What would I do if...pt1

Hey, I bet this is nothing bloody Pepys got to write about, OH YESH, take THAT Sammy boy!

Right, I went to the gym.  It broke my heart but I've started paying by Direct Debit and if I don't squeeze some more attendance in by the end of the month then that singular trip 2 weeks ago will have cost me £34 which is a bit excessive for 70 minutes worth of misery.  It's bloody cold at the moment and it wasn't until I got to the changing room that I realised I'd got stupid underwear on.  I had on a thick pair of tights and a 'body' thing on which meant I had (sorry to be graphic) no pants on.  I realised that there wasn't enough support for my stupid boobs in the body but, did I want to take it off and wear a sports bra but no pants?  No way.  Did I instead want to wear the body with a sports bra over the top?  Nah, that'd look bloody stupid.  I decided to just wear the body under the gym gear and allow potential bounce. 

The gym was quiet and it wasn't until I got onto the rowing machine that my stupid inner thought process kicked in.  I haven't mentioned it over here before but much of it seems to follow a similar pattern. 

"What would I do, right, if an armed gunman or terrorists burst in now......"

(yeah, I know)

I mostly get that thought at work and have, over the years, worked out a number of brilliant hiding places which of course depend on how much time I've got before the gunman/men get to me.  The work thing is ok, they have to get through reception and another office before they get to me and (sorry any colleagues potentially reading this), I'll hear the gunfire and hopefully be on my toes and off to the disabled toilet before they get too near.  The disabled toilet is my number one choice of hiding place as there is space to stand away from the locked door so if there is a huge shotgun blast at it I can stand well out of the way and when the gunman looks through the hole I can hide just a little way out of sight. 

Anyhoo, we were talking about the thought process I was forced to endure of myself whilst going backwards and forward on the sodding rowing machine.  I think I'd got to the  "What would I do, right, if an armed gunman or terrorists burst in now......" bit but that was followed by

"...and decided to kill everyone apart from me and one bloke of my choosing!"

This thought had come straight after the realisation that I was the only woman in the gym and there were 5 blokes.  For some reason, my bizarre inner thought process had decided that the gunmen needed an even number of hostages - one woman, therefore one bloke.  Don't ask me why, I still don't understand my inner thoughts, they are like a separate and really quite strange person I have to endure.  I looked around at my choice (secretly and via the giant mirror which takes up one wall).  Bloke one was definitely out - he looked like a horrible farmer.  Bloke 2 had buck teeth, blokes 3 & 4 were pals and I've seen them around a lot.  One is obese and his friend is not.  I rowed away considering them both.  I figured the fat bloke probably hadn't had ANY breaks in his life and had lived a life of misery.  His friend, I reckoned, probably loved himself and only hung around the fat bloke to make himself look better.  I then noticed that the non-obese bloke was actually a bit chunky himself so wondered if he had lost loads of weight and was instead mentoring the fat bloke.  Nah, he's an arse - I'd choose the fat bloke.

...but then again, the fat bloke might have emotional problems and have become the size he was by 'eating his feelings'.  Who the fuck wants to be chained to a radiator with a crying fat bloke?

I then considered the final bloke who had a shaved head, loads of tattoos and interesting 'un-shaved-ness' about his face.  Hmmmmmm....... he looks like the kind of bloke who'd have a plan and would see me through the ordeal alive.  He does look quite like a wife beater too but hell, he's quite muscular and interesting looking.  He's also using weights so he.....well, I don't know what that would mean apart from he's quite muscular and strong which I'd already established.  I moved onto the stepper machine and continued to glance at him via the big mirror. 

Then he stood up and was only about 4 fucking feet tall!

Shiiiit, it's going to have to be the fat bloke.  Thank God I didn't put my bra on over my 'body'; if the gunmen had decided to chain us to the radiator (what radiator?) in our underwear I'd have been a laughing stock!

After another 10 or so minutes some more women drifted in and I realised with horror that there were now 6 women to 5 men!  What about the terrorist rule about having equal men/women hostages?  The choice would now be with the men - each one would have to choose a woman to live and the one left behind gets the bullet!  I desperately looked around at the other females, weighing them up against me.  The horrible farmer bloke would probably choose her, the bucktoothed bloke seems to know that one, she's young and fit (the bitch), Oh thank god - she's really quite hag-faced.  Hopefully she'd get left behind un-chosen.  Then I looked at my own reflection - oh Lordy, I looked like shit!  Dark circles around my eyes, a potential emergence of a conjoined twin on my face (or a spot, I can't decide), tangled hair and a hint of desperation (or madness? No!) in my eyes. 

