Who Has The Right Of Way? I Do.

I've bloody done it again, haven't I? I've treated my blog like a piece of coursework and let it creep up on me until I have so many things to say, I'd bore you at the best of times. And goodness it's been a while, hasn't it? Well, if you're still with me, thanks. If you're not, then I suppose you're not reading and I have no need to address you. Well, that's that.

Apart from being poorly and exhausted - and what a year to become a wilting female! - I've been pretending to be really really busy, doing all sorts of things I feel I should have done before moving onto higher education (such as reading Winnie the Pooh and watching every episode ever made of Absolutely Fabulous).

And what's been happening? Well, some people went off to Lourdes and other people were coming back from Thailand. Genevieve had gone to Nice and my parents were going to Scotland, so I went to Liverpool. No, it was fun, really, in a lost boys and The Dreamers- cum- Shirley Valentine and more than a splash of Desperate Housewives sort of way. Have I lost you yet? I was going up to Scotland to see the parents by Loch Lomond. On the way, I stopped in London (where I had breakfast with some friendly, albeit rock 'n' roll, 'city doves' - unfortunately read: pigeons), Liverpool (where I played house with the up-and-coming Elliot James Langridge -not name-dropping or anything (darling...), but keep your eyes peeled!), Warrington -despite sounding like a very proper surname - is a town in Cheshire that has the sort of bus fares I approve of (20p from one side to the other) and Glasgow.

On the way, I read a brilliantly funny book, titled 'Lover Enshrined' by a J.R. Ward (who looks, just ever-so-slightly, like Uma Thurman). The first line read, "thanks to his sick bitch mistress, his face and his back and his wrists and his neck were scarred". I didn't enjoy it all that much, you might be surprised to know. I did, however, also (courtesy of Felix) catch the first episode of the newest vampire drama, True Blood, perhaps not for the faint-hearted, but certainly extremely good.

And then I should have known I'd fail another driving test when I managed to overturn a couple of quad bikes in Scotland - several times each. This said, I think a total of 31 minors and 2 majors across 3 practical tests isn't too drastic. Especially if you consider that passing my theory test first time around must technically erase the minors. And if we now recalculate, I definitely deserve a pink license. After some consideration, I think I may have actually failed the last test before turning on the ignition: as I wriggled into my seat, explaining that my knickers were just "in such a twist - the real problem with french knickers", poor Simon or Peter or Brian, as my weedy examiner may have been named, let an almighty gulp echo around the Ford Fiesta. Attempting to re-establish the ease we may (or may not) have begun with, I tried the old wink and "so (dramatic pause) how long have you have been doing this?" line (read: how you doiiin')- to, naturally, little avail.

So Lucy and I went out the following night. Lucy, apart from being one of my oldest friends, is the daughter of my mother's friend - this is important. Regardless of how well we think we behave, we appear to maintain our 'naughty daughter' tags, and so going out together, is pretty much a parental nightmare. Nevertheless, we did so (even if I was told by her father the following evening that I was "leading her up the proverbial garden path" - but not before Mummy asked Luce if she had a "sausage" for her!) and thoroughly exhausted ourselves - by our standards, we reckoned this was fairly impressive. We drank shots, requested Sean Paul, pulled out the lesbian card at all costs and kept an eye on each other's hem lines.

I also photographed the semi-finals of a DJ competition at a gorgeous bar in Angel (Barrio North) in conjunction with Movida and Corona, the only event I feel I'll ever attend with a floor covered in limes. Not the only night, however, I will have carried my eyelashes home in a pocket, feeling London is just ever so slightly easier for the bambi-legged sort, who have to hold on when the wind changes direction (and just as much when it doesn't).

I also gave up smoking in a very official way two nights ago because, while I love smoking, husky drawls and the intimacy of having my cigarette lit (Johnny Flynn so did me once!!) as much as the next student, the cough that creeps up with each packet just interferes with life more than I would like.

Then I was pooped, so I considered reading a very heavy book today(767g and it's only a paperback) called 'The Crimson Petal and the White' by a Michel Faber (who, despite having an incorrectly-spelt christian name, has written a novel), which Time Magazine claims is 'even better than sex'. Wikipedia says it is "a 2002 epic postmodern novel set in Victorian-era England" which sounds even more of an oxymoron to me than a stripper's dressing room. I flicked to the back hoping for something resembling a biography of the author (all I can find is anecdotes by critics and their fee(eee)lings - they really liked this one), as I still have no idea when Faber was born or if he is still alive. Finally, amidst seriously dense pages and a bags of tea, I resurfaced somewhere between Amazon and Wikipedia, unveiling Faber's placement in literature to be somewhere between Shakespeare and my mother. With this conclusion, I replaced the book (with some struggle) with a nicely controlled three-point-turn to trusty Rosamunde Pilcher who's promising me little else than a bit of charm.

"Who has the right of way?" he persists. "I do" I maintain, sitting in the right hand lane.

Listening to Travellin' Thru - Dolly Parton
Reading Long Way Round - Ewan McGreggor & Charley Boorman