Don’t be S.A.D

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Much as we may hate to admit it the signs are becoming increasingly harder to ignore; daylight hours are waning, the sun is slowly starting to retreat out of our reach and there’s a desperate aura surrounding the pavement drinkers that says that they know their outdoor drinking days are numbered. In the words of my beloved Game of Thrones (the most amazing TV series since 24, for those of you who may not be familiar with it and have clearly been living beneath a rock for the past year): Winter is coming.

It’s not as if we can bemoan the lack of decent summer weather this year, though as a nation of moaners I’m sure many people will. After last year’s wash out the past few weeks have been almost entirely pleasant – we’ve even had a mini heat wave for goodness’ sake! (Bless). You can’t say fairer than that, eh? And so as the nights draw in we must accept the fact that no matter how well the weather gods treat us, the summer season will never feel long enough.

There will never be enough days spent languishing bare-legged and brown-skinned in the park, or sipping cocktails on a rooftop at the many pop-up bars that spring up like rabbits as soon as there’s a hint of summer blooms scenting the air. We will never eat enough ice cream (FACT), nor spend enough time building sandcastles on British beaches like we did when we were five years old. We will never have our fill of wandering by the river on a hazy summer’s eve as the sun starts its unhurried journey towards the horizon, pulling a veil of pink across the sky.

It’s true that winter creeps up like a thief, wrapping its cloak of darkness around our shoulders almost before we know what is going on. But lest we complain about the changing of the seasons we should remember the positives that each season brings. Winter may be cold and dark but it also offers cosy nights in pubs drinking mulled wine, and even cosier nights in sipping on hot chocolate. It also boasts the accolade of being the festive season, which brings families together and puts delicious food on the table. So you see, it shouldn’t be feared but rather embraced.

The changing of the seasons is Mother Nature’s way of showing us just how wonderful this world we live in really is. Granted, the seasons in this country tend to be particularly harsh, but if it was always summer and never winter would we really appreciate the summer as much as we do? What would we have to grumble about then?

Happy endings

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I was planning on writing a woefully self-indulgent post about feeling old and past it but after returning from running club with endorphins pumping through my ancient veins I’ve had a change of heart – which means that you, dear reader, will be spared (on this occasion at least). Instead, I’d like to discuss the phenomenon of the TV drama – or, to be more specific, the TV drama with no definitive ending.

What do I mean by ‘no definitive ending’? Let me take you back in time…Remember Lost? The first series had everyone rapt. What would happen to the plane crash survivors and just what was the secret of the spooky island that they’d crash landed onto? The second series toyed with our sense of credibility and stretched the boundaries of our imaginations but, like true fans, we stuck with it. Then came the third series, and with it events so random and ridiculous it made it hard to persevere – which is why I didn’t. Soon after I discovered the scriptwriters had no idea how the story was going to end, and suddenly it fell into place why my faith had deserted me faster than the inhabitants of Lost’s fictional island.

So now we’ve got to the crux of the matter: Do even the best TV dramas suffer when the people writing them don’t know where they’re heading any more than the viewers? My instinctive reaction is yes, because I like to be able to place my faith in the writers for a dramatic and exciting conclusion. If they don’t know what that conclusion’s going to be it takes something away from that trust, even if they’re the best scriptwriters in the world.

Another example is the recent French TV drama, The Returned. I watched every episode avidly and was gutted when the series came to an end. When I went online to find out when the second series would air, however, I stumbled across an interview with the scriptwriters who confessed that they, like the writers of Lost, weren’t actually sure what the next series would hold, or how the story would ultimately end. I felt let down, and whilst I will still watch the second series in the hope it will be just as strong as the first, I can’t deny I’ll watch it with a more cynical eye.

It should perhaps then follow that I would feel equally as disappointed to learn that authors of books don’t know how they’re going to end. Only I don’t, because as a writer I know that sometimes even the best planned stories can take crazy and unforeseen turns, with the final outcome a million miles away from the initial concept. So why does it bother me in TV dramas? I just can’t answer that. I just know it does. And it makes makes me feel, well, a bit…

Give us this day our daily rant

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Cycling on the pavements

I’d already decided that today’s post would be about my latest pet peeves, but as I sit down to type this another one is being added to the list; scorned foreign gay lovers who are oblivious to the social faux pas of solidly hammering upon their (presumably now ex) boyfriend’s door for twenty minutes, interspersed with five solid minutes of doorbell ringing and pathetic pleading to be let in to explain. What makes this even more annoying is the fact it was my own boyfriend who inadvertently let the crazy perpetrator of this socially unacceptable act into the building, as he was heading out to catch a train.

