Day 29: Je Pars En Vacances

Here is a very accurate 19th century artist's impression of me drinking on a bottle of Cognac and smoking a small cheroot, both of which I will be doing virtually non-stop for the next 12 days.

In preparation for my evacuation to the country - which is obviously necessary, what with increasing levels of anger about ambient noise, 4x4s, middle class people being twats in the gym and anything else that crosses my path - I have, over the course of today:

- Remained convinced that all you can buy to eat in France is cheese and enormous buns with custard in (even though I lived there for 4 years when I was little and know very well and that all they eat is Champignons A La Grecque, rillettes and foie gras with fried grapes), so panic-bought oatcakes, brown Basmati rice, wholemeal pasta and seeds which I have very little intention of eating

- Been to have a consultation about an unmentionably vile cosmetic medical procedure and snorted with glee with a very amusing Australian nurse called Bridget, who showed me her armpits

- Bought a proper parking permit from a Zulu warrrior

- Had the following exchange with a very irritating woman in a pet shop:

Me: Great shop! (which it was - Dr Doolittles on Streatham High Street, since you don't ask)
Her: (in sneering tones): Oh! Haven't you BEEN here before?
Me: No! (still smiling)
Her: Where do you LIVE? Streatham?
Me: (want to say The Moon) GOOD GOD, no. Brixton. (Same as Streatham, but has public transport and more middle class Guardian-reading cocks like me living in it)
Her: Oh. Where on earth do you buy your Royal Canin? (poncy dried French catfood that I had to buy as only one that said: for fat stupid cats. She pronounces it with French accent)
Me: At an agricultural supplier in Oxfordshire, where I keep my horses.
Her: Oh, how LOVELY!
(I bet she wishes she lived in Ealing.)

- Had keys cut by man with wall eye who smelt of mackerel and beer

- Eaten half an unspeakably horrible 'low GI low fat' bagel with tuna and fucking celery in it in the car and dropped most of it down my front. Proof: removed 'pretty, if it's dark and he likes fat birds' bra to change into 'fucking ugly, but means you can run without knocking yourself out' sports bra and seeds fell from my cleavage onto the changing room floor. Which reminds me: the French expression for big knockers is il y a du monde au balcon!, which loosely translates (for those of you who are not virtually bilingual, as I smugly am) as cor, she's got some people on the balcony! which, although not a particularly literararararararary translation, will give you the gist.

- Drunk peppermint tea with the lovely friend who is looking after my stupid cat and flat when I am away, and discussed meditation and yoga.

Now all I need to do is pack an assortment of ill-fitting and unflattering black linen trousers and variously-coloured linen shirts, 3 skirts I won't wear, one thing that is nice that I have no need to wear, and a swimsuit that I have only just realised is 3 sizes too big (fuckwittery, not astonishing weightloss) and that will billow about me in manner of Victorian laydee on a day out in Brighton c. 1875, books I won't read, a sketchbook I won't open, and the first draft of a book I won't finish. Hey ho.

Day 28: I Wonder Why Everyone Is Shouting

God, the noise, the noise. My neighbours are moving out and have been running up and down the stairs slamming doors and SHOUTING for 2 days, let alone BANGING on my door at 8 yesterday morning to ask for access to my garden to inspect the roof, and ENDLESS texts asking for the loan of plates and mugs. Next door's pesky kids have been SHOUTING all day. And it doesn't stop there. Everywhere I go, people seem unable to moderate their volume levels.

2 Middle Aged Ladies In Gym

I like going to the gym. It's kind of peaceful in a weird way, and my gym's quite nice. On Saturday, however, it's full of twats. There were two middle aged ladies (overly-preserved, if you know what I'm saying) squawking as they 'worked out'.

Lady 1: I mean for God's sake! No wonder people are COMPLAINING the whole time!
Lady 2: I know! I know! The FLIES on the far wall!
Lady 1: Ghastly. Simply disgusting. I hardly dare do my stretches.
Lady 2: (after 30 seconds) Oh for HEAVEN'S sake! One of the sets of weights is missing!
Lady 1: TYPICAL!

Why did they feel the need to deliver this exchange at top volume? If they don't like it, they can fuck off.

Woman In Late 20s In Gym

In changing room, usually a place of relative quiet and splashing and clunking of padlocks and slapping on of body lotion. Her phone rings.

"Yah, yah, HIIIIIII Nicky! (She is shouting, by the way). Yah I know, spoke to Jonny yesterday, sounds SUPER. OK. Yah. Yah. Yah. Yah I TOLD her there was no point, I mean quarter of a million! (laughs like a spastic). Yah. Uh-huh. OK sweetie, see you at Charlie's later, I'll bring some poo."

4x4 Drivers In London

I have made a number of points about these arseholes already, but any excuse to repeat it, eh? They shout (when they actually bother to say 'thank you' for letting them in their child-killing environment-destroying wankmobiles pass in the road) THANKS AWFULLY out of the window without looking at you, because you are a Serf, and they are the Queen Of The Road. Idiots.

Anyone who lives in Clapham, Battersea or Wandsworth in a terraced house done up like a stately home

Go on, admit it, you wish you could afford to live in Chelsea, don't you? Knob. If you pop down to Battersea Rise on a Saturday evening, you will see fake French restaurants filled to bursting point, spilling men in pink shirts, jeans and deck shoes, and girls with straight hair, good skin, jeans, pink shirts and boots out onto the street so they can drink champagne and BELLOW at each other. SHUT. UP.

