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Big Grey Man’s Back

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At 7.45am on any weekday morning, Big Grey Man (see Gym Buddies) is usually queuing for a coffee at the gym – and attempting to make inane talk with me.

So imagine my shock when at 7.45am, I joined the queue at my local Caffe Nero (several miles from the gym) and who should be lurking ahead of me but… Big Grey Man, seemingly bigger and greyer than ever.

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He appeared completely unfazed by this random coincidence, simply beaming moronically at me and making small talk about the weather.

Same time, same coffee queue, completely different location.

I’m a little scared.

My Parents… and the Sunday Walks

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Every Sunday without fail, the parents and omnipresent Uncle Stephen set off on a walk – exploring a little corner of Lancashire each week. Occasionally, the husband and I join them, along with sporadic guest appearances from my sister and nephew Max.

Weather is never a problem for the stoic parents. We’ve been known to battle gales, snow and hail, all in the name of a bracing country walk. ‘A little bit of rain’, as my mother would say, isn’t something that they would allow to get in the way of their weekly ramble.

My mother also believes that no terrain is too rocky and no field too boggy for our hardy family to traverse. Once, on a walk in Haworth, we met a couple of walkers coming in the opposite direction, who advised that it was just too muddy further along, and that we probably should turn back now. My mother simply scoffed at their feebleness and ploughed on regardless.

But the most memorable walk was around Entwistle Reservoir near Bolton earlier this year.

There had been mass flooding in the area, meaning that parts of the reservoir had overflowed onto the footpath that ran around its perimeter. Signs were put up advising walkers to avoid the area.

Naturally, the parents remained completely impervious to this news.

It all began so well. There were a few puddles here and there – but further into the walk, the puddles began to grow, and a couple of passing dog walkers issued grave warnings that the path ahead was impassable and we should turn back immediately.

My mother simply didn’t believe them, and my father, upon hearing the word ‘impassable’, was even more determined to press on. He loves a challenge.

Further up, the flooding was so bad that it was impossible to see where the reservoir ended and the footpath began. It was just a giant expanse of water.

Faced with this impassable challenge, it was every man for himself.

My sister, left in charge of the pushchair, had no option but to slosh straight through the water – up to her knees!

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The rest of us (Max, aka Fireman Sam, having been hastily hoisted onto the husband’s shoulders) decided to scramble up the bank at the side, and head for higher ground.

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But my father, with his adventurous streak, plumped for a more difficult route. Determined not to stray too far from the footpath, he attempted to clamber, crab-style, along a rickety fence.

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Half-way along, with water swirling below, the fence creaking ominously under his weight, and a sign announcing ‘dangerous undertows’, he realised that perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

But while the rest of us hollered ‘turn back’ from high above, Bear Grylls With A Bus Pass gamely shuffled on, determined not to be proved wrong.

Soaking wet, with squelching feet, and splinters in his hands, my father finally staggered over.

‘Well, that wasn’t too bad,’ he announced, seemingly unfazed by this brush with near-death.

‘Now, where are we thinking for lunch?’

The Return Of Dirty Harry

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True love has yet to strike for my old mucker Harry.

He appears to be back on the market – or in the window of the local hardware store again, at any rate.

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His original criteria requested someone who is good-looking, with personality AND style. This time, he’s lowered his expectations slightly.

But style isn’t something he will compromise on, citing his need for a ‘special friend’ who can ‘put it together for any occasion’!

Just where is Harry planning on taking this elusive – yet stylish, good-looking and charismatic – companion?

I’m tempted to give him a bell.

The Curse Of The Free Garlic Bread

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You know those people who love to ‘know’ people in hotels and restaurants – who greet the maitre d’ like a long-lost friend and air kiss the waiters on both cheeks, in the hope of a free glass of prosecco and a table in the window?

I’m not one of those people.

I just want to go to a restaurant, eat a meal and depart quietly, without having to hug or kiss anyone – least of all the waiter.

The husband is even worse than me: he hates fuss. So much so that he has stopped staying at ’boutique’ hotels for fear of busybody bell boys and an over-zealous concierge. One of his pet hates is being escorted to his room and being shown how to operate the curtains, TV and light fixtures (usually in painstaking detail), followed by the ensuing awkwardness of whether one should tip them or not.