Crazy scorned foreign gay lovers aside (I realise now how specific that particular peeve sounds but believe me, if you were sitting here listening to him pounding down the front door of the flat below you would, I’m certain, sympathise), the two peeves I specifically wish to reference today are as follows:

  1. Women who wear tights (particularly black ones) in hot weather
  2. Cyclists who cycle on the pavement

Male readers of this blog (no offence intended) may lack the capacity to fully understand how vexing the first of these points is for relatively normal women like me. Living in a country where we’re lucky to get a month of really warm weather out of every twelve, I simply cannot fathom why anyone would choose to keep their lower limbs swathed in clammy, cloying fibres when they could afford them the brief freedom of shooting the breeze sans inhibition. It makes no logical sense – and, what’s more, it looks ridiculous.

Then there are these bloody cyclists who ride rough shod over the pavement, clearly not having grasped the fact they are not, in fact, pedestrians. Don’t they see the road beside them? Have they never learned that people on wheels use roads whilst people without walk on the side? That’s why they call it the side walk, you cretins! And not the side cycle! I’ll admit there are some cycle lanes that do encroach on pavements, but those are clearly marked and designated. I take no issue with people using them. It’s the ones who cycle on normal pavements who really get my goat. And the worst thing about them is the way they meander and weave amongst the walkers, as if they’re actually courting a rush hour beating (not that I condone violence, but honestly, these people test my patience almost beyond measure).

So there you have it, Belle’s Pet Peeves of the Day. Maybe I should make this a regular feature, it’s really quite cathartic.

The Wait

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This wasn’t the first time Carrie had been late, but today Max was worried. He’d been waiting for nearly twenty minutes and every further second that passed felt like the ticking of a bomb. His shirt was drenched in sweat and he knew his hands would be trembling were they not stuffed deep into his pockets.

Why was he so worried? He had no reason to be. She’d seemed fine when she left the house yesterday-all smiles in fact. But she’d left her phone on the kitchen work top so he couldn’t call her now to check she was alright. Not that she’d have her phone with her now anyway, he thought.

Don’t panic, he told himself as he checked his watch for the hundredth time. She’ll be here. She’ll be safe. An unwanted image popped into his head of a mangled car wreck with a pale, slender arm extended through a broken window. He shook his head as if the physical motion of the gesture would dislodge the negative thought. It didn’t.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt such strength of passion towards her as he did in these interminable moments of not knowing she was safe. For five years now they’d been almost inseparable, and all of a sudden as he stood here waiting for her and thoughts of losing her sprang unbidden and unwelcome into his mind he felt he simply couldn’t live without her.

As his fretting reached a crescendo music began seeping through the window of his consciousness. A flurry of movement brought him back to himself and his immediate environment. The heavy wooden door creaked open behind him and his heart leapt into his mouth as realisation dawned. She was here, at last. And in a matter of only a few minutes more, she would be his wife.

Emma & Harry’s wedding: The aftermath

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Needless to say the rest of yesterday’s wedding festivities were a rip roaring success, though they led to a fair few sore heads this morning. Fortunately for those of us staying at Cameron House Hotel the spa facilities were on hand to soothe the pain, and after a sauna and jacuzzi things began to look up.

The bride and groom had organised a barbecue at the rugby club in Helensburgh for those wedding guests who didn’t have to shoot off, and the turn out was predictably good. We had a fun afternoon going over the previous day’s antics and continuing the celebrations before people gradually began to drift off to the airport and train station and make their long journeys home.

Fortunately for us we’d had the foresight to book an extra night in Helensburgh so have had a leisurely evening stroll to the Wee Kelpy fish and chip shop and are now back to veg out and watch the Shawshank Redemption before bed. We may be in a Travelodge but it’s possibly the best appointed one I’ve ever stayed in, looking right out over the sea and the wild Scottish landscape. Right now I feel a million miles away from city living and (residual headache aside) I have to say it feels fantastic.

Congrats Emma & Harry x

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I’m writing this on the coach to my gorgeous friend Emma’s wedding reception after attending the ceremony in a beautiful church overlooking Loch Lomond in bonny (if slightly rainy) Scotland. The service was wonderful and the bride looked absolutely stunning.

It’s such an honour and a privilege to be invited to a friend’s wedding, and this one in particular was particularly special as I met Emma during my travels two years ago, not long after she had met her lovely (now) husband Harry. Emma has an effervescent and infectious personality which is why I loved her from the moment we first met, and nothing could make me happier than seeing how happy and radiant she looks today, on her wedding day. I know that she and Harry will be very happy together.

To top off an already fabulous weekend we found out on Wednesday we were being  upgraded from the Travelodge to the 5* Cameron House Hotel due to an overbooking error by the Travelodge. As a result we spent this morning wandering the grounds around the loch and making full use of the leisure facilities (which, to my great delight included an impressive water slide).

Things can only get better (and probably slightly drunker) from here on in…CONGRATULATIONS GUYS, I love you loads xxxxx

What’s MY problem? My only problem is YOU!

