Once I ran to you. Now I run from you.

Well, readers, the other weekend I did my first race. Yes: I am now a runner. I trot round the streets behind our house for 30 minutes very, very slowly three times a week (my colleague said ‘well, if you’re running in Arbury, at least you’ll learn to run fast’ but I do not listen because actually Arbury is not as bad as people think it is, and the streets behind our house are very nice. The street with our house on isn’t nice, but you can’t have everything.) When I say I run slowly, I am not exaggerating. Today I was overtaken by a woman in a pink anorak with bags of shopping, and often cats wander past me and look at me thoughtfully. Anyway, as I often have more enthusiasm and chutzpah than sense and experience (remind me to tell you about Dan’s and my projected trip to Warsaw!!!) I felt that running along a flat street for 30 mins slower than a woman carrying shopping bags was excellent preparation for fell running. Indeed: I felt that in being able to run for 30 minutes I had so far exceeded my own personal expectations that I might as well enter the Olympics or jump off the University Library and fly to John Lewis, as anything seemed possible.

It was not.

I am going to try to extract a moral from this, readers. I did the race (5 miles with a 600 foot hill) with my brother Dan and his friend J, and our first clue that all might not be well was when we got to the beginning. I was expecting children. I was expecting people dressed as chickens. I was expecting, ooh, I don’t know, a hot dog stand, at least 5 octogenarians, someone with a Labrador wearing a themed jerkin, but no. What we got was a gaggle of sinewy men in lycra and women in team vests stretching their thighs out and running backwards and forwards just for fun. The only person who looked remotely less fit than me was the St John’s Ambulance man. Everybody set off twice as fast as I was used to, and when I came to my first hill I made like a Dalek and kind of gave up. I considered taking a short cut and going to wait for Dan and J in the pub but then I thought, no! I am not a quitter!!! (This is where I always go wrong). So I pushed on and I came last. I mean, I didn’t come last by a tiny bit. I came last by a decent margin (apart from all the people who did not finish or indeed, did not even start).

 

A hill in Derbyshire. The thing to do is to make sure you don't run up it

So I said to Dan we would do the same race next year but this time I would train and would do something called Fartleks which apparently are nothing like they sound, much like Burpees aren’t and I don’t know why you can’t call exercises something sensible. So Dan said, we could do that. Or, alternatively, we could do this killer half marathon and it would be lots of fun. So now I am doing a really hard half marathon this time next year, I have suckered in my friend too, and Partner is practically considering getting power of attorney to stop me making independent decisions as it is certain that no good can come of any of this. So here is my dilemma. Obviously I should be ashamed that I came last. I should be humiliated. I should give up. But I kind of… am not ashamed. I kind of.. forget about the coming last part and think, I did a 5 mile fell run! Very slowly!! I finished it! I didn’t die! I am a runner! I am amazing! I am going to buy new trainers and a proper sports bra so I don’t have to strap myself down with layers of lycra! I am proud of myself! Even though I have absolutely nothing to be proud of. I even bought myself a reward for finishing my first race. Admire the practicality!

 

Czech crystal. I am so bad at buying practical things to wear that there are no words. I buy this and then I wear pants with holes in them and have one work cardigan. One!

One more thing (in terms of over-ambitious physical stuff). You may remember, I am competing in the UK Amateur Pole Performer heats this summer (only at beginner level. It will be ok). I am working on my routine, and I have got my song: Marilyn Manson’s cover of Tainted Love. This was my idea for a costume: tell me what you think. I thought I could do a kind of deconstructed punk-burlesque look. So I was thinking a corset like this which is very cheap:

some kind of either short tutu or frilly bloomers:

(I have to have very short bottoms so I have lots of leg flesh exposed to stick to the pole. You see, it’s glamorous), possibly additional feathers around the cleavage, some kind of feathered headband and a great deal of dramatic eye makeup, or, a venetian-type mask if I could see enough to dance:

All deconstructed a bit (bits of ratty lace added? Dyed? Not sure yet).

