Day 126 – A journalistic rite of passage
This is the longest time I have worn a dress this year whilst still staying conscious. It is 6am and I have just got back from covering the count of the county. It is strange to think that this time last year I was doing my best to stay awake during public affairs lectures and now I am doing my best to stay awake during public affairs in practice. I am rather worried about all of the ways I could mess this up; telling the candidates what I really think about their policies; letting slip who I voted for at the polls or accidentally tweeting out the wrong winner.
After watching the alternative election night for a couple of hours I make my dress more conservative by removing my pink belt and bright pink shoes and powdering up my nose. I deliberately chose this dress after carefully checking that none of the parties in the area have chosen pink, grey, black and white as their official colours. It is a good job as when we get there I give a mini interview to each of the three candidates which we upload to our site as soon as possible.
I know it sounds silly but after the third interview I am beginning to feel like quite the little journalist and I reward myself with the worst cup of coffee in the world. It is however two in the morning and the lady served it with a smile so I resist the urge to gag and swallow down the sweet caffeine goodness hoping it will keep me going for at least another hour. 
I slip into the bar to take a look at the swing and am met with the ends of an argument between a Tory and a Labour supporter. As I silently watch the swing I find myself hoping the spat will get going again as I am starting to drift off and can think of nothing better to get me going than a fight between the left and the right. I am just about to send a tweet to my followers asking them who they think would win in a fight between the reds and the blues when the coffee kicks in and I remember that this is the kind of tweet which could get one in trouble. Hurrah I think, I am a sensible journalist with good coffee powered instincts.
We are sharing our media table with the Leicester Mercury, BBC radio Leicester and Harborough FM. Though we are all technically competitors there is a great little buzz in our corner and we all speculate over who will be the next leader. Harborough FM in particular are a great crowd. They are funny, happy to share their electrics and when the BBC lady breaks her microphone their engineer kindly steps in to sort her out.
It is gone half four before the rumours start to fly about who has taken the seat and it all becomes very exciting. We have councillors and politicians flock round the table to give us their take on who is going to win and I even try to do my own little assessment by sneaking round the voting tables trying to take a count. 
Mathematics has unfortunately never been my strong point and trying to look subtle whilst keeping count is a bit of a nightmare and in the end I skulk back to the table to have a biscuit and look at the results which are now coming in quick from other counts across the country. I have a biscuit, which was given to us by one of the Liberal Democrats wondering but not really caring whether chocolate constitutes a bribe.
One of the candidates comes over to our table at one point and asks me when I will be submitting my work. I give him a bit of a death stare and asked him what exactly he was implying. ”For the university, you are a student aren’t you?” Perhaps in usual circumstances I may have been flattered by his mistake, but it is 4am in the morning and I am not at all amused. Fixing him with a look of finely veiled fury, I ask him whether he perhaps is referring to my paper? He is a little embarrassed and mutters something about all young girls looking the same. I force myself to breath, I am a professional after all and filing the comment in my things not to forget file I smile sweetly and excusing myself head to the ladies room where I line my eyes and try to adapt a more hardly look. Where are those bloody wrinkles when one needs them? 
At half five the candidates are called forwards to the stage and the winner is announced. There is a flurry of activity; cameras flash, phones ring and the BBC lady takes to the microphone during the Labour candidates speech near drowning the poor lad out. I lurch forward to grab a word with each of the candidates about how they feel while my colleague finishes filing the story. It is all very exciting and when I speak to the candidates who have lost there is a little bit of me that wants to give them a consoling cuddle, but I fear this would be slightly beyond the boundaries of my role and may lead to me being black listed from future elections or jobs generally.
As we step out into the parking lot all but three of the cars have gone and though I am so close to tears from tiredness I feel really rather proud to have been a part of this night. I had wondered whether it was a good idea for me to go earlier on in the day but if I hadn’t I get the feeling that I would have regretted it for the rest of my life. No matter what anyone says about our political system, we have a vote and a choice and a quarter of a century ago for many men and women in the land, this wasn’t the case. Being a part of a night like this, being able to report on it live back to anyone who may still be awake and watching feels a little bit magical but that might well be the coffee and the sleep deprivation talking.
- The dress I am wearing today was another donation from the mystery lady, or maybe the mystery man? It is originally from Select and luckily before I left for the count I noticed my cleavage was just a little too much on display. I covered it up and tried to make it prim and proper with a pair of sensible green courts and a vest to keep everything under wraps.
Day 90 – A sad day for shoes
Today has been a sad day for footwear. Back when I was a a 23-year-old with the world at my feet and a job as an events manager which paid a tidy little sum my main outgoing other than restaurant bills and bar tabs was shoes, I was obsessed with them. For the first time in my life since I was 18 I was totally debt free. Out of my monthly salary after all bills were paid I still had an indecent amount left over to spend on myself. Though I smoked and had a fondness for Marks & Spencer sushi and sausage and onion cobs every Friday when I was too hangover to use the phone, I had no children, no mortgage and no monthly car insurance or pension payments. I was young, free, practically single and absolutely loving the independence of it all.
The boy was living a hand to mouth existence as he was still studying for his music degree but I was free to fund our outings and as one of the girlfriend of Manchester’s hardest working band I got to play the part nearly every weekend; we would all hangout backstage drinking down the riders, dragging on rolled up cigarettes and generally just hanging out feeling ever so slightly like the cool kids.
At the time I guess I knew the life we were living would not last forever. I was having a hell of a good time but work was taking its toll on my health and I’d dropped down to my smallest size since I’d had a minor eating disorder back when I was 18. I remember looking at my bank statement and feeling sad at how little I had to show for all the brilliant nights out and evenings just spent drinking red wine round a rickety table listening to music and playing cards in between musing upon our dreams for the future.
Other than Sylvanian Families I had never really felt the desire to collect anything. My sisters had their key-rings, their badges and even at one stage their dice and my brother had the monopoly on every phase and craze out there including Thomas The Tank Engines, Thunderbirds, Power Rangers and even at one stage care bears which was extraordinarily cute. It was when I realised I was spending much of my money on momentary pleasure products that I decided to start a collection and as I had no particular interest at the time in tea cups I decided I would collect shoes. As my regular readers know I am a slave to Kurt Geiger. The shoes they make are so well balanced you can stamp around in a pair of stilettos for sixteen hours straight without feeling an ache. They are creative, original and considering how well they last lusciously priced.
