This Week, I Have Been:

A - Applying. Suncream. Furiously. The other day I went to the park to sunbathe, but slathered my skin in so much factor thirty that I think I came back whiter than I was when I left. Somehow it actually soaked in so that even with my freckles I look like I have just been spattered with white paint.

B - Basking. In the knowledge that in a few months I won't have to worry too much about money for a little while. I am to be a music practitioner in a primary school for the rest of term, which means that every Monday I get the bus to Burnley to spend the day working with a drama practitioner, two teachers and lots of small, eager people (children, not dwarfs).

C - Calculating. What I will be able to buy! Then quickly reminding myself that I will only cover some rent for a few months, but then going back to typing How Much Do Glittery Ponies Cost? into Google.

D - Drinking. Beers in the sun. Wine with dinner. Endless coffee at work. Peppermint tea with my mate Jess in a shisha café round the corner. Earl Grey tea (no milk). Dark rum and ginger. Gin and tonic. Pint after pint of water.

E - Eating. I made spicy bean burgers last night. This was A Treat for Ben, because usually he is in charge of cooking. I am usually on washing-up duty, which is, as everyone knows, a really shit duty.

F - Furrowing. My brow. I am quite often confused.

G - Giggling. On the megabus a few weeks ago I happened to overhear (read: was eavesdropping intently) a conversation between the coach driver and a few of his colleagues who had joined us at Watford Gap to come the rest of the way to London. Their conversation was a delicious insight into the world of the long distance coach driver. Example 1:

Coach Driver 1: National Express? Nah mate. They don't have a clue.

Coach Driver 2: Yeah. They don't have a clue. I was following a National Express coach round Buckingham Palace the other day. He didn't have a clue.

Coach Driver 1: (chuckles, and nods knowingly) Yeah. They don't have a clue.


Can anyone spot the lesson learned here?

Example 2:


Coach Driver 2: What you have right here is fifteen metres of heavy metal underneath you.

Coach Driver 3: Yeah. We are heavy metal.

Coach Driver 2: (sagely) The ultimate.

Really?

Coach driver 2 is also the only person I have ever encountered who has used the word "phwoar" without even a trace of irony.


H - Hurting. I walk everywhere. EVERYWHERE. (Alright, apart from when I got the coach down to London.) My back does not like this. It rebels.

I - Irritating. To walk along with, because of the above. It means that I have developed what I have termed Pain Tourettes, which involves yelping with pain at random, probably mid-sentence, and then carrying on as if nothing has happened. This is, I have been informed, rather disconcerting.

J - Joking. I have not, however, discovered any new jokes in quite a while. Anyone?

K - Knickerbocker Glorying. We make them at the café where I work. They look amazing, but too much of a hassle to eat. Is this weird? Am I weird? Validate me?

L - Léonie-ing. I have been correcting people on the pronunciation of my name nearly every day. It is a problem which has jabbed me in the ribs on a regular basis for my whole life, but I failed to anticipate how much of an arse it would be on moving to a new city. I hate correcting people, it makes me feel like a twat, but I feel more of a twat when I meekly answer to Lee-OH-nie. Just call me Laney, I say. They nod, sure, and promptly forget. I feel guilty for adding to the no doubt terrible pressures of their everyday existence by expecting to be called by my correct name, so slink off into a corner and feel shit. They brightly beckon me over, sing-songing "Lee-OH-nie" at the top of their voices, at which point everyone else who might be on the brink of pronouncing it right quickly assumes they were wrong and joins in. "Lee-OH-nie". Oh God.

M - Murderous. See above.

N - Narcissistic. "Waah, nobody will pronounce words the way I WANT THEM TO. I am going to have a tantrum on my blog."

O - Oniony. A bit. It is tricky, because after finishing my shift at work I am allowed to make myself a delicious sandwich from the sandwich ingredients cabinet, and this usually leads to me lurching off with a bizarre concoction involving most of the options, sprinkled lavishly with red onion. Probably nobody else would touch it, declaring it "disgusting", maybe, or "an affront to sandwiches everywhere." I can't help it, though. I feel like a child making a sandwichy potion. Yum.

P - Percussive. Or at least I will be. One of the activities I plan to do as music practitioner is Musical Instrument Making. Pringles tubes with lentils, anyone? Ice cream tubs and foil?

Q - Quetzalcoatlus. Well, I'm not, but I wish I was, because isn't that a brilliant word? Although Quetzalcoatlus might be even more difficult to explain over the phone to complaints departments than Léonie.

R - Rained on. Well, this is Manchester. When I was coming back from work just now I passed a woman and a little boy cheerily waving at me from inside a phone box. Given that it has not yet stopped raining (an hour later), I am beginning to wonder whether perhaps I should take them a snack.

S - Singy. Well, yes. Much singing is taking place. Hurray!

T - Truthfully? A bit bored of this alphabet thing now.

U - Up Yours. Not you, no. Unless you are all the people I hated or felt belittled by when I lived in London and worked in shitty offices. Up yours if you are that short, arrogant, moron of a woman who fired me, or that loser recruitment consultant who make me feel like shit. Or many others whom I allowed under my skin, who thought that their way of living is the only valid one. You're wrong, dickheads.

V - Violent. I am beginning to worry. See above. Also I just threw the cat on the bed with a bit more enthusiasm than I had intended, and now he is looking at me, hurt, confused and a little bit cat-like.

W - Waiting. For Ben to finish his rehearsal and call me, so I know what time we're going out later.

X - X-tremely. Tempted to move the letters on the Scrabble board he has carefully laid out. This would be naughty, as it is not just any game of Scrabble, oh no. It is For A Show about gangster Scrabble. I would be in trouble if I moved the letters, and assigned to washing up duty for the rest of my life. Much like Cinderella, except without the helpful fauna (the cat is not looking very keen) and nobility and good that will out in the end.

Y - Yeah. I just moved a letter.

Z - Zzz. If I pretend to have been asleep he will assume it was the cat.