How does that sound? I’m slightly concerned about my capacity for dancing in a corset: I thought perhaps I could buy it in advance and try it in the comfort of my own home which will finish off the window cleaner if he appears with his Squeegee at the wrong moment but tant pis. And in any case if I collapse through asphyxiation or bang my head on the pole and knock myself out because I can't see in that bit where he goes ‘once I raaaaaan to you. Now I RUUUUUN FROM YOU!!!’ it couldn’t possibly be more embarrassing than the fell run. Except, there might be a YouTube video, though. Wait… O_O

New podcast by Stitched Together

Just wanted to link you quickly to a new podcast by Chrissie from Stitched Together - she's going to be putting them here and you can also search on iTunes (I don't know how to link to that, you just go to iTunes and searched for Stitched Together).

I'm listening to it now and it's really interesting and worth a listen - go Chrissie and the Stitched Together Podcast! I look forward to future episodes x

Suckerpunched by nostalgia

Partner and I were watching one of the obscure channels at about midnight the other night when an advert came on which entirely overwhelmed me with memories (look. You get to an age...). It was for David Nieper, which is a factory in Derbyshire where I worked in customer services for about a year after I finished my degree and was saving up to come to Cambridge.

I believe that is the first time David Nieper catalogues have ever been arranged near a pole. A first there for David Nieper

I imagine this is the same for everyone but, every job I have had, we have spent all the time laughing. I mean, I do do some work as well, but, I always end up in places where we laugh a lot, for some reason (and eat a lot as well). But, David Nieper was the best. It was great. I think there is a certain type of humour when you put a lot of northern women together in a factory and I still miss it. It was probably the most fun place I worked. I thought it was merely preserved in the aspic of my memory but no! They are still going! I had to order a catalogue! And they have literally not changed one bit in the fifteen years since I left. They are a small piece of perfection in a changing retail world.

Just imagine this woman in 30 years' time with a labrador. YOU SEE

All the models in the catalogue look as if they have stepped straight out of the wives' section of an Aspiring Tory Candidate Selection Panel. Some of them look a bit racier than others but still. When I worked there we supplied Mrs Thatcher with her full length lace slips, I believe she favoured the 1826. I am sorry to see that the 1826 appears to have been discontinued but you can still get the 1726 which is a perfectly acceptable substitute. We also provided Catherine Cookson with her nighties, indeed I like to think we contributed to making giant swathes of Middle England look less alluring in bed. We probably kept down the birth rate in the Home Counties.

Me on my last day. My desk is the one on the right nearest to the camera. I did a version of that squat in Hot Yoga this morning

I loved working in customer services. We had a large following of transvestites because we did larger sizes and were able to customise things, and our favourite, Mr Transvestite, once sent us a photograph of himself in a wedding dress in the back garden of a small pebbledashed house (much like mine in fact! House that is). All the women in the factory worked on piecework, which was kind of a good idea, but meant they churned out the things with just a few seams much more quickly than more complicated things, as the factory manager was a young man with no control. So, if you wanted a velour gown, you had no problems, whereas if you wanted french knickers - well, good luck to you. I used to find the velour gowns (useful for entertaining at home or on a cruise! Bracelet-length sleeves that won't tangle with your breakfast tray!) so amusing that when I left they made me a mini one and I still have it in a little gift box.

I always get great presents when I leave jobs. Sometimes I worry they're pleased to see me go...

They employed me solely because I was a size 12 (they already had an 8, 10, 14, 16, 18 and 20) and would be useful for trying on the sample sizes and impromptu shoulder-to-nipple measuring sessions. If you've never modelled sample underwear in front of a panel of women hyped up on cava and ready to heckle, then you've not lived. The graphic designer used to spend hours airbrushing nipples out of the catalogue on the specific orders of Mr Nieper, and all our customers had titles and were mad. It was marvellous. We spent all our time apologising for how slow the french knickers were being and eating pecan slices from the bakery down the road. I sat behind a nice woman who used to save up all her weightwatchers points so she could get slaughtered on lager at the weekend and who poked me periodically with a ruler, and who once got drunk and tearfully gave me the following, excellent advice: 'never have two men in love with you at the same time, Susie. It's not fun. It's awful'. (No danger yet, Mandy).

