I almost didn’t buy any books in the end: I was both overwhelmed by the price cuts (40-50% off everything) and underwhelmed by the choices, and as a consequence wandered around the shop in a daze. If I hadn’t gotten out right when I did, I’d probably still be stuck there now, browsing the near empty bookshelves with Tom singing ‘Delilah’ in the background.

I did manage to grab one book on the way out, though (when I say ‘grab’, I mean I paid for it, obviously), though it was a non-fiction book as a Christmas present for my sister, rather than a fiction book for me: The Ladies’ Oracle*, by Cornelius Agrippa, first published in 1857. At least, it was originally supposed to be a present for her, but I’m rethinking that idea now that I’ve found out just how useful this book is! From the back cover:

With his collected knowledge of advanced mathematics and the feminine kind, Cornelius Agrippa has endeavored to create a veritable bible for every aspiring lady. This charming compendium of solutions is an absolute necessity for anyone seeking guidance in an increasingly confusing world.

I am nothing if not an aspiring lady, so thus intrigued by the promises on the back, I began to read. The book contains a comprehensive list of questions at the beginning, and a chart of sixteen symbols; having picked a question, you then close your eyes and pick one of the symbols. A chart on the next page allows you to match symbol with question number, and you are sent to another page to get your answer. In general, I found it to be startlingly accurate, albeit harsh at times. The first question I put to it was “Am I thought pretty?” Back came the answer, “Yes, at night, without light or moon” - I have to be honest and say this did nothing to lift my melancholic spirits. My second, rather apprehensive question was “What is generally thought of my intelligence?” and the reply was “That it is rusting through lack of use”. This answer I thought to be very fair (for instance, I had just picked up a copy of Umberto Eco’s novel Foucault’s Pendulum, but put it back again because I couldn’t concentrate sufficiently to get through the first page. The internet has ruined me).

Convinced of its usefulness, it was at this point that I bought it, but I have since learned that the number of husbands I shall have is “one for the daytime and one for the night”, which sounds like a workable arrangement to me; and of the number of lovers, “When you get to ten, there shall still be more to count”. The problem now is that I really want to keep this book for myself, to serve as a sort of guidebook through life - so it’s back to Borders tomorrow, to scavenge amongst the wreckage for another copy for my sister (and if not, socks never go out of fashion, do they?)

* I am aware of the irony of lamenting the loss of Borders while linking to Amazon…

(The ‘t’ on my keyboard isn’t working very well. I only mention this in case there’s an unexpected absence of a ‘t’ at any point. I’m trying to pick them up as I go along, but I may miss a few).

One of the worst times to discover the ‘Silent’ function on your phone isn’t working must be when you’re waching - watching - a play. It’s worse than during a film; at least then you’re not going to disturb the actors, and at worst you’ll probably just get a few irritated glances from the people around you. But that’s exactly what happened to me a few nights ago. I scrabbled around in my bag and managed to switch it off before the second SMS beep, but really, I felt like going around to each member of the audience and each of the actors individually and saying, “I DID! I DID switch it to silent!” Either that or halting proceedings for a few minutes to explain.

Terribly sorry everyone, but I just wanted to make it clear I did switch my phone to silent, it’s just that I recently got a new phone - well, not strictly speaking a new phone, more a second-hand phone that I’ve borrowed for the time being because my old phone broke, I’m not entirely sure why, but I suspect it was something to with water damage. It’s a long and complicated story involving texting in the bath, but I really don’t have time to go into it now. Anyway, as I was saying, apparently the ’silent’ function on this pesky new-old phone doesn’t work! Who knew? Not me, that’s for sure, though I do now. So I just wanted to let you all know I’m not one of those really annoying people who disturbs an audience through sheer thoughtlessness or anything. Carry on.

I didn’t, though; I slunk shamefacedly into my seat instead. Probably for the best.

