked him if he'd read The Game - it was a classic Game 'opener'. He said he hadn't. I told him I had, and if he wanted to chat to girls by seeming not to chat them up, he was going to have to make his story a lot shorter, sharper and funnier.

Despite this, he still seemed keen for a chat. I thought I'd better give him the option of leaving. 'How old are you?' I said. He made me guess, so I upped it a bit and said 24. He was 21. 21! Seriously, dude, I'm wearing a cardigan and specs and you're chatting me up? Young blokes really are confusing these days, no? You think it's all Nuts and Zoo and girls in their pants with fake eyelashes like tarantula's legs that they go for. Turns out, it's women who're old enough to be their mums, in a cardi, specs and knee-length boots. I told him I'd bet him a tenner he couldn't get within five years of my age if he guessed it. He guessed 29. I nearly died laughing and told him I was 41. I think he thought I was making it up for a laugh.

Even that didn't stop him. I'll give him points for persistence. 'So, are you coming back to mine, then?' he said. Eh? 'Of course not!' I shrieked, 'I'm old enough to be your mum!' He really didn't seem to care. I asked him to give me three good reasons why I should. 'Well', he said, 'we've had a good laugh, haven't we?' I thought, if you count me laughing at you rather than with you, then yes. But had to tell him that actually me having a laugh wasn't that unusual; young men might not generally find a woman they can have a conversation with, (constantly applying fake tan, getting your nails done and putting those eyelashes and all that make up on doesn't leave much time for intellectual stimulation), but I'd spent the week climbing indoor rock walls, let's not forget - that's chat that's going to sustain me for the next three months.

His next good reason was that he was attractive. Well, if I wanted the Daily Mail to hound me in a Caroline Flack/Harry Styles from One Direction way, then yes, he was OK, but I did have to refer him to my prior point that he was young enough to be my offspring: not attractive.

'Come on, then, what's your third point?' I said, bashing him 'playfully' on the arm. I might've been a bit drunk by this stage. 'Um, well, I've got a lot of stamina?' he ventured. I collapsed laughing before telling him that as I was so very old, this was actually quite a late night for me as it was, and that sounded exhausting. I tried really hard to find him someone more age appropriate to chat up, but failed. He reappeared about ten minutes after I'd waved him on his way, and said to Lucy, 'I'm really gutted I failed with your friend'.

So, I spanned two whole decades in terms of chat ups - got to love meat market bars for that.

Then on the train home, Rock Climbing Boy and I were texting (RCB is the ideal mid-point in my Goldilocksian venn diagram of dating, by the way, being 31.) He'd moved into a new flat, so I was asking if he was all sorted. After a few texts, he ended up saying he was hungover and vegging on the sofa, but if I wanted to come over, he'd cook me whatever was in the fridge. Why not, in for a penny, in for a pound, I thought. Then had a frantic texting session with Lucy about the fact I hadn't shaved my legs since our last date. 'Take round red wine and dark chocolate, get him stuck into that, then tell him the heating on the train was broken, you're freezing cold and you need a shower to warm up', she texted. 'Then you can grab his razor!' I really did feel very Bridget Jones. You can tell this whole 'Date 2' thing never really happens, can't you? In the end, I struck a blow for feminism and just didn't bother. My inner Germaine Greer stopped reviewing Skyrim and high fived me. He had the manners not to draw attention to it or complain. Chaps, you can take us on fancy dates, pay for dinner and pull out all the stops, but what we really want is someone with nice manners. Who won't think we're a lesbian if we're unmarried at the age of 41.

Crotchets and Quavering

The best part of Christmas (other than the moment when you think, 'Yes, I have FINISHED my Christmas shopping')? Christmas music! Although it's hard not to get a bit Grinchy when you're hearing Slade, Wizzard and Mariah Carey on a constant loop from the end of November. Added to which, some bugger used Fairytale of New York on an advert this year. Seriously? One of the most heavily played Chrimbo songs of all time and now you're using it on an advert as well? As I've been at home all day with the radio on for six weeks, I've felt positively hounded by Christmas this year.

Nevertheless, I do have to profess a profound love for Christmas hits. They're generally raucous and jolly - apart from Pipes of Peace (*sad face*), Do They Know it's Christmas (*sad charity face*) and Wham's Last Christmas (*sad singleton face*). But you can cheer yourself up by visualising George 'n' Andrew's spectacular flicky hair do's and cringey jumpers in the video and give yourself a retro chuckle by remembering that when that first came out, we all thought George Michael was straight.

And because Christmas songs are wheeled out every year, they instantly transport you into happy Christmases past and prep you for The Great Trek Home (complete with carrier bags whose handles snap just as you heave them onto the train and the grinding realisation that you've left Mum's main present on the sofa in your flat). Plus they turn all of December into an impromtu karaoke session. I challenge even the most tone deaf person not to want to warble along to Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas (the backing vocals on that are a particular joy). If all else fails, you can just shout, 'You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot' and channel your inner Scrooge with the Pogues and the much-missed Kirsty McColl.

2011's top Christmas music moments so far:
1/ A steel band playing Christmas tunes on Oxford Street yesterday. I love a steel band at the best of times, reminiscent as they are of sunshine and carnivals. Steel band + Christmas tunes = pure joy.
2/ A brass band playing carols outside a pub in Cleaver Square yesterday evening. I am so horribly sentimental now that this actually brought a tear to my eyes. I think it might've been the final scenes of Brassed Off that engendered a Pavlovian reaction to brass bands. They could be playing the world's happiest song, and I'd still be all teary.
3/ My karaoke leaving do at work. Man, I went out in style. I'd booked two hours (fool! Why do I never just go, 'come on, we're only just getting drunk two hours in - go for four, minimum'), starting at 7pm. I think I finally got home at 1.00am. We had a crack at everything (though The Only Rap Song I Can Do, Neneh Cherry's Buffalo Stance, was disappointingly absent. My colleagues would've been amazed at my word-and-timing perfect rendition of that). Finally, hoarse, drunker than a barrel of skunks at the Jack Daniels factory and emotional, it was time to finish. But what to choose for my actual swansong? It's Christmas, emotions were running high, there was only one choice: Frankie Goes to Hollywood's The Power of Love. Yeah, half my colleagues weren't born when that came out, but dammit, it's a bloody great song. It's got mental lyrics ('I'll protect you from the hooded claw'), and has nothing to do with Christmas ('keep the vampires from your door'), but has brilliant soaring bits that if you're really in the mood can't be beaten.

I. Gave. It. Loads. I made that song my own, as Louis Walsh would say. Even the guy who'd come to try to eject us from the karaoke room went, 'Wow. That was really good' at the end. (High praise indeed). I can only apologise to the colleagues who were sitting there going, 'This is so SAD. How could she pick such a SAD SONG?' And hey, I could've had a crack at Adele's Someone Like You, and pointed at them all individually throughout, whilst weeping profusely. They'd never have allowed anyone to leave the company again if I'd done that.

Blow the Winds Southerly

As an addendum to the earlier post, my intention to possibly go to the gym and definitely get rid of my books this afternoon ended up being - naturally - postponed (although I did offload the final bag of clothes to the charity shop). But at least this time it's not my fault - we're being battered by truly mad winds in Scotland (apparently it going to get up to 100 miles an hour tonight; I suddenly had a vision of all the 'Occupy Edinburgh' tents being blown around the city like so many plastic bags).

It's quite nice when one's procrastination is government-approved.

Flying South for Winter

I am currently enjoying what's known in the trade as 'gardening leave', although why they call it that, I've no idea. Barely anyone I know has a garden, and about 80% of the ones that do employ someone else to do the actual gardening bit for them. Plus, it implies a level of activity that's frankly unrealistic, when you're as pathologically lazy as I am. What it should really be called is 'Pajama Leave', as there's no need to get up before 10am, and you don't have to get dressed at all if you're not venturing out of the house.

Yes, it's true, for those that don't know, I'm leaving Edinburgh and moving back down South. Edinburgh is prepping for my departure by being absolutely freezing (I went to see a friend in Glasgow on Tuesday and was surprised by the amount of snow on the fields as I whizzed along on the train). I am currently to be found not only wearing flannel PJs in bed, but also a long-sleeved thermal top underneath. During the day, I'm spending a lot of time when indoors in my puffa coat and scarf, wondering quite how high my heating bills will be if I have the radiators on all day. It's a bit like being an invalid (spending all your time in your dressing gown), but in the Arctic. The upside is, I'm encouraged to go to the gym just to warm up through doing some exercise and using the sauna.