In his advancing years, he has begun to relish the anonymity of a large hotel where he can relax FUSS FREE, without a simpering waiter loitering in the background, or being forced to make small talk over breakfast with the owners of some quaint B’n’B.

But there is one Italian restaurant that we go to where we do happen to ‘know’ the manager. He’s a genuinely lovely guy – the husband of a friend of a friend. And as we all know, there’s always a perk to knowing the manager…

In our case, that perk comes in the form of… a free garlic bread.

The Garlic Bread Saga began some time ago when there was a group of four of us and I attempted to order a half tomato/ half cheese garlic bread. What actually arrived, was a half tomato/ half cheese AND tomato garlic bread. Oh no!

‘Not to worry, madam, one half tomato/ half JUST cheese garlic bread coming up…’

From that day on, every time we visited the Italian, a half tomato/ half JUST cheese garlic bread would magically appear on our table, with a knowing wink from our manager friend over yonder.

The problem is that the garlic bread is huge – and extremely garlicky. And while it’s great for a table of four, when it’s just the husband and I, it’s a bit of an undertaking.

But because it’s a gift, it would be rude to leave it – so we dutifully chomp our way through it on every visit, making a mental note to keep at least a metre away from anyone we come into contact with the next day.

Recently, I went to the Italian with my friend Abi. Abi began studying the starters.

‘I think there’s a free garlic bread coming,’ I whispered.

‘What?’ she said.

‘He usually brings one over – half tomato/ half just cheese…’

We waited a while but there was no sign of the garlic bread.

That’s the problem with regular freebies: you kind of come to expect them.

The waiter came over. We decided to order a garlic bread anyway – just tomato (Abi’s not keen on the cheese).

But after our waiter had gone, another waiter came bearing down on us carrying… a huge garlic bread.

A big FUSS ensued: Waiter 1 consulted waiter 2, who then had to go and find our friend the manager, who then had to go and speak to the disgruntled chef, who didn’t look best pleased but decided that now he had cooked two garlic breads, we might as well have both of them… It was garlicky, carb-fuelled madness.

And we hadn’t even got to our main course.

On my most recent visit with the husband, I decided to tackle The Garlic Bread Saga head on. There was no sign of our manager friend. We also happened to have a new waiter, who appeared rather surly.

‘I was just wondering if we could have smaller garlic bread to start,’ I said.

‘We can do it on a smaller base but you’ll still have to pay for a full-sized one,’ he sneered.

He obviously didn’t know that were garlic bread royalty around here.

‘Fine,’ I said, wearily.

I just didn’t want any FUSS.

Odd Jobs and Drawer Knobs

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I’ve already told you that no distance is too far for the parents to travel. Lunch in Edinburgh? Not a problem. Meet you at a historic castle just north of the Outer Hebrides? See you there in eight hours.

And their go-anywhere attitude proves a blessing when there are any DIY jobs to do in Leeds (the husband having been rendered incapable of doing any odd jobs after a frightening incident involving a circular drill, details of which even he doesn’t want to share).

The only problem with my father and his handyman skills is that each task requires two long-winded journeys to Yorkshire: the first to Weigh The Job Up and the second to actually complete said job.

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The Golden Ticket

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I once had a glamorous job as a showbiz reporter-cum-girl about town, trawling the hottest haunts of London and writing about vacuous celebrities. I met them all – from the dregs of lollygagger Dean Gaffney and omnipresent Calum Best, to the A-list highs of pearly-toothed Tom Cruise and scowling Madonna.

My champagne lifestyle was the envy of many; the reality quite different. Most evenings would be spent shivering on the edge of the red carpet at one of the twice-weekly film premieres – cheek to jowl with pushy journos – or standing awkwardly in a darkened night club, deciding how best to broach the subject of Alan Partridge’s penchant for lapdancers. Many a night I cut a forlorn figure – scampering home across Waterloo Bridge, picking up a reduced sandwich from Tesco to supplement my canape diet, and then riding the No. 77 bus home. It was the best and worst of times.