This then brings us to today’s dilemma. There is a man in Market Harborough, his name is Andy but I have always known him as the saviour of shoes. Many times I have brought him a forlorn pair at the end of their life and he has carefully restored them to beauty. One time he managed to restore my red or dead spike heeled stiletto ankle boots to spanking brand new in spite of me having ground the five inch heel to a mere three inches after a weekend in Liverpool visiting a friend where we danced till we dropped to sleep in his dorm just before dawn. Today Andy very kindly explained to me there was sadly nothing he could do for two of my favourite pairs.
One of them was the first pair of pricey shoes I had ever purchased. Brought in my lunch break from Berties at Kendall they were soft white leather with five inch thick wooden heels. Generally I believe white shoes should be saved till ones wedding day and even then they should be hidden and if possible cream but these were divine. Unfortunately as I tend to run in heels as well as walk whilst racing to get the bus back to see the boy after an after work drink my heel snapped on Deansgate. It was humiliating and I actually sat down and cried. I hadn’t even had any hooch but I was just so sad for my poor innocent shoe. Andy said it could be saved in an expensive operation but the job would have to be sourced out and the operators may well break the wood in the process.
The other pair are of the Kurt Geiger variety. I bought them foolishly after getting made redundant from Webb PR a month before Christmas. I was a little heart broken about losing the job and in a fine example of someone who had temporarily given leave to their senses and indeed their financial situation I sneaked away on a Christmas shopping trip with the boy, and bought three pairs of shoes in the sale. Admittedly they should have cost £400 and came to just £120 but still I had just been made redundant and with no job on the horizon it was a foolish mistake. I guess I have never regretted it because today, 15 months after the fact, I still have the shoes and they are still stunning. Unfortunately one of them, a pair of mustard yellow t-bar three inch heels was mortally injured back in May. I was chasing a story at the time and as I tore down the road the pin snapped and I had to traipse around on tippy toes the rest of the day. Andy says there is no hope for them and though I know I should consign them to the bin they are just too lovely, perhaps at some time in the future there will be better technology for such injured shoes? I live in hope.
- Today’s dress is from the wonderful Rebecca Allison. She sent this in a lovely package from the states and as well as a pair of earrings there was a beautifully written letter. I realise the dress comes up a little short on me but I hope you will not take too much of a hump at me modifying it for the workplace by pairing it with the skin tight Lycra number from Zara sent by the lovely Clara, believe me it is to protect your eyes from a legging lovely sight. Again if you do get the chance take a little look at her website. It is a fabulous way to start ones day and has given me goosebumps in the past with the sheer poetry of her posts. http://solsticetosolsticetosolstice.tumblr.com/
Day 85 – Dressing for the work place
Starting a new job can be quite tricky, particularly when one has been out of the work place for a while. One of the hardest things about it is the need to give off a good impression from the start. Usually I would attempt to give my confidence a bit of a lift by choosing sharp tailoring to create a look which is cool and collected. With office suitable dresses at a low however, my look this week has largely been pulled together from the depths of the closet and then customised for work with blazers, safety pins, suit jackets, slips and even a couple of conservative clogs.
Today though I woke up late and as a result I have looked a bit of a mess. It is pathetic to be this tired after just three days of a working week but it has really taken it out of me. Like the rest of the great unemployed, I have become accustomed to lie ins and control of my own body clock. Suddenly being governed then by a piece of irritating plastic which insists I answer its impertinent morning quiz about whether I wish to snooze or stop has left me rather irritable. 
This morning was worse because I stayed up late last night trying to update the blog. I feel guilty about allowing it to get so far behind but though I am determined to crack the metaphorical brick standing in the way of my creative prose I can not and all I could do was retype an introduction thirty times before consigning the whole thing to history.
I finally got up at 8.20 this morning but as my eyes were 75 per cent closed it was difficult to force any urgency into proceedings. I finally managed to find myself a frock which looked acceptable for the office; unfortunately though once I had pulled it over my head I noticed it was missing sleeves so spent 15 minutes running frantically from room to room desperately seeking some kind of smart shirt to make it look less like beach-wear. In the end I went with this white top from mothers past at the insistence of the present day Mummy who had begun to shout at me whilst I attempted to covertly raid her room that I should “just pick something would you and get out of here, you are late.” She had a point. The clock was ticking and so grabbing another ancient blazer and pulling a brush through my hair I tripped down the town at speed and somehow managed to make it in time.
Skiing fatigue has meant my brain and body are both competing with one another to get back into the correct gear. I do not mind my body taking a bit of a hit but my mind is suffering and I am terrified about my work being poor. The other day after confessing to a friend I was finding things a bit of a struggle she suggested I get back in touch with my old councillor. I agree with her, I really need someone who I can talk to who is rational and objective and who bless their hearts is at least getting paid to hear me whine like a child. I do try to sort through my own thoughts and stop the negative ones but it is not always as easy as the CBT crew make it sound. Negative thoughts creep into ones head when one is looking elsewhere; they are persuasive and can grip hold of you in mere minutes. If you are unable to rationalise them or prevent them from ploughing further into your conscience they can reduce one to tears with no warning other than a sudden jolt of sadness.
I feel bad about myself today. I do not know why but everything I have done seems sub standard to me. The blog is getting behind, my creativity seems to have dried up and to be honest I am unhappy with my arms. There are so many things I need to get done but at the moment when I get home in the evening all I want to do is sleep and vent a little of the tears I have held at bay during the day. I know I am being pathetic and that things will get easier soon but I just wish it could be sooner. I have enjoyed the week but I think I underestimated how out of practice I have become. For my own sake I need to get back on top of my shorthand, pa knowledge and even just remembering how to turn a story round in half an hour once all the facts and quotes have been gathered. I am sure I will get there, this is my dream after all, I will just have to remember that this is the reality and if I want to get good fast I will have to make sure my feet are on the ground and my head is out the clouds. I know I need to stay strong and be an independent woman but it is times of stresses like these that I find myself wishing the NHS had more schemes in place to support people in times of need.
