I am a fuckwit because I get nervous about admitting that I’m happy . It’s as though, if I actually say the words aloud, it will somehow draw my happiness to the attention of some mystical being who has a really twattish grudge against me (probably because a) my hair’s way fucking cooler than theirs and b) I don’t believe in their existence) and that they will somehow reap vengeance upon me by turning things to shit.

I’m not a pessimist or anything, quite the opposite. It does, however, seem that I have an innate ability to worry. In an ideal world, this would mean that I was always annoyingly skinny. Living life on my nerves and all that jazz; but life, even when it’s brilliant, is just not that kind. Worrying makes me fatter. I don’t need to be any fatter. In fact I’m trying to get less fat, so there’s reason No.2 to stop the worrying about being happy.

Sometimes though, I give myself a swift (metaphorical) kick in the nads and tell myself to stop being such a cockweasel, and just be glad for what I’ve got. And I am. Annoyingly so, probably. I could pretend I was sorry about that, but frankly I’m too busy doing the Happy Dance to worry about people being annoyed about my big, ridiculous, smiley face.

So there you go. I’ve said it. I am happy.

(Rumours that I am currently partaking of several, farcical, surperstitious, “luck bringing” activities are totally unfounded by the way

The boy, the roof garden, the view & the moon

And oh yeah, I’m blogging again & shit.

So here you go; some random information about yours truly. Whether you wanted to know it, or not.

Your most marked characteristic? Well it kind of has to be my hair really doesn’t it?! That or my “slight” mischievous streak.

The quality you most like in a man? Aside from the obvious, I’d say the ability to make me laugh until my face hurts.

The quality you most like in a woman? The ability to be ambitious & successful without becoming a bitch & having to put other women down. Sadly a rare one.

What do you value most in your friends? Loyalty, acceptance & a never ending ability to make mischief with me.

What is your principle defect? My incessant ability to undermine my own self confidence

What is your favourite occupation? Sex.

What is your dream of happiness? A cottage in the highlands somewhere, an open fire, aran knitwear, red wine, someone special, a dog to walk & a crisp, wintery day outside.

What to your mind would be the greatest misfortunes? Never risking getting your heartbroken. The benefits far outweigh the risks, so why hold back?

What would you like to be? Queen of the World. Failing that, happy (in whatever form it comes).

In what country would you like to live? I only got here 18 months ago & right now, there’s nowhere else I want to be.

What is your favourite colour? Yves Klein Blue

What is your favourite flower? Hot pink peonies or irises

What is your favourite bird? Going to have to pick two. From the sublime, Peregrine Falcon as I think birds of prey are magnificent to watch; something quite magical. And then there’s the Kakapo Parrot, because it’s a bit mental & hugely adorable

Who are your favourite writers? P. G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Stephen Fry,

Who are your favourite poets? Wilfred Owen. Not for Dulce et Decorum est, although it’s brilliant, but for Anthem for Doomed Youth & Greater Love. My two favourite poems ever.

Who is your favourite hero of fiction? Jeeves

Who are your favourite heroine of fiction? Wonder Woman

Who are your favourite composers? Cole Porter, Bert Bacharach & S.A.W

Who are your favourite painters? LS Lowry. And Eolai

Who are your heroes in real life? My Mum

Who are your favourite heroines of history? Elizabeth 1, Boudica

What are your favourite names? Andrew, Vena, Colette, Caroline, Nicola, Jess, Lisa, Jo, Alison, Sharon, Dan, Alan – family & close friends. To me their names are associated with nothing but great things.

What is it you most dislike? Pineapples. But on a less trivial note, people who are sneaky.

What historical figures do you most despise? Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, George W Bush, Ariel Sharon… hard to really despise the ones you don’t see fuck people over, first hand.

What event in military history do you most admire? The Christmas Truce

What reform do you most admire? Suffrage

What natural gift would you most like to possess? To be able to sing the way I think I can when I’m singing in the car/shower

How would you like to die? In a blaze of glory… if blaze of glory means in my sleep when I’m about 90-odd.

What is your present state of mind? Optimistic

To what faults do you feel most indulgent? Attention seeking, cynicism & cowardice.

What is your motto? Expect the best, be prepared for the worst, fuck what others think & do your own thing.

So, who am I going to tag? The lovely Sinéad, who tagged me in the last one

I always think you shouldn’t regret what you’ve done, but rather, what you didn’t do. It doesn’t always work like that though really. I have a few of both sorts.