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The older I get the more I come to realise the virtues of self-awareness. I should preface this post by acknowledging that I’m far from perfect myself, but I do – for the most part at least – have a fairly competent radar for detecting when I’m being a bore and/or getting on someone else’s nerves. Some people, however, seem to have been born without such radar capabilities and are therefore able to spend vast swathes of their daily lives in a state of blithe obliviousness as to just how many of their fellow human beings they are driving to the brink of insanity with their behaviour.

The most maddening type of un-self-aware person is the person who gets constantly upset by other peoples’ behaviour without making any connection whatsoever between others’ behaviour and their own. In other words, the cause and effect principle is so completely lost on them that even if you held up flash cards to highlight that they, in fact, were the root cause of your irritation they would merely tell you that you were being ridiculous and heap insult upon your character (or, more likely still, accuse you of heaping insult upon their character, as a sneaky means of deflection from the true problem – which is, ostensibly to everyone but themselves, actually them).

As such people are prone to having delicate sensibilities, it’s often hard to know whether to grin and bear the extreme irritation their mere presence evokes or to attempt in some way to address the issue and tell them their behaviour is unacceptable. Whichever option you choose will have consequences, and possibly far-reaching ones at that. Remember the rule of cause and effect? Well, that. Ultimately this is a battle of your sanity against theirs, and only a brave man (or woman) will risk toppling the house of cards that is a fragile person’s entire personality. You have been warned.

Choices

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homeless_man

That man you saw today, the one with the overcoat stained dark in places with red wine and piss, its buttons hanging off, the fur on its hood matted with spit and sick – what? You don’t remember? Odd, because you wrinkled your nose as his odour wafted up to meet it and then stared just a fraction of a moment too long to be polite before stepping over him and continuing on your way.

So now you remember, that’s good, though I can tell from your expression as you recall the encounter that you have made your judgement. Smelly old tramp, waster; you view him with disdain though you pertain to feel empathy towards him. You think he made his bed and now he’s lying in it, and in a way that’s true, if you can stretch your imagination enough to call the kerb a bed.

It might surprise you to learn he was like you once, with shiny new shoes click-clacking on the street and slicked back hair like Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. He had a wife, a job in the City – a good job as it happens, one that saw him earn a lot of money in a very short time, which was, ironically, what led to his downfall.

What they don’t tell people like him – and you – at university is that money and success don’t come without a price. They make you greedy and they leave you always wanting more. They blind you to the simple pleasures, the ones that cost nothing; a sleepy bedtime kiss from your daughter (oh no, wait, you’re never home in time for that these days) and lazy morning lie-ins with your wife (when you’re not too hung over to enjoy them after another post-trading-floor-piss-up).

That man you saw today; once, he thought he had it all. Then, just as suddenly he had nothing at all.

That man was me, but know this, my friend: He could just as easily have been you.

Twisted optimism

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Do you know that feeling of never having enough hours in the day, always chasing your tail to get things done and even then constantly feeling like you’re not doing anything properly? Work’s piling up, the walls are slowly but surely closing in until you struggle to breathe but there’s no let up? The working days becomes endless rounds of sweaty tube journeys, work, short evenings and insufficient sleep? You try to eat a balanced diet but after cramming in the evening running sessions you rarely have the energy to pull yourself up the stairs, let alone come over all Gordon Ramsey? You scarcely have a moment free to think about what you’d rather be doing than the activity you are doing at any given moment, and even weekend mini-breaks feel like a tease because they invariably leave you feeling even more exhausted than before you left?

Know that feeling? Yup, me too. It’s time to book a proper holiday, friend-you and me both. Or at least it would be if you could a) spare the time or b) spare the money. As it is you’re probably best off sucking it up and putting on that stuff upper lip we Londoners wear so well, confident in the knowledge this too shall pass, and the rainbow on the other side of the storm will be all the more beautiful for it.

A roller coaster day

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Today I rediscovered my inner child on a work trip to Thorpe Park. After an absence of ten years (and the rest) I wasn’t sure it would elicit quite the same thrill but I’m pleased to report it was just as good – if not better – than when I went all those years ago. It was funny experiencing it through the eyes of an adult chaperone rather than a young person though. Our group was a diverse but lovely bunch and I couldn’t help but pick out the ones that reminded me of my group of friends when I was that age (needless to say these were, generally speaking, the ones at the gobbier end of the spectrum), and observe the way in which they interacted with the quieter members of the group.

There were moments when I felt the ‘adults’ (I will never get used to referring to myself as such) were more excited about the rides than the young people, and none more so than when me and my colleague ran off to buy fast track tickets for two of the rollercoasters – Saw and Colossus – and the two boys we were with at the time just ambled off to the arcade games, completely disinterested. In the end though there was something for everyone, and I think it’s safe to say the day was enjoyed by all, whether or not they partook in the rides. It was just lovely to see all of the young people interacting and enjoying the experience together – amazing when you consider these are kids who were deemed at risk of dropping out of school and becoming disengaged before they took part in the Teens and Toddlers programme in year 9 or 10 of secondary school. It just goes to show that encouraging young people to believe in themselves and develop to their full potential really does work.