home is where the haddock is…
Another blissful week of R&R and plenty of F (of the type that comes mostly in three course buffet form – Adultworkers plus parlour and party habitués may still be misreading me) has drawn to a close and I can confidently state that whilst my newly calm and relaxed demeanour has taken some shifting, I am most certainly back on tidied up and properly attired form, having spent the majority of the time since last Monday doing nothing more challenging than swimming in the right direction and wearing nothing more complicated than a pair of free towelling slippers and a dressing gown.
As delightfully fabulous as the bona fide luxury health spa experience always is (and I have described it enough times already), an unarguable part of the fun (for me at least) is anticipating the return to the Real World where fish and chip shops abound, and my haste in getting to the railway station shop to obtain Maltesers, Frazzles and a Fruit Shoot before catching my train home was more than enough to restore the balance between my serenely fuzzy spa-induced benevolence, and my more usual slightly panicky and nearly-outraged-about-nothing-in-particular public travelling persona. And not a moment too soon; unbeknown to me, horseracing had been taking place at York and upon alighting to change trains I sought immediate reassurance that the riots had not restarted over on Parliament Street, since the entire contents of a provincial branch of New Look appeared to be on defiant and slightly pissed show along the concourse.
One hour later I was finally home – to happy fishes, not too much laundry and yes, a phone full of ‘ru free tonite bb‘ style text messages from the previous few days; I have recently learned that ‘bb’ in this context (and I use the term loosely) apparently no longer means what we industry folk would ordinarily assume it does and is instead an abbreviation of the forgetful punter’s favourite, ‘babe’ (ie. I would like to stick my penis in something, but don’t really care who/what) as obviously this is one word that really needs whittling down a bit. All expertly dealt with by my new assistant Ms SMS Blocker (since she was not formally introduced the other week) whilst I watched Three In A Bed and ate my battered haddock with my free hand (again; sorry to disappoint, AW readers).
I marked the remainder of the holiday week with a nice trip to the beach for the first time in an age, and have enjoyed proper fried donuts with granulated sugar and sand (£2 for four now! At least Dick Turpin wore a mask etc, etc) a spot of sandcastle building with the smaller folk and a lovely paddle amidst the donkeys, seagulls and pink-skinned holidaymakers, many of whom had not anticipated the scorching sun any more than I had and unfortunately left their sunblock in Leeds. Fortunately I escaped any severe ill-effects by staying well covered up at all times (whilst out in public at least) but even then, a distinctly stingy warmth about the neck was evident an hour or two on, and I suspected my usual body scrub routine at bathtime would have been ill-advised (an executive decision was made to skip it). Photo of the cliff lift included for the gentleman who was asking about it too – if anybody actually did see the Scarborough episode of TOWN the other week, please forgive me for feeling rather fluffy about our beautiful town, and not a little smug.
Anyway, back to the grind (of sorts) this week and I am available during the posted hours here – since the school holidays tend to be a quieter time for ladies everywhere after disregarding the aforementioned ‘bb’ optimists, I will be endeavouring to continue my life’s work in attempting yet more home improvements over the coming week; same day appointments will not be available at all, unless you have a Ronseal habit or a bit of a thing about Kingspan board and want to help! As most will have seen, I will be setting off excitedly for the Isle of Man next week and am looking forward to my first visit – I will confess to being somewhat behind on emails since I got back, but am certainly on the home straight now and apologies to those still awaiting a response. Anyone wanting to book for Cardiff would do well to do so in the next few days as availability is going faster than anticipated, and I’m not around for long…
Update before the weekend! Normal service is (gradually) being resumed…
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