I assumed when I embarked on my gardening leave that I'd automatically morph into the kind of woman who goes to yoga every morning, then sits around in chi-chi cafes sipping chai lattes whilst reading Grazia. Sadly, this has not really come to pass - although I have done a fair few yoga classes, I'm not suddenly some wheatgrass-imbibing detox type. No, I spent this morning:

• Cleaning the fridge. Well, I got halfway through that, then got bored. I have thrown out most of the foodstuffs that had an expiry date of the end of October, though.
• Thinking about whether to go to a Body Pump class or not. This is my new thing - an hour or so of grunting about with weights on a bar in a class, surrounded by men with no necks, and quite a few superbuff girls. Needless to say, the amount of weight I can cope with makes it look as though I'm lifting a cocktail stick with an olive on each end of it. It's also pretty dull (the only variation is whether you're going '2 up and 2 down' or '3 up and 1 down' or even 'up for 4, down for 4'. The real high point is when you only go 'halfway up' - yes, paint drying seems like watching Usain Bolt set another 100m record in comparison). Still, it definitely works; after one class, my arms were shaking so much, I couldn't put any mascara on. However, as I went to a class yesterday, I can't face another one today. Fail. I'm now wondering whether if I fill a rucksack full of books to take to the second hand shop and trek for the 40 minutes to get there, that will be equivalent as a form of exercise. Let's say yes.
• Buying a danish pastry the size of my head and a coffee from the lovely cafe next door, and then settling down to watch Frozen Planet on iPlayer. The cafe is staffed by a number of nice looking young men, which is always a bonus. There is one who is particularly handsome, who makes the coffee. He looks like he should be some sort of conceptual artist, really, and is only there by accident. I curse myself every time for going in there with no make up on and with unbrushed hair. Because obviously me requesting 'a date slice and an Americano with hot milk to take out, please' is the ideal romantic opener, and if only I were more spruced up, then Art Boy would immediately light up, say, 'no, don't worry, that's on me' and, er, invite me to see his etchings. He was serving again today, and I've now got to the point where I can't look him in the eye when he hands over the coffee. So I say thanks, he says, 'no problem' and I scuttle out. I wondered today if, in a few weeks time, he will think to himself, 'I haven't seen that scruffy, blushing ginger girl who has such a thing for date slices for a while. I wonder where she is.' I doubt it, but a girl can dream.

My Dad keeps asking me 'how I'm filling my days'. He gets up at about 6.30am, so has quite a lot of day to fill. I keep reassuring him that as I don't generally get up till about 9.00am, and then that's usually to make a cup of tea and return to bed with a magazine for a bit, I have considerably less day to fill. It's extraordinary, actually, how little you can get done in a day, if your weeks have no structure to them. Putting a wash on suddenly seems like an achievement on the scale of engineering world peace, or an end to the melting of the polar icecaps. Plus, for an arch procrastinator such as myself, it affords endless opportunities to think, 'oh, I'll do that tomorrow'.

Recently, I've whiled away a whole day reading Russell Brand's second book. I've embarked on a series of improving facials, which see me having my face prodded with a number of electrical 'wands' in order to improve my crepey eyelids and get rid of any forehead wrinkles. I know no-one else will notice the difference, but I think it's working, and it makes me feel like one of those Ladies Who Lunch. My internet connection is so slow that checking emails takes forever. There's all that catching up to do on iPlayer, now my TV's been taken down South for the winter (it's frustrating that I have a huge box set of Mad Men, which I've never seen, but which I know I'm going to love, as part of my leaving gift from work, but nothing to play it on. Although perhaps this is a good thing - I really wouldn't leave the house if I could just watch DVDs 24/7).

I'm also finally wading through the last mountain of paper in preparation for moving out. As per usual, when boxing up all my possessions, I had a near breakdown about how much stuff I have. I thought I'd made a conscious effort not to buy loads of things, but somehow, when I produced a vague list as to what I'd acquired in the last 18 months, it was still alarmingly long and included things such as 'huge Rob Ryan framed print' and 'massive rug', plus duvet, airbed, pillows, baking kit, cake tins and at least 3 pairs of boots. The worst of it is the paper, though. How on earth do I accrue so much of it? What makes me constitutionally incapable of throwing out magazines, not ripping out recipes which I'll clearly never make and having thousands of envelopes everywhere with scrappy 'to do' lists and random phone numbers on them? Every time I move house, I swear it will be different, and every time I end up flicking through 6-month old magazines (you can't just throw them out! There might be something useful in there) and making hundreds of trips to the recycling bins. I should be taking the time to do improving things like going to galleries and museums, but no, I'm hefting massive bags of rubbish around and cursing. I never tested out whether the fireplace in my sitting room was in working order, but this week might well be the time to try - keep warm for free and get rid of all your crap? Win-win, I'd say.

Scaling New Heights

So, I hope you're all now fully recovered from your shock at the fact that I'd not only been asked out (on a definite date, not one of these, 'Is this a date? Or are we just having a drink in a pub? It is, after all, the third time we've done this, and on no occasion at the end of the evening have you attempted anything more amorous than a peck on the cheek and a cheery, "See you soon, then!"' - I have been involved in quite a few of these scenarios). But that I also remained true to my resolution to try new things.

Having spent four days beating myself up for suggesting an activity that was clearly going to show me in the worst light imaginable, I not only enjoyed it, but also decided it's quite a good way of vetting a potential chap's qualities.

Viz:
When climbing a fake wall is mooted as a date, does he:
A/ Raise an eyebrow and say, 'Are you kidding? I think you'd be safer in a pub.'
B/ Say, 'Sure, I know just the place. I'll show you how to do it, you'll be fine. I'll pick you up about seven.'

When you arrive at the fake wall centre (a place alarmingly called 'Alien Rock'), does he:
A/ Wave vaguely at the equipment and tell you to 'get stuck in'
B/ Check very thoroughly that you have the right size shoes (explaining why they have to be so small that you are effectively turned into a rock climbing geisha) and then set up your harness for you so it's all the right way round and you just have to clamber into it

When you are attired in all this gear and contemplating a daunting array of walls and loads of people who know what they're doing, with a look on your face that even Stevie Wonder would say conveyed, 'I think I've just made a terrible mistake, this is going to be awful', does he:
A/ Give you short shrift and tell you not to be such a nancy
B/ Grin broadly at you and give you a massive hug

When talking you through how to do the same knot for the seventh time, does he:
A/ Look at you in despair and say, 'How do you NOT GET THIS?'
B/ Laugh cheerily at you whilst describing you (not unkindly) as 'a bit of a spaz'

When you are 3/4 of the way up a wall and have got stuck, does he:
A/ Immediately winch you down, assuming you'll never make it to the top
B/ Shout up at you to 'dangle about for a bit and then have another go at it - go on, you can do it' - which proves to be enough encouragement to engineer a successful outcome

Dangling about on a rope is also a good test of whether you trust someone. I'm not sure I was much cop when the situation was reversed; I had to attach myself to a massive sandbag for a start, to avoid swinging off the ground like a vicar in a '70s comedy sketch about bell-ringing as he came down. I was feeling more attractive by the minute.

Still, I managed to get to the top of about three walls; the first two times I tried one of the 'beginner' ones, I got about 4/5 of the way up, then freaked out because I felt too high up. The third time I told myself not to be so wet and made it to the top (result!) It's not too hard if you pick the walls with big hand and foot holds and, as I'd been told, kind of climb it like a ladder, pushing up from your feet, rather than trying to haul yourself up with your arms. The holds are all in different colours, and have been mapped into 'routes' up, so if you just stick to the same colour, you will, in theory, be able to make it to the top. I wouldn't rush to do it again, but I'm really pleased I did it and did feel quite a big sense of achievement when I got to the top of the various walls and for challenging my fear of heights.

I'm not sure I passed with flying colours, but The Chap certainly passed the Gentleman Test - as an activity, it definitely reveals more about a person than an evening in the pub. Although I did of course make swift work of half a bottle of red wine afterwards at the sheer relief of being safe and sound on the ground, thus taking us back into more traditional date territory.

Climb Ev'ry Mountain

Exciting news from Purple Towers: I have a DATE. I know! Who'd have thought, eh? And done the old fashioned way: through meeting at a party. Yes, after a full two years of saying, 'I'm going to try internet dating, just so that I can amuse all my friends with terrible stories about how badly said dates have gone', I am no closer to advertising my wares on the interwebs. I have a couple of semi-passable photos (this has rarely happened). Whenever I'm drunk, I formulate a profile. I've had friends write one for me. At one stage, when out with a group of excitable lady chums, I even had an offer from one of them that she'd raise me an ISBN and I could then have appeared on Amazon. This seemed like a terrific situationist dating prank at the time, the like of which Chris Morris would have devised if he'd been a single lady of a certain age. Thankfully, I woke up the next day and through the haze of a hangover thought, 'Um, that could go quite badly wrong in all sorts of ways - not least the 'user review' section.'

So old skool, in-the-kitchen-at-parties-and-then-segueing-neatly-into-a-chat-on-a-sofa it was. It's good to know that's still an option in these tech-saturated times.

However, as we all know, when faced with any sort of romantic approach, it is as though I am a starfish on the bottom of the ocean floor, being overtaken by a brincicle (that's for Frozen Planet fans - how bloody astounding has that series been? Penguins pilfering pebbles and a cryogenic moth caterpillar? Beluga whales creating their own spa and exfoliating with gravel in the shallows? Not to mention the cameramen filming penguins in insane weather conditions; when told at one stage to take refuge in their hut by a scientist because the Arctic storm would probably kill them if they didn't, one of them calmly replied, 'We don't do that. We're the BBC'. AWESOME.) In short: I freeze and my brain goes wibbly.

We'd established there would be A Date. 'What would you like to do, then?' the chap asked.

Things I like doing: going to a pub and drinking red wine and having a chat. Seeing something at the cinema. If it was a weekend, then after all this Frozen Planet excitement, I could have suggested Edinburgh Zoo, as I haven't been there, and it has penguins.

This is what came out of my mouth instead: 'Um. Well. Er. I've always sort of fancied going up one of those indoor walls. You know, the pretend rock climbing thing. I've never done that.'

See? Total brincicle. I have a fear of heights and no co-ordination. I can barely haul myself out of the bath. Going up a pretend rock wall affords the poor chap nothing more than an opportunity to stare at my arse (why would any sane woman suggest that?) whilst listening to me shriek and then having to rescue me when I get stuck halfway up, dangling in a harness like a hapless Blue Peter presenter from 1985. Oh, who am I kidding, I'll never make it to halfway up - I'll quit when I'm two foot off the floor. I have demanded that he take me somewhere that's about the same height and scaleability as the average egg box.

