In five years time...

Tonight I went to see a band, Noah and the Whale, at a venue called the Cockpit that I haven't been to for about eight years. But it was a place where I spent a lot of time in the past. In the mid 1990s I used to go to a club night there most weekends where I dressed up in little 60s dresses and lots of black eyeliner and danced to indie and brilliant 60s stuff like the Small Faces and the Yardbirds. I used to leave about 3:20 in the morning to catch the train back to York and would snigger loudly at Shed Seven (almost always on the same train) going on about their negotiations with Sony.

Some of my best 'ooh, I've met them' moments happened at the Cockpit. One night a friend and I went to see Super Furry Animals there and on the way along the street to get chips afterwards a tour bus screeched to a halt and the support band, The Diggers, invited us along to a party at the Marriott hotel. The details of the party are a bit sketchy now but I do remember running away from the police after the barman unwisely shut the bar without turning the pumps off...

The last time (before tonight) I was there was to see Pete Wylie, the Mighty Wah. It was round about the beginning of November 2000 and my ex and I had just come back from honeymoon. Pete signed the cd 'To _____ (me), not _____' (my ex) and thoroughly chatted me up. I lied and told Pete the song 'Sinful' had cured me from my Duran Duran fixation in the 80s. This is obviously untrue. At the time my ex was quite proud that Pete Wylie fancied his wife.

But, as this blog shows I didn't go out much after my marriage and I've not been to the Cockpit for a very long time. So it was great to go out on a school night, have a drink and see a band. A lot of the gig I spent thinking about times past until Noah and the Whale's Big Song 'Five years time' came on. And that made me think about my future. If you'd asked me this time last year what I'd be doing in five years time I would have said more of the same: working, sleeping, staying in and arguing with my ex. But now? Now, I'm interested to know, because whatever I am doing in five years time it will be very different.

Tuesday Night is Curry Night - episode 4

Tonight's blog is sponsored by Sainsbury's Tadka Dhal, Saag Paneer, Bombay potatoes and pilau, accompanied by mini-naan. It is faintly gaseous in this abode.

10 things that make us happy

Velouria is made happy by:

1. Paris - every single last thing about it, even the bad bits.
2. Cocktails, especially daiquiries
3. City lights at night
4. Stained glass windows with sun shining through
5. Stationery - much and varied
6. Big funky Orla Kiely patterns, especially on handbags.
7. Sunshine
8. Finding a pound in your pocket
9. Strictly Come Dancing
10. Having nothing to do but lie still, eat chocolate and listen to my ipod.

Rio is made happy by:

1. Inventing long and witty conversations in my head and often letting the associated thoughts show on my face, to the confusion of passers-by.
2. Putting my feet into the cold corners of the duvet
3. Staring out of the window on trains (especially in tunnels)
4. The sound of rain falling on the outside of tents in the middle of the night
5. Sudden hail storms on bright days
6. Writing, especially if I can crack out a quality pun.
7. When my son gets words wrong
8. Cheese and onion pasties
9. The smell of my own skin on warm days
10. Adventures late at night in big cities

Spot the linguist, spot the scientist.

Your turn: what makes you happy?

Tears before lunchtime

I've always considered 8 to be my lucky number. My Mum and Dad were engaged on the 8th, married on the 8th, I was born on the 8th and I started University on the 8th (not the same 8th, though). So why have I just been in tears about the 8th? Especially when today is the 19th? Because tomorrow is the 20th October 2008, and I would have been married 8 years tomorrow. In fact, I have been married 8 years tomorrow, it's just I'm not with my husband any more.

So, why - when the entire point of this blog is 'getting dumped and then getting a life' - would I be in tears at lunchtime? I'm relieved I'm not with my ex any more, our life together was really unpleasant and destructive for everyone around us, particularly our son. I am much happier than I've been for years. But, I can't help thinking back to my wedding day and thinking about how happy we were and the potential our marriage had that day. He admits that it was pretty much him who ruined it and that we could be celebrating our wedding anniversary together if he'd been able to control his demons. I was at fault, but as the hugely annoying Angel Clare once said, I was 'more sinned against than sinning'.

He's just collected our son to take him out for the afternoon and it gives me time to use the ever-cathartic power of blogging to apply some perspective to the situation. I think back to our last wedding anniversary and how dreadful that was. We went to Venice and he made the entirety of the first day phenomenally unpleasant until I was so desperate that I tried to book a flight home to get away from him. The idea of me leaving him was enough to make him behave and for the rest of the time there was peace with an underlying feeling of uneasy truce about it all. Shortly afterwards he met his new girlfriend and started making plans to leave me permanently. It wasn't a good way to be. And so, when mourning our wedding day I need to look full-square at our final anniversary together and see that being apart is for the best.

These anniversaries will fade with time and I'll cope better each year - but - and this is a big but - I realise that I need to put something fantabulous in place for New Year's Eve as that was the night he dumped me, and I'm not 'celebrating' that one with tears before bedtime.

Friends Reunited

These days the idea of not 'Social Networking' is anathema to most. Kids who absolutely loathe me whilst being taught by me seem to feel no sense of irony in requesting to be my 'friend' via Facebook. Similarly, I feel no sense of irony when I ignore their request. Facebook, in particular, has brought me closer to old friends with whom I had lost touch. Through my Facebook addiction I can keep up with their partners, their children and whether or not they are good at WordTwist. Facebook also lost me my marriage, as it was via Facebook that my ex got together with his new girlfriend. I knew something was up when my own husband (at the time) refused my friend request and kept shutting the laptop screen down quickly whenever I came in the room.