I decided I'd start smiling at the fat bloke so he'd pick me if ever this scenario occurred.  Of course, why armed terrorists would raid a small backwater gym in Shitsville I haven't decided.  My inner thought process hasn't provided me with this information.

Finally, I discovered that Sammy Pepys married his wife when she was 14 years old - the beast!  Then again, that was probably old in those days.  I also learned that he was sent to the Tower of London for writing to the French!  Blimey - thank god that changed, they FORCED me to have a French pen pal when I was at school. She was called Claudine (I think) but she mainly talked about Madonna rather than anything which might be considered Revolutionary.

Shovel Weirdness

So, I came home from work today and was excited to see that the Tidiness Nazi was out which meant so were the ferkin' dogs.  I love it when the dogs are out.  Pet ownership is a lifetime of misery if you ask me (not that anyone ever does).  I think I'm possibly being a bit harsh, the old dog (Batdog) just lies around and stinks.  The other one, the young dog, is the thing which makes my home life a total misery.  Bloody cute and hairy but too much energy and relentless?  FUCKING relentless.  All sodding night, running up and down, dropping toys on your lap, at your feet, on the floor, everywhere.  I call her The Kraken 'cause NO ONE wants to awaken The Kraken when it's asleep!  The Kraken has Border Collie in her so she's basically a stupid looking sheep dog.  When I have a shower the dog, one toy at a time, drops stuff into a small mountain at the cubicle door then disappears.  Well, you think she's disappeared, turns out she's in 'the position' all focused, alert and ready to chase the thing or herd it somewhere.  Last shower I had the dog had 'assumed the position' and must have been there for 40 minutes not moving, just waiting..........

So yeah, got home and felt more excited at having the place to myself than I should.  I notice a shovel by the front door but guessed the Tidiness Nazi had cleared the blocked drain or something.  Got through the door, grabbed my post, stripping off as I did and grabbed a handful of chocolates which I necked as I legged it up the stairs preparing to put my pyjamas on and get into bed for a crafty hour of watching tv undisturbed.  Lovely.  Unfortunately, I only got about 40 minutes of respite before the hairy, licky one burst into my room and jumped all over me (yeah, the stupid creature loves every hair on my head for some reason).  I heard the Tidiness Nazi downstairs.

"Did you put the shovel by the front door?" She yelled up.

"Erm, no.   I just got home from work.  I thought YOU had done something with the shovel."

"No it wasn't me"

(weird - someone has randomly put a shovel by our front door!)

A couple of minutes later the Nazi came into my room.  I managed to push the Kraken off my head/chest area where she'd decided to sit and smother me with her love.

"Y'know that shovel?"

"Yeah"

"It ain't our shovel.  In fact, some one's nicked our shovel from the side of the house and left us with the dirty one by the front door"

 "So, you're telling me that some random stranger, between the time you left the house at 2pm and when I got home at about 4.30pm, robbed us of our shovel and replaced it with THEIR OWN shovel?"

"Erm yeah!"

I love the randomness of today's weirdness but y'know what I love even more?  The shovel thief decided to alert us to the theft by leaving their own shovel right by our front door.  To be fair, if they'd put their shovel along the side of the house where ours was kept we wouldn't have bloody noticed until possibly next year.  The shovel thief (or shovel swapper) wanted us to know.  Wanted us to know that our perfectly good shovel had been coveted by someone with a slightly less perfectly good shovel.  All that was wrong with it was that it was a bit older than ours and was dirty. 

I guess I'll be laughing on the other side of my face when the weird shovel covet-er turns out to be a strange murderous stalker and whacks me over the head with the bleeder.  Hell, the side of the house where the shovel was kept has a massive shed there which is right under my bedroom window.  I'll not be laughing when there is a recreation of Leatherface waving his Texas Chainsaw around in the air (whilst balanced on my shed but with a shovel) outside my window. 

Still, I'll sleep through anything.

Then again, I know from experience that I have no survival skills in the wee hours of the morning.  When I was a child I had a bulletin board over my bed.  Atop this bulletin board I had a horseshoe which had come from one of my relative's horses.  Dunno what exactly happened but one morning at about 3am the horseshoe fell down and landed on my young sleeping head.  I seem to remember waking up with a start but just lying there waiting for the murderer's next blow.  How shit is that?  I'd like to think I'm a more pro-active potential murder victim nowadays and would at least grab at the weapon.  Then again, I sleep the sleep of the dead at the best of times, least of all when I'm actually being made dead.