This has 'doomed' written through it like a stick of rock, doesn't it?

Baby It's Cold Outside

Before I moved up North, I used to have an unwritten rule that I wouldn't put the heating on till the beginning of November. This year, in another first, I had the heating on in the evening before the end of August. I'm resisting putting it on in the morning, but only just. I put my winter jacket away for all of six weeks over the summer. When people joked about the 'summer' in Scotland, I thought to myself, 'Yeah, but I've been to the Festival in August and it's been boiling'. Those, my friends, were the halcyon days, it seems. The sun shines here and there are beautiful blue skies, but don't be deceived. It. Is. Bloody. Freezing.

I am in full winter coat already. If I were a dog, I'd have moulted around the August Bank Holiday. I feel like a confused hedgehog, not knowing when to start hibernating; it feels like it should be right now.

The Seven Ages of (Wo)man

I have had my first real instance of thinking, 'I am properly old' - I woke up on Saturday morning and totally forgot it was my birthday. You know when old people say, 'Oh, I missed my birthday' and you think, 'How could you miss that?' Well, I lost track of the days, and even though I was getting together with my family, specifically because it was my birthday (very kindly organised by my aunt), I didn't go to sleep on Friday night thinking, 'Ooh, presents and cards tomorrow!' and I woke up and had to remind myself it was my birthday. Very different from last year, when I was planning the damn thing six months in advance. I blame the fact that I was caught between being excited about giving my dad his belated 70th b'day present (a Glen Baxter print that my sister had tracked down, through actually emailing him - always cool) and being excited about going to my old school friend Shelly's wedding on the Sunday, which was going to be in a cocktail bar in South Kensington, aka a superglam drinkfest of unparalleled proportions.

I managed to prove how properly old I am by only drinking two cocktails (these were free from 4.30pm till 11.00pm. Free, I tell you!) because I was worried about getting embarrassingly drunk and falling over, then having The Fear the next morning whilst hungover. I had a bloody brilliant time. Although if last year is anything to go by, when I didn't drink on my birthday, and had a bloody brilliant time, I will get totally shit-faced this weekend and will spend all of Sunday catching up on Strictly Come Dancing and The X-Factor on iPlayer and thinking, 'Maybe I should just give up drinking'. I think I have what the experts refer to as 'a balanced lifestyle'.

The Rule of Three

Cheerful James and I have at least one thing in common - we are both Librans. Yes, well balanced, with elegant homes and dress sense, plus a marked inability to make a decision. That's what my horoscope profile always insists, at any rate. As I've never seen Cheerful James out of his regulation Virgin Active PT kit (black T-shirt, black shorts), I have no idea what his dress sense is like. Naturally, I have no idea if he has an elegant home. I've never asked him to make a decision (other than when best suits him to make me flail around doing lunges, boxing, tricky manoeuvres with large rubber tubes called ViPRs - no idea why; makes them sound like an iPad crossed with a snake, and they resemble neither - and other ungainly but improving things for an hour at a time.) You get the idea.

But yes, we both had birthdays over the weekend. I asked him how old he was, knowing perfectly well he'd just turned 29. He's never asked me how old I am, even when, last year, I said one of the reasons I was doing all this Bionification (that's definitely a word) in the first place was because I was having a Big Birthday Party, and wanted to look, as the young folks say, Amazeballs. He never asked, so I never said. But of course when I asked him how old he was, he had to ask me how old I was. So I made him guess. This has turned into my favourite game of late - not long ago, I was out in a very dimly lit bar and a boy (no other word for it) was talking to me. I asked how old he was, as he didn't look as though he was even legally able to buy a drink, and he said 24. I then made him guess my age. It was, as I've said, dark, and he was really drunk. He said, '27', which made me laugh like a hyena. 'Is that the oldest he can possibly imagine a woman being?' I wondered.

Mind you, I've decided I'm going to have to start lying about my age - it was one thing saying, 'I'm 40', it's going to be quite another saying, 'I'm in my 40s'. People in their 40s have their lives sorted - they organise holidays more than a fortnight in advance. They have a capsule wardrobe. They get their shoes re-heeled before said heels actually fall off. They hoover regularly. They have pints of milk in the fridge, just because that's what you're supposed to do, not because you're having people to stay and they might want milk in their tea. They don't have teetering towers of Grazia that date back three months by the bedside. They probably don't buy Grazia at all! They've moved on from caring about whether Poor Tragic Jen is over Brad and whether Cheryl Cole has a 'job' in telly and they now read The Economist. Gaaah. I've decided I really liked being 38 - you didn't have to worry about any of this stuff.

So, Cheerful James has been seeing me, at close range, in the glaring strip lights of Virgin Active for over a year. Most of the time, I have my hair in a ponytail and practically no make up on, as it's the end of the day. I am a sweaty mess. How old did he think I am? '32'. 32! 'So, you think I'm three years older than you?' I asked. He nodded, a bit bemused (he'd given it a bit of thought). Aww, could I love him more? I told him how old I was and that the Big Birthday last year had been in aid of me turning 40. I have come to the conclusion that if you imply that you're a bit older than someone they either a/ just assume you mean 'about three years older' or b/ have such a great fear of being punched in the noggin that they will only venture an age that's three years older in order not to cause offence.

Either way, I know it's incredibly vain and shallow, but being told you don't look your age is the best free ego boost you can get. Let's just hope that when I suddenly age overnight, I've managed to save up enough cash for industrial amounts of Botox and fillers to fix things. I'm aiming for a look that's between Kylie Minogue and Lulu on the age spectrum. Alternatively, I suppose I could just add a decade on to my age. Which would be infinitely cheaper and no more deceitful.

Cool Hand Luke

I was at a hen do in Harrogate this weekend; it was all very restrained - no drunken tarting around town dressed in T-shirts with the bride's name on the back, chatting up unsuitably young men. Thank God. Anyway, that's by the by. This was one of the conversations that I had:
Bride's Mum to me: Wow, your nails are amazing, nice manicure!
Me: Thanks, I did it myself, on the train on the way down. I've done them on the Tube before now, actually, I'm quite practised at it.
Bride to be: Hmm, so if you wanted an alternative career, you could be a...
[rest of table fills in the word 'manicurist']
... Sniper.
All: Eh?
Bride to be: She's got really steady hands! You need steady hands to be a sniper!
Brilliant.

This reminded me of two stories:
1/ The time I had to go out to dinner with a Russian author who'd written a book about his violent life in a tiny community in the middle of nowhere. I hadn't read the book, and had run out of small talk (rapidly). I knew he'd been a sniper in the army, so in desperation, I was forced to ask:
So, um, how far away from someone can you be and still kill them?
The thoroughly alarming answer was two kilometres.

2/ The one and only time I tried clay pigeon shooting. I was with a female friend and two blokes - none of us had done it before. After a quick run through with the instructor ('Hold it really tight into your cheek - otherwise the recoil will smash your cheekbone' - it was at this point I thought it might not be the sport for me), the boys of course were hitting everything in sight. My female friend had her first go, and was told dryly by the instructor that she was, 'nearly in the same postcode with that one'. I went one better and panicked so thoroughly that I loosed off a shot, and then shouted, 'Pull'. Steady hand or no, I think it's going to take quite a lot of training before I qualify as a sniper.

Britain's Entrepreneurial Elite

The trees are starting to turn. The kids are all off for a new term, nay, year. I finally fancy buying some clothes (summer clothes just don't do it for me). Yes, it's a new season. So, it's time to find out what NEW, EXCITING things I've been trying recently. However, there are quite a few of them, so I think I'll split it into two blogs - business and pleasure. Let's start with business.

I opened and ran a shop
I now know how it feels to be one of the Apprentii. My business decisions weren’t captured on film for the cheers and jeers of a nation, but that was only because, thank God, no-one had the time to follow me around with a video camera. For the latter half of July, and most of August, I felt like episode seven of the last series was on permanent loop, and I was stuck in it.

My Apprentice-ing was because we'd decided a pop-up shop would be an excellent way to promote our books. August in Edinburgh: thousands of people here for the Fringe, loads of eager bookish types swarming around the tents at the Book Festival, streets thronged with eager punters. Business would be booming!

First problem: finding an actual shop to pop-up in. There have been alarming statistics recently about how many retail premises are currently empty around the country – Edinburgh is no exception. Once you start looking for shops to rent, you realise how many of them have promising ‘To Let’ signs outside them. But do any of them want to have tenants for a fortnight? No, they do not. You would not believe how tricky it is to find somewhere in close proximity to the Book Festival, that you can rent out for two weeks. However, we eventually managed it (I say 'we' - I, as Project Manager [PM in Apprentice parlance] had delegated it to an intern. Hey, it was fine, they were allowed to use Google, which the actual Apprentii are not. Which is never explained - they're not planning going back in time and running a business in 1982, are they?).

Three of us did what I shall grandly term ‘a site visit’. (Again, I know the rules of being a successful candidate: you need at least three people involved in any decision so that you can blame the other two if something goes tits up, thus saving yourself in the boardroom). The space looked dauntingly large, as it was entirely empty. Even the floor needed sorting out (bashed-up concrete wasn’t going to be a good look for our upmarket shop-ette). As the threat of more phone calls to organise furniture hire and flooring rose in front of me, I had my first Helen-from-the-Apprentice moment (ie an idea of enormous efficiency; rather than the many Tom-from-the-Apprentice moments I’d had up to that point – ie, ideas that were fine, but not going to be particularly useful). I suddenly remembered the company who build our book fair stands were based nearby. They had chairs, tables, and giant panels with our book jackets on them. They could probably sort the floor out, and some lighting. Our shop could look HEAVILY BRANDED without me having to brief a mass of extra design and print work. One phone call later and a delivery date was arranged. YES. I could feel Nick Hewer smiling in relief.