- Today’s dress is another from HC. It is French Connection, black and of the bandeau style. I would really liked to have saved it for the beach as it would be the perfect dress to pull on after a surf as it is cotton and a great loose fit which still makes sure one has curvy bits in all the right places. Oddly enough the top is also French Connection but is at least 26 -years-old. It has lasted incredibly well considering. I used to wear it with faded jeans and pretty nude leather flip flops with a skin coloured slip underneath in the days before my stupid breasts decided to get bigger making tops like this a near impossibility on their own. The boots are Kurt Geiger and with a purple blazer I just about pulled it off for work.
Day 82 – Distressed of Market Harborough
Today will be my last day as a freelance writer. As of tomorrow I will have a real life proper job, this for me is very exciting but also fairly nerve racking. Aside from brief instances of work experience it has been a year since I have held a full time office role. I am excited but I am incredibly nervous. thanks to difficult-jet flights and French strikes we arrived back home closer to midnight than I would like.
I have been practising my tee-line and reading my Harold Evans how to write like a journalist I am terrified I have forgotten how to write in a news style. As my regular readers know my writing tends to be rather verbose and in news it writing it is so important to be concise and one should be able to understand the who, what, where, why and when of any story preferably within the first paragraph.
When I started studying for my NCTJ I nearly quit on the third day. Although I loved every second of it my peers were an exceptionally clever crew; we had journalists there who had worked on papers in Pakistan and San Diego or at least had a stint on their student newspaper. Though I had written for a women’s magazine at Manchester University my experience of actual reporting was limited to a weeks work experience at the Harborough Mail and I was convinced they had made a mistake in giving me a place on the course. Thankfully my tutor refused my resignation and instead gifted me with a copy of Harold Evans and told me to make sure it stuck out my handbag the next day at my placement.
I had the pleasure of sharing every emotional experience of the course with my good friend Kathryn. She had come over from Ireland to study and as well as being a gymnastic coach and press officer for Northern Ireland she had already had a front page in the Irish daily papers. I was totally in awe of her, she wrote news and fast and I wrote features with flowery prose and excessive metaphor. The course would shape us into real life reporters who could write both but at the beginning we bumbled along together, working into the night to get our tee-line right and sharing a DVD and a bottle of red after days where the pressure had felt too much.
I have always been a Sunday Times girl of the weekend and a Guardian fan during the week. I was a conservative liberal and loved the G2 section and lost in showbiz columns plus the crossword was actually doable for someone with as little general knowledge as myself. When I got my first newspaper writing exam one of our tutors whilst talking it over with me said I was a natural features writer and said my stories read like they were from The Independent. I was grinning away at this praise until she pointed out that to be a journalist I needed to write as concisely and clearly as The Express.
She told me once I was able to write in a news style I would be able to write anything but I had to lose the flowery lengthly introductions and the tongue in cheek phrases and just focus on getting the message across in as few a words as possible.
In Harold Evans book, a bible of all journalists, he says one should be able to edit the Times to be The Sun and The Sun to be The Times. The subs on the Sun are second to none and they consistently deliver headlines and opening paragraphs which grab the reader hook line and sinker. It takes more skill as I soon found out to write a 15 word intro which grabs the reader and gets the main news across than it does to write a 30 word introduction which still leaves you unclear if the article is about a recent explosion or an unusually placed front page gardening piece. For example: ”As the northerly wind blew across the dust plains of war torn …. a singular bluebell fluttered its petals as it peeked its head through the everlasting earth.” I love the style of these sorts of introductions but on the front page of a news story one really must get to the point.
This then is why I am afraid about tomorrow. For the last three months I have been free to choose whatever written style suited my chosen prose for the day. 
I have rejoiced in the freedom of one day writing an essay about culture and sexuality and a scathing attack on the Ugg-allys the next with no instruction apart from itnternal inspiration or triggers of memory. From tomorrow I will be returning to news-style and though I love to find a story and write it in such a way it will jump out from a page of newsprint I am afraid of how I will do after so long away from the newsroom. I guess only tomorrow will tell but in all honesty I’m scared as hell.
- Today’s dress is on loan from my sister. It has been great fun hanging out with her during the holiday and I’m going to miss her being around now we’re back in the UK.
Day 71 – Dreams really do come true
Although today was meant to be another post in the women’s series something magical happened today which warrants pushing back part three in the series to another day. Considering how the day started, the way it ended seems on reflection darn near unbelievable. Though I am anxious to blurt out the good news like a prophet on a podium I must be patient and remember that every good story has a beginning and so at the start of the day we shall begin.
I usually find Fridays to be a bit of a struggle. It is presumably because unlike the majority of the world’s population it does not signal an end to my working week, it is just another day in my ongoing unemployment. Admittedly there are some advantages to being unemployed such as having big bubble baths every morning, waking up whenever one wants and being free to blog to my heart’s content. In spite of this however the one major thing that is lacking when one is unemployed is the constant company. When I worked in an office I used to love the midday chatter, the small talk about what one did at the weekend and what one was planning to do for the next. 
I had people to talk with about the scandals in the tabloids and even found fellow lovers of X Factor and other wonderfully trashy TV shows. As a freelancer with an emphasis on the free, I miss out not just on the infamous pay-day delight but also the loveliness of work-mates with whom one has a common purpose.
Although I woke up this morning to find myself feeling the same old Friday blues I decided to force myself out of bed, swallow down the sadness and take a trip to town. It is the boy’s birthday tomorrow and I wouldn’t forgive myself if I failed to get him a present just because I was fed up. 
Having decided that what I needed was a bit of a background buzz to aid me in my work I headed over to Fuel Cafe where the internet is free, the eggs are free range and the coffee they serve is the best in Southern Manchester. The bar staff are all very lovely and they have no problem with people spending the day there thinking away so long as they purchase a pot of tea to aid their musings.
