Actually I don't want a boyfriend...

Every morning as I potter around my one bed flat I feel a little bit more like an unfortunate version of Bridget Jones. Living alone has its perks, you can stay in bed for as long as you want and not have to justify it (if anyone asks you can always lie, who’s going to know that when you said you got up at 9am you meant 12pm and you didn’t get dressed until 4, and only because you realised you needed to go and buy some milk) you can eat and drink at whatever ridiculous time you choose and you don’t have to brush your hair. Perfection.

Sometimes however, as I sit down after overindulging myself by dancing around in my batman t-shirt, clutching a whiskey and singing along (much to the distress of my neighbours) at the top of my voice to everything from Glee to Pearl Jam; I wonder, would I be happier or at least a little less distressingly similar to Bridget Jones if I had a boyfriend?

The more I think about it the more I realise that actually, I don’t want a boyfriend at all…I just want a slave. I want a nice man, preferably tall and skinny with blonde floppy hair (see examples 1 and 2) to be my protector from moths, my chef, my chauffer and a vessel at which to spout everything and anything that’s on my mind. After talking with one of my closest friends, we both came to the conclusion that it would in fact be so much easier to have a slave and not a boyfriend (with the exception of a marriage proposal from the aforementioned sex gods which of course I would immediately accept after regaining the power of speech)

After all, if you have a boyfriend you’re expected to treat them well and tell them nice things about themselves – effort! Sometimes you’re going to have to cook and then of course clean up all the mess. Not to mention having to brush your hair AND get out of bed and into the shower at a decent time in order to entertain them! No, having a boyfriend is just… So. Much. Effort. At first it always starts out well, you actually have a reason to leave the house and socialise; so that’s exciting. You go for nice romantic walks to Sainsbury’s and grab a Starbucks and everything is peachy. Then you realise that you’d actually like it if you could have some time to yourself and just schedule them in to come and help you when you need it. A slave to do all the important man things like save you when there’s a giant and terrifying moth terrorising you as you try to sleep, or being your bright eyed and beautiful delivery man when you realise you forgot something at the shops.

It’s fair to assume most people tend to believe that if you are in a relationship your other half is solely responsible for your happiness and, if for some reason you’re not having the time of your life it’s all their fault and there is nothing they can say or do to correct their heinous misdemeanours. Enter slave. Their sole purpose being to supply you with whatever it is you need at that moment. Whether that means to keep you company when you want to rant about that horrible woman at work, or be the nice strong arms that hug you tightly as you get over emotional watching “Britains Got Talent” or “X-Factor”.

The best part of this new fangled arrangement? You don’t have to say that horrible phrase “No, I’m fine.” There is some unwritten rule of the universe that teaches everyone with at least one brain cell that “fine” means a thousand things, but never, in the history of the world has it ever meant that you are actually ok. You can skip over the bad parts of relationships like stupid arguments and fighting over who’s turn it is to take out the bins; even if, in my opinion that should be a job reserved solely for men. Instead you can just enjoy the fun moments of being saved and hugged and cooked for. Who needs a man to be happy in this age anyway? That’s what books are for… Pride and Prejudice was written solely to make women realise that no one will ever be as perfect as Mr.Darcy so why bother? Why go through the stress of moulding a man into your perfect slave personal Mr.Darcy when you can just go about getting a slave outright. I’m by no means saying “Come on girls lets burn our bras and stick it to the man!” but it’s something to think about. Perhaps I should give the idea time to settle, after all, it’s a life changing and incredibly ground breaking discovery that must be chewed upon.  Any takers? No?

How not to row a boat...

Picture the scene, a warm sunny day in Stratford; birth place of the one and only William Shakespeare. It just so happens that we’ve made our way here, purely coincidentally on Shakespeare’s birthday (23^rd April for those of you who live in a cave) not that you would be able to tell. There are no celebrations, no balloons or anything else to symbolise the day, I later find out from a friend who lives in Stratford that they are postponing the celebrations until next weekend, the weekend that just so happens to be the royal wedding… competition?

As I looked around the scene in my brand new sunglasses (somewhat of a novelty that much to the distress of my work friends I haven’t stopped talking about for weeks) it’s the usual postcard shot of a day in England when the sun decides to come out. Men automatically rip off their shirts and wear their shorts as low as possible whilst sauntering around in flip flops and giving in to the sudden urge to play Frisbee. It doesn’t matter if there is quite a cold breeze rippling through the trees, the sun is out! We British are very good at making the most of even the slightest opportunities!