I aspire to be the kind of woman who would know what to do with a full slip

Sometimes things went wrong. There was the man who wanted to order, on his wife's account, french knickers (can you see where this is going??) to be sent to his recently widowed sister-in-law secretly, with a card which said, from an anonymous admirer, I mean, can you imagine. Well, the french knickers were delayed (plenty of velour gowns though), and somehow, in error, we sent the wife a letter (we are sorry the knickers you ordered to be sent to xx at xx address with the following gift card won't be available for another month) and that dirty rat was exposed. There was the woman who ordered a black patterned two-piece for her mother's birthday party: the fabric ran out: it was horribly delayed: she was very angry and said, cancel the order!!!. However, she called us back a few weeks later and said on reflection she would like to keep it on order because (I kid you not) although it had missed her mother's birthday, her mother was now looking a bit peaky and she thought it might do for the funeral. There was Miss Smith who burst into hysterical tears when the coffee silk peignoirs were discontinued before she could get one to match her pyjamas. There was the time I rang the bewildered woman in Australia to ask if she wanted a pink or a blue nightie, forgetting there was a time difference.

But on the whole it was a perfect family firm of the kind that cares about its employees and puts on a dinner dance every Christmas: the kind you don't think exists any more. But it does! So I hope they're all having as much fun in customer services as I used to do. I hope they're having pecan slices and sausage rolls for tea, mince pies at Christmas, and kebabs for the Saturday shift. I hope the Silly Name Competition is still running. I notice they've taken the french knickers out of the catalogue. It's probably for the best. And if I ever get a windfall, I might be tempted to buy a nightie. I always found the high necked long sleeve ones strangely alluring in an Amish kind of way ...

I am a Collector

My dad collects toby jugs. I don't know if you have toby jugs in non-UK countries (you lucky things) so if you don't this is what they are. A disembodied head with a handle. He has a toby jug in the shape of Mr Micawber which he places carefully on top of a corner cupboard, which looks even worse because then it looks as if Mr Micawber's body is in the cupboard and if you come upon it in the night it can be quite frightening. Anyway you can see that with this background I would not be keen, myself, to be starting collecting anything, especially given that our house is the size of the postage stamp and now has a pole in it, so does not need anything else. But, readers, I am weak. Sometimes even though you know something isn't good for you you cannot stop yourself, especially when you keep seeing it on ebay for under £5.

Sell me all your mud-coloured cups and send them to me in boxes! Hooray!

Yes. 60s and 70s ceramics. I just love them. I love the graphic patterns. I seem to have gone slightly down the brown route with these the beginning of my haul, but I promise you I shall be branching out into brighter colours. I am going to have a collection of teacups and mugs and put them on my shelf and then I can give people tea from quirky eclectic drinking vessels when they come round. Partner would call this 'twee and affected' so he will not be getting any tea from my eclectic vessels. Nor any biscuits.

Handpainted swirls. Do you get that in John Lewis? Probably

These teacups are Denby Arabesque. Denby Arabesque is my top favourite. I have an Arabesque jug too which sits behind the record player in a delightfully retro fashion. The vase at the back in the first picture is also Denby although I do not know what pattern or indeed if it has a name at all.

Luckily the sun shone just as I was taking the photograph otherwise we would all have been overwhelmed by the brownness of this post. But look! A bit of turquoise!

This teacup is Hornsea Pottery, Bronte, which was designed by John Clappison who was apparently some big name in questionable 70s ceramics. Doesn't this pattern just say the 70s to you, though? Don't you want to sit drinking coffee from it while digesting a nut roast, wearing a kaftan and discussing whether heterosexual sex is by definition oppressive to women? (actually, I have got a vintage kaftan, and you would be surprised how often I end up having discussions about sexual politics. Welcome to my home and life, stereotypical 70s pottery!)

Anyway there we are. Do you know what I am stalking now on ebay? Meakin. And I also have my eye on a bit of Elizabethan Chelsea. We have not even done my Fat Lava interests but I will inflict that upon you another time.

Things I like: cats, poles, Denby. Does that make me a rounded character? I think it must do. (Almost...)

A story with a moral

I am failing at Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. I am sorry. However just popping up because today an event happened to me which can be made into a Story With A Moral which is worthy of Pinterest so I am sharing it.

I was walking home from work down the street near our house with a ridiculously large number of cats, the bad black cat, Siamese-But-Striped, the cat with the bushy tail who stares, other black cat, nervous tabby grey, lots of cats. (This is not about cats. I'm just remarking). Anyway because it was practically the first sunny day this year I was wearing something different. I was wearing my brown jacket (ebay), grey skirt (Secret Lentil), green cardigan (factory shop), Boden biker boots (ebay), and various printed Uniqlo items whereas previously I have been wearing my camel duffel, bright blue Ugg boots bought for me by mum, and with my Ipod in my ears, shivering and looking a bit miserable. I was walking along when a woman on a bike who I did not think I had seen before came round the corner towards me and I moved to the side. As she came up to me she beamed at me and said, 'but no bright blue boots today! And I love those boots! They are my favourites!' and then she beamed again. I smiled too and said thank you and we both went on our ways.

