Bicycles, near death and camembert breakfasts

It's the beginning of National Bike Week today and I am looking forward to my prize for being someone who cycles to work, of a free breakfast at the Meeting Place cafe on the seafront in Hove this Thursday from 7.30-10am. You just turn up with your bike and claim some food. There are a few of these going on this week, so even if you don't cycle much, borrow or steal a friends' bike and go and get your free fry up! Mind you- the Meeting Place cafe is an amazing location, but awful food, so it's not that great a gift for being carbonless and fit. Here they somehow manage to make everything taste and smell vaguely of cheese. And this is no good at all, especially if you're eating a bacon sarnie.
Sadie wanted to join in with NBW too and insisted on cycling up the hill to school today wearing her daddy's medal from the London to Brighton bike ride yesterday. It took us 15 minutes to get to school as opposed to 5 and she whinged all the way, but she did her bit and I am proud.
Have had a bit of a tiring weekend, but marvellous all the same. Friday night was slutty night, where a group of us girls dressed up in our sauciest outfits and hit the town (god I really am behaving like a singleton). In inevitable sods law fashion, I only got attention from roofers who looked like Phil Mitchell, or 12 year olds wearing suits who thought I looked like I was up for it (I was of course- but not with underage accountants). I'll be sticking to jeans, a t-shirt and heels next time as this always works wonders. There's nothing worse than looking like you're advertising yourself for the cover of Nuts magazine. And I do tend to look a bit uncomfortable in a first-time-out-of-the-closet-transvestite-like way. It's just not me....but fun was had nevertheless, despite being so drunk at one point that I nearly fell out of a window. Ho hum. I am alive so let's just live and learn(lesson being not to just walk up to big windows in 9th floor appartments after 4 hours of drinking as they might well be open).
Saturday was the lovely Joy's hen night. We ate scrummy food in Food For Friends (always a winner) and then headed to Northern Lights restaurant for a private do (where I appear to have bagged myself a ginger admirer- remember the other blog recently? It just goes to show- be careful what you wish for...) and then onto the Funky Fish where we strutted our stuff to northern soul classics and drank to Joy's impending future as Mrs Westby. And incidentally I'm meeting up with the ginger cave man this week for a date (he's redheaded in a Shaun Slater-esque way rather than a Bradley Branning sort of way so there is hope for the species after all..)

Friday 13th and tiara celebrations

I've just arranged to have a 'Champagne and Bling' party (thanks to my pharmacist doppelganger for the suggestion- she needs an excuse to drink champers and wear her wedding tiara again so I thought I'd oblige) at mine in a month's time. I've been meaning to have a gathering since becoming single, but felt a pang of guilt at the idea of celebrating my new found freedom. That is until My Ex had an all night party last week of his own. So now I have changed my mind and am inviting friends over for some drunken,dancing-around-the-living-room antics.
The interest in Sign Shop Man has resurfaced. My daily trips to the internet cafe opposite the Sign Shop have meant I can now catch his eye as I exit from my emailing spree. I think I am going to ask him out, but the question is... HOW??? And... AM I MAD?
I could just walk in there and ask him, but this would be a)embarrassing and b)out of context. What am I supposed to say? That I need a sign and can he give me one? (a la 'Baby Hit Me One More Time'?). No no no.. this needs more thought. Doppelganger thinks I should write him a note with my number on it and go in, say hi (blush like a radish) and hand it to him. Readers- I need your help on this one... Do I go for it, or I do I leave him in his cosy bubble in the Sign Shop where I can just strut past from time to time and get an ego boosting glance my way, never speaking to him and never risking making a total arse of myself?? It is Friday 13th after all and this would be a time doused in ironic bad vibes, when a gargantuan arse is be likely to be made.

