Well today has been a success so far!

I'd booked pre-Christmas haircut, not wanting to turn 40 with untidy hair, but he could only fit me in at 9am. Fearing the traffic would be hell I was in town by 8.15am, and by the time I bumped into Jan half an hour later I was already laden with groceries. She skipped away to let the elves do her hair and ten minutes later I bumped into Barry, who was too full of hat wisdom for that time of the morning!

After the haircut I attempted to find something to wear for my birthday meal. I had a vision of some slinky, sexy black trousers, but that proved difficult to turn into reality. My options were limited: jeans, or black trousers that looked like work trousers. So I bought a pair of dark grey pinstriped ones instead. Only when I got them home they didn't go with my shoes, and not wanting to buy another pair of shoes - it's the new me! - I went to ASDA and bought some black jeans instead. I've already got a gorgeous shirt to wear so I'm feeling happier about it all now.

I bumped into the 24 year old while I was wandering about, just as he was coming out of his shop and heading to MacDonalds to buy everyone breakfast. He didn't seem his usual self, and although I realise it's tricky bumping into your shags when you've got your work head on, I couldn't help thinking, "perhaps he doesn't like me anymore?" I'd had the same thought's earlier in the week too when I hadn't heard from him. I think there may be madness pending....

This evening I'm going to deliver the first of my Christmas gifts, which will officially kick off Christmas 2008 - bring it on!

More music

I'm all over the place musically this week: Girls Aloud, Folk, Robert Plant as I type, and last night classical. I'm the epitome of eclectic. Or just completely muddled.

I went to Ely's magnificent cathedral to see Handel's Messiah. I should have seen it in Norwich last weekend but was too tired, and was actually more excited about seeing it in such an extraordinary building. It's all part of my plan to see more classical music, because I'm shockingly ignorant about it!

There was an orchestra, a choir, and some soloists, so it was a big production, and yet somehow it didn't seem big enough for the space - only when they were all at full volume did it sound big loud enough, so perhaps it's not the ideal space after all.

And actually it turns out it wasn't my kind of thing. It took me a while to work out why, but it was useful as it made me think about the music I like. Turns out the violins were too romantic - I prefer the Michael Nyman type of spiky violin - and there was a harpsichord, so the overall effect was like something they'd dance to in a Jane Austen novel, which is unfortunate as I was looking forward to death and drama. So I left at half time, feeling pleased I'd given it a try but glad I knew when to quit.

Interestingly considering it was a church the audience were shocking queue-jumpers! An old woman just barged in front of me then was very stern with a man who tried to do the same to her. Bloody Christians.

Christmas Spirit

I'm feeling all Christmassy!

A crowd of us from work went to the pub at lunchtime, although I'd originally planned not to, and it was really nice - we were all relaxed and no one talked about work, so I've changed my mind and will be sending them Christmas cards after all. The work meal on Monday might actually be fun. Who'd have thought it!

Tonight I was going to see a film, but as it was a Coen Brothers film and I never really get on with them I'm not really bothered. So instead I'm going to start on the wine. Cheers!

London - 3

Warning: what follows contains mentions of Folk Music, which some readers may find disturbing.

The reason I was in London at all was for The Thompson Family Christmas show at the South Bank. The Thompsons in question are Teddy, his mother Linda, father Richard (both Folk legends), his sister and a nephew. Add to that an unlikely collection of friends, get them all singing songs about Christmas and give the profits to Amnesty International and you have a fun if slightly chaotic and bizarre evening out.

The friends were (he hastily finds his programme to refresh his memory): Bert Jansch (formerly of Pentangle (dear God!), guitar legend apparently, but a very, very dull one); Kathryn Williams (who brought Kirsty Maccoll's brother along for the evening); Brendan Campbell (a dreadful Scottish singer who I've had to endure before); Bob Davenport (proper old school Folk, singing without instrument or tunes); Chris Difford (from Squeeze);Rachel Unthank (from Northumberland, the place of my birth!); Shlomo (human beatbox, which is a little bit 80s don't you think?); Jenny Muldaur (fab black dress, great voice); Justin Bond (one half of the cabaret duo Kiki & Herb, and part time tranny!); and finally Ed Harcourt (piano, song about Snoopy).

I'm a big fan of Teddy's, having gotten into him whilst that lazy Rufus had nothing new to buy (he's a friend of Rufus, which is a bit like a modern version of a friend of Dorothy, only Teddy is straight), but mostly I wanted to see his mother. She rarely sings in public anymore having lost her voice after the divorce from Teddy's father. But she has managed to make a couple of albums, the last one (Versatile Heart) has been a favourite of mine this year, so I was keen to see her. In the end she only sang one song on her own, and did it hiding in the wings so no one could see her and I thought the pianist was actually singing, but she sang backing vocals the whole time and was absolutely lovely, even holding her ex-husbands hand at one point when I'd rather expected them to be chilly with each other.