In an attempt to cheer myself up I straightened my hair (it bounced back) put on some nice make up and even ex-foliated and moisturised myself like a lady of leisure before pulling myself into this delightfully peacock patterned, silky material H&M dress. It is gorgeous and feels like I am wearing a nightgown but with better cleavage coverage.
I started to cheer up as soon as I left the house, it was a really beautiful mild day and I am finally able to leave the house without hat scarf gloves and portable heater. Fuel was jam-packed with interesting types and after a coffee and pot of tea I was feeling much perkier. I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that I’m not going to be getting the job I applied for last week, and me and the boy had a chat last night about the future and what our options are and I decided I would just have to put the dream on the back-burner for a while until we had saved up enough to put down a deposit. 
I’ve been hammering the applications this week for any administrative position which pays a decent wage around Greater Manchester. I was a little surprised then when I had a call from a Harborough area code which when I looked up was a direct line at the paper I’d applied to. My phone cut out of battery before I had a chance to answer it but I assumed it was about the quotes I’d sent it and figured I would ring them once I got home that afternoon.
A little while later after typing up my review notes I had a quick check on my emails and found a note from the editor asking me to call him. A little flutter started up in my stomach which I quickly tried to suppress reminding myself that it was probably something about the story or my request for a week of work experience. 
There was a little bit of hope that was yet to die however and I begged the lady behind the bar to use her phone to give him a bell. After polite enquiries as to each others health I heard the following fabulous words; “I’m calling about the job and I am delighted to say we have decided to offer you the position.” I nearly dropped the phone in shock and it was probably a good job I was so surprised as it prevented me shrieking with delight like a five-year-old. It turns out that I have been offered a place as a trainee reporter at The Harborough Mail, the local paper in the town where I grew up. This means the world to me and I am so excited. It is everything I have been hoping for and more and it still feels like its a dream. I must admit that in spite of my conversation with the boy the night before I instantly accepted the job because it is the kind of opportunity one cannot refuse.
Although I believe some of you may have seen news of this on my twitter and face-book updates I want to firstly assure you that I will be continuing with the blog. It means a lot to me and it is something I really enjoy doing and so I will keep it going even if it means the posts are a little shorter, which I am sure will be a relief for most of you! I am sorry that the past week has been a bit of a trial, what with doing the women’s week postings and having quite a few reviews to finish I’ve been feeling a little stretched. I am finally feeling back on top now though and I want to thank you all for bearing with me and not complaining in spite of the tardiness of this weeks posts.
I know it sounds crazily corny but the news I received today made me realise how important it is for us to hold on to our dreams. In the past month myself, the boy, his sister and our superstar musical theatre friend Anna have all got given their dream jobs. Though I can barely believe there is this much luck in the world to go round it is clear that with the support of friends and family and a ridiculous level of optimism it is possible to persevere and find a career which you truly love. Twelve months ago I started on an NCTJ course at News associates in Manchester. I withdrew all of my savings and even took a loan from my parents to pay to train in a career I had known I wanted to do from the time of my first meeting with the careers lady at school. The course was intense and it was perhaps one of the hardest things I have ever done but today I realise it has all been worth it and am so thankful to my wonderful tutor Ian Gilbert who pushed us all to try harder and gave us the confidence and encouragement we needed to crack our way through each of the terribly difficult exams. I am also thankful to the great friends I had on the course, you know who you are but for clarity sake; KK, AK, SY, TKR, RC and CB. You made everything easier and your support and belief in me as a writer meant I kept trying even when it seemed impossible. To the rest of my course mates you made every day full of fun particularly the legendary AB who somehow managed to always ask the one question nobody else would dare and the lovely MW who made a brilliant cup of tea and had the sweetest smile. 
Sorry to be a sop guys but seriously keep dreaming, keep trying and really wonderful things will happen. Don’t allow yourself to get to the end and ask what if, do it now and every day will feel like a mini miracle.
- Today’s dress has been donated by Belinda Smears. It is from H&M is a size 10 and feels gorgeous. It has lovely long sleeves which you can pull over your hands if your chilly or feeling a bit vulnerable. The random reeds, blue flowers and feathers were because the boy decided the door was not interesting enough on its own and I was in a giddy enough mood to agree. I think I may have scratched my face on a bamboo stick.
Day 70 – Oh sweet friends; the sisters I had to seek
Today I was out and about in Leicester with three of the friends in this two-part post. After having a girls sleepover last night where we all got teary eyed watching The Time Travellers Wife I was woken this morning by my friend’s son who decided that the best way to get his Auntie Ellie out of bed was to jump on top of her. Thankfully my other friend who I had fallen asleep beside came to my rescue and took him into the kitchen to play until I managed to come round enough to mumble a morning. I will never understand how people function without coffee or tea and do not take kindly to being woken up by anyone who is not carrying a pot of this liquid morning gold. This then is my excuse for looking decidedly dishevelled and as pale as a ghost in today’s images. I spent my day with my three lovely ladies feeling like quite the lady of lunches as we settled in to the sumptuous sofas at the slug and lettuce.
Monica Kenny: Monica has made an appearance in the posts in the past. She has been a great friend ever since our sixth form days. We can chat for hours on the phone and still have loads to say when we meet up for coffee ten minutes later.
She is fiercely loyal and has stood by me through all of my episodes. She once came up to Manchester for the weekend on a surprise visit just because I’d told her I was struggling to make friends and along with the two pals she dragged along with her they cheered me up no end. During the weekend we somehow managed to knock a bottle of wine and a plant pot of soil into one of my drawers and it made me smile every time I went to wear something to find it smelled of Lambrini. No matter how many times I end up breaking down she is always there to help me feel better and cracks me up with her sarcastic sense of humour. Whenever I’m feeling too blue to go out in public she’ll come round to my house with flowers and even put on a pot of tea for us. She is a fabulous companion on a night out and is ever happy to join me in tearing it up on the dance floor and even puts up with my terrible parking and love of listening to hardcore gangs-ta rap in the car whilst I drive. She has supported me no end with this project and I love that she lives just a hill away from me. We have shared endless taxis home from Leicester after nights out when we were at college and somehow she always manages to bargain us the cheapest ride even when we spend the whole time singing and demanding the poor driver turns up the radio pretty please. She always makes an effort to get along with my boyfriends, even the eejots.