Soundtrack: Mystery Jets-Two Doors Down

A technophobe talks from the heart

Quite a few of my single friends keep insisting I should try internet dating. This rather cold way of meeting people has never really appealed, but as a single mum who doesn't get out as much as she'd like, perhaps I should give it a go. I'm quite old fashioned in many ways- I only learnt how to use a microwave this year, and have only had a mobile phone for 2 months. I survived quite happily without a mobile throughout my twenties, and now, although a useful means of communication, it has become the bane of my life. I am forever checking it to see if I have any messages from any of my men of the sea, and my entire mood can be swayed by either the gleeful arrival of an ego massaging text from someone of the opposite sex or, as on most days, a depressingly empty inbox gathering cobwebs. My worry is that entering into cyber flirtations will only exacerbate this problem. I am clearly in need of some attention, after opening Pandora's box of man folk recently and having a taster session. Rather than move from the starter to the main course, I'd quite like to tuck into the eat-as-much-as-you-like buffet for a little while longer, if you catch my drift.
Yesterday I began entering my details on a dating site, only to get so frustrated half way through that I closed the whole thing down. I'm not very good at summing myself up in an appealing manner. And I am certainly not photogenic. How on earth is any man going to have any idea about me from a webpage profile? I will just be filtered through their scouring as they read I am a ginger single mum who is quite poor, drinks too much and likes mashed potato and Woody Allen films.

Soundtrack: The Ting Tings- That's not my name

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside....beside someone else....

Living by the sea at this time of year is brilliant. Last night a mum friend and I took our girls to the beach for our dinner. We headed off about 5pm as it was too scorchio before this to venture out without melting, and went and found ourselves a spot right next to the water. I brought freshly roasted lemon chicken, potato salad and a bottle of chilled rose. My friend bought avocado and watermelon and we tucked in. As we chatted whilst sunbathing in our bikinis (well- she forgot hers so she just sat there in her lacy undies), the nudey girls played by the water, running in bravely as the tide went out and screaming loudly as the waves chased them back to the beach. I had a quick swim in the surprisingly clear waters and we got home around 7.30pm in time to tuck the girls up in bed, ready for school the next morning. How ace is this a way to spend an evening with your child? I am one lucky woman. I live so close to the beach that it is practically my back garden.
Now that the weather is so amazing I have also got into the wonderful habit of cycling to and from work. As I live and work close to the seafront (am I annoying you yet?) I get to cycle all the way along the promenade to work, with the sea to my right and the traffic jams of carbon spurters to my left. I now manage the journey in 10 minutes, as opposed to half an hour on the bus. My legs are already starting to change shape after 3 weeks of whizzing along. This is all good.
However, I have no one to show off my newly toned legs too. After May's fruitiness June is turning into a man drought. I knew I shouldn't have bought those condoms. Every time I optimistically buy a packet of them, I get to use one and then the rest sit around in my bathroom cabinet festering in their spermicidical juices, only to be out of date the next time I happen to need one. I once wrote an article entitled 'The Jinx of the Johnny' for a website about this problem. Many women commented that they have exactly the same experience. They don't tell you this in sex education classes- it's all very well teaching children about safe sex, but they should also inform us that buying condoms will always lead to safe sex as it will ensure you never have nookie again.
Mind you- this Friday night I'm out with the girls for a cocktail night. I am wearing my red mini dress and fishnets and if I don't get any action wearing this ensemble I will give up forever......

Soundtrack: Kinks- Lazing on a sunny afternoon

Bit of a blur...

I write this through stinging, slightly blurred eyes. One of the curses of being a redhead is that when the weather is blue-skied and hot, as it is in Brighton at the moment (god I love living here- I get so much more sunlight than I ever did growing up in rainy Lincolnshire and then smoggy, shaded-by-the-council-blocks London), I have to smother myself in suncream on a daily basis. The stuff is greasy enough to annoy me being on my skin at all, but I am one of those fidgets who often rubs their eyes at work (as I am often tired from an early morning wake up call from Sadie) and now I have the stuff in my eyes. How bad is that? My poor pupils will be poisoned for ever. I keep meaning to buy myself some "alternative", more natural suncream (of which there must be an abundance in a place like Brighton which houses, allegedly, the healthiest and most alternative people in the UK- remember pomegranate molasses? Case proven)but each year I forget and quickly nip into Boots in a panic on my way home as the hot ball of fire in the sky takes me by surprise and I suddenly feel as thought the freckles on my arms are singeing into small, black smoke holes. I am terrified of getting skin cancer but blindness isn't much cop either. I must invest in something less harsh and chemical based. Any suggestions for creams/oils that work but are not nasty on your bod and peepers?