The door

According to Chortle, Jo Brand reckons that lots of comedians are mentally disturbed.  I'm not sure I agree.  http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2010/11/18/12170/lots_of_comics_are_mentally_disturbed . 

I performed at Belly Laughs, Worthing last night and it went really well.  Really REALLY well to be precise and the guy asked if I'd be prepared to travel over there on a monthly basis.  I said I would but I know that my inherent laziness will kick in and I'll end up weeping real tears of anguish at having to come up with fresh material every month. I am a prolific writer but I'm a lazy-arsed routine learner.  I remember the debacle that was my 'Funny Women' competition set at Komedia, Brighton.  Yeah I'd been ill for about a week before the gig and had had spent hours stuck in traffic getting there (it was not only a Bank Holiday weekend, the Brighton Comedy Festival AND it was bloody hot) but I had cobbled together a load of old shit made up of some of my old routines.  Minute I got on stage I pretty much forgot everything and had spent the time trying to engage with an audience who seemed to be miles away instead (it was a bloody high stage).  It was pretty cringe worthy and I have learned my lesson about ensuring you know what the fuck you are going to say BEFORE you get on stage.

Here are some sad things (sad in a pathetic way) I want to document.  Having spent too many winter gigs being lost in the dark trying to find/leave venues I decided to get a Sat Nav and boy, I bloody love the thing.  Got to and from Worthing soooooo easily.  I picked the man's voice and have named him Timothy.  I just wish he sounded hot rather than authoritarian.  I guess that with the authoritarian voice I do jump to his commands, I'm sure I'd argue back with a hot guy, decide I no longer fancy him and then get really uncontrollably angry whenever he told me to do something.  The second sad thing is that I left the house tonight to go pick up Chinese food but spotted 2 giant red rubber bands on the floor outside the house. 

"Ooooh, lovely big rubber bands!" I'd exclaimed (out loud and with no shame), bending over to pocket them before anyone else could. 

I'd felt more excitement than I had done all day.  What the hell was THAT all about?  It wasn't until I was back in the car that I realised how unbelievably pathetic I'd been.  Who sodding well covets abandoned rubber bands in the street?  I think I'd even looked over my shoulder conspiratorially as I was standing back up to make sure it wasn't a trap or in case someone was about to leap out and claim them for themselves.

Leading up to this moment I'd lain in bed pretty much all day under the guise of having had a late night when in fact, I'm just a lazy bitch.  I'd refused to get up to answer the phone, walk the dogs, go to the loo (despite the pain in my bladder) or take food and water.  Then, housemate (and Tidiness Nazi) Steph nipped out to the shop.  I tell you, no more than 3 minutes after she had gone someone rang the doorbell.  Horrified I just sat there in bed, my heart pounding.  My brave hero of a dog ran in and hid with me in my room.  What the hell were we going to do?  There was no one available to answer the door!  Breathing heavily and eyes wide with fear I moved to the landing to listen out to see if I could gain any insight of who was at the bloody door.  As I moved with stealth the person then KNOCKED!  With a muted yelp I ran back into my bedroom and hid hoping that whoever was there would just leave.  After a while I thought I was safe and started to venture out of the door again but then the person knocked again only harder as if they knew I was in!  OH MY GOD. 

Then it sounded as if they were knocking the kitchen window. 

The persistence of this person made me seriously consider going down stairs but it was 4pm and I was wearing obvious pyjamas and had make up smeared all over my face.  I looked at myself in the full length mirror wondering if I could disguise the fact that I'd wasted a precious day of life by refusing to leave my room but alas, I could not.  I miserably picked up the hair slide which had travelled over night to some weird part of my head and miserably tried to fix my nest-like hair as THAT would make me look as if I'd been leading a worthy life all day (sigh).  I looked around for a full length coat to hide the obviously pyjama-age but as I didn't have one my search was pretty much useless.  I made the decision that even though the persistent door knocker might have some important information to impart I had no alternative but to continue to hide and gently weep with fear over the thought that I might be forced to engage with a stranger or even worse, A NEIGHBOUR!  It was a fucking nightmare and it took what seemed like ages before the knocker got back into their vehicle and drove off. 

Shit!  I hope it wasn't the police telling me Steph had been in a horrific accident and was asking for me (I'd thought with guilt).  Turns out it was the postman trying to deliver a parcel.  Damn.

