Valley of the Trolley Dollies

A really wonderful weekend, thanks for asking.

Friday, we picked up Phil-the-ex-lodger at Heathrow and headed up North to Kniveton, a tiny hamlet between Matlock and Matlock Bath, to celebrate Claire’s 40th birthday.

We paused, en route, at Bicester, for several hours of retail therapy. Ralph Lauren had a huge sale on suits, none of which fit me. Bummer! That’s the downside of shaping up - all the odd sizes that end up in bargain bins are no longer any good. I’ll have to shape up further into an odd shape. Then, I’ll be good to go. Still, I managed to get two fabe new jackets for the summer. And what a summer it’s promising to be: weather this weekend was GLORIOUS! I got some sexy new underwear (a must now I spend half my time undressing in the gym - where everyone is checking everyone else out; god forbid your scanties should be found wanting). A trip to L’occitane provided some lovely smellies for the summer, and a couple of pairs of shoes and new socks completed the damage.

And then it was off to the delights of Derbyshire. The cottages were beautiful - comfortable, modern, clean, and very much in keeping with the country cottage, without ever sliding into Twee. The countryside was gorgeous - rolling and green and filled with bleating lambs and frolicking horses.

Our fellow guests were a total joy, ranging from the quiet and sweet to the very loud, very straight, very crude and (despite my best efforts to find him brash and annoying), very very Hot. I made some lovely new friends who I’ll want to keep in touch with, and spent large parts of the weekend reciting Round The Horne scripts with the lovely Paul & Len, a couple whose relationship predates even D and I!!!

Friday evening was a barbecue, and, as usual, I consumed waaaay too much alcohol, which always happens when in the company of Trolley Dollies (who, as D reminds me, “Train for this; they sit in hotel rooms in Islamabad and drink. For two days solid!!”), and paid for it for much of the weekend.

Saturday daytime was a trip to Matlock Bath (home of the chip shop and shirtless stud; but you already knew that), and the evening was a wonderfully catered dinner - Stilton and Pear Pate, Beef and mushrooms in Oyster sauce with Dauphinois Potatoes and the most delish cherry tomatoes, olives and tallegio bake. And lashings of champagne, of which I partook minimally as the memory of the previous night hung around haunting me.

Then, after a brisk walk around the locale on Sunday, it was the long drive home, and an attempt to go for a run last night, which was, quite frankly, disastrous. Last Wednesday, the Trainer took me on a 6km run through the city of London. It took 45 minutes, I suffered, but it was one of the best experiences ever. Fantastic.

Last night, I crawled home after twenty minutes, with blood streaming from every orifice in my body, and an inability to walk talk or breathe.* (*some of these statements amy be over-exaggerated).

Still, nil desperandum: Tongiht, I’m off out again. I’ll do another twenry minutes, and look to go to twenty-five. I’ll have eaten a banana an hour before the run. I will be one more day away from a night of alcohol excess that left me crawling on all fours to the loo, and I’ll be a step closer to doing a 6k run on my own.

Goals. I’m all about them.

And right now the goals are (aside from the 6k on my own): To stop biting my nails. To start eating more sensibly. To limit my alcohol intake for the next month (basically, none for a week, then no more than 4-6 units a week). To hit the gym/street a minimum of four times a week. To finish the second draft of a book I wrote a long time ago, which has sat unloved in my desk drawer, and to get some new stories started.

I’m tired today, and facing a week of nightmare events to set up training for our Spanish and South African offices on a series of products I barely understand myself, using systems that seem to be controlled by half a dozen people in four countries. AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaghghh! That said, i’ve been approached (for the third time in a month) by senior trading staff asking if I’ve ever considered spending a couple of years in Mexico and Brazil. Either there’s a trip in the offing, or they’ve sold me to white slavers on the Rio Grande. Mind you, it’s all the same thing…

Irrelevant, probably, as I speak neither Spanish nor Brazillian, although, thanks to Dancing with the Stars and my incipient (or is that raging) alcoholism, I can do a mean cha-cha-cha and mix a killer caipirinha. So bring it on!!

Just got the following from my friend Lady Carlotta Cockalott:

so so SO many chaps walking around without tops on.

must.

go.

lie.

down.

Just replied:

Oh I know.

Faaaabe, innit?

We spent the weekend in Matlock Bath - home to ten thousand chip shops, eight thousand Northern Bloaters, and two thousand and one Biker dudes and waxed-chest muscle Mary twenty-somethings, all of whom were pierced and/or tattooed, and topless. I’m basically one giant stiffie right now.

Must lay off the chips and gin for a month.

We hugged for a little longer than we usually do when I got home.

We made poached eggs, and served them on top of thick cut Deli Ham – pink and salty-sweet, with the faintest tracing of fat – which was in turn placed atop rounds of lightly toasted, melted butter smeared white bread, and accompanied by Heinz baked beans, their sweet mushiness complementing the crisp salt-sweet blandness of the poached egg towers.

We talked about Theresa – how we both felt so shocked at how quickly she’d gone; how we both felt guilty that we didn’t get round to see her ‘For a slice of cake and a cup of tea,’ like she’d asked. We wondered whether she’d known she was going, and if that request had been code for ‘Come around so I can say goodbye.’ We fell silent, and ate, savouring each mouthful, newly aware of how vitally important the little things – like slices of cake, or gelatinous yellow yolks, are.

We watched Doctor Who: The Invasion of Time.

“You know,” I said to Him, “When I was a kid I loved Doctor Who. But I don’t remember this story.”

“It’s Tom Baker,” he replied, “Leila’s last story. With the Sontarans.”

Still nothing. We lay on the sofas and watched all six half hour episodes.

Oh. Dear. Lord.

Tom Baker is wonderful – mugging for all he’s worth, and really getting some scary anger on screen for one or two of the scenes. His knowing Naughty Schoolboy routine is proof that Mr Tenants currently acclaimed Doctor has a direct lineage back to Mr Baker, and his wild curly hair is a site to behold.

Some of the script:

Sontaran: “I am commander Stok, of the Sontaran Supreme Space Shock Squad.”

Doctor: “Stock? Of the Sontaran Supr- That’s a lot of alliteration, isn’t it”

Is sharp and funny and clever(ish). The exchanges between the Time Lords – a bunch of bitchy camp old queens in a very fancy version of The Quebec, if their phrasing is anything to go by – are joyously cutting. But the pacing. Dear Lord, the Pacing. At one point the Doc and a secondary support character have the same conversation twice. In immediate succession. With Every Line being repeated by the other. Immediately after it’s spoken. And this happens Twice. In a conversation. Between the Doctor and someone else. Some, I don’t know, secondary character. And you know how annoying that can be. Basically, what could have been a very sharp three (or four, max) parter is stretched out to six episodes for no obvious dramatic reason.

And the design – apart from a bunch of reused costumes – is school production bad. The makeup on the Sontaran Villain makes him look like a bloated bald Amy Winehouse after a night on the gear (not to mention the fact that he  sounds like a bad Bruce Forsythe impersonation), and the three secondary villains turn out to be Shiny paper from the planet Bacofoil, whose humanoid manifestation is a trilogy for whom the phrase the banality of evil might have been created.

A shame it was so ropey, but the two of us, dozing on the sofa, newly aware of the fragility of all that we hold dear, loved every second.