Road Outrageous

 Apparently, there are other drivers on the road. I wouldn’t know, because I drive a white van now. I was nervous to start with. The road intimidated me. But now, I intimidate it. The road don’t mess with me. Other cars don’t mess with me. I am Queen Vivaro of Warmley, surveyor of all motorways and A roads.

The thing is, in a van, you’re higher up. You’ve also got a noisy engine and a threatening size. Ka’s, Mini’s, Smart Cars, they don’t stand a chance.

I’d like to think I haven’t crashed yet, but I probably have, I just don’t know it. The rear window is blacked out so for all I know, all those silly little cars are being squashed and flattened in my wake and I don’t even know it.

I’m a white van (wo)man, don’t get in my way. I haven’t taken to honking at scantily clad women yet, but don’t put it past me. It’s not my fault I’ve got a honker and they’ve got nice legs.

My right arm is preparing to get browner than my left. I can never find first gear but who cares when you’re dominating the road. In my head, I’m driving this.





The lane from our home spits you out on a roundabout but because it’s not one of the official roads leading in and out of the roundabout, no one ever used to let me out. My Peugeot, Tiger, and I, we used to sit there for ages swearing at everyone, edging out until we were basically sitting in the middle of oncoming traffic, when finally someone would be forced to give way.

I don’t have that problem anymore, now I’m a white van (wo)man. People basically roll out the red carpet, traffic in all directions stop to let me out. That’s right, don’t mess with Eddie. He’ll trample all over you before you’ve even put your hazard lights on.

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Monkey See, Monkey Don't Do.

Dear Richard Branson,

How absolutely wonderful that you have pioneered and masterminded so many diverse and successful businesses. While I expect you are too busy flying into space to take the time to read my letter, I want you to know that the chief executive in charge of Virgin Media has employed a monkey who’s employed a monkey who’s employed a monkey, trickling all the way down to the monkey who is currently trying to fix my internet connection.

I’ve been a customer of yours for three years now and I think Virgin deserve a number of medals for their unwaivering devotion to public service.

I was thinking a silver for Most Terrible Customer Service, a gold for Most Likely Call Centre To Be In India, and a platinum medal with certificate for Most Likely To Send A Monkey To Do A Man’s Job. 

I remember the time I gave up my Virgin Media television after you kept charging me for pornography I was not watching. Oh, how funny that was, Richard! If I wanted to watch pornography, I’d do it for free on the internet, you silly billy. I wouldn’t pay £4.99 per film! But your monkey couldn’t quite understand that concept and continued to charge me for films I wasn’t watching. And when I cancelled my television subscription, your monkey couldn’t fathom that any human being would or could possibly want to be without a television. I was asked to seriously reconsider my decision, and advised to keep my set top box, just in case. Ah, good times.

It’s quite funny actually, Richard, what's happened. I’ve enjoyed three years of broadband with you without too much mishap.

And then we got some lovely new neighbours who, unbeknown to us, wanted to be with Virgin (more fool them). So they arranged for a monkey to come over and wire them up. But then, and here’s the funny part, the monkey decided to cut our line while installing theirs! Ha ha ha!

Left without internet, I could no longer run a business. But don’t you worry your pretty little beard about that, Richard, because your operator in the call centre in India assured me a monkey would be out to fix the problem two weeks later.

Two weeks. How very efficient! I explained that two weeks later wasn’t good enough, I’d lose thousands of pounds of business.

Oh I see, said your monkey. If that’s the case, we can refund you £10 a week until it’s fixed. Clever monkey. Seeing as Forbes rich list cite you as having an estimated net worth of approximately £2.97 billion, £10 a week compensation for my loss of earnings seems totally fair. Should be just about enough to buy the baked beans I’m going to have to live on for the foreseeable future.

Two weeks went by like the clock was wading through treacle. At last, the knock on the door came and two high-visibility vest wearing, white van driving monkeys arrived.

Virgin, they said. How can we help?

Seriously? You haven’t been briefed as to why you’ve been called out? Brilliant. I know absolutely nothing about how the lines are wired or how to fix the problem, but leave it to me to explain to your monkeys what job they’ve been called on, no problem.

Of course, they couldn’t fix the problem, could they? Because they’re only monkeys! A monkey might be able to bash out a Shakespeare play, but that’s only if you give it a typewriter and an infinite amount of time. Your monkeys had neither of these things, keen as they were to crack on with not fixing the next job they were due at.

So now they have gone and I still don’t have service provided. Monkey man tells me that he was sent on eight jobs of this ilk yesterday, and five of them were exactly the same problem as me. Namely, when a new customer wants Virgin, old customers have their signal cut. It’s a questionable business model, Richard, and not one I’d recommend.