Suzanne Faulkner: Sue or Lady Susanna as I tend to call her is always able to crack me up. It is thanks to Sue that we used to get served in pubs when we were 16, she had the self-assured presence that most sixteen year old girls lack and had no qualms about going to the bar and asking for eight bottles of orange reef. Me, Monica and Sue used to hang out during free periods in the sixth form tuck shop and once when Monica had some rubbish news we shared a bottle of vodka and some chocolates before heading off to lessons where we eagerly got involved in debates about I’m still not quite sure what. When I went away to Cos with the girls, me and Sue decided we wanted to spend a day in Turkey haggling and hunting for fake designer finds; we even brought a bigger bag to help us smuggle them back from the mainland. Unfortunately when we got to the shore at dawn it was to find our ship would not set to sail due to severe weather warnings. After trying to convince random fishermen to stow us away on their ships we dug our bare feet into the sand and whilst we watched as the sun came up we decided to make the best of a bad situation. After finding the only place in Cos which did an English breakfast with drinkable tea, Heinz baked beans and tomato sauce we got on a bus to the other side of the island where we found an array of fake Louis Vuitton bags and wallets and some great actual designer deals. I brought a YSL skirt that was so tiny that whenever I wear it I have to put shorts on to protect my modesty and a rolex for my boyfriend as a treat. Sue now has a baby and a husband but she is still an absolute riot and makes the meanest cup of tea in the Midlands.
KI: I am not sure when me and Kat became friends but all I know is that by the time university ended I had found the one girl capable of keeping up with me on a shopping trip. Kat shares my love of beautiful indecently high heels, vintage finds and chocolate rich deserts. We have spent many a day pouring over vintage bags and scarves and she has an eye for a find which means that every time I see her she surprises me with Primark finds which could very well be from Prada. She is a great friend who is never afraid to voice her concern when I get on the wrong side of slim and never bothers to flattter me with nonsense. She christened me crazy Ellie but has never once made me feel embarrassed about my “issues”, indeed she somehow manages to make my troubles seem more manageable by making me find the funny side of them. No matter how long it has been since we have seen each other there is never need for apology or awkward silences and though I am sure we would be happy to sit in each others company without saying a word we rarely have time to try it out as we always have so much to gossip and gas about over our large glasses of white and red wine and the decadent deserts that we always share – 50 per-cent less fat don’t you know! Although she is a year younger than me she inspires me with her ability to save up her money for travelling, study and even home ownership. She is the anchor who will tell me when I am being an eejot and will help to pull me back to earth when I am flying too high. Shopping is never quite as good without her at my side.
EK: Whilst I was at Uni I was lucky enough to have some great course friends. The ones who have remained a part of my life the most have been Kat, Elly and Marie. Myself and Marie met in my first year and our ability to talk faster than anyone else on the planet meant we quickly became firm friends. All three of them helped me to somehow get through my degree by reminding me of essay deadlines, helping me to study and even lending me lecture notes from the nine am lectures I so rarely managed to make it along to; mornings have never been my forte.
The four of us together went on one of the most amazing holidays I have ever had to Venice after finishing our dissertations. We had a fantastic time; drinking dry white wine on St Marks Square, trying on diamonds in the glass houses and imagining the futures that lay before us.
I met Elly in my final year through a mutual friend and it was love at first site for both of us. Though we both often struggle to get on with girls on account of us usually getting on well with the guys the two of us clicked immediately. We spent our first day with one another lounging on the lawn outside the union drinking beer and bearing our souls. By the end of the day and indeed the end of a fairly booze fuelled registration week we were best buddies and she saw me through a year of heartache and hilarious affairs. The tragedy of our friendship and probably the blessing of the male population is we have never been single at the same time. She is the only girl I ever kissed and is the only reason I would ever consider moving to London town. We once went on a huge night out there where we didn’t pay for one drink but somehow managed to get completely hammered. At the end of the night whilst stumbling up the garden path we both managed to fall either side into the bushes. After lying there in hysterics for what felt like hours I somehow managed to pull both of us from the hedges. The next day we had to spend hours trying to locate wallets and phones in the undergrowth whilst nursing one of the worst hangovers of my life with a cold beer. When she went travelling around the globe I missed her like crazy and whenever we see one another we always end up having a great giggle.
Niki Steele: Niki has appeared in the blog before, most recently in the series about the boy and I. It is thanks to Niki that me and the boy got it together back in my final year at university. We met whilst I was working at a bar in Manchester and even after I quit we stayed in touch. We used to get together for coffee and roll up liquorice cigarettes to have a break from uni work and would end up spending the evening boozing into the early hours. Along with Ms Clayton she is my dance partner of the north and when she relocated down to London to start an apprenticeship in glass blowing I was heart-broken even though I was happy for her. I am the fairy god mother of her gorgeous baby girl and some of the best nights out I’ve ever had have been in fifth Ave with her dancing at my side. She is the girl who introduced me to Mac, the one who would always make sure I got home okay when I’d drank too much and would never bother to trouble me with the gory details if I’d acted the fool. She is more skilled at table football and pool than any girl or guy I know and is an accomplished glass blower whose pieces are the ultimate ornament for every affluent home across the globe.
There are so many more girlfriends I want to include but even if I had a hundred posts I could not thank them enough for all they have done and all they continue to do to make my life a brighter place. There is one quote I found whilst I was researching this piece which applies I imagine to almost every friendship I have ever had and to those who have stuck around in spite of my crazy I thank you a thousand times over.
“The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they’re okay, then it’s you.” Rita Mae Brown 1944
And finally to every friend I was lucky enough to have had in my life: “You were the one who made things different, you were the one who took me in. You were the one thing I could count on, above all, you were my friend.” ~ Author unknown
- Today’s dress is an absolute privilege to wear. It is on loan from Belinda Smears and is designer. I wore it with tan tights and Kurt Geiger statement heels because it is just too pretty to drown in opaques. The photos were taken by the boy back in Withington after I got home from a long train journey and a lovely lunch with my Leicester ladies.