I watched it filtered through the lens of the Welsh current affairs show ‘Wedi 7′, you see; the only Welsh language program to be broadcast internationally at the time. The weather was the top story, illustrated by footage of crowded beaches full of sun-worshippers, the presenters themselves scantily-clad as they fanned themselves with their notes, exhausted in the heat.

It all looked terribly inviting, watching as I was from the depths of an icy Melbourne winter, with only my crappy 1000 watt heater and my then boyfriend to keep me warm (Then Boyfriend was skinny and didn’t retain heat particularly well, however; the heater was generally a better bet).

I was suspicious, though. It all looked so very picture postcard perfect. I began to think the whole thing was an elaborate hoax by the Welsh Tourist Board to entice people to holiday in Wales. We wouldn’t know any different, would we, watching from the other side of the world? There was nothing to stop them creating a special version of ‘Wedi 7′ for the tourists. It was the moon landings all over again.

When summer failed to arrive last year - what would have been my first full northern hemisphere summer in years - I considered my theory to have been more or less confirmed. But the last month and a half or so have forced a bit of a re-think. Another few months of this and I’ll accept that that long hot mythical summer of 2005 may, in fact, have occurred.

Till then, however, I remain sceptical.

The leaflet also says I should alert my doctor if I feel an “exaggerated sense of well-being”. Again, this doesn’t really give me any specific measuring stick against which I can determine my sense of well-being. Do I need to decide what would be a reasonable sense of well-being, taking into account my life circumstances, and then judge whether or not my current sense of well-being exceeds that which can be justified by circumstances? It’s all very complicated.

Besides, I’m a little hesitant about turning up at my doctor’s surgery to tell her, “Doctor, I’m here to see you today because I just feel so darn good. I don’t suppose you could give me anything for it?”

In fact I do feel a somewhat exaggerated sense of well-being at present, though it’s entirely possible that’s the gin and tonic (it’s sunny here and we just had a barbecue, don’t judge me for it).

As you can imagine, then, I approached the class with some trepidation. My first discovery was that most of the women who do aerobics have been doing it since their temporary gym teachers who didn’t know how to do proper sport introduced them to it at the tender age of twelve. Aerobics, like applying make-up and styling hair, is apparently something else that the other girls were doing while I was playing backyard cricket.

This was obvious from the outset, as they all jumped and squatted and air-boxed in unison, and I was grateful I’d had the foresight to stay at the back of the room where I couldn’t be as easily observed. There, I could lumber around unobtrusively and it didn’t matter that I did everything a couple of seconds later than the rest of the class.

Or so I thought. About half way through the class, the aerobics instructor bounded like a gazelle to the back of the room and instructed everyone to turn around to face her and resume perfectly coordinated movements. “Crap”, I thought. “These track suit pants really don’t do my bottom any favours, not with me lumbering around at the front of the class like a rhino learning to pirouette”.

To make matters worse, I could scarcely avoid the aerobics instructor’s bottom, located as it was directly in front of me - or rather, I could scarcely have avoided it had it been there, which it wasn’t. The woman had no bottom. I expect she has to wear those padded knickers just to sit down. The comparison wasn’t one that worked to my advantage.

Luckily, after only about half an hour she resumed her original position at the front of the class, and I was able once again to lumber around unobtrusively at the back, pondering how much aerobics one would have to do to render one’s bottom non-existent. I can see I shall have to be careful; those padded knickers are expensive. Fortunately, I don’t think I’m in any immediate danger.

So: aerobics. It was interesting, from an anthropological point of view. I learned that lurking at the back of the room during an aerobics class is a bad idea, since aerobics instructors are as sadistic as temporary gym teachers and will not hesitate to embarrass newcomers. And excessive aerobics leads to the disappearance of one’s bottom. Be warned.