Some of the things that I regret:

• Not walking out of a job when it was sucking the life out of me a few years ago
• Rolling my eyes whenever my sister tripped up or knocked a drink over*
• Watching Wedding Daze – 2 hours of my life I’ll never get back
• Simon
• Letting my insecurities get the better of me

Here’s some of the things I could, and very possibly should, regret, but don’t in any way, shape or form:

• Giving several years of my life to a man who was too ill to give me enough back
• Flashing a cab in Manchester just to prove that my boobs could stop traffic (I was 21, drunk, don’t like to lose a bet & they stayed in-bra!)
• Getting my tattoo
• Buying a house and then deciding to move to Dublin only 5 weeks after I moved into it
• Telling it straight. I can’t do it any other way; just doesn’t feel natural

Even the things I do regret I wouldn’t change. Like I said they made me who I am.

*My sister was diagnosed with an eye condition in 2007 that explained why she was doing all of those things

Nothing out of the ordinary there, but what was interesting, to me at least, and quite reassuring was that it wasn’t just other women defending a girl’s right to curves, but quite a few blokes too.

Now, the conversation wasn’t anything particularly revolutionary; the standard, woman wanting to be a little bit smaller than she is, stuff really. But men seemed to be genuinely at pains to point out that “thin” is not necessary, with real concern that we would go too far or that we were dieting when we really didn’t need to.

I would hardly describe myself as thin though and I don’t aspire to it. Don’t get me wrong I’m not Wanda either though. I’d just like to tighten up a few of the er, wobblier bits of me & lose a bit of my tummy… and don’t get me started on the boobs, though I could diet myself to nothing and I’m pretty sure they’d still be there, taking over the world!

It got me to thinking though – who are we dieting for? I tend to notice that it’s primarily my single girlfriends that are most conscious about their weight. So is it a case of slimming down to attract a bloke? But what happens after you’ve got one? You pile on the pounds once he’s too involved? Hardly seems fair really. False advertising, if you will.

Are we doing it for each other’s approval? Heaven knows we all notice when a friend’s put on a few pounds or even if she’s looking a bit on the skinny side.

Are we doing it for our colleagues? It’s a bit of a taboo thing to say, but you don’t tend to see many really fat women at the top of the corporate ladder do you? The same can’t really be said for the blokes however.

Well, I don’t have the answers. It’s probably a combination of all of the above and a multitude of other reasons to be honest. All I know is that I’m doing it for myself really. If a bloke doesn’t fancy me because I weigh a little more than I’m happy with or my friends don’t approve of how I’m looking, or a potential employer doesn’t think I’m slim enough to catch a client’s eye then frankly they can all fuck off.

The thing is, I fundamentally like who I am and am really happy with, er, me. Yes, there are things I’d like to change and ways I think I can improve, but these go beyond the existence of my love handles. I’m not ashamed to say it, but I have curves and I love them (I even toyed with the idea of going all Dove campaign on myself & putting a pic on here, but chickened out!). And I like to think I know how to work them when the need arises. I feel way sexier now I have a few curves on me than I did when I was a skinny whippet, that’s for sure.

Which brings me back to the response of the men on Twitter who engaged in the debate. Lads, you’re a breath of fresh air! I’ve always believed that men like a girl who’s got a little junk in her trunk and it’s nice to hear a few of you come out and say as much.

Maybe the Sunday Times was right and we’re seeing the “Return of the Sex Bomb” and with it more acceptance of curves etc. Who knows? But if I was a bloke, or even a lady-loving girl, I certainly know which of the girls below I’d be going for…

The frail girl who'll snap if things get too boisterous

The one who'd encourage boisterousness because tousled looks good

I have been on precisely two dates in my entire life; one because I felt mean turning someone down when I was in 6th form and the second about 2 years ago as a “training date” to get myself “back into the game” after breaking up with a VERY long term boyfriend. The rest of the time I’ve just met people, hung out with them and either got it together or not. Standard.

Anyway, I’ve been single for a decent while now and naturally my thoughts occasionally turn to the idea of, well, not being single. Unsurprisingly my friends and I discuss all of this kind of stuff; comparing notes on the boys we meet, sex we have, dramas that unfold, heartbreaks, disastrous dates and all that jazz. There’s not a lot we don’t tell each other really.

