Monday

It’s been a full forty-eight hours since I’ve returned to the city from my Christmas break and have just finished the last of the procrastination cleaning to settle down and do some writing. Procrastination cleaning is the only sort of cleaning I’m able to do; the washing up, the bathroom and toilet floor, the recycling and the sink and bath, not to mention the hobs, surfaces and scenting the bathroom with Summer Splash Febreze. I also went for a run, as exercise is one of my many new years resolutions (carried over from last year when I succeeded in running a full four mornings before giving up.)

I put on my silver Puma trainers my parents brought me last season, my pyjama bottoms and old Rocket-from-the-Crypt hoodie (which my brother gave to me when I was fifteen) and set off into the foggy winter night. I managed to run all the way up, and then back down the hill to Alexandra Palace before collapsing red faced and gooey-limbed onto my bed, puffing on the inhaler I stole from my Dad over the holiday.

I then ran myself a bath, having to run the tap at a piddle as the boiler pressure has gone and that’s the only way to get hot water. I dropped one of the smellies I got for Christmas – a heart shaped pink bath bomb with rose petals - under the trickle and left it to dissolve. Twenty minutes later I climbed in, feeling a bit like Ophelia disturbing all the twigs and plant bits that floated in the pink water. Now I know I must be a real adult woman by the fact that people buy me smellies when at a loss as to what to get me. Although I also got some Rainbow Bright pyjamas which squashes that notion. Incidently they weren't the pyjamas I wore jogging.  

Since my return not much has happened and frankly I’m bored. Having spent the last week and a half with family playing games and enjoying an inner warmth in the depths of the countryside (and Southampton), I’ve returned to an empty flat where the streets outside are trampled by grumpy-looking malcontents.

I did a shift at The Unicorn on Sunday and was thinking that my six months working there as an usher have been fruitful as I’ve checked the tickets of Harry Enfield, Jude Law and David Bower (Hugh Grants brother in Four Weddings and a Funeral), and seen Richard Curtis, Mariella Frostrup, Diversity and Alesha Dixon in the building, providing far more opportunities for networking than my other exploits of the last two years. I also unwittingly followed the woman who plays Bianca from EastEnders into the ladies toilet while she explained the concept of green screens to her five-year-old child.