Boredom is inevitable, suffering optional

I was a little disappointed this weekend as Haruki Murakami was in the Guardian's Weekend magazine with extracts of his book on running- I was very excited about this (and being able to read the Saturday papers at all- this is becoming a new luxury for me on my weekends off from Sadie) as as he is my favourite writer and I love, well rather quite like, running, so I skipped to and from the newsagents on Saturday, poured myself a cup of herbal and tucked into his words, expecting to be blown away. Thing is- I got bored halfway through and had to stop reading it. I kept going back over it in case I had missed the point but no- I was glazing over. There is only so much someone can say about running and I think he said too much. I shall not be buying this book, but I still love him as a novelist despite his ramblings about marathons and pain. He is clearly obsessed (he is currently in training for his 24th marathon) and a lot of what he said about how it feels to run makes sense to me and I can relate to it, but enough already! Running is hard work but it makes you feel good. That is all you need to know.
I went for my first run in a while last night on the seafront in the early evening sun. Again- this is all you need to know. The shoreline was packed with people, even right up into Hove which is usually the quiet end for revellers. I think I was the only person who was actually stupid enough to be moving this fast in the heat- I didn't spot another jogger at all, and there are ordinarily quite a few of us virtuously panting our way along the prom. I still can't quite believe that I managed to pull a bloke on one of these jogging outings. I looked like a cherry tomato on a stick when I got home last night. Maybe running is the new cruising. Maybe not. And if it was you would think in all his endless musings, Murakami might have mentioned this.
He sums up his relationship to running in the last paragraph of the Weekend article;
'I may not hear the Rocky theme song, or see the sunset anywhere, but for me, this may be a sort of conclusion. An understated, rainy-day-sneakers sort of conclusion. An anticlimax, if you will. Turn it into a screenplay, and the Hollywood producer would just glance at the last page and toss it back. But the long and the short of it is that this kind of conclusion fits who I am. What I mean is, I didn't start running because somebody asked me to become a runner. Just like I didn't become a novelist because someone asked me to. One day, out of the blue, I wanted to write a novel. And one day, out of the blue, I started to run. Simply because I wanted to.'

Well- go and run then and write another novel please!

Soundtrack: Nancy Sinatra- Sugartown

Eeek!

A very close friend of mine is getting married at the end of August and has just asked me to be Best Woman and do a speech. I am chuffed to smithereens about this and actually loudly wept when she asked me. Only thing is, she seems to think that because I write and I make her laugh, that I will somehow rise to the occasion and do a wonderful, hilarious stand up routine about her, our 20 years of friendship and her lovely new beau. I am absolutely SHITE at standing up infront of people and speaking. I go red, I mumble and speak so quickly to get it all out of the way that my meagre witticisms are lost on everyone due to their bad timing. This being how it all went for me back in the days at Uni when I did a presentation. And I haven't had much practise since. I also absolutely SHIT MYSELF beforehand, to the point where I spend about a fortnight beforehand having sleepless nights and if I do get to sleep have anxiety dreams where I do the talk but with food on my face and without remembering to put any clothes on. I have done the Best Woman thing once before, at a friends' Civil Partnership ceremony, but he put together a reading (a la Bridges of Madison County- the cheesemeister that he is) for me which was nervewracking, but at least I wasn't showcasing my lack-lustre, shakey handed technique for wowing a crowd. It actually went ok, but now to have to write something tasteful and funny at the same time is a challenge and usually isn't my bag. As you may have noticed readers I do have a liking for the cruder side of humour. This poor girl doesn't know what she has let herself in for, and as for me- bring on the valium!