He’d have rolled his eyes heavenwards, though, when I missed an email and got texted by my colleague who was on a train, saying the guys with the van were waiting to set up the furniture, but didn’t have a key to get into the shop. Good job taxis are fast, and Edinburgh is small, is the lesson there, as I hared off to the estate agent’s... It also never occurred to me that anyone would buy more than one book and not be the kind of person who always carries a canvas bag, so none of us sorted those out either. I think I am the Bagpuss of shop-keeping: keen on stories, but not much of a business brain.

Next up: designing flyers, posters and borrowing an ‘A-frame’ for outside the shop from The List, who have an office above ours. First of all, we had to organise a daily event, involving two authors doing readings (Apprentice task No. 10: find out what they’re reading from and add it to the stock order. Also make sure we have plenty of the authors’ books available). A further stumbling block: I decided having Wi-fi would make hanging out in our shop appealing for budding JK Rowlings with their laptops. But no-one will do you a Wi-fi contract for less than 3 months, and if you have to sort a phone line through BT, they insist on you signing up for about a year. This is not the future I was promised. My dreams of a credit card reader were dashed. Cash only, for our baby bookshop. (Luckily, the shop was bang next door to a cashpoint. Canny.)

And there were more basic things we needed to do: wash the windows so people could see in, for one. Karren Brady's eyebrows would've shot off the top of her head in dismay at how long it took me – seriously, I should’ve invested in a professional window cleaner, who could’ve done the job in 15 minutes, tops. I was hindered by having no hot water, is my excuse. You’d also be surprised at how long it takes to assemble a shelf-full of books so that they look like they do in the shops. And then replenish them when someone has the temerity to actually buy one.

Another Apprentice moment – what are the health and safety restrictions around offering punters free cake? (Every little helps to encourage a sale). I’ll tell you: unless you’re fully authorised by the council, you can’t do anything with buttercream icing, in case it goes off and causes salmonella or something. Brownies and flapjacks it was; first time I'd made brownies and they were amazeballs, even if I do say so myself. As the week progressed, we promised free booze in the evenings too. This proved very popular, and profits rose accordingly. (Note to struggling businesses: offer wine for free and people will find that they are too drunk to care about paying money for stuff and also that they feel obliged to buy something; a colleague said people would be 'suspicious' about being offered free cake, so we put a mug on the front desk suggesting they donate to charity. We made about £50 just from that. People are weird, aren't they?)

We were open for a week (staffed by people from work, essentially working two jobs, only one of which we were paying them for, obviously), from 2-6pm, then I spent half of a Bank Holiday Monday putting all the unsold stock back in boxes to deliver back to the office.

It has to be said, running a shop is really hard work, and you can see why so many small businesses are struggling in the current climate. It is way harder than it looks, and there are about a million things to juggle (stock, staff, invoicing, ordering, packing up, unpacking, trying not to have the place look like Cardboard City because you haven't done the recycling, going home afterwards to make more damn cake); I thought running a shop just involved standing behind a till hoping people wanted to buy your stuff, so I take my hat off to anyone who does it full-time. And next time I watch The Apprentice, I may be slower to judge all those contestants who are given two days to arrange and run a business they probably have absolutely no prior knowledge of, and manage not to make a huge loss. Then again, maybe I'll just laugh even harder as they fuck everything up, whilst thinking, 'What kind of idiot doesn't think to get a load of plastic bags in when they're running a shop?'.

Fringe Benefits

Lawks, it's been an age since I've added my witterings to the interwebnet (I'm still resisting Twitter - I remain perplexed as to why you want to read only one half of a conversation between a famous person you don't know, and a person hiding behind an avatar, whom you are equally unlikely to know. I can't imagine any advantage to taking to the etherwaves myself, unless it's to restrict my usual daily complaints - the weather, my workload, the dearth of decent telly at the moment - to a more concise length.)

I've missed celebrating the anniversary of my arrival in Edinburgh (4th July), but there may yet be time for Contemplating What I've Learned in a Year Away from London. Most recently: that while most of England is being burned and looted, not least half of my erstwhile London haunts, it is incredibly surreal to be watching it on the news, entirely unthreatened by the possibility that it will happen here. The greatest danger I've faced in the last few weeks is being flyered to death by earnest students dressed in ridiculous costumes on the Royal Mile, promoting their edgy new production of an hour-long Hamlet. Set on Ibiza. Performed in txt spk. Via an iPad projected onto a back wall. (If I'd ever studied Hamlet, I could possibly have put a joke in at this juncture. As I never did, and am mainly enjoying my new-ish phone because it enables me to use semi-colons in my text messages, thus marking me out as practically Victorian in my communications, you'll have to construct your own).

I'm not sure exactly why Scotland was riot-resistant, but possible factors include: the fact it was something the English (and possibly a few Welsh people) were doing. Everyone knows that the Scots are furiously independent about everything, so are heavily resistant to joining in with anything the English are up to. 'We'll be different', was the thinking, 'we'll just let the English prove how hopelessly dickish they are by burning their own homes down and smashing everything, whilst we look on and prove that We're Better than Them.' I think the pissing rain also tends to deter all but the most hardy (it's quite hard to throw a brick through a window when the sleeves of your hoodie are totally waterlogged and you can't really get a clear view on what electrical items might be available for looting anyway). Plus, in Edinburgh, there are only about five shops, so looting would've taken half an hour and been shut down pretty quickly by the police. And at this time of year, if anyone had been attempting a bit of rioting, everyone would've assumed that it was some kind of immersive Fringe street theatre, gathered into an orderly semi-circle round it, clapped politely at the end and the Guardian would have given it three stars and decreed that it was 'mildly derivative'.

I can't believe the Festival's over for another year (my second as a resident; not sure if I saw more shows this year than last - the received wisdom seems to be that the longer you live here, the fewer things you bother to see). I've had the joy of being able to put people up in my flat who want to come and see stuff, but without re-mortgaging their flat because accommodation is so expensive. Last year I didn't have my own flat, so everyone wanted to come, but no-one actually did, unless they were here for work and were on expenses. This year, a selection of chums made use of the spare room, and I cooked a fair few breakfasts in the process.

I've sometimes had a fantasy of running a boutique B&B - ie having a really lovely flat, which has one very well-appointed spare room - there are a few in London which I keep meaning to try out, but they're in rather out of the way places. But actually, cooking breakfast, then having to wash up because you don't have a dishwasher, and then battling with trying to put on clean duvet covers before the next people arrive - a skill which I still haven't mastered, despite being officially middle aged - is a bit of a bore if you're as much of a domestic slattern as I am. And if you're paying for a room, then I don't think you'd do the washing up, as all my guests very sweetly have. I have very well brought-up friends, I've realised.

So, despite my intentions of really throwing myself at the Festival this year and going to see everything, I went on a blitz in the first 10 days or so, and saw about twelve shows, then got totally burned out, and didn't have anyone staying, so couldn't be bothered to sort anything out - plus had far too much going on at work - and have had a mad dash to the end for the last 4 days or so when more friends came to stay.

Here's what I saw:
Alex Horne - 7 Years in the Bathroom. I've never seen any of Alex Horne's shows, but he's good chums with Tim Key and Mark Watson, both of whom I'm big fans of, so have assumed he's a Good Thing. Also, I like his look - he's rather gangly, with a very long face enhanced by a big ginger beard. But he has quite small eyes and ears. I don't know why I find the combination appealing, but I do. He looks like a very tall teddy bear. Anyway, his show compressed all the time the average man would spend doing things, in a life of seventy nine years, into chunks. Hence the 7 years in the bathroom, 3 months queueing, days spent kissing, weeks spent looking for things, etc. It was a fun show, mainly enlivened by a man from the front row, who was sent out of the show with a clock for 5 minutes (can't remember which bit of life he was illustrating) and told to bring back 'leaves' to prove he'd been outside. The audience had forgotten he'd left, until he came back in with a massive crash. We assumed it was part of the show till we realised that actually he'd missed the top step and totally tanked it, falling face forward as he was clutching not only a pot plant, but a glass of red wine, which went everywhere. I think he also broke his glasses. It was kind of disastrous and will feature in many people's Fringe-based nightmares - replace your generic 'I've turned up at school/work/the theatre with no clothes on', with 'I'm a very tall man and I've just tanked it down the stairs in front of a roomful of people, then had to sit on the front row for the rest of the show while the comedian makes repeated reference to it'. Mortifying and file under: thank God that wasn't me.

I think the show could have been funnier (it may well have been by the end of the run - people seem to tweak their shows a fair bit as they go along), but was sweet, and on the plus side didn't set the bar so high that everything else I saw fell short. A 3-star effort.

Mythbunking - this featured the brother of my friend Clare, which was the only reason I was aware of it. He and another chap (again, appealingly gangly - do gangly men just go straight into comedy if they're not well co-ordinated enough to play basketball?) did a spoof lecture as the 'Myth Masons'. They're the people who release spurious 'facts' into the world and then get them accepted as common knowledge (for example, the story about Richard Gere getting a rodent stuck up his bum). Their high priestess is 'Doctor' Gillian McKeith, for her services to made-up science. It involved a Powerpoint presentation (at least 50% of the shows I saw this year involved Powerpoint), an amusing audience-participation re-working of the Billy Joel song 'We Didn't Start the Fire' and some very funny ad-libbing. Seemed like a show with forty minutes of good material that had been stretched to an hour, but it was fun for a Sunday lunchtime and I'm sure they'll go on to do good shows in the future. 2.5 stars from me.