Couple In Tesco Express

Queue of about 15 people in Tesco Express attached to the garage. Mid-afternoon. A couple SHOUT across the shop:

Mike: JAN! GET US SOME RIBENA LIGHT!
Jan: NAAH MIKE! IT'S TOO LATE! I'M ABOUT TO PAY!
Mike: WHAT ABOUT THE QUAVERS?
Jan: WHAT ABOUT THE FUCKING QUAVERS?
Mike: DID YOU GET THEM?
Jan: NAAAH. (Jan pays. Mike appears with Ribena and Quavers just as she is about to walk away from the till.)
Mike: HOLD ON WAIT HERE'S THE QUAVERS AND RIBENA LIGHT.
Jan: ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!
Mike: YEAH AND I NEED SOME CHEWING GUM TOO.
etc etc, ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

Briefly At Fruitstock

Mid-20s, fuckwit. Not as pretty as her friends. LITERALLY shouts in my ear in loud boarding school tones: OH GOD I CAN'T BEAR IT ITS SO HOT!! MUFFY WAIT FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I turned and said: do you REALLY need to shout in my ear? To give her her due, she did apologise.

Kids on the bus

Any bus that goes either up or down Brixton Hill has hundreds and hundreds of 13 year olds on it, running up and down the stairs and SHOUTING at each other. On a particularly bad day, the girls all sing. Really loudly. And badly.

I think I need a little holiday.

Day 27: I Discover That It Is Difficult To Overdose On Cough Sweets

How utterly dull. My chest is rapidly filling with something unmentionable, my throat burns with the thousand fires of Satan, and when I cough I clutch on to inanimate objects and gag. I am rubbish at being ill, because I rarely am. I find it boring and undignified. It also makes me feel sorry myself, which is truly repellent. I'm self-pityingly wishing I had a Loving 'Partner'* to administer strokes to the forehead and soup (sod paying bills, being dynamic and chopping down logs: none of these are requirements; kindness is). My mother, selfishly, is in France, probably smoking a small cheroot and drinking Absinthe straight from the bottle, so I must self-medicate.

Anyway, I'm sucking these things. They stop the hacking cough for a bit, but they don't last long. Interestingly, they recommend that you do not exceed the recommended dose in 24 hours. That, to me, would suggest they contain Proper Drugs but closer inspection reveals that the maximum recommended dose of these babies is 5 packets in 24 hours, or 3 packets for children. If you need that many, surely you should be on Lemsip Flu Max Bombardier Super-Strength Power Flu-Away, not gaylordy sugar sweets?

Maybe there's a limit on how many you can scoff because they actually and literally rot your teeth away and bring on diabetes. Still, they taste OK. Kind of blackcurranty and fresh. Make your teeth kind of furry though. I think I may be delirious.

*I am not keen on this word, but in this instance, it is fairly accurate.

Day 26: I See A Strange Thing In The Street

Why is there a 70 year old man (who looks Irish, for some reason), dragging a cart containing an old fridge and a door down the middle of my street at this time of night?

Maybe he is going to build a special playground for the squirrels. In fact, maybe he is the Squirrel Master, and it is he who gets them to run down my road in convoy, and spring across my front wall in formation. Maybe he lives in a shelter made of leaves and newspapers, and calls the squirrels to him with his magical whistle, whereupon they drink pints of beer and smoke pipes.

Ooh.

Day 26: I Witness Purley Being Confused With Penge With Near-Fatal Consequences

Needs must. Car in Penge having MOT. Me late. Penge a long, long way away on a bus or 10 trains (overland), but £10 away in a cab. (For readers unfamiliar with the finer points of South London: yes, Penge looks exactly as it sounds, as does Purley.) 3 phone calls later, the cab turns up. Scruffy diesel Citroen, driven by a surly mass murderer wearing a red baseball cap.

Him: Where you going?
Me: Croydon Road in Penge.
Him: Where's that?
Me: Um, in Penge. I can show you the way I go if you like.
Him: I know where Purley is.
Me: No no, Penge.
Him: Croydon Road, in Purley, not Penge.
Me: Um, this one's in Penge.
Him: I know where Croydon Road is. You saying I don't know my job?
Me: No, not at all, but there is a Croydon Road in Penge too, because that's where I go with my car every few months. I've been there a few times. Do you want me to show you on the A-Z?
Him: What is your attitude?
Me: What?
Him: You have a problem.
Me: Um, I don't, I'm just trying to be helpful and not waste your time.
Him: You have a problem.
Me: Um, OK. Are you going to go down the South Circular and then round through Tulse Hill, 'cos that's the way I go to Croydon Road.
Him: You go that way? (Sneers)
Me: Yes.
Him: That's not the way to Purley.
Me: I know, I go there when I'm going to Penge. Look, I think we have 3 options: 1) you look in a map; 2) I get out of your cab; 3) you let me show you the way.
Him: I'll take option 2. You've got a problem, lady.
Me: Oh.
Him: I'll take you back to your house. You are always right, yes?
Me: No, rarely, as it goes, but ...
Him: ... Yeah. Problem. You're all the same.
Me: WHO are all the same?

He doesn't reply. I say I hope he has a long and happy life as I remove myself from his car, and then phone the minicab office to complain. They are shocked. I pretend to cry. I will no doubt get a brick through my window at some point in the next 24 hours.

I then called another minicab firm. A very nice man came.

Me: I am going to Croydon Road in Purley.
Him: Purley or Penge?
Me: Oh! Sorry! Penge.
Him: Whereabouts love?
Me: Nissan garage.
Him: Oh yes, just up from the Vauxhall garage. Anerley way. You OK with the radio?
Me: (small voice) Yesthanksverymuchindeed.

Next time, I'm taking the bus.