My brother decides he really wants to go on a rowing boat in the wonderful murky waters of the river avon. Why not! I hear you cry, rowing isn’t difficult and look at all of those people currently rowing so easily up and down the river; this will be a great way to spend a relaxing afternoon. So there we were waiting for our turn on the rowing boat, as the queue got smaller I began to doubt myself on my abilities to row a boat. I had been quite good at kayaking that one time…. This is basically the same right? After handing over £7 to a guy who looked like he’d turned the wrong way on a Newquay beach and lost his surf board, said man helped us very gingerly into the boat. I grabbed hold of the two rather heavy and long oars and was told to be on my way. Excitedly I put them into the water, drawing them backwards before bringing them back out of the water to repeat the motion. This is brilliant! So easy! I don’t know why I doubted myself. It was only after a few attempts at this that I realised we were in fact still exactly where we started. Oh crikey! I don’t think I can row a boat and now there are several dozen people watching our progress as they sit in the sun waiting for their turn.

Putting on a brave face and flashing a fabulous smile to the newly formed crowd I tried again, my brother looking slightly worried I realised we were moving, I was so proud of myself! I looked around slowly at the ducks and swans swimming so peacefully past us and all was swell. Suddenly I was brought back to reality by my brother yelling “Hayley! Were about to hit a swan!”… What? Oh, yeah I knew that, I’m completely in control of the situation… as I surveyed my surroundings I realised perhaps I wasn’t so good at this. Yes indeed I had managed to manoeuvre the boat away from our starting point, however, whereas in my head we were at least a good stride away from the embankment we were in fact no more than a few meters to the left… in the shrubbery and disturbing a rather annoyed swan as it tried to go about its day in peace. Crap. At this stage we had several very helpful, if slightly annoying characters on the grass shouting out handy tips to get us out of this rather sorrowful situation. Gee thanks guys but all of you watching me is not helping me to concentrate! As I regained what little composure I had left I tried to work out the mechanics of rowing this chunk of wood away from said swan and the shrubbery the boat seemed to be so fond of. After several pitiless attempts I realised I was rather good at turning the boat. Great, so now we could go around in circles, perhaps if I did it fast enough I would start a whirlpool and really get the party started.

Realising my feeble attempts were getting us no closer to the safety of oncoming large canal barges I decided to hand over the controls of one ore to my little brother. Luckily after what felt like 2 hours but was actually perhaps a few minutes we were out of the shrubs and rowing into an oncoming boat. As I brushed my hair out of my eyes and checked that my sunglasses were still covering my face I took one last glance towards the audience that had got some light entertainment they weren’t expecting. There was a ripple of applause as one man cheered at my now entirely embarrassing ordeal and we swiftly rowed away, very inelegantly and hid around the corner from the now avid crowd of onlookers!

Deciding it would perhaps be best if we swapped positions and my little brother rowed the boat for the time we had left we tried to choreograph a wonderful and extra specially smooth change of seats. However, once again this didn’t go to plan and as the boat rocked violently from side to side I decided the best course of action was to man up and row the beast! This plan seemed to work for all of ten minutes before we were once again embedded in some shrubbery. I had got a little too over excited with the prospect of looking like a professional rower to passers by further down the river and hadn’t realised I was rowing us directly into the brick wall that made up the bank outside the RSC. To make matters worse, a handful of school friends who I had bumped into earlier after not seeing them for years chose this exact moment to peep their heads over the side of the wall to see what the small gathering of tourists were looking at. “Hi Hayley! Looking good” came the call from above us. Oh marvellous, now everyone knew my name! I smiled and waved as if I hadn’t a care in the world before going back to rowing in circles. After realising this was once again a fruitless act I looked around for another option. “Stick your ore on the wall and push!” came the helpful response of one of my friends, and so I did… once again we were off and heading towards the patch of grass where we had left from. As we came around the corner there was once again a slight “WOO” from the crowd. Thank you very much but I will not be stopping for a chat, I do not wish for you to remember my face as I am far too embarrassed to look at you!

Heading in the general direction of the embankment and after several haphazardly movements of the ores we were parked and ready to exit sharpish. After a not so elegant exit from my rather tall brother who more or less belly flopped onto the side of the grass, I decided to try an attempt at dignity one final time. I failed. Miserably. As I stepped onto the grass I lost my footing and was grabbed by the rather attractive looking surfer as mentioned earlier who pulled me to his side as I sheepishly said thanks and slunk away as fast as possible without running.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for trying everything once, not saying no and going for gold but note to self: if you know you probably won’t be able to do something and there are several 100 people in the close vicinity, you probably shouldn’t do it! Well not unless you want a standing ovation for closely avoiding a bite from a swan and a trip home covered in murky river water anyway!