Something similar happened last year when I had to hide from an elderly neighbour who absolutely would not stop knocking the door and calling through the letterbox.  I had been hiding with my back against the wall and had quietly phoned Steph in fear and panic to tell her of the trauma I was experiencing.  Her response?  "Answer the fucking door then!"  See? No help whatsoever.  This woman had been so persistent that I was being drawn to the fact that I would have to answer the door but then how would I explain the huge delay?  It's not as if I live in a mansion and had been in the south wing or anything.  That had been terrible, I'd have had to crawl on my belly to reach the door but in the end I just put my hands over my ears and said 'la la la la' to myself over and over until she either went away or died on the step.  Her voice had been getting weaker and weaker.  Oh why won't people leave me alone?

Being Pepys (sort of)

I guess in the spirit of the great man himself (Sammy Pepys) I'd better actually report something from the news. I'm not a Royalist so it grieves me to waste some of my brain power to do this but (sigh) here goes. Prince William got engaged to Kate Middleton (is that her name? Hang on, let me check.......yes it is). She's pretty and got good teeth. It's probably good to get some new genes into the Royal pool. Hopefully the premature baldness gene will start to phase itself out over the coming generations. As for the ring - Diana's ring, well, I wouldn't want that fucker! It was given to the bloke's beloved mother by a man who never loved her and just saw her as a brood mare to give him an heir and a spare. Remember that engagement interview where he wouldn't say he loved the poor cow? "What is love any way?" or something, that was his answer. I'd have told him to fuck right off there and then. At least the new two look like they at least like each other. I might feel more benevolent if the rumour that we'll all get a day off work for the wedding is true. Wa-hoo, Royal Wedding (said the person considering being a Royalist for the day or, working day. Royalist until 4.30pm).

Enough about the Royals. I've done my diarist's duty.

Oh yeah, I might have mentioned before that people are having difficulties registering to follow this diary. I've also discovered that it's nigh on impossible to leave a comment at the bottom of each entry. Dunno if you have to be a follower or if I need to change a setting somewhere but I'll have a look. I welcome all comments so long as you aren't offering to kill me or sell me a fucking handbag.

So, what else? It broke my heart but I went back to the gym today. Stayed until I did 500 calories but was particularly pissed off 'cause there were CHILDREN in the gym and their voices go through me. Oh yeah, and they were all over the machines I wanted to go on. Who let kids in fer chrissake? I'll tell you what else broke my heart today. SOUP. I stupidly took soup with me to work for lunch. When lunch time came around I wept real tears of grief. Who fucking wants soup for lunch? I ventured out in search of more interesting food and discovered that the guy I thought looked a bit like former Dr Who, David Tenant and therefore was forced to fancy (despite his career of standing on a corner with a sign pointing to McDonalds whilst simultaneously handing out leaflets), actually doesn't. He looks more like a goblin. With a hood on he's hot, without one he's frightening. That upset me too, gonna have to find someone else to have a daily crush on now. Oh the life of a single, barren spinster eh?

Sweaty Jesus

Years ago someone bought me a Jesus soap on a rope for reasons best known to themselves. For reasons best known to MYself, a few years ago I cut off the rope and stuck googly eyes to it rendering the yellow soap Jesus permanently shocked. I think I even used it to menace someone remotely by telling them that Soap Jesus was watching them and very disappointed. Well, I'm sort of not Christian but I still can't bring myself to throw Soap Jesus away (just in case) so it just sits in my room by the telly. As I was passing I noticed he was all wet and was sort of 'sweating'. Is this an omen. Is this THE Omen? Should I tell some Christians that their deity is sweating as a lesson to them all? I'm guessing that if I did that some fucked up radical group would blame the gays or women priests. They'd conveniently forget about all the paedo priests or the Nuns in the Magdalen Homes who were allegedly (dunno if it's officially allegedly or if I can take it as fact at this point) evil to their charges. No, apparently God and whoever else only get angry by gays and women priests for some reason. This is one of the reasons I can't be arsed with religion.

I think I'll just ignore sweaty Soap Jesus. If he's got a message then he's going to have to think of a better way of communicating with me. For Chrissake (?) he's supposed to be Christ and I guess he's supposed to have an iota of omnipotence so should just sit down and think about his communication skills before he sweats all over a person.

