keep on runnin'

right. you all have to demonstrate what marvellously generous friends i have.

margey from sheffield (nee preston) is rather heroically choosing (yes, choosing) to run 13.1 miles for charidee this october. margey is a lovely person. she and clarence are jointly responsible for teaching me how to go to the pub instead of lectures whilst we were all avoiding employment and doing MAs in the fair land of the seven hills. and, who knows, some of those 13.1 miles may involve hills which will make it jolly tricky.

so to honour this galant effort, i think it would be marvellous if everyone could go to her donation website and pledge a quid. after all, as prunella scales says, every little helps. and, as a reward, there is a comedy picture of margey doing her running and that.

go to www.justgiving.com/margerun

gone with... what?

forget your carol vorderman workout videos. the only way to get fit is to move house.

it was late may. it was bank holiday. did teen and rach do the usual and head to the dry dock to meet lil and sup a few sunny pints? did rach lead the conversation about her new bloke and illustrate her point with an extendable bendy straw?

no. this time we were much more grown up and spent the weekend packing rach's life into boxes and transferring them to her grandad's loft. this involved many heavy boxes and many traversings up and down flights of stairs and, at one point, getting covered in fish slime. which was nice. incidentally, rach's grandad IS spiderman, going from sunday napping to leaping up ladders in sixty seconds flat. clearly, that's how we won the war.

question: does one need a mustard pot? this was one of the many issues we faced as we decided what would go in the 'skip' pile, the 'grandad's' pile or 'palm off on other people' pile. also, rach proved that people other than b&b owners possess toast holders. call the breakfast police.

so all the carryings on did send us slightly delirious, resulting in a number of firsts. i did the lottery for the first time. this caused some confusion as we loudly pondered in the middle of morrisons which bits we were meant to fill in and then rach exclaimed at eamonn holmes in a panicked state 'did i pick six numbers?!' before the numbers rolled. (answer: yes, you dumbass). another first was our singing kate bush at top volume in the car down kirkstall road. (obviously we have sung other artists at top volume in the car but never kate bush). rach also saw 'gone with the wind' for the first time, as i subjected her to it on dvd on saturday night. rock 'n' roll, kids. the final line of the film is a motto to live by, i think, especially when you reach 8pm on a saturday night and your flat is a bomb site and you're covered in fish slime. ' after all, tomorrow is another day'.

yes, thanks, vivien.

the final countdown

i know i'm getting far too giddy with this blog thing. three postings in a week. but, really, how cool is this?! i feel all carrie bradshaw, expounding wisdom to my faithful gathering. though how wise i am is obviously up for comment. feel free to, at any point.

anyway, we're entering the final countdown stages. if des lynam and carol vorderman were here they would just be about to go 'biddup biddup biddily bup boo'. and so it is exactly a month to the grand leaving extravaganza party in cas. i think i've invited all the locallies but these are the details if i've not got round to telling you yet:

saturday 24 june
7.30pm
castleford civic centre, ferrybridge road, cas vegas

all are welcome, including your collective mams. if you google castleford civic centre you will get a map and directions etc. you have no excuse. please post a comment for song requests, though obviously the nolan sisters are already on the list.

ask doctor faustus

it is actually quite scarily easy to completely get rid of your life as you know it. all it takes is a signature on a bit of paper and that's it. just ask doctor faustus. and so it has come to pass that i have signed my car away to its new owner and i now have an inordinate amount of cash in my knicker drawer (prospective burglars please note there is an elaborate anti-theft device attached to my knicker drawer involving an electric shock and a guillotine, though it is normally there simply to guard my pants). and now life as i know it, where i've been able to pop to the asda at 10pm, is no more. what a loss.

rach is finding the same thing. one signature and suddenly your flat is gone and the new owners are painting it a tasteful shade of mint green. the horror.

still, i'm sure that these things will be less traumatic when we're sipping manhattans in manhattan...

i blame the number 16 bus

what is it about buses that makes you hate humanity?

i mean, we're all in the same boat, needing to get from a to b and unable/unwilling to pay the exorbitant parking charges in town. we all want our own space and to get there as quickly as possible. and yet i still find myself unable to empathise with my fellow travellers. no, i don't want you to sit next to me with your arse the size of a small country (neil hannon, 1998). i don't want to know about your 'eventful' evening last night when it took three hours to get home so that you had to get the bramley bus and get your dad to pick you up from the cross roads and then you only arrived as they were going out... it's really not interesting. honest. shut up.

i don't consider myself a violent person but, frankly, days and weeks and months of constant mental battle with fellow public transport users ('don't sit next to me, don't sit next to me') had me planning the total annihilation of the human race.

and so one sunny afternoon, rach and i sat down on the back doorstep to bemoan our collective fates. where had it all gone wrong? we had been promised so much more. she smoked a fag. i smoked it vicariously. there had to be something better than trying to avoid the temptation to commit mass murder every day.

and there we struck upon a plan. why not give up employment, sell everything we own, and then see if we can blow it all in a year.

marvellous.