However, when I was at University in the years 1989 to 1993, our social networking was limited to writing notes on each others' doors and bumping into each other in coffee houses / bars / megabops / the all night garage and, extremely rarely, lectures. We did not text each other. We had never sent an email. We didn't arrange events on Facebook. Nobody had a landline in their flat and in the Halls of Residence 48 people or more shared one public payphone. However, even without the simplest tools of social networking the friends I made in my University days are still some of the people I hold most dear in my life.

This weekend just past some of my closest friends and I assembled in a youth hostel in the Dales for a reunion. The spurious reasoning behind the event was that on the 8th October 1989 we started University, so nearly 19 years later we are as far away from that first day as we were the minute we were born. I did the majority of the planning and I used the social networking site Facebook to create a group for the event and email out the plans.

So what did we do over the weekend? We discussed how things had changed. The world now is unrecognisable. The last time we were all together, in 1993, the Americans had invaded Iraq and the world was going into a major recession. House prices were tumbling. Inflation was rising. How things change. Back in 1993 I was resolutely single and refusing to countenance the idea of having a boyfriend and I'm right back there again. Some of us are a bit bruised and battered by child-rearing and single motherhood. Most of us are greyer. Some of us are in the major league of blogging (e.g. Highwaylass). But, as a social network we support each other and I feel that we are all the richer for our shared experiences. Facebook might have brought us back together again but the friendships stretch a long way back to the days before any friendship was digitised. All these people were in my life long before I met my ex and I hope they will still be in my life many years into the distant future, whatever social networking looks like in those days.

Tuesday Night is Curry Night - part 3

Tonight's blog is brought to you by the power of mushroom and courgette korma and a quorn tikka masala, made by Velouria's little paws. Indeed, Vee could teach you to make a graph showing the fat, protein and carbohydrate value of the dinner but that would be just frightening.

Tonight's topic: Top Guilty Pleasure Choons

Velouria's:

1. Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac
2. Umbrella - Rihanna (it's raining tonight. Blame Velouria for this)
3. Here you come again - Dolly Parton
4. Galveston - Glenn Campbell
5. Since U been gone - Kelly Clarkson
6. Toxic - Britney Spears
7. Close to You - The Carpenters
8. Rush Hour - Jane Wiedlin
9. Only You - Flying Pickets
10. Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa - Gene Pitney.

Velouria is in a contentious mood and told me that I'm not allowed to simply list out ten Duran Duran songs. I pointed out that Duran are NOT guilty pleasures, in fact they are a New Religion (see what I did there?) and hence a perfectly acceptable pleasure. Her riposte? Maybe not for you, only for the other 6 billion people on the planet. Next week her curry will be accompanied by the gentle sounds of Natasha Bedingfield in revenge.

Rio's:

1. Final Countdown - Europe
2. Living on a Prayer - Bon Jovi
3. Maneater - Hall and Oates
4. Never Gonna Give you Up - Rick Astley (I'm not Rickrolling, I've always loved him)
5. The Frog Chorus - Paul McCartney
6. Too Shy - Kajagoogoo
7. Gold - Spandau Ballet (as a Duranie I am not supposed to like der Ballet)
8. Time of my Life - Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes
9. Islands in the Stream - Dolly'n'Kenny
10. Fame - The Kids from Fame

Your turn: which songs get you up on the dancefloor, howling like an over-excitable banshee? You can post anonymously but Velouria and I will just check where you posted from and work out who you are.

Tuesday night is Curry Night - no 2

As promised, tonight's Curry Night is brought to you by saag aloo, vegetable dhansak, mushroom pilau, paneer saag and huge naan. Velouria is prone on the sofa nursing what can only be described as a curry pregnancy.

Here's tonight's list: Those That We Shouldn't But We Would.

We tried to find an online Venn diagram generator to show where we both agree but failed miserably.

Velouria and Rio both would:

1. Gene Hunt, with him wearing his camel coat throughout
2. Paulie Bleeker, wearing the headband throughout
3. Reece Shearsmith, but not as Edward. Because that's just a bit too wrong.
4. Stuart Maconie despite being from 'the other side' (in unison we both howled 'especially with all those records'. Frankly, we're little short of vinyl whores).
5. Louis Theroux despite being far too posh

Velouria would, but Rio wouldn't:

1. Mark Lamarr (rude, clever and funny)
2. Justin Lee Collins (hairy and funny)
3. Dylan Moran (dirty and funny)
4. Eric Cantona (rude, French and fit)
5. Uma Thurman (fit)

Rio would, but Velouria wouldn't:

1. Jarvis Cocker, particularly in the 'Help the Aged' period.
2. The entire DIY SOS team, starting with Nick Knowles, working through everyone else (except for Billy) and finishing up on Nick Knowles again.
3. Simon Amstell (I don't care that he's gay)
4. Matthew Collins (despite the fact he looks exactly like my ex)
5. Madonna in the 'Like a Virgin' period (I don't care that I'm not gay)

Best rudery of the evening: 'Ray Mears, because he'd look after me in the forest and be up for a bit of bushcraft'. Blame Velouria, not me.

Next week: Guilty Pleasure Choons and Velouria is making curry (with ready-made sauce).

Your turn: feel the love. On whom do you have a wholly inappropriate and quite queasy crush? Post anonymously.