I, on the other hand, must have tried on at least half the dresses they stock in Debenhams. I suppose the whole process would be simpler if I frequented weddings and already had a selection of suitable dresses to choose from. But I haven’t been to a wedding in years - in fact, I think I may have been five the last time I went to one, and that dress wouldn’t fit me any more. Plus I was a bridesmaid, and wearing a bridesmaid’s dress to a wedding where I’m not a bridesmaid would probably be bad form.

However, I finally settled on a black and white halter neck dress for my cousin’s wedding this weekend. It’s in Dorset, where his fiancée’s from, so I’m driving down there tomorrow. I haven’t spoken to this cousin more than a handful of times over the last few years, but we were quite close years ago; he spent a summer helping me with a project I had for school (he knew more stuff, being six years older). The only memory I have of the project is that it included some kind of rainbow diagram, so make of that what you will. That was the same summer we went with my aunt to Llyn y Fan Fawr in the Brecon Beacons; I don’t even remember how to get there now, except that it’s somewhere near the dinosaur park (yes! a dinosaur park! how awesome is that?). To get there you climb what seemed at the time like a very steep hill, and then, all of a sudden as you get to the top, a lake spreads out in front of you, as if it had just appeared that minute. It surprised me, I can tell you.

After that summer my cousin went off to uni in Cardiff, got really boring and became a grown-up. We discussed it amongst ourselves, us four cousins who were all about the same age, and decided that his behaviour bordered on traitorous. To be honest, he’s rather lucky we’re all converging on Dorset for his shindig this weekend.

But we are, and so I must pack, since it takes ages and ages to get there and the family is organizing some kind of meal tomorrow evening. I may tweet occasionally. Have a good weekend, all!

I really hadn’t intended to be away this long. In fact one of my new year resolutions was to blog every single week, but I made another fifteen resolutions alongside that one (which may have been a tad ambitious, in hindsight), and that one kind of fell by the wayside. Better late than never, though. I have decided it still counts as long as I keep it for the remainder of the year.

I am currently eating olives and mini breadsticks, no particular reason except that they are the only food I happen to have in the cupboard at the moment, and I was hungry. They complement each other surprisingly well.

Do you see the exciting things I’ve been keeping from you in my absence? More of the same to come, I’m sure.

He’s writing his messages out in full, and the apostrophes are all in the right places. This is good. Call me fussy, but I like a man who can spell and punctuate correctly. And he’s just the right amount of keen and casual (I don’t like over-zealous in the early stages; there’s nothing creepier than leaving your phone at home for a few hours and finding 142 unanswered phone calls when you get back).

And he’s from Melbourne, which is odd, in an out of context way, and also comfortable. We talk about Aussie Rules and reminisce about Cinema Nova. It has been ages since I have really liked someone, rather than feeling a mild flicker of interest in a dinner date while also wondering if I might not prefer to wash my hair that evening, after all.

I’m playing it cool, though.

Because that’s what I am. Cool. (I play the guitar, you know).

Also, not sleeping very much does mean I get to listen to the more interesting of the stories broadcast on Radio Five Live, which always happen late at night (they usually have a segment on insomnia around 3 in the morning; the other night they were talking about what to do if you can only sleep with the radio on and your partner can only sleep without it on. I don’t think they really came up with a solution, which is a shame because I can only sleep with the radio on in the background, yet none of my past sleeping partners have been able to fall asleep that way, so it’s a dilemma). The other night they were talking about the George Bush shoe throwing incident, and they had someone on to paraphrase what the U.S. government representatives were saying to put the right spin on it; apparently it was something like “It’s great that the Iraqis now live in a country in which it’s OK to throw shoes at the President”.

Which, correct me if I’m wrong, sounds very much like throwing shoes at the President should be a basic right of everyone living in a democracy. And does that mean we all get a turn?

Personally, despite the obvious attractions of being allowed to throw shoes at public figures, I’m not really in favour of it. The Daily Hate Mail would hand out free stilettos and there would be mob rule, like something out of Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

LULZ and angry-faced emoticons etc.

Must…tear…self…away…

(from XKCD)