Some rules of etiquette should always be followed.

(I apologise in advance for the crass nature of this post)

Etiquette, even the word itself is as pretentious as its meaning. I’d like to point out that I am by no means an expert at etiquette; I never know how to sit at a table properly at a restaurant without looking like I’m about to skip out on the bill, and it always makes me feel awkward when the barman pours half your bottled cider into the glass for you. I always smile politely as I think “Seriously Mr. I got myself to the bar, I ordered this drink and was fully functional enough to pay for it correctly…I’m sure I can handle pouring it into a glass without a mini demonstration…”

There is however, one rule of etiquette that I believe should always be followed just as a matter of human decency. What is that I hear you cry? The answer is the general public’s ridiculous and stomach churning need to constantly pick their nose. Whoever told these people that picking your nose, in public let alone in the comfort of your own home was acceptable?! It literally makes me feel a little dizzy when I think about it because everywhere you go; mostly when you least expect it… you will come face to face with a full frontal, no shame at all, nose picker.

I think the worst part of this horrendous public display of repulsiveness is that nobody else seems to a) notice or b) care. People, this is a serious matter, picking germs and mucus out of your actual nose as you walk down the street, stop at a traffic light or look at some clothes in a shop is not acceptable! It has to stop. I was walking into town from my flat the other day and I was persistently haunted by incessant nose pickers. Imagine the scene, when you’re watching a film and someone just found out they’re pregnant and they see babies everywhere? Now imagine that in real life, only its worse… because my montage of images are of grubby people sticking a podgy index finger up their nostrils and having a good route around. I mean seriously, that is not the correct function for either body parts, please remove your finger now and never come near me again.

It got to the point where I was starting to feel a little queasy when I saw not only men but a woman in her posh car stopping at a light having a quick shuffle before returning her hand to the wheel. Attention lady, you might have a flashy sports car and a nice business suit but if you’re wedging your finger into your face in public you might as well be an urchin! Perhaps I just get a little too wound up about it but seriously, seeing your smeared mucus in any number of undesirable locations or in any fashion is not on my list of exciting things to do before you die! So, if you nauseating nose pickers would be so kind as to retract your fingers it’d be much appreciated. Also, if you are a sneaky nose picker (don’t worry I’m not going to tell anyone), especially a public one. Next time, as you reach that hand up to lodge it up your nostril think twice; there is always going to be some unfortunate soul that has to witness your public display of disgust!

Walking 26 miles isn't as easy as it looks!

First things first… if someone asks you if you want to walk 26 miles, even if it is for charity; think long and hard about that decision. My advice is, when they say you should “train” before hand and do some stretches to warm up your muscles, please do not stand there shaking your head and exploding with a hard to contain guffaw. Do some training, or at least some stretches beforehand. You are not invincible, and yes you will feel like you’ve aged, just in your legs and feet by the end of it.

See now, me being the all knowing fountain of knowledge that I am didn’t think about any of this at all. My thoughts went something like this; 26 miles isn’t that far… not really I don’t think it will actually take all day HA! 10 hours after starting, complete with a few stops I collapse helplessly to the ground just past the finish line, still gripping my prize winning lindt chocolate with my medal around my neck. (I figure if I’m going to remain helpless to theft for at least a couple of minutes I want to ensure I still have some chocolate to get me through the pain after such an ordeal!)

After my rather melodramatic OMG! I compose myself to assess the damage this wonderful walk around Birmingham has done to my feet. As I claw off my purple vans it feels like my feet are expanding, much in the same way a bump onto a cartoon characters head does immediately after impact. As I assess the damage I notice that there are only a few blisters covering my feet, though I am quite impressed that blood has been drawn on a couple of my toes, now that  is dedication! As I sit, rather elegantly with my bare feet on display, legs crossed, hair in my face and feeling like I am emitting green gas in the same way a sim does when it needs a shower, I think back over the past 10 hours and the walking that has taken up the best part of the day. Overall, it wasn’t all that difficult! There were a few moments where I found myself becoming irrationally angry at passersby beeping their horns in encouragement at our charitable act of walking around the outskirts of our colourful city. Mostly I had been in high spirits, maybe it was the sugar overload.