I do not need to spell out the moral of this but I will do anyway because I am pedantic and literal. I did not remember ever seeing that nice woman before and yet she had been watching me and admiring my boots! So the moral is, you do not know when you are brightening up someone's day. You just do not know. Even when you are wandering along looking like Paddington on Valium with Dolly Parton in your ears you may be cheering someone up. Is that a cheering thought? It is a cheering thought if it is a nice smiley woman on a bike. Not if it's a stalker.

Things I don't understand about the USA (linguistic)

I am down with the American language, I really am, or at least I try to be. I understand that pants are trousers, pantyhose are tights, fanny is something quite different, a jumper isn't a jumper but some kind of bizarre pinafore, all of these things. Moreover I know that you cannot let your cat out lest it is eaten by a coyote, there are not as many pavements as in the UK, and you can have your post collected by putting it in your own individual postbox and not going to the post office or a red postbox (I find that very odd),

I can crochet in American and I understand that a double crochet is a treble. I can even bake in American because I have little cups which I bought from Lakeland Plastics, even though I find it an incomprehensible system because the flour goes everywhere whereas if you use scales you can just pour everything in the same bowl and a cake appears eventually.

I am crocheting this in American. I am bilingual

However there is one thing I do not understand and I would like someone to explain it to me because whenever someone says it I think they are just wrong and I want to tell them, and, as we all know, that way misery lies.

When you are trying to convey that you do not care about something/ someone, in Britain you would say, I could not care less. This is because, you could not care less, because you already care absolutely nothing. That is the point. You cannot care less than nothing. You cannot care a negative amount (well perhaps you can but for the purposes of this argument we need to agree that you can't. Just agree with me. Thanks).

However, when I see US people say this online, possibly about the fact that Knitpicks does not ship to Scotland or something else, sometimes they say, I could care less. I have seen enough people say it to make me think it is an actual saying and not a mistake. But, if you could care less, that means you must care more than nothing! You must care a bit! You are saying, I care at least a bit and possibly a huge amount about this thing, as my language is utterly ambiguous even while I think I am conveying disapproval, disinterest, and possibly contempt!

How does this work? Am I wrong? Is there a level of meaning I have not been appreciating? Please tell me so that I do not ever get myself into pointless linguistic arguments and annoy people on the internet any more than I already do.

And one more video quickly (I have been looking for ideas for my routine).

I love this woman's work, I think she's fabulous. There are {clears throat, gathers blog readers in cross-legged posture around self} two different schools of pole dancing, I feel, one of which focuses more on the athletic side and one of which focuses on it as a sensual dance. I think she is more of the sensual dance type (although her pole tricks are just fantastic), which is interesting. I actually think that although it is arguable anyway that pole started in strip clubs (do you know, I wonder if I feel a thesis coming on), certainly strip clubs have been part of the evolution of it, and although there are (very sensibly) moves to get it away from that and give it a wider audience (because pole does not have to have anything at all to do with stripping, any more than, say, gymnastics or ballet do), I also think it's nice to acknowledge and transform (and not reject) the work of women who do it in a different context. I do.

I feel myself moving inexorably and possibly unhelpfully into post-feminist thinking here, so I shall go down and get a muesli bar, but, I also wanted to say, what I also love about this video is the music, by Lucinda Williams. I love it! I love it so much I downloaded the album (also on ITunes obvs) and listened to it on my way to Hot Yoga which was a particularly exciting class because it overran and two people fainted. I love her voice. (Dan - google UK tour dates, see where she is this summer, think on...)

Alpacas and cats make it better

Dan has sent me a photo of some of his neighbours to cheer me up about the beanbag. Duly cheered. Thanks Dan x,

These alpacas are arranged perfectly. Have they been choreographed?

And I have been looking at pole dancing videos on YouTube (pole coming NEXT WEEK) and a hitherto unexpected potential problem has presented itself:


This will probably be my luck. I had better perfect my cat-dragging-away-from-pole technique, because it will surely be needed...