So, when I received a phonecall to tell me that I had ‘won’ two tickets to the VIP opening of the new beauty salon down the road, I think it’s fair to say I was a little underwhelmed – grateful, of course but let’s just say, it wasn’t the highlight of my yearly calendar.

But the organiser of the tickets had other ideas. First, he explained in the phonecall that this really was a VIP event – so VIP that even the beauty salon owner’s friends and family hadn’t made it onto the guestlist. Really? I felt like one of the golden ticket winners at Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

Next, I received a text checking that I was definitely coming. Of course. What else could be more important at 6.30pm on a Wednesday evening?

The next text wanted to know which of my friends I was going to bring with me. I consulted my ever-depleting ‘friends who might be free on a Wed evening’ list. Friend 1 – baby to look after; Friend 2 – ditto; Friend 3 – temporarily absconded down South; Friend 4 – packing to move house. This left Friend 5 – recently acquired new puppy but willing to abandon dog duty to accompany me to this ultra-exclusive opening.

But when I texted the organiser with the name of my friend, this was his reply:

‘Oh, *insert name of friend*, okay… Can I just remind you that you are both representing *insert name of local residents’ association* so you will need to be on your best behaviour. The dress code is smart/casual by the way’.

Best behaviour? Smart/casual? Seriously? What kind of tomfoolery was he expecting from a 30-something teacher and a respected homeware designer? Turning up in matching Vicky Pollard tracksuits, bad-mouthing the beauty products, and hustling the guests?

Wednesday came and when I finally swept through the hallowed doors of this much-vaunted event, I had an insane urge to really do something bad. Should I open up my large tote and sweep a whole shelf of nail polishes straight into it, when no-one was looking? Should I drink all the champagne, start emptying the goody bags out of the back door, and make off with all the freebies into the night (actually, I have done that before – the goody bags, that is. Maybe he had a point!)?

Instead, I plumped for stealing an extra cupcake on exit (one for me, one for the husband) and attempting to balance them on my knee as I drove home – yet still managing to get fresh cream all over the steering wheel.

So much for VIP. But it beats catching the bus with my Tesco reduced sandwich any night.

Gym Buddies

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The gym is rapidly becoming a no-go area. After my close encounter with a former flame the other week, I seem to have made the acquaintance of another character who I’m avoiding with equal determination.

My new friend – let’s call him Big Grey Man – first made an appearance when I was queuing for a post-swim, pre-work coffee. Me: flustered and late as usual; Him: big and grey – and overly eager to chat.

‘We meet again…’ he said, as I approached the coffee queue. I actually turned around to look behind me, so convinced I was that he couldn’t be talking to me. He was.

It transpired that we had also been queuing for a coffee together the week before (quelle surprise!), and exchanged the very smallest of pleasantries – an encounter so inconsequential that I had completely forgotten it had ever happened. Obviously he hadn’t.

And so began one of those awkward conversations, where I try hard not to engage with him on any level (short monotone sentences usually do the trick), and he tries his hardest to keep up the patter. I feel a little mean because Big Grey Man is perfectly pleasant. But I have a rule about the gym: I don’t believe in communicating with anyone whilst there. I just want to get in, do 30 lengths in the pool, and exit – all with minimum human interaction.

This was tested about two years ago when I was reluctantly befriended by Lipo Liza – a woman who regularly had several pints of fat removed from her stomach and thighs, and seemed hellbent on sharing the details of this gruesome procedure with me – at 6.30 in the morning. It wasn’t just her thighs that got airtime though: I knew all about her job (she hated it), mother (hated her), ex-boyfriend (hated him) and many other details which I would not want to inflict upon you. Luckily, her newly-thinned thighs led her to new-found love and she moved somewhere down South, finally leaving me in peace.

Another strange specimen at the gym is Mad Army Woman. You know those people who like to Make A Scene at the gym by huffing and puffing loudly, pacing up and down and doing exaggerated stretches? She’s one of them. While the rest of the morning swimmers are quietly getting on with their lengths, she’s busy doing her own peculiar routine, which as far as I can see involves angrily striding up and down the pool in a full wet suit (she’s about the size of a small bungalow), pausing to eat half a banana, taking two controlled swigs of Lucozade and then – bizarrely – circling the jacuzzi in figures of eight, thrashing through the water in an exaggerated army march. It’s quite frightening.