I hope the view is nice from your hot air balloon as you soar over the world’s oceans. I’ll be over here, eating beans. While my business falls into disrepair, I can't even watch free porn. And it’s all your fault, you cheeky little monkey.

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Ready, Eddie.

This is probably not the most appropriate way to tell my mum, but Gareth and I have had our first baby.

He’s called Eddie and we keep him in the car park.

The truth is, I don’t have a maternal bone in my body so our new white van, Eddie, is as close as we will probably come to parenthood. We’re going to be very good parents to Eddie (so called because we bought him in Edinburgh). I’ve driven him twice and I haven’t even crashed yet or anything.

Eddie has changed all our plans for the summer. Gone is the idea that festivals involve a badly pitched tent, a bad night’s sleep and a phone with no battery. Eddie has a double bed, sound proofed walls and two – that’s right, count them – two plug sockets.

He also comes with a fridge, a shower, an awning, for when we have friends over, and a hob. For noodles.

Various friends and family have acquired a van over recent years and Gareth and I have only been able to marvel the home-on-wheels from afar. Yearn as we did to join Team Campervan, we could neither afford it or justify it. Not when we already had two cars.

But then, my long serving, long suffering runner gave up the ghost and it seemed like the right time to sell it to the very dodgy and pushy webuyanycar.com (they really do) and make way for Eddie of Edinburgh.

Gareth flew to Edinburgh to bring home the van and to start with, I was too scared to drive the beast. He is, compared to my little Peugeot, a mega bus. But after a few days I decided to give it a go and apart from one near miss where I nearly scraped a Porsche parked ridiculously close to where I wanted to go, we arrived at our destination in tact.

And for that, I don’t thank my driving instructor. I thank my mum. Most women can’t drive, it’s a cliché born of truth. But my mum can. And when I was a teenager, she didn’t want her name (or car) dragged through the mud, so she made sure I knew my way around a vehicle.

I have fond memories of going to Sainsbury’s car park on a Sunday, back in the days when it was closed on a Sunday, and Mum painstakingly teaching me the width of the car by manoeuvring traffic cones until I didn’t crash into them anymore. It was a lesson my driving instructor never bothered with, but has served me well every since.

It has also paved the way for many an incredulous: ‘’You could get a bus through there!’ while I wait impatiently for the car in front to not get through a space clearly big enough.

Some of our friends have bought VW campervans, the iconic originals. The ones in which you expect to find hippies making love not war. That’s not our style. We wanted a white van, the type where tattooed men drape one brown arm out of the window. The type you’d expect to find some tools inside (that’s us!) I passed an identical van in the street the other day and they’d even added the luxury furnishing of a copy of The Sun to their dashboard. Bloody good idea. Gives an aura of ‘don’t break into this van mate, there’s a pit bull in the back.’ Ah, the Feng Shui of the Sun newspaper. Maybe I’ll get me some furry dice while I’m at it.

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Spring Forward

 

The weekend the clocks go forward is my favourite of the year. Not because I celebrate it specifically, but because it’s the bright red ribbon we run through at the end of the long slog of a race that is winter. It’s the certificate that we did it, guys, we bloody did it! We survived another winter, with its long dark nights and bitter cold. Yes, I know we’ve got nothing on the really cold corners of the world, but sometimes when I have to de-ice my car and my fingers go a bit numb, I get really annoyed with the Great British winter.

It sets in around September, that gloom. The knowing that the summer’s dead and all you’ve got to look forward to is central heating, snow, black ice, numb fingers, cold noses and darkness for more hours of the day than light.

Then you’ve got October, November, December to contend with. That’s a lot of months. They throw Christmas at you, pretend it’s about families and celebration and giving when really it’s about breaking up the monotony of coldness that is winter.

Then it’s New Year’s Eve and you’re fooled into thinking everything will be different, a fresh start. But it’s not because the weatherman doesn’t care for the turn of the year. He cares only for the turn of the season.

January is boring. Especially when you give up drinking.

February is quick and you start to notice the sun setting a little later. My, is that you, spring? Are you peeping your yellow little head around the corner? Then you see daffodils and you know what’s coming. You tingle. Your room is filled with sunshine at 7am and then BOOM! You only go and open a bloody window!

Next thing you know, the central heating is turned off for the summer and… drum roll… the clocks go forward.

And even though they’ve been springing forward and falling* back for every one of my 28 years, I still don’t really know when I’ll be getting an extra hour in bed and when I’m going to be jet lagged. Every year, twice a year, I have a little confused conversation with myself. Hmm, spring forward. Does that mean 6 o’clock becomes 7 o’clock, and I’m tired?

I think the fact I couldn’t get out of bed this morning indicates we’re on the one where you lose an hour’s sleep. An investment I’m totally happy to make in order to prolong my evenings.

