Enough is Enough!

I finally enable comments, and this is what happens: comment after comment, lamenting the loss of Hugh?! See? You just can't be trusted, can you?

• Nicola F-B: I'm sorry that visiting is such a chore these days, what with James providing you tea in bed and chips for breakfast to help cure your hangover. It must be terrible for you. No, really. I apologise profusely.
  
• Julie: no, Hugh never did threaten to murder you. Which demonstrates a complete lack of interest, in my opinion. At least James is interested in my friends - look at all the effort he has put into getting you to open a lesbian coffee shop. Does that count for nothing?
• And Sophie. I'll admit, Hugh did have a rather pleasant way of pronouncing the word 'potatoes' but he was a nightmare to live with, for reasons you well know, which would suggest that potato-pronunciation is not a good thing to base one's relationship on.

You are all VERY naughty girls. James has spanks for all of you. And if you don't watch it, tea and home-made chip privileges will be withdrawn. From you, not from me. I can have all the tea and chips I want. Because I'm a good girl.

The Final Countdown

James is officially Writing Up. He intends to submit his PhD dissertation at the end of this week. This means that the past week has been spent furiously typing, drinking copious amounts of coffee and swearing (he's so good at swearing. I truly adore him). His week, that is. My week has been spent mainly snotting, coughing and swearing, drinking Lemsip instead of coffee. The flat is a bomb site - if we had children, social services would, without any doubt whatsoever, take them away from us if they saw the state of this flat. If our bedder were to see it (which she won't because we're so ashamed we're not allowing her access at the moment), she would probably think we'd been burgled and call the police. I hesitate to make such a sweeping comment, but I do believe that the flat is in more of a mess than my hair. Shocking stuff, I know.

And the really annoying thing is, that no sooner will James be free of his academic burden, than my panic begins - the Easter break is just around the corner, which means it's time to start revising. Revising! That isn't what I came here for! I came here with the specific dual aims of (a) snogging boys, and (b) drinking beer. I'm proud to say I have achieved both, but still view both objectives as works in progress (even though there's only one boy I want to snog, of course).

What we are all looking forward to, undergrads and PhD students alike, however, is the Summer of Love. Me, James and Ryan are planning to do ... wait for it ... FUCK ALL! In fact, I think Ryan has already started prematurely, having submitted last week - rumour has it, that while we have been hidden away writing up/being ill, he has completed his PhD draft and started on a new all-consuming computer game that is set to take over his entire life. Given that the only two computer games I can play are solitaire and tetris, I don't think I'm going to go down this route myself. I shall probably go to the pub instead.

Plans for the summer of love

- G&Ts in a variety of fields/riverside venues/gardens
- Pub lunches, and plenty of 'em
- Afternoon rumpy pumpy
- Laughing, skipping and singing, preferably with our pants on our heads
- Tea and cake, at a variety of smashing venues, starting with the Orchard
- Barbecues in the college garden
- Real ales in a variety of pub gardens
- Trips to the sea-side

The list is a work in progress. I think I may need to fine-tune it by adding more drinking, eating and shagging possibilities. But you get the general idea. Anyone care to join us?

In the parallel universe...

... where I am still with Hugh, things are different - very different. My cough is worse because he still insists on chain-smoking in the flat - as a compromise he opens the balcony door to the sub-zero temperatures outside, thereby polluting my lungs with secondary smoke and freezing my tits off simultaneously. Later, he goes out for 'a quick drink' with his mates, promising to be back to make dinner for the two of us in an hour or so. Several hours - and many increasingly drunken phone calls - later, no dinner. Eventually, I take the phone off the hook, give up and go to bed. 4 am - he comes home, wakes me up and asks in an indignant and slurrying voice why I didn't answer the phone the last 3 times he called. Apparently, his mates wanted to say hello.

And then I wake up. And I'm here, with James. Still sick: only happy, smug, and married...

Silent Prayers

I'm sick. I have a nasty viral infection, which has given me a cough that makes my whole body hurt, a sore throat, a temperature and a racing pulse. Needless to say, I am not a pretty sight. I have taken to wandering around in a confused state sporting nothing but a crazy mass of hair and a dressing gown. I look like a cross between John the Baptist coming out of the wilderness (without the beard, but it's probably only a matter of time) and Crazy Cat Lady from the Simpsons, only without the cats.

Having just re-read Carol Ann Duffy's poem, Prayer, I have realised I have been saying my own silent prayers in recent days. Every time James brings me a hot beverage and kisses me, despite the fact that I'm a raging snot bag, every time he realises I look like St John the Baptist with a Bagful of Cats but giggles to himself and looks at me all the more lovingly, every time he wakes me with tea in bed and insists he got a good night's sleep despite my constant coughing through the night, I think to myself:

Thank God I married James and not Hugh.

