Couch to 5k 1:1: Run, Chubby Girl, Run

When I moved into my flat last summer and was all full of good intentions, I mentioned that I'd intended to go for a run as if it was something I did all the time. Not so. I had never been for a run in my life. I did join a gym, briefly, but I hated it with the fire of a thousand suns, and it cut into my book-buying budget to an unacceptable level. It did at least have the benefit of being indoors, but running outside where people can see you was something I had never attempted...until two days ago.

The NHS, bless it, has a 'Couch to 5k' program. One of my friends and co-workers is on Week 3 of the nine week plan, and as she was telling me about it I had a Barney Stinson-esque 'Challenge accepted!' moment. I then told as many people as possible about it, so that they would point at me and make oinking noises if I showed up to work the next day having sat on my posterior all evening.

So, on Thursday night, I downloaded all the handy podcasts onto my iPod, put on some tracksuit-type things and my beaten up trainers, shoved my keys into my sports bra, and set off. It is worth noting at this point that it was pouring with rain and I started off going uphill. I will not be making this mistake again.

So, the Week 1 plan has you walk for five minutes, run for 60 seconds, and then walk for 90 seconds, and this goes on for half an hour. Hah, I thought, even I can run for 60 seconds. That's the length of a really long nose-blow! No problem. But oh. My. God. The first run was the longest 60 seconds of my life, including that long pause before you find out who got kicked off Strictly Come Dancing. When the happy, peppy lady on the podcast broke through the music to tell me I could start my 90 second walk I could have sunk to my knees in gratitude. Before the second run, she asks 'Are you ready for your next run?' and I am so glad that there was no one around to her my anguished cry of 'No! No! Please God no!'. But the thing is, I did it, and I kept doing it.

After getting to the top of the hill, I zigzagged back down it, circled the (flatter) streets by my house a few times, and was arriving back at my front door just as the five minute cool down was ending. I felt amazing. Sweaty, rain-soaked, and achy, but utterly amazing. The feeling of achievement from that one run was incredible. I've been peer-pressured into doing a 5k in October, so I guess I'd better get going again! This time I'm taking The Boyfriend with me. He volunteered. This is either the best idea ever, or a recipe for disaster. I'll let you know.

New Things

After my last post oh-so-long ago, I have two quite stunning new developments to report. The first, chronologically and probably in importance too, is the appearance of The Boyfriend.  Almost exactly a year after the previous one jumped ship in fact, which has a pleasing narrative symmetry. He is, of course, wonderful in every conceivable way, and given that we’re seven months in and I still honestly believe this it may very well be true. Any man who’ll mop your brow when you’re awake all night hallucinating about trees because you’ve wiped up a winter fever must be pretty decent, especially if he cleans your kitchen the next day when it’s a mess but you can’t stand up long enough to do something about it without fainting and falling over and potentially concussing yourself on the fridge.

The second stunning development is The Flat. Two weeks ago, after two months of mind-boggling stress in which everything managed to go horribly wrong all at once, I moved all by myself (to live with just myself I mean – moving itself took two parents, one boyfriend, and two burly Polish removal men) into a lovely flat in Crouch End. It is effectively two rooms with two outsize cupboards, one of which has a kitchen squished in, and the other is the smallest shower room anywhere that isn’t a sleeper on the 23.55 from Paddington to Penzance, but I like it. (In fairness, I realise that I am very lucky not to be living in a lean-to against nothing  with the bed in the kitchen, and having to choose between mutually exclusive options like ‘Laundry or sleep?’ and ‘Cook salmon or avoid smelling like a fishmonger?’, but it would have been nice to have a bathroom where the sink was actually in the room and not in a cupboard with the boiler.)

Living alone is an interesting experience. I have previously rhapsodised about the joys of alone time, but having so much of it is incredibly unnerving. So, with impeccable logic, I decided to use all of this time to actually get some hobbies besides ‘reading’, ‘telly’, and ‘knitting while watching telly’. Today, I had actually allotted some time in my evening to go for a run (momentous in and of itself – I generally run only for the bus) but as it was raining I decided to stay in and do yoga. In my hunt for a suitable YouTube video, I came across one for a guided meditation. OK, I thought, I’ll try that. I put a blanket down on the floor, pressed play, listened to the soothing voice and the calming music emanating from my laptop...and fell asleep right there in my living room. It would appear that my new hobby is ‘sleeping’, but at least no one came home and saw me lying prone on the fake-wood laminate flooring, snoring gently.