When we had set off around 9am in the morning, as the first wonderful supporter in their comfortable car and sunglasses beeped their horn there was an enthusiastic “WOO!” from myself and the people around me, but as the day drew on you could tell how much pain people were in and how much further they had to go by their reaction to such a beep. This scaled from the excitable woo at the start of the day to the “SHUT UP and get out your car and join us MORONS!” that was peacefully spoken back to passing cars towards the end of the day. This coupled with the varying emotions of all of those around me made the day quite amusing! Within a few hours of starting out the order of business had been set. My sister and friend Jack had flew on ahead at a pace I can only describe as inhumanly fast and enthusiastic. One of my sisters friends began to lag behind after we had reached our first “rest stop” where she had ingesting a burger and chips almost all in one mouthful, and the remainder of my sisters friends and myself were somewhere in the middle trying to solider on and catch up with the super humans. This was done whilst taking it in turns to whinge about our feet and have random spouts of irrational anger where bottles were “accidently” thrown at people and everything became hilariously funny, thus making walking that little bit more difficult.

I was informed that the organisers of this 26 mile jaunt; BRMB had said you would go through every emotion and I guess that that is true. I definitely visited anger, anger at passersby, anger at having so far to go, anger at my feet and irrational anger for people in general. Not to mention anger at the signs being put up incorrectly and therefore miscalculating the miles; this I took as a personal attack of people plotting against me to make the task harder. Yes, anger was definitely there! But there was also the delirium; this was most probably my personal favourite. Whilst experiencing this I remembered the hypnosis in Zoolander and almost found myself seeing Will Ferrell handing me lollies whilst telling me to be happy… happppppy. It set in at intervals just after the half way point. We had sat down around 1.30 for some lunch and having had to stand up in stages and walking around like we had broken backs for a couple of minutes we set off again. At first this was in good spirits, 10 miles to go we were told. We began to walk up a slight hill when it all went wrong. Suddenly I had the uncontrollable urge to laugh, I didn’t understand it! There was nothing funny around, no one had fallen over and no one had said anything to stimulate such a reaction but there I was, laughing uncontrollably at the sentence “come on, jog for a bit, it makes your legs feel better” I looked around at my friend and my sister and her friends and found that they were all laughing also, we had no idea why. This went on for several minutes when Jack decided that it wasn’t for him and disappeared like speedy Gonzales never to be seen again!

As we got closer to the end the pace slowed and I found my legs having an argument with the rest of my body. My brain was telling them to get a move on and my legs were rather stubbornly telling me to politely get lost! As my body was having this inner argument I received a phone call from Jack to say he had just crossed the finish line, that I probably had about an hour and a half left and oh yeah, the last hill before the end was a killer. Well thank you very much kind sir, I’ll just crawl into a corner and die now if that’s ok with you! I gave him my congratulations through gritted teeth, don’t get me wrong I was genuinely happy he had finished… and in record time but I wanted to remind him that now was not a good time to talk about his superhuman abilities to put one foot in front of the other at such a speed.

As I battled through the last 2 miles, up the aforementioned ridiculously steep hill I found myself happier than I had ever felt in my life. I never thought it would feel so good to see the word “finish” on a big white sign in a dishevelled park on the outskirts of Birmingham! As my sister, her friend and I stumbled somewhat elegantly toward the finish line there were half hearted cheers from some of the sponsors on the side lines. Yes we were some of the last people to cross the line but we didn’t care. It was done, we had made it and all was glorious! As I fumbled across the finish in a daydream I had a medal placed around my neck by a nice lady who just smiled at me when I told her it was cold, but cold was nice. I moved slowly down the table to find some lindt chocolate in big boxes, the lady telling me that I could take a handful if I liked. Not wanting to look like a true fattie I took just 3 and stumbled in the direction of my sister. By now my feet and my legs were shouting at the rest of my body, demanding to sit down and please, not to get up again for a while. Finally I gave in and sat down with a graceful thump and drowned myself in water. I had done it! I was still in one piece and I had only had to use my inhaler once. Ok, so perhaps walkathons weren’t a scratch on an actual marathon but I had completed it, all in one piece with somewhat minimal damage to myself… It was only when I crawled into a hot bath about an hour later that I realised the true pain that was to come. As I sat absorbing the amazing feeling of the hot water against my legs I had a moment of panic where I thought I may have to stay there till morning as I couldn’t lift myself out. After realising that this was a ridiculous notion I gingerly found my seat on the sofa and found myself smiling inanely at the screen. I had done it, when even I thought I couldn’t. Now, I don’t care what anyone else thinks, that’s something that I feel I can be proud of! 