Ouchie Sundays

Sundays are becoming increasingly ouchie as my LSRs (that's Long Slow Runs for you non-marathoner lazy couch potato people out there) become increasingly L. Today I ran 16 miles along the towpath to Botisham Lock, past lots of anglers, having an angling competition, and lots of rowers, intent on scaring all the anglers' fish away and having a competition of their own. I dislike rowers. Rowing is a Nazi sport. Not like running. At least when I run I don't have someone with a loudspeaker running alongside me shouting "Sit up straight! Faster! Come on, there's another boat catching up with us! Come on! We've got to win this one!" - although perhaps I would run a little faster if I did. Or I'd get confused - how can I sit up straight whilst running, you great big fecking eedjit?! Why the fuck would I care if there is a boat catching up with me - let it overtake and see just how much I care. Alternatively, I would punch aforementioned person's lights out and continue to run at a leisurely pace. For, we must also remember what the S in LSR stands for - people with loudspeakers may need reminding of this fact. Fucking idiots. If they don't watch it, and if they don't stop yelling at me when I'm running, they are going to find their loudspeakers somewhere very uncomfortable (not to mention unhygienic).

In other news, you have probably noticed that I haven't been blogging much recently. Well, at the moment I'm having trouble finding life amusing. But in the meantime I have found a blog that perfectly suits my mood and I recommend you all go and pay a visit:

Strangely attractive Blog Link

If you look at the archive there are also some fantastic modern day love stories. Julie - I can imagine you writing these. Please send me at least 3!

I'm hobbling off now. The 16 miles may have been S but they were also very L and rather P (that's painful in runner talk).

How Not to Train for a Marathon

1. Go out the evening before a long training run and drink beer.
2. Sleep through your alarm the next morning.
3. Wake up really late, decide to hop out of bed and go for long run on nothing but a banana for breakfast
4. Fail to rehydrate before leaving for aforementioned long run.


We nevertheless managed to run 14 miles under these adverse physical conditions. And I haven't stopped eating all day. And I ache.

And we saw Clive James as we were running on the towpath past the boathouses. He didn't look impressed with our performance.

This was, however, better than the time I ran the Frauenlauf in Berne. It was only a 5 km race, so I didn't bother doing any training at all. I went out the night before and drank vast quantities of wine, smoked many, many Marlboro Lights, had a kebab and went clubbing. Then I overslept the next morning and got dropped off at the wrong start line with a rucksack, which I didn't have time to put in a locker. How was I to know they would have official photographers along the course? The photo of me, looking rather green, weighed down by my rucksack, was a sight to behold. Ironically, I had spent most of the evening before telling everyone, in a drunken slurry voice, that not only was I fully intending to run, but that I would probably win the race as well. Well, I didn't win. Not by a long shot. But I did nearly vomit at the finish line.

When, oh when, will I learn?

Up Yours, Global Warming!

Well, that nasty man from yesterday's blog hasn't quite succeeded, has he? I think most of the UK woke up to snow this morning. Lovely, crunchy, squeaky snow that has not yet had the chance to turn to slush. Our college being the most international/multicultural of all the Cambridge colleges (it must be, it says so on our website!), there are several delighted people here experiencing snow for the first time, wandering outside looking like excited children having their photos taken holding snowballs. I don't want to do any work today - I just want to play!

BBC headlines, redrafted

So, I logged into the BBC t'other day to find out what is going on in this gloomy world of ours (being a student, I no longer do newspapers). I was quite shocked to read:

"Man responsible for Global Warming".

Shocking stuff! I think: "Which man? Oooh when I get my hands on him, I'm going to punch his fecking lights out. Who does he think he is, destroying the ozone layer, etc etc". When I logged on again later in the day they had changed it to "Humans responsible for Global Warming" - quite a disappointment really. I was looking forward to finding this particular 'man' and beating the living crap out of him...

Yes, it has gone rather quiet here, hasn't it?

I had to stop procrastinating and write the blasted essays, I'm afraid. My Shakespeare one was a blinder - I wrote all about the witches in Macbeth and compared them to the chorus in a Greek tragedy. The supervisor picked apart my grammar and took issue with various words and phrases, especially one about the 'perceived gender identity' that the witches transgress. 'In whose perception?', she asked, somewhat defensively. I started faltering, wanting to say that they were described in pretty unattractive terms but realising I was dealing with someone who would probably fight to the death for the witches' right to represent femininity in any light they damn well pleased, lost my nerve. 'In what ways, pray tell, do they digress gender norms?' she asked, as though feminism was something had passed me by unnoticed as I was shoe-shopping one day. 'Well...', I answered '... you can say what you like about any other feature of their physical description, but women really aren't supposed to have beards, now, are they?'.

Was that sexist of me? Do I need to be sent for ideological re-programming? Or do I, perhaps, just need to nuance my essays to avoid political/ideological discussions of this nature (perhaps by deftly avoiding the whole issue of facial hair) in the future?