Camille O'Sullivan - 2-for-1 night at the Fringe, so I and a couple of work mates took a lucky dip at the box office ('Um, what do have 3 tickets for which starts in about half an hour?') and decided on Camille O'Sullivan. A few years back, she definitely won the prize for 'most posters plastered all over the city'. I got a bit bored of the sight of her in burlesque-style rig, garlanded with increasingly deranged reviews about how incandescent she was. But I was quite intrigued, so off we went. She was playing a really big venue (me to colleague who hadn't done the Fringe before: 'This is not representative of Fringe venues - usually they're the size of a shoe box and are actually a container crate used for shipping Ikea furniture'). The stage had loads of random crap strewn around it (cabinets with knick knacks and odd lamps; disembodied dresses hanging from the ceiling with lights under them, etc) and the show itself was pretty odd. Camille came on dressed in a sparkly floor-length Red Riding Hood cape and did some odd business with a big book of fairy stories. Then gradually discarded all the costume bits (including a wig) and the fairytale elements of the show - no idea why they were there in the first place, as they didn't add anything, and the show was called 'Feel' - most of the songs were about doomed love affairs. She sings songs by people like Tom Waits (whose songs I don't know) and Arcade Fire (ditto). She does that thing where she'll go all whispery and fey and then SUDDENLY SING REALLY LOUDLY. Which works OK if you do it once, but when you do it every bloody song, it gets really annoying. Especially as, when properly deployed, she has a voice that could actually start revolutions. It's incredibly powerful. She interspersed the song with bonkers chat that involved her miaowing quite a lot; I wondered if she really is like that, and found out subsequently from someone who had to interview her once that she is. (My colleague: 'Cripes! She seems high maintenance, doesn't she?') Two stars for the singing; I think she's probably amazing if you see her doing one song in a very small venue - she's possibly a victim of her own Fringe success in that respect.

The Pajama Men - I've seen them once before, in London, and loved them. They switch very rapidly between loads of different characters, who seem at first sight to be totally random, but who come together to form a narrative. A joyous show which had me weeping with laughter, especially when one of them played a bird which basically imitated a woman in a porn film. Doesn't sound particularly amusing, but it was hilarious. Very clever, brilliantly acted and very funny - one of my picks of the Fringe; I spent the rest of August recommending it to everyone. Whoop! 5 stars.

Colin Hoult, Inferno - another one whose poster I saw everywhere in previous years (he was dressed up as Frankenstein). Recommended by Tim Key (ooh, get me, starry!) Went along with my Camille O'Sullivan colleague who must now think I have really odd taste, as this was another strange show. It's character comedy, but all the characters are awkward social misfits. I realised afterwards that they're all actually rather tragic; certainly, the dog who did a monologue about how lonely he was as he missed the rest of his litter, and the Alzheimer's character who addressed everyone as 'Billy', including ultimately an empty chair, reduced my colleague and I to tears, which wasn't what I was expecting at all. The show finished with us all holding hands and dancing round, which was nice. 3.5 stars.

Tim Key - Masterslut. Features a full-sized bath on stage, which he dives into at various points, getting increasingly soaked; these sections segue into short films projected onto a screen at the back. Very, very funny, particularly as he randomly throws a towel at a member of the audience to towel him down after the bath interludes, and managed to pick one of my colleagues' boyfriend (there were loads of us there from work on a jolly); it's always fun seeing someone you know having to be involved. Loved it, and I even got a kiss on the back of the head as he clambered over the audience to exit the venue. 5 stars (and not just because I had to flyer the queue at a subsequent show for his book, and ended up having an enthusiastic chat with Kristen Schaal, aka Mel from Flight of the Conchords. Ooh!)

Disco at the Caves - not a show as such, just a Festival thing. Much enthusiastic dancing to 70/80/90s tracks. A colleague was amazed at my comprehensive knowledge of 80s lyrics. I was depressed by the fact that everyone else in there was 23 - there's that horrible feeling that those surrounding you are finding all this terribly ironic, whereas I'm just going, 'Oooh,Wham's 'I'm Your Man'! This is actually a great song!'

Gentlemen of Leisure - The Death of the Novel. I'd read about them in the Guardian Guide, and obviously as I work in books I thought it'd be up my street. Another gangly man (this time with early-era Michael Caine black-framed specs) and his partner doing another lecture-style show. Fun, especially the sequence where they recreated the writing of Frankenstein, but not especially memorable. I do seem to have seen the Michael-Caine-glasses half of the act everywhere I've been for the last fortnight, though. Am I accidentally stalking him, or is it the other way around? 3 stars.

Holly Walsh - Hollycopter. For those who are young enough, she was a CBeebies presenter apparently. I've seen her a few times on Mock the Week and the like. This was another show where we just asked what tickets were available in the next half hour. More Powerpoint, this time about the fact that she's really risk-averse (she told a horrifying story about diving into a pool on the day the local leisure centre opened when she was at school, and having such a bad nosebleed that the whole pool had to be shut for the entire weekend). She decided to challenge this self-perception by taking part in the Worthing Birdman competition (fancy dressed people leaping off Worthing pier in homemade flying machines), in the process of which she smashed up her arm so badly that she now can't straighten it properly. Funniest part was probably her conversation with her brother, who was looking after her when she got out of hospital. One of those random realisations you have is that only having one arm that works makes it incredibly tricky to tear off loo paper, so she'd asked him to rip her off a load of sheets before he came back the next day. Which led to an awkward contemplation as to how much loo paper she usually used, and whether that was normal or not. Nice girl, fun show (nothing revolutionary, but plenty of chuckles), seems like she'd be fun down the pub. 3.5 stars.

Frisky and Mannish - Popcentre Plus. The big hit of last year's Fringe, but I never fancied it because a/ I didn't know what they did and b/ they seemed to be a bit burlesquey, which by that stage had got really annoying. Why I didn't read enough reviews to get what they actually do (very funny pop mash-ups - eg Kate Bush as sung by Kate Nash), I've no idea. A friend had given this rave reviews, so I was really looking forward to it. It was good fun (especially assembling a Take That band out of awkward 30-something men from the audience at the end, making them pose together - 'Right, you lie on the floor and everyone else crowd round. Now touch each other!' and then mime to 'Never Forget' - they were all very game). But the mash-ups weren't that funny - Ellie Goulding and Jessie J aren't really distinctive enough to create a mash-up out of, and going through Madonna's career phases based on a little-known Shirley Bassey song went on too long and again, wasn't that funny. I like them a lot as performers, but I was disappointed I didn't laugh more. 3.5 stars.

Isy Suttie - Pearl and Dave. Isy plays Dobby in Peep Show and I'd read good reviews of her show, which is a very sweet exploration of mildly tragic love affairs. It mainly revolves around her and her sister's attempt to get a pen pal when they were little by releasing a balloon from their garden with their phone number and address on it, in the hopes it would reach Australia. It in fact reached Dave, their neighbour 2 doors down, who was 25, but became their penpal nevertheless. (Sending each other letters involved the 2 girls going past his house to post the letters in the postbox and much discussion about what the various parties had eaten for their tea). Dave met a girl called Pearl one summer at Butlins and always regarded her as 'the one who got away'. Finally managing to track her down on Facebook years later, Pearl is stuck in a miserable marriage, and they end up having an affair largely conducted through Skype. Lots of it's told through songs. Very sad and very sweet, I thought it was lovely. Again, made me quite teary (think I must have had hormonal issues throughout August), as I persisted in believing the whole thing was true, which is highly unlikely. 4 stars.

David O'Doherty - he's become my 'must see' every year. I love him. Again, shambolic songs with a Casio, and, this year a piano (there was an elaborate bit where he put his chair on its side, then carefully hid the Casio behind it, before going over to the piano, sitting down and confiding, 'I don't want it to see'). His annual 'things that have fucked me off this year' song included a brilliant bit about Boots ads making women neurotic ('It's summer! WOMEN, it's time to stop eating and paint yourselves orange!') and identifying new bits of themselves to hate, which Boots happen to have invented a cream for ('That crease where your wrist meets your arm! We've asked men and THEY HATE IT AND FIND IT REALLY UNATTRACTIVE!'). 4.5 stars.

Sarah Millican - playing a massive venue, she's clearly the female Michael McIntyre. Pretty bog-standard material about relationships, but I did find it funny (unlike the man I was sitting next to, who'd clearly been dragged along by his partner, and spent most of the show inexplicably fiddling about with his wallet). 3.5 stars.

The Horne Section - daft fun at the Spiegeltent involving music, guest comedians (an American guy called Hannibal something; Kurt and Kristen, who did a wincingly funny ventriloquist act; Schlomo and Mark Watson), a Wheel of Fortune, audience participation (all of us had to play Twister at one point), and an audience member being dressed up in a crown and cape and trundled round the venue in a wheelbarrow by beatboxer Schlomo as the finale. The song that Alex Horne and the band did about being a rubbish boyband who really wanted groupies (the final chorus of which went 'We really don't want groupies' made me weep with laughter). Ace - I didn't want it to end, and wished I'd been more times. 5 stars.

Sam Simmons - I hadn't heard of him, but I think he was shortlisted for one of the comedy awards. He's like a cross between Vic Reeves and Harry Hill, with a dash of David O'Doherty, if they were Australian, and with an impressive moustache. I found it hilarious, but when I tried to explain it to people who hadn't seen it, it sounded mental, and not in a good way. Especially when I said, 'I've never seen a man sweat that much' despite the fact all he was dressed in was a snugly-fitting T-shirt, a pair of pants, trainers and a plaid flat cap ('I look like a paedophile on a fun run!')