Back to my new friend though…

Big Grey Man: We obviously have the same routine!

Me (feigning interest in the coffee menu): Hmm…

Big Grey Man: I didn’t see you last week though?

Me: My car broke down.

Big Grey Man: Really? What was wrong with it?

Me (yawn): The alternator. (Yawn. Yawn.)

You get the idea.

I finally managed to escape but as was crossing the car park, there he was – honking his horn and waving manically.

I hoped that my interaction with him would be limited to the pre-work coffee queue. But when I went down to the pool this week, lo and behold, he was there – sat in the jacuzzi, beaming like a mentalist and waving at me (again!). Crazily, he was chatting to Mad Army Woman (who appeared to be on stage seven of her drill: Stop circling jacuzzi for three minutes and eat second half of banana). They both seemed to be staring at me. Big Grey Man waved again.

What next? Inviting me to join them in the jacuzzi? Chatting to me in the steam room? (attempting to strike up a conversation in the steam room is strictly taboo in my eyes).

At least Lipo Liza had entertaining stories in her quest to fight the flab. Big Grey Man offers nothing but big greyness and Mad Army Woman nothing but drill-sergeant lunacy. I didn’t want to be part of their weird jacuzzi club.

I dunked my head under the water and swam away – with a little theatrical splash of my own.

My Mother… and her Telephone Voice

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Remember in the 80s, when parents used to answer the landline by saying the area followed by their phone number ie. ‘St Albans 233915?’

Well, my mother STILL does that.

The husband didn’t believe me so I told him to call my mother. She answered with a trill, ‘Hello, Preston 7437**’, as she always does.

Sometimes, I try to cut her off somewhere between the 7 and the 4, by announcing, ‘It’s ME!’

But she always persists with saying the full number, in her poshest ‘telephone voice’, of course. I think it’s something to do with her former days working on the switchboard at BT, before she became student landlady extraordinaire.

My sister and I were always drilled to answer the telephone in our best secretarial voice,  just in case it was Someone Of Great Importance (it never was).

I love that the age of mobile communication has done nothing to dampen my mother’s habit.

The husband’s late grandmother took things one step further – answering the telephone not with her number but with her full postal address.

I almost wish I had a landline so I could carry on the tradition.

‘Hello, Orange 07956 2666**, somewhere in North Leeds…’ just doesn’t have the same ‘ring’ to it.

Belligerent Bill

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After locking horns with SuDick and my weary battles with Greenclaws, it probably won’t come as a surprise that I’ve entered a cold war with another of my tiresome neighbours; I’m beginning to think that maybe I’m the problem.

Bill from Apartment 2 is one of those ‘I’m-alright-Jack’ characters, who is perfectly pleasant when you bump onto him in the corridors but underneath his friendly facade, lurks a selfish and mean-spirited man.

Bill and I were muddling along quite well (with a neighbourly wave here and there) until one evening the husband accidentally parked in Bill’s parking spot rather than our own (if you knew The Husband and his acute absent-mindedness, this is a perfectly plausible mistake).

The next morning we found a note on our car saying: ‘NEVER PARK HERE AGAIN’. I was a bit taken aback. The mask of friendly Bill had slipped.

Outside our apartments, there is an unofficial parking bay which people occasionally use if they’re too lazy to park in the proper car park down the hill. Bill, in particularly, was a regular user. However, at a recent residents’ meeting we collectively agreed that we shouldn’t park there as it was causing an obstruction to others.

Initially, Bill took this new rule very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that if anyone ever parked in that spot, he would leave one of his NEVER PARK HERE notes on the offending vehicle. Like SuDick, he was another retiree with too much time on his hands (and a seemingly never-ending supply of post-it notes).

A month or two elapsed – until, to my amazement, Bill started parking back in the very spot himself. I couldn’t believe it. Talk about double standards.

It was time for some payback.

Spotting his car there one morning, I scampered rapidly back into our apartment, grabbed a post-it note of my own and wrote: DO NOT PARK HERE.