And with that, hurrah! Summer’s basically arrived. The evenings are long, the basking in the sunshine begins. Bring on the barbies, the flip flops, the ice cream. The clocks have sprung forward, all we’ve got to look forward to now is months and months of summery goodness.

Anyone who says it’s going to rain all summer can take their weather reports away from my parade. I’ve got some Hawaiian Tropic and I’m not afraid to use it.

*I prefer the word ‘autumn’ to the word ‘fall’ but Spring Back, Autumn Forward is never going to educate the kids. What do Americans say when they want to describe something as autumnal? The poor things, it’s a great word.

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Surprise Surprise

Are surprises all they are cracked up to be? I’m beginning to think not.

Case in point 1: My boyfriend’s 29th birthday, December 2010.

I bought ten tickets to his favourite comedian's gig in London’s swanky wanky Leicester Square, invited all his very best friends and was beside myself with excitement and pride at how very brilliant a girlfriend I was. I booked us into a hotel for the night and had all his friends promise to meet us at a restaurant for dinner before the gig.

As the date neared, I was so excited. Not only because I’d organised something great, but because I was great. He was clearly a lucky man. And we were getting to see Stewart Lee, officially the 41st best stand up comedian ever.

But Gareth wasn’t as excited as me. How could he be? He didn’t know what to be excited about. I tried to warm him up with promises of wonder, I tried teasing him that maybe he’d need his passport or an inoculation.

If anything, I’d say he was put off by the unknown. It turned out Gareth didn’t really like surprises and would have much preferred to be in on the secret so that he too could have spent the preceding weeks looking forward to seeing his friends and Stewart Lee.

Having been brought up with surprises thrown at us left right and centre by our well meaning dad, I thought other people loved to be surprised as much as I do. I don’t even tell Gareth what we’re having for dinner, and he’s been eating my food for three years. Still I get a little joy out of saying ‘You’ll see’ and then presenting him with something wonderful half an hour later. I suppose it comes down to wanting my ego to be stroked. My theory is, if I surprise him with a wonderful Thai green curry, he has to act more impressed than if I plonk it down in front on him and he knew it was coming.

Same goes with the surprise birthday party. I figured he’d love me twice as much if I got kudos not only for organising a party but organising one he had no idea about. Doesn't that make me love him more?

Dad was always surprising us. Be it actual cement in the family’s much loved ‘concrete’ cake (I believe other people call it refrigerator cake. It’s hard to slice), or actual soap suds in our porridge, he just loved surprises.

Most were more pleasant than that, but generally involved Dad telling us he wouldn’t be available for something and surprising us with his presence. We learned through watching that when you surprise someone, it gives recipient and provider a warm glow.

Case in point 2: My beautiful friend Cordelia’s birthday, last weekend.

Her girlfriend had called us all up weeks in advance to tell us a surprise party was in order. So when Cords called a week before her party and asked for my attendance, I had to make up some lame excuse about how she’d left it too late and I was busy.

The words crushed my heart as she sweetly told me she understood, I was a very busy person and she should have thought of organising something before. I wanted to tell her that no, I’d never organise anything on her birthday and I was going to be there all guns blazing. But a surprise is a surprise, I held back.

Feedback I got from Cordy’s housemates was that she was devastated that none of her best mates were available. She was solemn all week long. On the night before her surprise birthday party, she got so wasted that when Gareth and I turned up at her house, cake in one hand, champagne in the other, she was wearing her pyjamas and just about ready for bed.

Although, look at her happy little face here, as she opened her door. Maybe it was all worth it.

I’ve made a pact my sister, my best mate and my boyfriend now – and I think that covers all bases. Let’s not surprise each other. With anything. Ever. Just organise and celebrate. Simple.

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Disappointed Dad

In preparation for Dad coming to stay I wish I could say that I cleaned the house from top to bottom but of course I didn’t – I just paid a Polish person to do it for me.

Point being, Dad was coming to stay and in arriving to a clean house, I wanted him to come to the conclusion that this was how I lived my life – clean and tidy. Therefore he could only conclude that I’m a successful offspring and he can be proud.

But he hadn’t been with us a day when I realised that if I really wanted to give my father the impression my life was sorted and he need not worry about me, I shouldn’t have cleaned the flat, I should have double checked every tool he’d ever given me was lined up in alphabetical order in the toolbox he also gave me and that the toolbox he gave me was under no circumstances gathering dust at the back of a hard to reach cupboard.

By day two, Dad was standing in the sitting room trying to Fix Something – one of the many things Dad noticed was broken but I had not. ‘Where’s the spanner?’ he asked, rummaging the toolbox. ‘Where’s the multimeter?’ he asked, getting more frustrated.

‘Oh Kim’ he said wearily, in a tone of voice which screams disappointment in who I’ve turned out to be. ‘You knew I was coming. Why didn’t you make sure you had all your tools in order?’