Some of my friends have been single longer than me and are pretty keen to find a bloke, some are more laid back about it, but on the whole they are all  a LOT more pro-active than I am about finding a “significant other” (there’s a fair chance this post will be littered with wanky phrases like that by the way).

They’ve all given the whole, speed-dating, online-dating, blind-dating thing a whirl with more than a few cautionary tales to share as a result. Only a couple of months ago 5/6 of my closest girlfriends were all giving the online dating thing a whirl; the other one in a new relationship, so had suspended her membership. All of them were telling me to do the same and were fairly shocked at my outright rejection of the idea.

The problem I have with the notion of online dating is many-layered.

To begin with, for me there’s something inherently unattractive about a bloke who puts himself on a site like that. I’m aware that this is a huge prejudice and in no way grounded in fact – some of my very good male friends have been online dating, and with a modicum of success. Each of them is also definitely on the above average side of attractiveness too. However, I can’t help feeling it’s not a very masculine thing to do (my male friends aside obviously! ).

Plus, I think it’s cheesy, like super-naff. Pre-tinterwebz I wouldn’t have gone to a dating agency either and I don’t really see the difference. Less of the awkward interviews with agency people & cringy video making perhaps, but still, not good.

I am also incredibly cynical (though not quite as much as the hilarious Camiknickers just yet) and am not really great at judging tone when it’s written by someone I don’t know very well. I’d veer from feeling hugely creeped out to thinking I was having the piss taken out of me.

The final reason is that I’m just not that bothered. I don’t believe in “looking” for someone. I’d rather just let nature take its course. People also, largely seem to think you either have to be single or in a relationship, with no middle ground, which fucking TERRIFIES me!

This is where, perhaps, the American dating culture has it right – what’s wrong with going with the flow and just seeing where life/love/lust takes you? Surely if you meet “the one” (wanky phrase no. 2) or even “the one you like most for know” (wanky phrase no. 3) then you’ll simply forego the other people you’ve been seeing; but until that happens, you can just see who you meet & want to spend time with, and hopefully have a hell of a lot of fun along the way. That’s my plan anyway.

Now, just to figure out how to do it without the whole, awkward dating element :-/

Rather than post about it all here (as I don’t want to taint the hard work they’ve done with the trivial, slightly off-kilter content of my little bog), I passed the info on to a friend with a marketing blog of their own.

However, I was really moved by the passion that the guys at Barnardo’s showed last week when they were telling us all about the objective of the campaign & the issues that they’re facing -- namely sending out an appeal for fundraising because they have a huge shortfall in funds, which is threatening the survival of their projects, right across the country.

They’ve produced a really moving TV commercial with fantastic soundtrack by James Vincent McMorrow -- beautiful and compelling, but I’ll agree with points made by a few others, that it could do with a much more direct call-to-action.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FakvjuJWOLs

I was however, really affected to hear that all of the scenarios featured in the short film are based upon real cases, especially when the guys at Barnardo’s expanded upon the individual stories. So when the lovely, and very chatty, Ruth offered to allow us to accompany a project worker on a visit to one of their projects and really see the great work that they do, I jumped at the chance.

I can’t help solve the funding deficit that they are facing, but if by going along I can somehow help someone a little bit, or even just get a bit more information, then I’m more than happy to do it.

I’ve not been along yet, and I’m a teeny bit apprehensive about it all, but I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

In the meantime, if you’ve got a bit of spare cash, please consider supporting the guys at Barnardo’s. Thanks

Don’t get me wrong, this is a good thing. Having a little network of really close pals is great. However, it’s tricky when they mainly live in another country. It can get a bit lonely when the people you’re used to sharing stuff with with – laughs, adventures, heartaches, scandals etc – aren’t mere minutes away.

I’ve been in Ireland just short of 18 months now and in that time I’ve met loads of really fantastic people. It’s true what they say (whoever “they” are, and “they” tend to say an awful lot)… but yes, it’s true what they say about the Irish being very friendly. Indeed, the vast majority of people you meet really are very friendly; interested in why you moved here, how you’re settling in, what you think of it all so far etc. And there it ends.

Where it’s quite tricky is making the step change from someone who knows lots of friendly people, to someone who’s built up a network of lovely friends, including some of the really close variety (not that kind of close, dirty mind!)

For me this takes a bit of time. People don’t tend to know quite what to make of me when they meet me initially. I kind of stick out like a sore thumb for starters; I’ve never been very good at blending into the background. I don’t really look like most girls, I don’t talk like most girls (largely because I swear like a navvy!), I’m not particularly subtle (to look at or to listen to) and am generally a bit “different”. All of this can mean that I also seem to be unapproachable and a bit intimidating at times apparently.