Day 64 – The magnificent maxi dress
Today was a pretty dreadful day. It has been months since I have felt this low and although I managed to get dressed in the end the project came close to coming under a new name; 364 dresses and the boy’s best t-shirt. Part of the reason for the low was loneliness; the boy was at work today which left me alone with my thoughts which are particularly unpleasant at the moment. It has now been months since I finished my course and longer still since I have been in the work place and I am starting to feel frustrated at the sheer amount of rejection and red-tape involved in the job market at this timde. 
I do not think I am a particularly unemployable person; in spite of my head troubles whenever I am in the work place I am generally in good health, am hard-working and committed and throw myself into every task and have been told I am great fun to have around the office as I get on well with most people, even tolerating questionable clothing choices for the sake of harmony in the office. My illness has never effected me in the work place as far as I am aware other than perhaps taking things to heart more than most.
When I woke up this morning and found myself drifting into melancholy I tried my best to regroup and remind myself of all the wonderful plans I had made for the day. The night before I had made a lovely list of things I wanted to do today; I am a freak about to do lists and can think of few things more pleasurable in life than ticking off an entire to do list in one day. 
Upon my list there was a couple of CD reviews I wanted to get finished before the weekend as well as a note about a trip out to see John Ryland’s library on Deansgate; it has been restored for some time now and I am desperate to explore the literary treasures within and see the splendour of a building filled to the brim with beautiful wonderful life affirming books. I had also planned to spend the day hunting out a new purse, finding some thermals for skiing in Chamonix and tracking down some reasonably priced vintage tea sets for an event I’m planning.
I like to think that had the boy been about I would have tried harder to prise myself from my mood. As it was however he was not and seeing as there was nobody about to make me feel embarrassed for mooching around like an angst ridden teenager I put my plans to the back of my mind, pulled the quilt up to my chin and queued up an indecent number of episodes of Glee to keep me calm.
I am not usually a big fan of television. There are few things I find worthy of dedicating my time to on the schedule other than the football. I did become hooked on Celebrity Big Brother at the start of the year but generally I find trash TV rather disturbing as the producers of reality TV seem genuinely hell-bent on going out of their way to find the most mentally disturbed people in the country and placing them all in a confined space. 
If they are not unbalanced when they enter the house they are certainly lacking in reality when they leave and most develop delusions of grandeur which are really rather worrying.
There are however a few series which I am happy to dedicate hours of my life to at a time. These are, in no particular order The Wire; The West Wing; Dexter; Glee and Scrubs. Scrubs, West Wing and The Wire hold a special place in my heart because when I was suffering from severe episodes of depression they kept me company and eventually aided me to abandon my bed in the hope of brighter days which laid up ahead.
When I was at University in my second year I was hit by a virus which knocked me for six right in the middle of a string of deadlines. I was ill for about three weeks in total and although the virus was severe I probably would have got better sooner had I not allowed myself to sink into sadness. My boyfriend at the time was not the most understanding of fellows and it was easier to tell him I was sick than psychologically flawed and in this way I was able to keep the truth of my crazy from him for a little longer. In fairness to him whilst he thought I was sick and not sad he did try to help me out, he downloaded me three seasons of scrubs to keep me company whilst he went to lectures and even cooked for me on a fair few occasions. 
Although Scrubs is terribly twee I found myself comforted by its softly softly delivery of lessons on morality and motivational speeches from the infamous Doctor Cox and in the end I forced myself to get showered and dressed all at the same time and dragged myself out of bed. I managed to keep my poorly at bay for a while longer but less than two months after my Scrubathon I fell into a much deeper depression. The same Scrub sourcing sweetheart had become bored of my blues and without too much trouble had found himself a distraction. He dumped me the day after I stumbled upon a conversation he’d had with a friend via MSN about a stunning girl who was apparently model hot. He had pulled her in front of his friends whilst I had been back home with my family and had apparently been speaking with her every other day since. Unfortunately when he left me I couldn’t even find solace in Scrubs as it had become too closely linked too him so instead I turned to the bitter sweetness of 80p Apple Sours from the hall bar along with any other alcohol available to numb the pain. I did try yoga for a while and even went to the doctor in search of a magic pill but oblivion was a much more attractive albeit destructive way to heal my wounds.
The West Wing helped me out in much the same way as Scrubs did. After struggling for months to find work after graduating I sort of gave up and started sleeping more than was strictly healthy. Admittedly it didn’t help that I had given up my medication upon some manic hippy notion that love could cure-all but depression did indeed beckon it’s familiar claw and without the help of medicines I gave up the fight to it all too easily. As I sleepily struggled to force myself from the safety and comfort of the quilt I found myself happily distracted by the popular sharp tongued protagonists. Escapism enveloped me as I became entirely focused on deciphering the endless dialogue spoken at a speed which even I struggled to keep up with. It took me twenty-four episodes but in the end I got myself back to reality and even managed to make tough choices to move home and take a job at my father’s company as a purchase ledger clerk. It wasn’t my dream career but at least it gave me a routine and a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
Finally the other series which has been a band aid in disguise over the years is The Wire. Unlike the other programmes I have mentioned, this was a series which was watched from a decidedly upright position. Knowing as I did that exercise is one of the best ways to combat a low mood I decided to combine my usual remedy of box-set with bench work. 
Every morning before I got a shower, I would watch an episode of The Wire whilst working out with weights on the stepper. In this way, with a lot of help from family, friends and pharmaceutical companies I finally managed to get my mojo back and even got a fairly flat tummy for my troubles.
This morning when I chose to watch Glee rather than get out of bed I was annoyed at myself because I knew it was a bad decision. I knew that if I could just drag myself from under the covers and into the shower I could still stand a chance of going for a walk, getting out the house and maybe letting the sunshine and the sound of others getting on with their lives do the rest. Unfortunately it wasn’t until gone four in the afternoon that I managed to get myself in the shower and dressed and by the time the boy came home he was too tired to do anything other than drift off to sleep on my lap. I moaned like a child about wanting him to fix me and make me feel better but in my heart I know that when I am in a mood like this there is little he or Glee can do to make things better. All I can ever hope for when I am struck down by a low like this is that come the next morning the clouds will have cleared enough to tempt me into taking the tiny steps needed to bring me out of doors to see the daylight. Only tomorrow will tell.