Other than my really rather ridiculous rant about something or nothing I have to confess that I nearly had a proper tantrum at work today which shocked my 'mental health' work colleague pal(remember her? We are almost like twins when it comes to paranoia, hypochondria and over thinking). I'd been out all day and simply walked through the door only to hear "Ah, Sket's just come into the office, I'll put you through." A simple thing but I really rather forgot myself and had an inappropriate tantrum 'cause I didn't want to talk to anyone. There were biscuits which weren't going to eat themselves in that room and I had to TALK to someone? I did though and Mental Health Colleague (MHC) found it hysterical that I'd had a proper tantrum which included bad language and childish pouting/near stamping of feet. The only thing I was able to control was my usual trick of throwing myself to the floor and pretending to be dead when I don't want to do something.

...my friend Nigel spoiled that for me when he proved to be immune to the whole pretending to be dead thing by dragging me by one arm across the floor and making me go running with him a few years back.

After the tension had been broken by the laughter of my colleagues over my behaviour I could do little else but to show my disapproval by doing a couple of over dramatic star jumps and a lunge in the middle of the office. I would have lifted my dress over my head and showed everyone everything I've got as an act of defiance and disrespect, only I've seen myself naked and I wouldn't want to be the cause of a mass outbreak of vomiting and mental instability.

It's a shame for me. I hope I'm not going to be punished now 'cause of the Jesus stuff at the beginning. Heck, I'm always being punished. Let's see what happens tomorrow, eh?

Stoned

So I had a gig in Bournemouth last night. It was a stressful journey, driving in the dark and the rain with barely a clue as to where the bleedin' hell I was going. I'd of course printed off a route planner but hadn't even considered it'd be too dark to read the thing. I found myself lost for a goodly amount of time and only found the venue by accident through just driving about towards areas that looked a bit comedic. Sometimes I just love how the chaos theory works out...

When I arrived my chest felt tight and as I'm still recovering from Consumption (she said, full of hypochondria), I took 2 paracetamol extra before going into the venue to let the promoter know I was there. They were still setting up so I went back to the car for another quick run through of my set.

I started to cough so rifled through my bag to find the bottle of vile tasting Covonia cough medicine and took a massive swig. I'm not really certain what happened next, I sort of became a bit distracted, forgot a chunk of the set (I think I only remembered the first 2 minutes and some of that was a bit ropey) and became unusually nervous.

I went back in and learned that pretty much all of the audience were in fact fellow comedians and as the weather was closing in, there was little prospect of further 'audience-age'. Great. I find that mostly, other comedians tend to make for a shit audience. I suspect they don't like to laugh as they feel they are being disrespectful to their own comedy (unless they're friends with you and need you to laugh heartily at them in return).

As I sat and waited for everything to kick off I realised that my limbs were sort of light and were in fact floating away. I smiled. Then I realised my head was somewhere completely different and I felt good. Well, sort of good. I didn't really know anything and couldn't think. I hadn't a clue what my first line was going to be but still I sat there with something of a half smile on my face in a fuzz of happiness. I sent The Tidiness Nazi (best friend/housemate Steph) a text telling her that I thought I was stoned on Covonia. She helpfully pointed out that I'd taken 2 paracetamol extra tablets about 10 minutes before I'd swigged the cough medicine. Shiit, I'd forgotten about that.

Bleedin hell. Have I O.D'd on paracetamol and Covonia? It feels lovely but through the haze I did realise it wasn't the best state to be in with less than half an hour before I'm meant to perform stand up. Stilllll, it didn't matter, nothing mattered

sigh.......

Oh yeah, I'll have to drive home too.

Bollocks.

All I have to say is that I performed well under the influence of over the counter meds and made it home in one piece. I only got lost 4 times too!

All in all, mysteriously a success. Perhaps Covonia is the key!

Grumptitude

Who the frig am I kidding? I've just had an 'Effervescent B-Active Orange flavoured tablet' which says it is rapidly absorbed to support a busy and engergetic lifestyle. I've lain around the ferkin' house all day doing sod all. I haven't been to the gym in over a week and I actually caught myself in the week saying (out loud) that I couldn't wait to go home so I could go to bed.

Lazy bitch

Y'know what aggravates me? That advert for First Direct bank which shows some idiot child pretending to talk like a whale at school and the teacher tells her off for always talking too much. The point of the advert is that this idiot child goes on to work for First Direct where she talks to customers all day and that First Direct should be applauded for hiring people who love to talk and give customer service. To me, the point of the advert is that the aggravating idiot child did nothing but fucking talk all day at school and therefore ended up working in a call centre.