There's no place like 'Home'

I am currently in the middle of the first weekend in a month when I have had no plans. Nothing. Not dinner, not drinks, not brunch, no parties, no gatherings, no dates. From lunchtime today until dinner tomorrow when my housemate comes back, it's just me, myself, and I.

Apparently, to many, this is a terrifying concept. I was telling my friend SK, who stayed over for a Girls Night In on Friday, how much I was looking forward to my solitude, and she practically recoiled. 'But what are you going to do? Won't you be lonely?' SK is one of those who, as a matter of course, flood out of London on a Friday night on a crowded train from Paddington and go Home to the familial stronghold for the weekend, to avoid the sheer horror of two whole days, in the city, alone. Now, to be fair, I do this when I've been particularly stressed and want a nice home-made chicken pie, and when I feel that a little bit of countryside might be good for my soul. Sometimes, it's great and I feel rested and refreshed. Other times I come back on a Sunday evening to a slightly musty-smelling flat and a giant pile of laundry, and wish I'd done the sensible thing and stayed at home (small-h) in the capital.

At first I thought that the tendency to return Home at weekends was the preserve of the single girl with family in the Home Counties (pun not intended - I promise), but no. My housemate is happily coupled-up, but still makes the trip about twice a month. My friend R's family are in Scotland and Ireland, and yet she still disappears to spend weekends with them whenever she can. Best Friend L goes home every week as a matter of course, and did even when she had a boyfriend in London.

Now, I quite like my family. I like to visit them, I like spending time with them (for the most part). But I enjoy the solitude of being on my own in the city, and the time that I have to do exactly what I want to do. I can go for a walk, see a movie without negotiating which one, fall asleep on the sofa, read for hours with no interruptions...I mean, I spend most of my week at work surrounded by people, so why is it odd that on occasional weekends I want to spend time all by myself?

This Home-visiting feels to me like some kind of retro throwback, like something out of 'Girls of Slender Means'. The single girl (i.e. without a live-in partner) is still tethered to the family she grew up in. My married friends are not forever going Home for the weekend, because they've established a new one together. Without a resident Significant Other, the single girl who's staring down the barrel of 48 hours with not much to do simply decamps in search of comfortable company.

Actually, maybe the love of weekend solitude and the weekend Home-visiting are just two sides of the same coin. Potentially, one day, all of us single girls will be married with children, and with huge demands on our time from the Home that we've created. Maybe choosing to either go back to the nest or to stay home in our sweats is to be enjoyed now as never before because we can see the day on the horizon when our lives won't be our own anymore. Saturdays will be spent in Ikea, dragging around a screaming three-year-old who refused to leave the house in anything other than a Batman costume. Sundays will consist of sitting in various motorway laybys whilst peering at the map with our spouse and arguing about whether we've missed the exit for Scunthorpe and whose fault it was that the satnav got left behind. And, my worst nightmate, entire Bank Holiday weekends will be spent sitting on a beach in cagoules, in a force nine gale with the rain pouring down, saying cheerfully to our weeping offspring and sulking husband "Aren't we having FUN?" as we picnic on wilting sandwiches and crushed crisps.

You know what? I feel a need for chicken pie and a nice walk on the Ridgeway...

You kiss your grandmother with that mouth?

Last week I was walking home in the evening sunshine, minding my own business, when a random man says to me 'Hey baby, you're just the right height for me! We were made for each other baby, come back to my place...' I carried on walking, suddenly less sure about my lovely red wedges that push me up to about six foot two. Why did this man think he had the right to intrude on my life to proposition me? Why did he think he had the right to comment on me at all?

To be fair, I got off lightly this time. One night last year, I was on my way out for a date. I was dressed up to the nines, and was walking past a pub by myself. A group of three big, burly men outside smoking started to shout at me. 'Hey sweetheart, where are you going?' 'Look at that dress! I bet she's a right little slut'. 'I'd love to have some of that - come sit on my knee, babe'. As I carried on past them, pretending I didn't hear, I got: 'Fucking snooty bitch' 'Little whore' 'Just needs a good fuck, that one'. How would they feel if someone said those things to their wife, their mother, or their daughter?

Not so long ago, my friend R was waiting at the tube for her boyfriend to pick her up and take her to a party. He was late, so she decided to head to the party by herself. On the way she was stopped by a group of men outside a bar, who physically blocked her way until she screamed at them. 'Alright love,' one of them said 'we were just 'avin' fun.' Fun? Is harassing a woman and not letting her get away from you fun?

I'd love to ask these questions, but I seriously doubt I'll have the guts to speak to the next man who hollers at me in the street. Because, you see, the big question on a woman's mind when she gets harassed is: 'Is he going to hurt me?'