- Today’s dress was donated by Sinead Kenny, sister of Monica who loaned yesterday’s gorgeous grey dress. This maxi dress is a size 14 but is one of those wonderful one size fits all dresses which is elasticated round the waist and bust. With pink Marks and Spencer tights and extremely high heels I avoid the fatal mistake of letting it trail on the pavement and prevent it being soiled with Manchester muck – leaves and rain mashed together to create a grey and brown paste. It was totally freezing today and though I did spend the majority of the day hiding out indoors I did make it out in time for the last of the light even if I did jump straight back in to bed afterwards.
Day 61 – the girl through her mother’s eyes
Every person’s experience of depression is unique. There is a statistic somewhere which states over the course of our life, one in three of us will suffer from some form of mental illness, the most common of these illnesses will be depression.
I was never able to work out what brought on the first episode; it could have been my failure to form firm friendships at University; my disappointment with my chosen course or even just the fact that I had lost my darling sister two years before after watching her fight a ferocious battle with a bitch of a cancer which claimed her mercilessly from our clueless arms.
Over the years I have come to understand in this way as well as through the observations of others what the first signs are of the beginning of a fresh batch of misery from my own personal bakery of glum. At first invitations to dinner or dancing will be turned down without consideration; I will back away from any form of communication including phones, face book or email; I will stop looking at myself in the mirror and soon after that I will cease to wear make up or put any effort into clothing. 
Eventually when it has finally got settled in my cranium I will stop bothering to get dressed all together and if anyone suggests I have a nice warm bath I will react extremely badly. Usually I will dress as unattractively as possible; in a pair of old denim Miss Sixty Jeans, size 11-12, and hideous woollen jumpers and T-Shirts or anything which covers me up all together. Occasionally I have been known to wear crocs outside of the house, which is surely a strong indicator of a fractured mind.
Today I watched a little section of Love Actually. It is one of my all time favourite films and most of the time it has the wonderful side effect of making me giggle and feel all mushy and gooey inside. Unfortunately the segment I had watched was the part where the girl, having thanked her lucky stars for landing the Belle of the ball or the dark haired smooth skinned muscular stranger with equally sexy glasses, is interrupted by her brother who is poorly and living in a supervised home. Later on we see her over there speaking with him, desperately trying to coax a positive thought from the fragile mind in front of her, yet she can not and he goes to hit her in a rage. They do hug in the end, and she does call him her darling but the whole thing had me in tears.
What upsets me the most about it is how it must feel for my loved ones to see their child, their lover, their sister, their friend deteriorate from a well dressed, perfectly well kempt woman to a total mess. My mother said to me today she was glad about me doing the dress project because it meant every day I had to get dressed no matter how bad I feel.- Today’s dress was kindly donated by Sinead Kenny of Market Harborough. It is on loan but was brought from Boohoo. It probably needed a belt to pull it in but the pattern was too pretty to touch it. I’d like to say the ironing was a stunt but I actually have so many dresses to press I just had to keep on with it. My Mummy took the photos again today but the boy provided the tulips in the background as a present to cheer me up after an awful consultation on Monday at the Brandon Unit.
Day 57 – Monochrome in my market town home
I want to tell you all about the delights of my day. About the interview I had with a small locally based paper who are looking for a senior reporter with multimedia skills and the ability to hunt down a story. After having a little think however I think it is probably best if I don’t; I am scared of getting my hopes up and so hopefully one day soon I will be able to share the experience with you as even if I don’t get the job it was without a doubt the most enjoyable interview I have ever had. 
For the first time in weeks the family and I are getting on rather well. There was a great energy in the home which only a near full house can provide. As my mother and brother attempted to unnot a 50 meter climbing rope sausages were sizzling in the Aga which me and my little brother kept trying to pinch even though we were due to head out for dinner. Even the giant and I were getting on quite nicely thanks to him taking my attempts to steal one of the four cars in the drive in good humour. My new tact to get a car back is to just keep asking for lifts everywhere, so far it is having little effect but I shall persevere.
When you come from a large family; the giant, the mother, two sisters and one brother chaos and high decibel chatter is just as soothing as a lullaby. At University I used to put on regular Saturday morning brunch clubs to try to recreate the family unit of my childhood home where we all attempted to have a nice dinner but inevitably tiffs would break out and by the end of the meal our mother would lose her patience and demand we eat in silence. 
Although the most fierce rows took place around the table they were also, and I think I speak for all of us, the location of our happiest memories and the place we learnt to speak up or get sidelined. When there are four women in a household your ability to communicate becomes so acute you are able to skip quickly between different conversation topics, finish each others sentences and send the males into near meltdown by a sudden succinct tongue lashing about the need to put the toilet seat down gosh darn it.
During the week I managed to book us into Ascoughs, Market Harborough’s greatest restaurant. They do a great set menu for £15, less during the day, where you get two courses, plenty of vegetables, potatoes of the day and the all important baked that morning bread roll. Although I have been on several occasions with friends, family and former lovers never before have myself and the boy been together. 
As today was our four-year anniversary I was delighted when I managed to get us in for a 9.15 setting, usually you have to book up to a month in advance if you stand any chance of getting a table, even on a week-night.
The boy was too kind to say, but just before I went to meet him at the station I checked the time of our meal in the diary and realised my mistake. It is in-fact not our anniversary till tomorrow. Oh dear. As it was we had the table booked and I had spent too long on my make-up and prettifying myself to cancel the reservation so I thought I’d just not bother mentioning it. The meal was utterly fantastic, apart from one unpleasant moment during my starter when a piece of pancetta lodged itself in my gum and I had to run to the toilet to stem the blood. 
There is crispy then there is just cutting, the boy for once even let me give them feedback on this culinary assault which was present enough as he never usually lets me.
I love going out to eat with the boy, especially when we have been apart for some time as we have hours to catch up on what we have been up to. He had also had an interview so we chatted late into the night and were the last to leave the place at midnight. I am a terribly slow eater, mainly because I am a chatter box and when I was young I was always put on the slow eaters table which I think is just a recipe for an eating disorder. I hate rushing my food particularly when it has been put together so carefully as it is at Ascoughs and can’t bear rushing a meal, I do not see the point. 