Abandoman - didn't really know what this was before we went in (we scored some free tickets), but it turned out I'd heard them doing stuff before, but just didn't know what they were called. It's an Irish band (2 guitarists, drummer, trombonist and a trumpet player and an insanely smiley guy with a very fast brain who does the rapping), who do improvised hip hop songs based around the random items people in the audience have in their bags/pockets (top items: a bottle of ketchup and one of those big fat dobber pens from bingo) and the weirdest job anyone's had (the woman in front of us had packaged breadcrumbs for a living), amongst other things. Huge fun, and probably the first time I've ever really enjoyed hip hop. 4.5 stars.

Entering the final phases of the Fest now - I always try to go and see one theatre thing; I just pick the one I've read the most reviews of, which this year was Translunar Paradise. It was a blend of mime and choreography, accompanied by a girl with an accordion. It told the story of a couple's relationship, beginning when they were old and the woman died, and then flashing back to different stages of their life together. It was essentially the first ten minutes of Up, for an hour. Very beautiful, total sob-fest. 4.5 stars.

And finally... Humphrey Ker - Dymock Watson, Nazi Smasher. He's one third of the Penny Dreadfuls, who I saw a couple of years ago, and his show was a very funny 40s spoof with a lot of silly voices (including a small dog called Uncle Trevor, who sounded disturbingly like Adam and Joe's terrible radio dog, Boggins), twists, turns, spies, double agents, Nazis and even some genuine magic tricks. And - bonus! - Michael-Caine-glasses man in the front row of the audience! (He seemed to enjoy it a lot, if you're interested, but not as much as the man sitting behind me, who had the loudest laugh I've ever heard). A fitting way to end the Festival. 4 stars.

So, it's all over for another year. I've eaten too many burgers, drunk too much red wine and nearly drowned because it's been so bloody wet. I've raced around the same 4 venues on a continuous loop for 3 weeks and still can't quite remember the fastest route between them. I've developed an alarming cab habit (up to about 5 a day) and spent more than the GDP of Chad on tickets. I have, as mentioned, flyered Kristen Schaal, stood in relatively close proximity to Jack Whitehall (twice), seen Rhod Gilbert racing into at least 2 shows ahead of me and queued in front of Graham Linehan (at Sam Simmons).

It's time to return to normality: it's freezing cold, my telly's missed me and my sofa's looking particularly welcoming. Today it was the Bank Holiday, the last hurrah of summer. Tomorrow, it's autumn. Dear God, where has this year gone?

Bikini vs Burkhini

If anyone's interested, the Gods of Weather read my blog yesterday and decided to grant my wish for consistent weather. Sadly, they did this by crying with laughter at such a request, which resulted in pissing rain. All day long. Accompanied first by grey cloud, then in the early evening (when I escaped the office) by swirling mist. Very atmospheric and that, but not really what I was after, in the way of cheering up.

Oh well, I have been balancing up this lack of the new and exciting, weather-wise, by continuing my programme of Inaugural Experiences. Yes, here at Purple Towers, I have been throwing myself at New Things with what might be termed gay abandon. Undeterred by my giant Fail at the step class (my bum still hurts if I sit for too long on it, or on too hard a surface, which is, in itself, a good reason for moving around more, rather than slumping in front of the telly), I have tried not one but TWO new exercise things recently.

First up: boxing. Cheerful James decided that I needed to do something different, and in his great wisdom produced a pair of electric blue boxing gloves, and velcro-ed me in. I had visions of myself as Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby. Minus the horrifying chewing-your-own-tongue-off-to-kill-yourself denouement, obviously. Nipping about, punching things in a way that suggested I was really good at exercise. After all these months in the gym, I thought I could probably manage that. How hard can it be, it's just hitting stuff. I mean, I hit the printer in the office at least once a day. Let's get started! Turns out, I was more Hillary Clinton than Hilary Swank. Trying to co-ordinate hitting something with moving my feet simply wasn't going to happen. Trying to hit a pad at the right angle and the right speed is way trickier than it looks. After about a minute, my inner pacifist became my outer wimp and I wanted never to hit anything ever again. After twenty minutes of valiant flailing around, I complained that my wrists were hurting (they really were; anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that my wrists look like they were hastily assembled from pipe cleaners. It's a wonder they hold up my hands at all, frankly). I waved them at Cheerful James, wheedling, 'Look at my wrists! They're not built for this!' and he took pity on me, telling me he'd 'strap me up' next time. Crikey, there's an offer. No wonder I'm paying him by the hour.

Having been quite enthusiastic about the idea of boxing making me a bionically buff Hilary Swankenstein, I'm now hoping that it goes the way of kettlebells, which I've tried twice. The first time I just about got the technique (it's to do with your legs and hips -  not your arms, which would seem more logical) and the second time I failed miserably. Haven't been near 'em since. So, we shall see about boxing; maybe a few goes and I'll get the hang of it and be punching my way round Edinburgh, running up and down Arthur's Seat like Rocky.

Second new exercisey thing: kayaking. Whooh, outdoors exercise! Revolutionary. Having dreaded a Zambesi-style white water rafting expedition, I was assured that a/ a child would be doing it with us, so it was going to be pretty tame and b/ I could be in a double one, so a large man could do most of the work instead of me. This turned out not to be the case, as chaps were in short supply (and most of them were married, so palled up with their partners), so I palled up with a very nice girl who looked like a sporty, efficient type. We somehow ended up at the front of the queue for kayaks - in for a penny, I thought, as I merrily suggested that we set off and show everyone how it was done. We'd had a five minute demo from a man with a paddle, so I reckoned we should just get on with it. As is usual in any situation where there are more than two people involved and there is something to prove, I then got insanely competitive and pretty much insisted on being at the front of the pack at all times and took some actual pride in getting all co-ordinated with my paddling partner (I was in the back seat, as it were). Despite this, it was proper fun (we saw cormorants, herons and shipwrecks, it being Cornwall and us being up muddy creeks); we got quite wet, but it was sunny and we ended up at a pub. With a large pack of men dressed up for a stag do to look at. Not sure I'd rush to do it again, but it's a nice way of traversing a river, and certainly less hard on the shoulders and the stress level than trying to steer a barge.

Now, the third thing is a proper turn up for the books. I have been shopping for a bikini. Not only have I been shopping for one, but I tried some on. And then bought the cheapest one I could find, as I will never wear it. Bikinis are for supermodels and mental people. Supermodels must of course show off as much flesh as possible on holiday - they're pretty much getting paid by the yard, given how tall everyone insists they have to be, so you might as well get your money's worth. But for everyone else, it's wearing your bra and pants in front of everyone. Why do people want to do this? If you said to your average woman, 'Here, wear a bra and pants - in lycra, but still, it's a bra and pants - down the high street', they'd all say no. Stick a pool or a beach in front of them, however and, brilliant! Here I am in my bra and pants! What could be more natural? Then you can have three months' worth of articles, from about May onwards, in women's magazines exhorting you to acquire a 'beach body' and giving you punitive diet and exercise regimes in order to achieve this nebulous goal. (Over the last five years or so, they have added an extra three pages per issue telling you how to do a flawless fake tan).

I, of course, have always merrily skipped past these articles, believing firmly in the Nigella-style 'burkhini' approach to summer holidays: take one swimming costume, layer it with an ankle-length sarong, top off with a shirt (possibly) and a very large hat. Then place yourself under an enormous umbrella. Read book until friends have tired of frying themselves in the sun in their ill-advised bikinis. Repeat for a week to ten days.

But now I am going to Ibiza (another first) and I have apparently got a new, bikini-worthy body (ha ha), I feel obliged to join in. We are going to have a private pool, after all. My friend has told me I have to have a bikini. I battled my way into the offending item in a strip-lit changing room and surveyed myself. This was weird. Why would I want anyone to see me in this little clothing? It's a nightmare. Everything looks pallid and wobbly. There is too much exposed. I'm not going to be sunbathing: I fry like a vampire at the mere sight of sunlight and am violently opposed to both ageing prematurely and skin cancer. Ergo, what's the point of this? You can't swim in it, the whole thing would fall off in seconds. I'm not confident enough to parade around, inwardly thinking, 'Look at my GREAT FIGURE!' I'm just a slightly smaller version of the rubbish-at-summer person I've always been. What I should really have been buying was a sarong, but I couldn't find one of those for love nor money. So, a bikini it is. I now have four days of manically reading articles on lunges and broccoli and trying to be a woman who 'does' holidays instead of merely tolerating them.

Wish me luck. But don't ask to see the photos - there won't be any. Have I ever shown you a photo of me in my bra and pants? Exactly.

Holiday! It Would be so Nice. Etc

I am finally going on holiday - for the first time since this time last year. I don't know how people who have loads of holidays cope with it - I've spent the last two days dodging the incessant rain, running around the shops trying to find shoes and Things For Going Out In. That are suitable for a temperature above 18 degrees, which, after a year of living in Edinburgh, is frankly unimaginable. It's very hard to shop for summer clothes when you are still wearing a winter coat. Towards the end of June. Wimbledon is on, and I'm STILL WEARING A WINTER COAT. And my heating remains on in the evenings.