Oh dear. I am a tool. I didn’t think! I didn’t think Dad would be testing me on the knowledge of the many tools he has insisted on buying me over the years. I tried to divert his attention, show him my tidy kitchen, but alas he was determined to install a new airing cupboard complete with dehumidifier and hanging rail and he would not rest until installation was complete.

The multimeter, of course, had been untouched since he gave it to me in about 1997. I was never quite sure what it was for but just knew I should keep it handy because he’d placed so much importance on my ownership of said device. Apparently it was an essential addition to my toolkit.

Multimeters test batteries and fuses for life, by the way. They look like this little fella.

As a girl currently captivated by the determination to master ‘Casualty – the theme tune’  on my shiny new piano, I don’t have time to check the life in my fuses. The time or the inclination, I might add.

But I knew Dad was coming to stay and I should have at least pretended I use all the tools he gave me and am constantly rewiring the house, just because I can. (I can’t.) At least then Dad would think I’m the wonderful daughter that I’m not and would bestow upon me the great praise in my abilities I’m always seeking and constantly being denied.

The multimeter was not in the toolbox. After much searching, it was found in Gareth’s man drawer. Dad was hugely disappointed to see that we had long since robbed the battery from the back of the battery tester and it was therefore redundant.

After a few trips to B and Q, my toolbox was up to scratch. Multimeter had battery. Dad was once again being led to believe I could tell my earth from my live wire.

The funny thing is that I’m so keen for him to think I have an engineer’s brain, like his – that I’m also a maths whizz and really keen on physics and how my house is put together. And yet that’s not me. My house works – bonus. If my house breaks, I’ll call someone out to fix it. Apparently letting dad know that I’m never going to take apart a toaster just to see what makes it toast would be like telling him that I’ve quit my job and am going on the game.

Actually, he probably wouldn’t mind that nearly as much. As long as I did my own accounts and didn’t expect a pimp to rewire my brothel.

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Time to be on time.

The thing about having a parent come to stay is that you realise just where all your tics and delightful mannerisms (eccentricities and annoying habits) come from.

I like to be on time. Left to my own devices, I will always be on time, if not early.

Now that I have Gareth dragging me down, I am often even as much as seven minutes late. And when I am, my friends, it’s not a pretty sight.

When, as a result of Gareth’s more relaxed attitude to punctuality, I can foresee that I will be late for something, an anxious cloud of fear starts swirling in my chest. I can actually feel it. My palms start sweating. I develop palpitations. I get grumpy. Monosyllabic.

Then, I go and wait at the bottom of the stairs for him. It’s the best place for me, I have decided. It shows I am ready, I am not the one holding us up, and hopefully encourages him to get a bloody move on.

But Gareth has taken to likening me to a dog that knows it’s about to get walked. You show it the lead and it bounds over to the front door, waiting dutifully for its master to let it out into the world.

Ha ha, Gareth. Ha ha.

He can mock me if he wants, but I get the last laugh because I arrive on time to stuff. I’m punctual. Punctuality is a good thing.

So we’ve had Dad to stay for a week.

And watching him go to wait at the bottom of the stairs as we prepare to leave the house, it suddenly hit me. A) it’s quite annoying and B) he is why I’m so terrified of tardiness.

Childhood memories came flooding back.

Dad would shout: ‘THREE MINUTES” at me three minutes before he wanted to leave anywhere, then go and sit in the car.

I learned not just to tell the time like most really clever five year olds, but one better. I learned military time. ‘We’ll be there at 1500 hours.’ Dad would say. And we always were. If not earlier.

It’s not all his fault. I also went to boarding school – an institution so strict that a deafening bell would chime every five minutes to remind you where you were supposed to be. If you weren’t in the right place, you were in trouble.

Now, my 7am alarm goes off. One second later I’m up and the 100M sprint that is my day begins. I have to be in the shower by 07.10 and at my desk by 07.30 or else the whole world will come to a devastating end. Presumably.

Gareth, on the other hand, gives the snooze button a jolly good seeing to before rising when he feels like it.

Those palpitations I mentioned earlier would sky rocket if I dared stay in bed a minute past 7am. I mean, can you imagine what would happen? Crikey, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Sometimes Gareth tries to pin me to the bed just to see what will happen. I sometimes wonder if I might spontaneously combust from the nervous energy that generates as the fear of lateness sets in.

So should I change, I ask myself? Of course it’s not very nice for Gareth when he’s trying to make himself look beautiful before we go out for an evening and I’m stomping around getting frustrated in prelude to being late.

Or maybe Gareth should change. Maybe when we’ve planned to leave the house at 7pm, he should get in the shower a little earlier than 6.55pm.

I suppose you’re thinking we should both compromise. You’re probably right. As long as the compromise we come to gets us there on time.

 

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