As for the rest of the evening, well it was eclectic but fun! Teddy sang Elvis' Blue Christmas beautifully and did White Christmas with Jenny Muldaur, in which the pair of them slow-danced during the saxophone solo and you could feel the whole audience melting and wishing they could take him home. His sister did Wham's Last Christmas, proving once and for all that it's a classic. His Dad did a song he'd written on the plane over, which makes him sounds impossibly talented!

Rachel Unthank did a song with a chorus about Hexham-shire, which is where I was born so I got a bit giddy. Justin Bond has a proper Broadway voice and did Have yourself a merry little Christmas in a shiny top, which wasn't in the least bit Folky but which was fab! There was lots of communal singing too, but there was so much going on it's impossible to remember it now, which is a real shame.

It was a fun evening and made me feel all warm and Christmassy - who'd have thought Folk could do that! It was an appropriate end to a year in which I've delved tentatively into Folk, and next year I'm intending to dive head first into it, and have already ordered a pile of CDs from the library to help me on my way. Cambridge Folk Festival anyone?

As I walked onto Trafalgar Square on my way back to the Tube I felt like I could stay in London forever.

London - 2

My plan was to go to the gallery then do a little light shopping followed by food. I need some new clothes to wear over Christmas and had it all planned out: nice Gap jeans, gorgeous Camper shoes, and a decent shirt - all very straightforward. But just before I left the house I got an email to say that my last internet bought gift hadn't actually been posted and was out of stock. If it had been for an adult I wouldn't have cared, but it's for a child and I'll do anything to avoid tears, so I traipsed up and down Oxford Street, stumbling in and out of shops, mumbling, "have you got blah blah blah game for PSP?" like a man who didn't know what a PSP was. It's out of stock in London too. Bugger.

So I gave up and followed the pretty lights instead! Here's how they've decorated Carnaby Street:



Fabulous isn't it! And a little sinister, like something from a Batman film:

I stood in the street taking photos and grinning then turned round and what was besides me? The Camper shoe shop I'd been running round Covent Garden trying to find! The Christmas Gods were clearly on my side! I skipped through the door and within minutes had a shortlist of three different shoes. I came away with these gorgeous things:

I love shoes!

London - 1

I had to be in London last night for something and had a half day's holiday still to use so I rather cleverly combined the two into an afternoon in London!

First stop was a gallery in King's Cross for an exhibition of huge bits of steel by Richard Serra. I know nothing about him but apparently I should have done as there's a huge piece of his outside Liverpool Street station, which I'm sure I've seen.

Anyway, they're huge steel sculptures and they're fantastic! The first two are big curving things as you can see below, which are reminiscent of the front of a ship, which should be no surprise as he started his working life in a shipyard.





They might just look like big bits of bent metal but they're beautiful!

The next piece is something of a maze: you go in at one end and wander down narrow corridors that slope strangely, but just when you think you've got to the centre of it you find yourself coming out the other side, which made me laugh out loud and run back in again.



Of course in the narrow corridors you have to squeeze past people, and at one point I found myself face to face with someone who looked a bit familiar. It was the man who played the grumpy landowner in The Vicar of Dibley! So I've shared sculpture with an actor from a BBC sitcom, I am blessed!

There was one final piece, a huge slab of steel standing in the centre of a room, which had been weather in a way that made it look like an abstract oil painting - stunning!

The whole thing was on about two streets from where Sarah used to live, and although I visited her there a few times we never went out and about there as it's notoriously rough. And yet they have buildings like this:



I love London!

Yesterday was my last 'free' day, the calm before the storm of Christmas socialising, not that I'm complaining because my favourite thing in the whole world is a full diary! So I had a gentle evening, getting a few things organised in advance so I don't descend into chaos, and the I settled down to watch some TV. I've hardly watched any TV lately, sometimes I haven't turned it on for days, but there's something about winter that makes me want to watch something, anything. So I watched a woman cooking Indian food on a train and felt very, very hungry; then I watched Nigella making glamorous Christmas stuff and wished I had the patience/energy to do the same; and finally I watched a young man with a big country house getting a good telling off for being so feckless, which was fun!

Today I'm only working for the morning then I'm running away to London, so I'll leave you to amuse yourself with a Which Girls Aloud member are you? quiz. I'm the ginger one apparently, which is fine by me!

Saturday's late night rather took it out of me so yesterday was essentially wasted on recovery. Which was particularly annoying as I had a ticket to a classical concert in the evening. It was Handel's Messiah, which I know nothing about but was particularly excited about going to see it! But it involved a two hour round trip, and was two and a half hours long, so there was a real chance that I'd fall asleep at the wheel during the drive home. I don't really want to turn forty dead so I did the sensible thing and stayed home, and ended up getting nine hours sleep and feeling a lot better for it. All is not lost though as I'm going to see it in Ely Cathedral on Thursday, which is very exciting!