‘Ha ha! A taste of your own medicine, Bill,’ I thought, as I gleefully slapped it on his windscreen, before heading down the hill to clamber in my own legally-parked vehicle.

However, as I drove back up from the car park… Oh no! Bill was there – standing by his car and brandishing my note, a look of pure rage etched upon his ruddy face. I attempted to maintain an air of superior indifference as I beetled past. But we both knew I had been caught red-handed.

I thought nothing else of the incident until I returned home that night and found my post-it note back slapped on my front door for all to see, with a new message scrawled on the bottom.

‘GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT’.

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The cheeky swine. I was furious. And in my fury, hastily bashed out the following email:

Dear Bill,

I’m assuming it was you who left a post-it note on my front door today stating: ‘Get your facts right’ regarding your obstructive parking on the driveway this morning.
I’m not sure what facts I need to ‘get right’. Did we not have a new rule not to park up against the side of the building, which we all agreed to adhere to at the last residents’ meeting? In fact, I have noted other occasions when your car has been parked there in the last fortnight.
What is even more baffling is that you regularly leave ‘Do not park here’ notes to other drivers parked in that very same spot. I’ve seen you attaching them, in fact, in little clear plastic sandwich bags tied onto the driver’s door handle.
This to me, seems to be the ultimate act of hypocrisy; clearly one rule for you and a different rule for everyone else.
Please don’t bother me with more silly messages. Perhaps you could just put into practice what you regularly preach.
Kind regards,
Katy
Apt 3

Seconds after hitting the ‘send’ button, I regretted it. It was a bit strong, I thought anxiously. Even The Husband (bcc’d in) was shocked by my venom.

I spent the next few weeks skulking down the corridor and tiptoeing to my car, hoping never to bump into angry Bill again.

Until one morning, I hopped in my car and was just plodding up the drive when the engine suddenly cut out. I just about managed to pull over. I turned the key. The engine coughed slightly and then nothing… I had broken down.

And worse still, I was now parked myself in the illegal parking space! Surely this could not be happening.

With a heavy heart, I had no choice but to abandon the car for the whole day, with a giant note pinned on the windscreen stating: CAR BROKEN DOWN. AWAITING RECOVERY.

I could just imagine Bill’s smug smile when he saw my sad, malfunctioning vehicle occupying the much-maligned spot – before being carted off to the garage.

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Bill had won.

And he didn’t need a post-it note to tell me.

The Ex-Files

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Bumping into an ex-boyfriend you haven’t seen for 10 years is never fun. But when you leap out of bed, stumble to the gym with scarecrow hair, a sunburnt nose, completely sans make-up, and come face to face with them at 8am on a Saturday morning, it’s about as bad as it can get.

I always imagine the ideal ‘ex encounter’ might involve some sort of glamorous rooftop bar. Me – immaculately turned out, clinking glasses of Veuve and laughing animatedly with a hunky Gosling-alike (sorry husband). Him – Dejected and haggard, rueing the day he let his one chance of true love slip through his fingers…

My encounter yesterday couldn’t have been further from this. Bleary-eyed and channelling the just-dragged-through-a-hedgerow look, I was wearily waiting at the reception desk to resolve a problem with my faulty gym pass, when he came strolling through the door. It’s not that there’s any animosity there – it’s just, like with all exes, in my mind he had quietly disappeared and died some time ago.

Given that I was staring gormlessly at him for a good few seconds as he advanced towards me, I could have done the ‘mature’ thing: smiled in faux delight and indulged in some completely pointless pleasantries, trying furiously to ignore the fact that I looked like a porridge-faced bag lady, with a nose like Rudolph.

But that would have been far too sensible.

So instead, I hastily swivelled around and fixed my eyes somewhere on the wall behind the receptionist, as she finished her agonisingly-slow phone conversation. There we both were, the ex and I, shoulder to shoulder, listening to the wittering receptionist and studiously ignoring each other. His gym pass, it transpired, had stopped working too. What are the chances?

I spent the rest of the gym session skulking around, desperate not to bump into him, before scurrying back to my car and resolving never to go to the gym on a Saturday morning again.