Going away is stressful - you have to find someone to go away with, for a start (I'm not good on my own, abroad - I can't work a map and I'm useless at talking to strangers; I get lonely and really freaked out). This is hard if you're single and live at the other end of the country from nearly everyone you know (there's no casually finding out about an upcoming trip over a bottle of wine and just going, 'Can I come?'). Plus all my friends are Good at Holidays, and have them sorted out months, if not years in advance. They have plans to visit places like Argentina, and Mexico and Bali, which require flights and accommodation to be booked months ahead - not to mention factoring in things like when it won't be too hot/cold/expensive/full of children on half-term breaks. One friend is really into sailing, which requires you to be both hearty and good at drinking; I may go to the gym a lot, but I'm still not hearty, and I can't keep up with the drinking - I manage a total blow-out about once a quarter, then have to lie very still for three days afterwards, groaning. Combine that with sea-sickness and it's not a holiday, it's a punishment. Most other friends have partners, and once you're partnered, it never occurs to you to ask your single friend if she wants to go away with you. I suspect the dread word 'swingers' might be lurking, subconsciously. 'Well, I'd love to ask her if she wants to come away with us, she's fun'. 'No, Martin, what if she thinks that we're SWINGERS, and that we want to have a THREESOME? We can't risk it'.

Then even if you manage to find a holiday partner and a mutually agreed destination, you have to synchronise diaries to find a time when you can both actually leave work for a week, or, God forbid, a fortnight. 'I can't go then, I've got a hen do/wedding/40th birthday/massive family gathering'. 'I can only do the first week in September - then I have to prep for our annual conference/sort out a massive ad campaign and then move house'. Everyone is insanely busy and ramming as much as they possibly can into their lives. A holiday? To relax? The whole idea of it seems like a contradiction in terms. Not to mention the amount of money it costs you.

But anyway, the time has come when I have to get away. Because everything is doing my head in, and the only way to solve that is to leave it behind, if only for a week. Here is a list, in no particular order, of the things that are making me stabby:
1. Glastonbury. I have never been. I have no desire to go. So why is it that for about a month before it starts, and then for the entirety of its duration, there is wall-to-yurt-wall media coverage of this music 'n' mud-fest? It's not like it's special any more - there are a billion bloody festivals. There's practically a festival in my flat (I'm thinking of erecting some tents during August and renting them out - people will have to pay extra for a shower and loo paper; sorry, you're going to be fleeced. That's just what happens at festivals). I am sick of it - the pointless debate over whoever is headlining that year - some people will like them, some people will object to them being there. Yadda yadda. There are thousands of fucking stages there - if you don't like it, then go and see something else and stop whingeing about how U2/Jay-Z/The Wombles 'just aren't Glastonbury'. I don't care. Nor should you. Worry about getting TB from the toilets instead. That's the more pressing problem.
2. Following on from this is the acreage of print devoted to 'festival fashion'. Ooh, what should one wear to Glasto, Bestival or the Hay Festival? (Actually, there's never any advice on the latter, which is a shame. Bookish people deserve fashion tips too!) It's always a variation on wellies, micro-shorts and a top. Plus cheap jewellry and whichever style of hat is currently in fashion. It does not deserve to take up pages on end of everything from the Guardian to Grazia. Stop it. Now.
3. It's not necessarily fashion, but it's exercising a lot of fashionable types - can we all stop talking about Pippa Middleton's bum, and how it's become some sort of cultural phenomenon? I know it's a smashing arse, and she can be rightly proud of it, but reducing a woman to just her arse is no better than reducing a woman to just her tits. It's no wonder women mentally chop their bodies into 'alright bits' and 'bits I'd like to take a cleaver to because they make me so miserable' when everyone in the world is focused on one singular body part. Women with big bums hate themselves. Women with small bums hate themselves. Pippa Middleton has become the Goldilocks of Bums - hers is 'just right' and nothing else will do. Personally, as mine's always been behind me, I've rarely given it much thought. It's useful for sitting on, but I've never viewed it as attractive or unattractive. I feel a bit sorry for Pippa - it must be hard when you've got to think of some way of upstaging your own arse in terms of a job/partner/phenomenal act of heroism or charity. Still, she seems a fun girl, I'm sure she'll think of something amusing to do with all this arse love. Can't believe she didn't get Rear of the Year, mind. And there I am, buying into the whole thing again! An award for the nation's best bottom! Ludicrous.
4. The fact that The Shadow Line has finished. I am gutted about this. I know loads of people had problems with the arch dialogue, and Rafe Spall's somewhat David Walliams-esque villain, but I loved all of it. It had a great soundtrack. The fact that loads of people got offed in the kitchen (usually whilst making tomato-based dishes), became a fun in-joke. Stephen Rea doing brilliant malevolent whispering and lurking about behind glass front doors in a hat and an overcoat, plus black gloves, was ace - and you haven't known fear till you hear him yelling 'DO IT NOW!' through a baby monitor, I tell you. The emergence of black gloves as the go-to symbol for shadowy figures who are about to kill you will make me suspicious of anyone wearing black leather hand-coverings in the future. The police boss who loved smoking, but was being played by an actor who looked like he really hated smoking gave me a much-needed snigger every week. Christopher Ecclestone playing a baddie (he was trying to smuggle masses of drugs into the country!), who you were totally rooting for and didn't want to get caught (he loved his poor wife, who had crippling Alzheimer's and had a plan to save her! In some way that never actually seemed to be specified!) was really understated. The aforementioned Rafe Spall may have been madly mannered, but I found his psycho turn pretty terrifying. The plot, even by the end, was impenetrable, but had loads of 'Oh my God, I can't believe that just happened!' moments that made me shriek at the telly. Especially the last episode. And above all, it looked absolutely beautiful. There were tons of just amazing shots. You don't see very much in the way of stunning visuals in police dramas, but there were some here that will stick with me for a long time (one of the drugs bosses being killed on a motorway, and ending up hanging from nets between concrete bridge posts, lit up in red, may have had no basis whatsoever in reality or likelihood, but God it looked brilliant). It's the first TV series I've seen where I thought, 'I want the DVD of that, so I can try to work out what the bloody hell was going on, and to enjoy it all over again in about six months' time'. Congrats, Hugo Blick, you've played an absolute blinder - I hope you carry on with TV, rather than being lured to the Dark Side of films.
5. Finally, the weather. I am fucking sick of the weather here. I don't particularly mind the cold. But what I do mind is the weather changing every twenty minutes. You can't just leave the house and think, 'Yup, I'm wearing something eminently suitable for today's conditions'. If it's sunny when I leave home for work, then halfway into my walk to the office, it will be pissing it down with rain. Half an hour later there will be a howling gale. Ten minutes before lunchtime: the sun's out! By the time I want to go for a walk after I've eaten my lunch: oh, bad luck, it's drizzling again. There may be some mist! Or just loads of black, threatening clouds. Temperature? Who knows! Freezing, probably, but then it could equally be the kind of cloudy day that means it's actually really muggy, so you're sort of sweating by the time you get wherever you're going. It's like the menopause of weather.

So next week, when I'm on holiday, I'll be complaining that it's too hot all the time, but at least I won't be doing it in a muddy field, surrounded by people who've been told what to wear by the Guardian Weekend and who're moaning that U2 are too corporate for Glastonbury. Which is something.

Do I Look Old to Young People?

I saw a piece the other day about a book called Amortality. In Ye Olden Dayes, you were a kid, then (if it was the '50s or later), you were a teenager for a bit. Then you got married in your early 20s and the minute you had your first child, you turned into your mum by cutting your hair off into a sensible bob and dressing in Laura Ashley. You kept house and raised kids (possibly with a part-time job thrown in) for the next 20 years or so, and then you started encouraging your children to 'give you grandchildren' and keep the whole treadmill of ageing moving seamlessly along. You knew where you were, and what to wear while you were there.

But now, as Amortality points out, it's different. You can resist growing up pretty much forever, if you care little enough about what other people think (I'm pointing a finger at you, Madonna, going out with men who are barely older than your eldest child). I quite like this; I don't feel appreciably different from how I did a decade ago (other than being bitter about the fact that, once I bought a flat, house prices bucked the trend of the preceding 15 years or so, and plummeted, thus ruining my Sarah Beeny-fuelled fantasies of making a killing through tarting up an unloved one-bed flat in Streatham, which turned out not to be 'on the up' once the recession hit and the idea of turning Caesar's 'nite'club into an M&S Simply Food was demonstrably ludicrous).