Other than the lovely food, what I love about going on “dates” with my love is the little gestures he makes to show he still cares; he pulls my chair out for me; helps me into my coat and once I have decided what I want he will even order for me. In spite of all the feminist bravado there is something terribly romantic about such gestures and it is lovely to relinquish control, though I always am the one to taste the wine. We had a lovely evening but are both terribly tense about the result of our respective interviews and although we wanted to share our experiences we were both trying so hard not to get our hopes up particularly as the jobs we have applied for will place us further apart. The die is rolled for both of us, they are our dream jobs but I do wish they were in the same Zip-code.
Day 54 – For richer for poorer in sickness and in health
Come this Saturday me and the boy will have been going out four years. In spite of me having a fair few up and downs and in all honesty a couple of quite serious breakdowns during this time, I think the reason we have come the distance; aside from the fact that he has the patience of a saint and we still quite fancy one another; is because we have always right from the start applied the basic vows of marriage to our relationship. Now, I’m not one to say that marriage is essential to make a relationship work; I have plenty of friends who have got along quite nicely thank-you very much without ever feeling any urgent need to put a ring on it; but nevertheless I think that relationships work best when you apply principles such as “in sickness and in health”, “for richer for poorer”, and unless you have a really very cool/ liberal lover, “forsaking all others”. 
When myself and the boy first met I was flat broke and though I was not looking for anything serious as tends to be the case we accidentally went and fell in love. At the time I was spending all my spare pennies on cigarettes and alcohol and because he was a sweetie and probably because he didn’t want to see me lose my rather curvaceous figure he kept feeding me fry ups and insisting on cooking me dinner. I remember one day when I was about to set off for home he slipped me a tenner to go and buy food. Ten minutes, 20 Marlborough mediums and a bottle of red later I came to the conclusion that yes 12p chicken noodles were a suitable source of nutrition. 
Although he was the provider at the start of our relationship by the time I graduated I was making a tidy enough package so that if he was skint we could dip into my privy purse to pay for cinema outings, bottles of wine, nights on the tiles and steak.
The boy graduated two years after me, not because I am seeing a toy boy you understand but because he was rather more keen in being the drummer in every Mancunian band around the way than getting all academic. It was because he was still a student that when our one year anniversary came round, I ended up treating us to a holiday to Rome and when we were too lazy to cook it was me who paid for us to eat out in West Didsbury, Manchester’s one stop haven of heavenly cuisine.
When I lost my job though, both times, it was the boy who helped me pick up the pieces, kept me financially afloat when I was too proud to go to the job centre and who even helped me search through the rubbish to find a new role.
Although most of our relationship has been spent just below the poverty line we have always found ways to entertain ourselves; games of Scrabble where JB, Onions lead singer always wins; games of monopoly where I always win; tea and music; my ever more elaborate attempts at dinner parties for ten even when we have no table; gigs; walks in the woods; running (failed after one attempt when he smoked throughout whilst I had a series of small heart failings) tennis, technically not necessarily legally sound movies and more gigs. Although we loved it when I was making a tidy package money never brings happiness and as Neil Sedaka’s wife says to him in Laughter In The Rain, “Sometimes I miss the cold days.” Struggling together is terribly romantic and there’s nothing quite like playing cards through the night with nothing to fuel you but a pot of decaf tea.
The other issue is of course the sickness and the health. Luckily the boy is fine and dandy other than the occasional sulk and the dreaded man flu, according to the boy he has single handedly fought off swine flu and is a pillar of strength in the face of modern medicine most of which he views as being in some way linked to a conspiracy of making us weak. Maybe because of this, when we first met I waited till June to come clean with him about my crazy. I didn’t want to scare him away and if I’m honest I thought I had completely recovered, love does wonderful things for your brain and your body; eating becomes a chore and your entire mind turns to mush. if you don’t watch out you end up boring all of your friends to sleep by talking about how fabulous your lover is. Luckily however, by the time me and the boy got together I was a cynic about love and when he etched the words “I love you” on my back I told him to, “Get a grip”.
When I told him about my poorly head it was because I had decided to come off the anti-depressants I’d been taking for two years. Buoyed up by love and the wonderful newness of it all I didn’t think I needed them. With his approval and no advice from any medical practitioner I came off the drugs.
Within a month I crashed so hard and so fast that some days I couldn’t even look in the mirror because I felt so ugly and frustrated with what I saw. I put on weight and because getting out of bed was so hard I would sleep for hours and rather than looking for work I would watch West Wing episodes convinced there was no point trying because I was useless. In the end I had to move home so I could survive. The boy did try to support me but he was still a student and one part-time job shared between two people equals not a lot left to live on.
With the help of some friends in the know, my family and the boy I managed to pick myself back up but it wasn’t easy. Every time I go down hill it is always the boy who has been there over these last few years who is there straight away to drag me back up again. 
Every time I get poorly he’s there to wipe away my tears, calm me and convince me that the world is a good place and that things will get better.
On one poorly head occasion when we somehow found ourselves at A and E after a particularly bad reaction to Sertraline, (the name still gives me the shudders), we came face to face with a psychiatrist who had obviously decided he was not a fan of women. After deciding, from looking at me rather than my notes you understand, that I was anorexic with father issues he banned the boy from hugging me, told me there was nothing wrong with me and then finished by telling me I should just go ahead and give up then and live in a mental health ward. Thankfully both the boy and the psychiatrists assistant realised I was just extremely anxious in a very scary place and needed to get some sleep and the boy got me the hell away from him before had a chance to lock me up and throw away the key.
I have never forgotten what he did that day and acknowledge that what ever happens with us in the future, without him being by my side that day I could still to this day be living in a closed ward, misdiagnosed and miserable overseen by the most tyrannical mentally unstable medical professional I have ever come across.
We never signed any contract when we got together but both of us always find a way to work it out, scream it out or just forgive regardless. I like to think that its because he like me knows that whatever our problems with us when its good it’s so very good, though at times we can of course both be wicked.