When Moths Attack

Hello, my name is Hayley and today my life hit an all time low.

I suppose you’re wondering what I mean, whether I’m just being melodramatic and if something serious actually occurred. Well, not really… but today I realised that, aged 23 knocking on 24’s door, living in my own flat and having a real life grown up job (just about) I still scream out loud and hide my face like a child seeing a clown for the first time, every single time I see a moth.

Now, my all consuming and unfathomable phobia of the fury villains of the night has been something I have had to suffer for many a year, but this specific tale of woe started a few weeks back. After having a “nothing to report” couple of days in sunny Wales I arrived back at my flat with my younger brother in tow. We were having a nice relaxing evening when a flying creature from the pit of hell (a moth smaller than the nail on my little toe) started flying arrogantly towards my face as I was sat on my sofa. Of course I dealt with the matter swiftly and in a manner that any sensible adult would; almost pouring my hot cup of coffee over my bare legs and hiding my face behind a cushion whilst asking my brother of 15 to do something about this terrifying situation. For the record, this is probably not the best way to solve such an issue of impending doom!

After regaining my composure and realising that the moth had smugly found a home on the wall to the side of me I slowly picked up a cushion and started to move it toward the horrendous creature, slowing my hand further as I got closer, just in case he figured out what was about to happen and escaped like Houdini but with a desperate flap of those disgusting wings! AHA! I had got it, the moth was now nothing more than a poof of powdery brown goo on my cushion and also on my wall… lovely! (note to self, cushion must now be immediately put into washing machine)

Feeling slightly like a murderer I convinced myself that my actions were justified as it was, after all, a creature from the depths of all evil and had no place in the world, especially not when that world consisted of the four walls of my wonderful flat which, up until this point had been flying vermin free!

The ordeal was over and I once again settled on my sofa, trying not to think about the event as it was close to bed time and my brain is a hub of overactive imagination at the best of times. However my trauma was not over, not even ten minutes later another moth, just as arrogant and sauntering as my previous attacker mysteriously appeared in my living room and at once made a b-line for my face. OH CHRIST! I had killed the mafia boss of Moths and now his crony was after me to seek revenge. I looked around feverishly for the now penned “death cushion” that had seen the last seconds of the previous winged beasts life and slowly tiptoed across the room. I waited, anxious and cold for the new addition to my living room to find a place to have a rest and when it did BOOM. Death cushion was in place and said moth was no more! Victory was mine and there was nothing they could do about it! Feeling extremely proud of myself I returned to the sofa and resumed previous activities. Reliving the story of my pure heroism with my little brother (also scared but not quite terrified of said creatures from hell)

Now, you might think that this is the end of my ordeal but no. No, no no! For several weeks after this incident more and more of the little critters have been making an appearance around my flat, death cushion has always taken their lives before they were able to attack but the event came to ahead just a few days ago.

I had been sat happily in bed, reading a new book that I had been extremely excited to start reading when not one but two of the egotistical little beasts decided they would once again make a play to destroy me by flying at my face. I am not proud to admit that I once again screamed like a small child and flung myself out of the bed and into the living room in a flash so fast I was almost impressed; had it not been for the return of impending danger I would have taken the time to congratulate myself on my swiftness, I’d have to save that for a later moment.

Having assessed the situation and planned a method of winning the battle I grabbed a hold of my trusty death pillow and, tiptoeing once again, went in for the kill. First one, down, dead! Winner. Then the other, in a swift motion fuelled by pure terror I had eradicated my attackers and gingerly got back into bed only to be haunted by moths throughout the night.

You will be pleased to know that since this horrendous and spine chilling ordeal I have invested in some aptly and somewhat unimaginative named “moth killer strips”, though granted they seem a little flimsy next to the sheer determination of the winged beasts to disturb my otherwise peaceful existence. Hopefully I have eradicated the remaining creatures with a combination of rigorous cleaning, rearranging and a few more hours than I’d like to admit of vacuuming and sweeping every nook and cranny of my humble abode. Alas, I feel I have done all that I can, short of moving out and letting them win the war (something that could never realistically happen for more reasons than pure stubbornness) and so ends my tale of horror and woe, and let this be a warning to all those who live in fear of suffering the same ordeal as myself. Remember, eventually you have to win, if not find a corner and sit down, back against the wall. Begin to rock slowly side to side, you may also find that sobbing quietly to yourself whilst darting your eyes around the room at intervals may somehow seem to help the situation. Good luck to all!