Here's another thing. They just advertised Piers Morgan's interview with Susan Boyle. Jesus Christ, she looks like the Witch of the Waste from Howl's Moving Castle and how is anyone supposed to sit and listen to her bizarre voice for an hour or however long the show is on? You can barely understand a word she says and she's proper WEIRD. I am starting to conclude that her 15 minutes are NEVER going to end. Wonder if I have time to find a Betting Site which will give me good odds on some contrived question coming out which will make her cry like a shitty baby. I reckon it'll be a re-hash of her sudden decision to announce that at some stage in her life she tried to off herself. Purleeeeeese.

Ok, ANOTHER aggravation. Another ad too. That one for Perle De Lait yoghurts. The woman with the pretend French accent screws her face up into a proper gurn to tell us that she used to eat sour yoghurt and that it was horrible but then she found Perle de Lait and that's lovely so she's well pleased with herself. Why would you eat anything that was so bloody horrible it made you look like that? Just stop eating the fucking yoghurt. Eat a turd of shit instead love, I bet it makes you wince but won't taste as bad as you'd have us believe the sour yoghurt was. Jeeeeeez, adverts nowadays, they must think we're all a bunch of morons.

Ok, now to complain about my stupid tits again. Y'know, I wear a bra and suddenly it's too big so I get a smaller one. This one presses the buggers flat to my chest and I can't breathe so I get one the same size as the one that was previously too big. THIS one won't do up around me. Wha? WHY? Have I got some sort of 'Manimal' transformation taking place within my body that it is a significantly different size every sodding day? I had to go to a party thing last night and wore a halterneck dress. Having stupid big tits I had to get a strapless bra for the occasion. The cup size is the only thing that remains constant in my weird breast scenario. Well, previously, last night the bra swamped them to the extent I could have got both in one cup. STUPID tits.

I'm in a right bad mood today. Got a headache, woke up with a false eyelash stuck to my brow and god only knows where the other one got to. Put my contact lenses in and was rendered blind! Then I realised I'd again slept in yesterday's pair. Having 2 contact lenses on one eye is weird. One corrects the vision, the other uncorrects so I guess that's puts me back to square one. If I'd put a third lens on then I'd be able to see again. Perhaps I'll try that tomorrow. It'll look like a telescope on each eye but hell, it's something to do innit?

Filth

I'm sick at the moment. So is Tidiness Nazi housemate Steph so it's probably best we paint a big cross on the door to warn others that there be disease within the dwelling.

....or did they do that to tell the Angel of Death to fuck off?

I may be getting my biblical/actual plagues mixed up but hell, I'm delirious. I'm sick I tells ya!

Having been sick for the past few days I have lived a wonderful, hermit-like existence pretty much alone in my room. It's been bliss (apart from the feeling crap thing). I've laid there drifting in and out of sleep having the most fantastically vivid dreams and even coming up with THE most fantastic/award winning stand up routine of my career. Of course, I've forgotten the bugger now so fame and comedy glory remain tantalisingly out of reach. I do remember that part of it was to do with the time I was startled by my own genitalia very early one morning but that's another story.

Anyhoo, back to this story. To recap, I lay in bed enjoying the peace and solitude (coughing) alone in my kingdom. It took a while but when I sort of looked around with fresh eyes I realised, that my kingdom was actually somewhat of a dump. There is the paint splash over my lovely hippy rug where I accidentally tipped all that paint over myself whilst being extra careful not to spill paint over my stuff, there is the chunk of newly/un-uniformly painted wall that I left about 2 months ago 'cause I decided I hated the colour, there is all the stuff from the wardrobe I decided I no longer wanted piled up against the wall (and falling down all over the place), there's a wall shelf hanging off with a few things still precariously balanced on top, a pile of clothes atop the old holiday suitcase, a pile of clothes on top of the laundry basket (clean) and a load of clothes hanging out of the laundry basket (dirty) but there are also books balanced on the clean clothes on top and it's all very precisely balanced. Then there's all the floor crap. I won't even go there. I sat up and sort of looked around and realised that my attempt at de-cluttering my life had failed. There, I admitted it.

I then noticed the layer of dust on some of the long term crap and with a wry smile and nod to myself concluded that rather than look like a haven of peace and tranquility, my room contained so much dirt it was akin to an episode of Time Team. I bet if I moved the pile of boxes and books I'd be able to release Tony Robinson back into the community. No wonder he hasn't been seen for a while...

Thinking about it, I desperately need to change my bed sheets which I've sweated fever into. They are so disgusting there is a definite outline of my body on them. Like a slob's Turin Shroud. I have to admit, this isn't the first time I've had Turin Shrouding of my bedclothes. If only I had the gift of shame I'd erm, be ashamed.