Good Housekeeping?

Last week, I felt amazing. Life was wonderful, and everything was right with the world. This was because I was spending most of my time sitting in a farmhouse kitchen in rural France, watching the sunlight glinting off the Loire and knowing that didn't have to do anything I didn't want to do. It was bliss. Then I had to come back.

My parents were kind enough to drop me off on the way back from Dover ferryport. When my mum asked if she could come in to use the bathroom however, my heart began to race, my palms began to sweat, and knees began to tremble. Despite my exhaustion from the day's travel, I was suddenly filled with the urge to run as far and as fast in the other direction as possible.

Even in the modern world, it seems that women tend to be burdened with the housekeeping. In fact, it seems that once a woman is a fully-fledged adult, she apparently starts to be judged on her home. I have internalised this to quite some degree, and will always clean up for visitors in case they go home and decry my hideous squat of a house afterwards. I will clean especially thoroughly for my pathologically obsessed, hypercritical (about cleanliness, at least) mother, who can see pieces of dust which even electron microscopes would have trouble picking up. It will come as no surprise that my mother believes that those who do not come up to her standards live in squalor - me very much included.

Nor is she shy about 'helping' with the situation. One day last year, she went into my kitchen to put the kettle on, and decided to start spraying surfaces with Dettol and de-crumbing under the toaster. She couldn't understand why I was so insulted. Once when I was at university she came to visit, and the first thing she said as she stepped into my hallway was "Hm. You haven't vacuumed."

On this occasion, though, my fears seemed to be unjustified. Even though I was utterly convinced she'd refuse to leave until I'd let her fumigate the entire flat, everything was fine. "Wow", I said to my housemate, "she's finally learned to keep her thoughts to herself!"

The next day she called me offering to send me some Flash Bathroom and Kitchen cleaner.

Harry and Sally

I am a relationship disaster area. I can take something beautiful, and wreck it like the Hesperus. My problem is very simple, really, and can be summed up in three words. I expect narrative.

In our world, we are bombarded with love stories. On the TV, in movies, in books, even adverts suggest a story (think of the Chanel advert with Nicole Kidman). So, I have come to expect narrative in all my relationships. I find myself delivering lines, setting up dramatic situations, and thinking that I know how it's all going to end because I've seen how it all SHOULD end a hundred times over.

For instance, we all know that when two people have an unconfortable encounter, then become best friends, then have a couple of big fights, then have a very comfortable encounter, they should end up together. Right? Throw in little scenes that demonstrate how well they know each other, how much they have in common, how they depend on each other, and it's a certainty. Isn't it?

Sadly, no it isn't. That big dramatic kissing scene in Trafalgar Square where in a movie 'The End' would roll out across the screen as the leads fade out into 'happy ever after' is not, in actual fact, the end. What happens is she calls him two days later, and finds out that he only kissed her because he felt sad and lonely about how the girl he actually likes doesn't like him. She tells him never to call her again, then calls a week later to forgive him because she misses him as her friend, but has decided she definitely doesn't want anything more to happen. He doesn't answer the phone. Then she blogs about it.

Travels with an Over-Independent Suitcase

For the last few days, I've been in Dublin visiting my parents. My dad took a job there, so they've rented this fancy apartment in the south of the city and as I was dying to get out of London for a bit, I invited myself to stay. About a week before I went, my dad offered to send me money to get a cabin-sized bag, so I wouldn't have to check a bag and then wait around at baggage claim. 'No thanks', I said, 'I'll borrow one'. This is how I ended up going away with a suitcase that is quite possibly possessed by Satan.

This suitcase is very well-traveled. Last week, it went to Frankfurt with my friend R, to whom it actually belongs. The week before that, it went to Amsterdam with our mutual friend C. And of course, it has just returned from Dublin. I think all this globe-trotting has given it ideas above its station. It does not realise that it is a mere receptical for clothing and suchlike. It has become something of a prima donna.

The suitcase does not like corners, and is apt to swing out in unexpected directions. The suitcase does not like bumpy floors or lumpy pavements. The suitcase does not appreciate being jolted over kerbs, and will attempt to hurl itself into the path of the Dublin air coach in protest at such rough treatment. The suitcase goes where it wants to, oblivious to the fact that its handler is desperatley trying to stop it scattering toddlers as it hurtles merrily around Heathrow Terminal 1. The suitcase very definitely does not like the street that I live on, and attacked my left leg mercilessly all the way along to illustrate this point.

I'm going away to Siena next month. I'm buying my own cabin bag.