The odd thing is that yes, while I appear to be all of these things, I’m also a  massive jumble of contradictions. Not in my opinions and the like, but in other ways.

So while I’m the loud, pint swilling, non-PC, potty-mouthed, joke cracking seemingly confident girl in the room, I’m also quite shy, self-conscious and bizarrely somewhat timid. I’ll happily be the performing monkey in a situation and make everyone laugh, because fuck it, I’m funny But it always shocks me when people realise that I’m quite shy underneath it all. I always think it’s incredibly obvious.

So, because of all of this, and no doubt a myriad of other factors, I don’t tend to make really good friends very easily. I don’t let a lot of people in you see, to get to know the real me.

But then every now and then I meet someone who just gets me. Who thinks I’m fun and funny, interesting and good company, yet sees the other sides to me and accepts them too. And in turn lets me get to know them a bit better as well.

Recently I’ve made two very, very good friends and I love them to bits. They’re as silly as I am which is a real bonus, but they also “get” the real me.

Which is why we get drunk & I let them do stuff like this to me…

Thanks boys. Love you loads! Mwah!

Not sure what’s up with me of late, but I’m feeling a bit out of sorts. Like I’m walking around in a bubble. I can see everything that’s going on but feel like I’m watching it all through a slight haze & can’t quite get myself fully involved.

I'm a bubble girl, in a bubble world, Life in plastic, it's... er, a little disorientating actually

There’ve been a fair amount of ups & downs going on in Curlydena World of late which have all factored into create this feeling: upheaval at work, tonsilitis the other week and then a mad dash back to Manchester on Sunday for a couple of days for a bit of a family emergency & several long hours sitting in a hospital & generally just fretting a lot, and then back on the ferry to Dublin in time to be in work on Wednesday.

So, now I’m left feeling like I’m permanently zorbing, but without any of the fun, giddy “ooh, wahey, look at me, I’m running around in a giant bubble” goodness.

I’m sure I’ll shake it off soon enough. Probably after a weekend of lie-ins, red wine, Mad Men, Scorcese films, Mock the Week & more red wine. Sounds like a plan to me.

And if nothing changes and I still have this bizarre bubble around me, then I guess I’ll just have to look on the bright side, and realise that now at least I can be my usual clumsy self but without the risk of quite so much injury and less regular bruises about my person – I often have the knees of a 9 year old who’s no good at hopscotch combined with the shins of a footballer who forgot to wear shinpads when playing against Roy Keane circa 1997. Not the most attractive feature on a girl of, ahem, 30… I mean twenty-something*.

Got to look for the silver lining after all

* I know, I know, I don’t look it.

I’ve got my own thoughts about God(s), Religion and the like. Mainly that I’m about as Godless as they come. But I respect people’s right to their Faith, whichever denomination they chose to affiliate themselves with. Me, I’m in “The Church of Making the Most of Now as it Could All Be Over Tomorrow”.

But I remembered this poem last night, one that I always really liked. Partially because like me Philip Larkin, was a cynic which lead to becoming an atheist. And party because even though I’m a non-believer I, like Mr Larkin can appreciate the allure of the symbolism found in a church and Man’s need to seek answers to the “serious” questions.

Whether you’re a believer or not, it’s a poem that can get a person thinking anyway.

Once I am sure there’s nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new-
Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don’t.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
“Here endeth” much more loudly than I’d meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognizable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation — marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these — for whom was built
This special shell? For, though I’ve no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

via ffffound.com

There’s something really lovely about this thought. What with the “current economic climate” and the rest of the bollocks that’s going on out there; the ups & downs of love (not the ins & outs, that’s just lust), and the endless opportunities for worry and stress that the world holds.

As a cab driver wisely reminded me last week, it’s all too easy to worry about the future and completely forget to enjoy or even experience the now.

When you think about it all though, you don’t know what’s around the corner. (unless you’re some kind of psychic, but then even I know what’s around the corner for you my dear – care in the community!) Who knows what the future will bring? Could be utter shite, but it could also be fucking awesome… and if you’re really lucky, some awesome fucking.

The only thing you can count on is that the sun will set on today, and will rise on tomorrow. So don’t sweat it. What will be, will be. I  like the idea that the future is unknown… plenty to look forward to!