However, it is an increasing challenge to resist feeling older. These are the things that are currently reminding me that I'm no longer 30:
1/ I remember watching Charles and Diana's wedding. The fact that their son has now got married makes me feel ancient. As did the fact that Princess Beatrice's hilarious wedding hat had its own Facebook hate page and Pippa Middleton's satin-clad bottom nearly caused Twitter to melt. D'you think the Twitchfork mobs would've actually risen up and demanded that the Wedding of the Decade didn't go ahead after Charles's infamous, 'Whatever love means' engagement interview, if Twitter had existed in the 80s? Could've saved everyone a lot of time and trouble.
2/ My flat has moths. Nothing is designed to make you feel old ladyish like having all your clothes stinking of lavender in an attempt to ward off the little fuckers. I keep catching sight of silvery glints as they flutter around the place. Why are there still so many of them, when I have turned the flat into a veritable moth mausoleum by twatting them with a magazine whenever I find one?
3/ My eyelids have gone crepey. No-one tells you this will happen. It happens overnight. (About a year ago, in my case). You wander around the place, oblivious - you put on eyeshadow every day, onto your fabulous, firm eyelids. On it goes, smoothly. Easy to blend,a matter of moments and bingo, you're done. Yes, it might crease a bit by the end of the day, but hey, you can just put on a bit more if you're going out somewhere. Then, one day, there's a weird little fold there. 'I must be tired, or dehydrated', I thought. 'I'm sure it'll be gone soon, and then my eyelids will be back how they were'. I bought pricier eye cream and actually applied it, having never paid that much attention before. But, reader, they did not return to how they were. Little folds appeared on my other eye. Despite shelling out really extraordinary amounts of money on eye cream that promised to 'firm and lift' my upper eyelid (the beauty industry is adept at finding smaller and ever more defined areas for which to flog you creams and unctions), my eyelids remain crepey. Now, crows' feet I expected. I'm not massively happy about having them, but you can at least play the 'a life lived for laughs' card with them. But crepey eyelids are a massive bore. It takes ages to blend eyeshadow (and blending it makes you feel as though you're making your eyelids even worse by dragging a variety of brushes all over them); you can no longer wear anything sparkly round your eyes (the sparkly bits get stuck in the cracks and then highlight them) and you feel like propping them back where they used to be with matchsticks. Girls, appreciate the fact that you don't have crepey eyelids every day from now on. And get with some pricey eyecreams. I'm now thanking God daily for the fact that my neck isn't yet showing signs of decrepitude. And contemplating an eye serum that costs an astonishing £80. On the plus side, it would get me an absolute shitload of Boots Advantage Card points.
4/ My gums are shot to shit. In my early 20s, I had serious gum disease diagnosed. I spent about 18 months having a ton of work done at Eastman's, a specialist dental hospital in Kings Cross. It was pretty unpleasant, but at least it was free because I'd been referred there on the NHS. I laboured under the delusion, after it was all done, that I was now Cured. Turns out: not so much. I have a condition that has to be 'managed'. I went to a very nice dentist, who told me I was doing fine every time I saw him. Then, the other week, I thought it was time to get myself a dentist who was actually based in the city in which I live. I was already fairly fazed by the fact that I was in a dentist's chair in what was effectively a massive Georgian drawing room, so it didn't really help when the dentist told me that my mouth was a mess and proceeded to show me photos of my molars, roots cruelly exposed by my treacherous gums. Apparently my aversion to the quotidian boredom of flossing and keeping my teeth clean has come home to roost. I now have to have a consultation with a gum specialist which costs £250 and the resulting treatment to stop my teeth falling out is likely to cost a grand. Christ, is it any wonder that you never feel like you have any more money than you did when you were 25 - what with inflation and the outlay required just to ensure that half your face doesn't fall off, it's a miracle I'm not surviving entirely on baked beans and renting out my spare room to five Australians just for the extra rent.

Eva Wiseman's column in today's Observer offers up a variety of questions occupying her thoughts as a 30 year-old woman. All I can say is, if you're like me, the questions remain exactly the same a decade on (other than the white clothes one - I'll leave that to Liz Hurley, thanks, and the wearing a bra in bed - why would you want to, it's so uncomfortable?):

1. Will I ever feel like a grown-up? Or will I carry on pretending until I have conned even myself?

2. When do you start to get really hairy? Will a day come when a child will point at my beard on the bus?
3. Which of the things I swallowed as a student is going to be the one to give me cancer?
4. Am I too old for band T-shirts? Am I too old for T-shirts?
5. Will I feel jealous seeing people younger than me become successful? How will it feel seeing younger generations become prime ministers and presidents?
6. How fragile are my relationships? Have we passed the point where it's possible to lose touch with friends over an unreturned phone call?
7. How much money am I meant to have saved by now, and when am I meant to spend it?
8. Will the time come when I catch a reflection of myself in a dark tube window and see an old lady? Will I feel any relief?
9. How do you get off with people when you're 30? How do you get off with people when you know what you know, when you've literally vomited from heartbreak, or when you understand yourself well enough to realise you could never have a relationship with this person because the drip drip of snobberies and judgements that you've collected over your life have grown into a tick-list of uncompromiseable necessities that this person could never meet? Plus, they have a weird, spitty mouth?
10. How important is it to own a property, and why? Surely the benefits of having a landlord come and fix your washing machine far outweigh the pleasure of choosing your own kitchen surfaces. No?
11. Is it too late to learn to drive? How about learning a language? Is it too late to start a nightly cleansing routine? Is it just too late?
12. Should I be sleeping in a bra?
13. Were those vile, greasy GCSE years really the best ones of my life?
14. How do you know when's the right time to have a baby?
15. Is everyone I know going to get married? Is everyone I know going to get divorced?
16. Is this the age when I'm meant to buy an expensive handbag?
17. Will a time come when watching the news doesn't feel like homework?
18. Who will I celebrate my 60th birthday with? And where? Will this place always feel like home?
19. If I was going to have plastic surgery, what would I get? And would I attempt to rationalise it? Will I be able to grow fat gracefully?
20. How will I deal with other people's deaths?
21. Things like Twitter, Facebook – when will we get bored of them? Will I be updating my status when I'm 50? What will happen to our blogs when we die?
22. How long have I spent watching puppy, kitten and slow loris videos on YouTube, how long will I spend watching puppy, kitten and slow loris videos on YouTube, and how will this affect me in years to come?
23. Will I ever really understand politics? Is it too late to go back and learn the origins of things like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
24. When will my lack of life skills catch up with me? When will the fact that I can't put up a shelf or confidently rewire a plug lead to my whole world crashing down?
25. Will I regret not staying up to 6am more often in my 20s? Will I come to look back on the nights I stayed in watching telly with shame and sadness?
26. Do I look old to young people?
27. Should I be more ambitious? Or is my lack of ambition really as charming and adorable as I believe it to be?
28. Will I ever have a lifestyle that allows for white clothes?
29. At what age should my parents stop looking after me, and should I start looking after my parents?
30. At 30, am I too old to start again?

The Thrill of the New

It's been a while since I've tried anything new; by and large, I'm a creature of habit (always ten minutes late for work, despite my best intentions - mainly because I can't break the habit of going to bed around midnight, and thus can't get up at the appropriate time in the morning) and I don't like change. I admire those people who run towards change like a giddy child, shouting 'Pick me, pick me!' and waving their arms aloft. They don't know the meaning of a comfort zone - what use would they have for such a dull concept, with all its implications of staying still, cowering under the duvet, with all one's boundaries firmly set out. Even if it turns out you don't like what you're going to get (the sinking feeling that I am constitutionally incapable of getting up, having a shower, getting dressed, making myself some breakfast, eating it, brushing my teeth AND putting on make-up in the space of an hour), you feel safe knowing what the likely outcome is.

But we all know that trying new things is the mark of those who are Young at Heart and now I'm 40, I'm all about trying not to be cowed by my middle aged status. My work colleagues may take the piss for my ongoing fondness for Radio 1 (I'm so far out of their demographic I might as well be listening to it from the Mir Space Station), but it's the only way I get introduced to any new music. Much as I love it (especially now that Adam and Joe are back in their rightful slot on a Saturday morning), a gal cannot survive on 6Music alone. So it is that I find myself listening to Nick 'Grimmy' Grimshaw before bed, as he chats to listeners who are studying for their GCSEs and I pretend to be interested in what dubstep is, whilst wondering if I should perhaps just grit my teeth through the adverts and the ever-present station idents and retune to Absolute 80s instead.

But moving with the times is an ongoing process, so let's not fret too much at this juncture as to whether my fondness for Lady Gaga's art-pop offerings mark me out as tragic or Magic (FM). No, this week, I decided I would try something new in the world of exercise. Flailing about on machines is all very well, I thought, but surely at the weekends, I should mix it up a bit. Challenge myself! Try something different. So it came to pass that this morning, I went to a step class. Yeah, screw Zumba and trendy fusions of yoga, pilates and boxing, I decided to go old skool. Stepping up and down, with some occasional arm-waving thrown in, I'm sure I can manage that, was my thought process. Besides, I was cheating a bit, it wasn't entirely new to me, a step class. There was a time at university in the early 90s when I used to do loads of step and aerobics; gyms weren't a big thing then; it was all communal classes and the same routines for years at a time - you felt like Jane Fonda merely because you knew how to 'grapevine' and had nailed when to go to the left and when to head off right.

I thought step might have progressed in the intervening years, but it really hasn't (other than the fact that this morning's class was taken by a man. Judging by the amount of whooping on offer, I suspect he might not have been wholly heterosexual, though). A third of the way through the class, I remembered why I hate step and its ilk - it's repetive, exhausting and full of the kind of people I hate. The kind of women who wear crop-tops and have bouncy ponytails and who not only know all the routines, but who are well enough co-ordinated to actually execute them. Whilst whooping with joy at how much fun they're having. Oh God, they're so smug. They crack jokes with the instructors. They probably go at least three times a week, because they love it so much. I bet they have friends that they've made through going to step classes.

They do not resemble Bagpuss, struggling with a particularly bad hangover after a night on the tiles with the Mice on the Mouse Organ and Gabriel the Toad (such a caner) and struggling to remember which is his right and which is his left. Above all, they do not misjudge how far they are away from the step during one manoeuvre and go flying off it, landing on their bum. Really painfully and embarrassingly. My coccyx is still killing me. I bailed out before we had to do 'matwork' because I thought I might be able to save the morning by going to the yoga class that's taken by the Grumpy Scottish Man. Yes, that's how bad going to a step class was, going to GSM's yoga class was cheering in comparison (I could do all of it, it didn't require me to hop over a small step whilst waving my arms around and I didn't fall over).

So, step classes can stay in the early 90s; they can carry on a-whoopin' and a-jumpin' without me. I'm going back to what I know. It's pretty difficult to fall off a rowing machine.