Today has been a bit of a quiet, reflective kind of day. The reality of Saturday's ridiculousness was pointed out to me resulting in quite a lot of, "what on earth am I doing?" type thinking. The only conclusion I could reach was, "f*ck knows!" But thank you to the lovely man who pointed it out to me, it's nice to know someone's paying attention. xx

I came home to find the town in darkness, in the midst of a power cut. Thankfully I managed to find a torch and amazingly the batteries weren't flat, so I took to my bed with a book until the electricity came back on. Then I popped out to Tesco to buy some tea, only to find that they had shut because of the power cut - who'd have thought that anything could stop the evil empire!

The rest of the evening has been a busy lazy. I'm on the verge of ordering furniture from IKEA but can't bring myself to just yet, so instead I watched Nigella Lawson cooking Christmas food, although as she made a tagine for a winter supper I'm not entirely sure what world she's living in...

And before I go let's enjoy my new obsession - the new Girls Aloud single, which was written by the Pet Shop Boys and is so good I'm now very excited about the boys new album. It's the usual PSB sad song with a happy tune, tears at the disco kind of thing, and bloody hell those girls can sing. The chorus is quite in keeping with how I feel today too...

Mad Men

Once upon a time not so very long ago homosexuality was thought to be a mental illness, so people were subjected to a range of barbaric treatments designed to 'cure' them. This is no longer the case, at least not in this country. But I can't help thinking that all gay men are a little bit barking and perhaps this earlier idea wasn't for far from the truth. The following should serve as evidence:

The 24 year old stayed over last night. That's the same 24 year old who has a boyfriend who he lives with. And the whole thing was the boyfriend's idea! And I agreed to it! It's hard to imagine which one of us is the most mad....

A few weeks ago we'd discussed going out for a meal at an Indian restaurant, as the 24 year old loves a curry but his boyfriend doesn't. Last night was the date we set. The 24 year old told his boyfriend that we'd be going for drinks after, so the boyfriend suggested he stay over at mine.

It's worth remembering that the boyfriend doesn't know we've had sex, and doesn't think the 24 year old will fancy me. You see, the boyfriend and I had bad sex last summer and neither of us wanted to repeat the experience, so he clearly thinks no one else would. How wrong can he be!

It sounded a bit mad, but the 24 year old assured me it was all cool and there would be no problem. But as the week went on I just couldn't get my head round it. My main fear was that either the boyfriend would find out and throw the 24 year old out, or the 24 year old would get the wrong idea and leave his boyfriend. As much as I enjoy spending time with him I don't want to be his boyfriend. Or anyone's for that matter!

So on Friday I texted him to say I'd rather not do the sleepover. We then had a very honest conversation on MSN about it and he convinced me that he wasn't interested in leaving his boyfriend. So we reverted to the original plan, no matter how mad it might sound!

We started what would become a very drunken evening with a glass of mulled wine, then braved the rain and walked down to a local Indian restaurant. The food was great, but I couldn't eat it all, which is something of a shock as I'm normally a bit of a pig with nice food!

Then back to mine where we settled down in front of the TV with a couple more bottles of wine. We saw half of a Girls Aloud TV special and I had something of a Girls Aloud revelation! It's only in the last couple of months that I've worked out the name of the fifth member, but I doubt I could name more than two of their singles. Anyway, it turns out that they can sing! I thought that Cheryl Cole was just a clothes horse/WAG/crybaby X-factor judge, but the woman can sing! I'm astonished and may have to go in search of one of their CDs.

Then we watched the final of X-factor, which was frankly shit although thankfully the right person one. I'm not sure about the choice of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah as the single though. Whilst I appreciate that it's become something of a standard and everyone has had a go at it I'm not sure the world needy a cheesy pop version with added choir!

By then we were drunk enough to start watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger film, which is something I would no longer do sober. We finally tumbled into bed after midnight, and I slept all night with my arms wrapped round him, which is something I've rarely been able to do. A beautiful night's sleep was only spoilt by the neighbours having one of their regular rows, only this one was a bit more interesting as at one point the bloke screamed, "she's not my f*cking daughter!" So clearly it's not just gay people who are completely mad...

It was lovely to wake up with someone in my bed, even if we were both a bit hungover and worse for wear. I'm back in bed now and it still smells of him, which is an odd sensation for me, but not an unpleasant one!

And of course I got him a Christmas gift. I'd want to get him some nice pants, because he has a thing for them and certainly looks great in them, but I thought it might give the game away to his boyfriend as friends don't really buy each other pants do they. So instead I got him a Kate Bush mug (he's a huge fan) and a c*ck ring. Oh.

So it was great. Less mad than I expected. And definitely something I want to repeat. He's keen too. Who'd have thought it. And yet nothing surprises me about gay men any more!