Monday 22 March 2010

AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH

Sometimes I wake up alone and sometimes I don’t. Last Sunday morning, for instance, I awoke in a single bed in an unfamiliar room surrounded by stuff that wasn’t mine.

Where am I? I wondered as I crawled up through the depths.

I went to the window and peeked out: a spectacular landscape thrilled my eyes - definitely not my usual view. Instead of the quiet communal gardens of my leafy London neighbourhood, a towering range of snow-capped mountains soared above me, the imposing majesty of Mont Blanc dominating the peaks like a great rock god.

In case you hadn't guessed yet, I was away on a ski trip staying in a beautiful chalet owned by some friends of a friend of mine. For someone who lives alone, waking up to happy clan of noisy people, lots of kids and a large, wet Labrador is a very different experience to that wot I am used to, but one to which I quickly warmed.

It felt like Christmas every morning as a mixed bag of bodies in various stages of undress wandered into the vast, beating heart of the house to help themselves to the copious choice of breakfast: freshly-made apple, carrot, beetroot and ginger juice (thanks Shaun!) hand-frothed cappuccinos, yogurts, cereals, breads, cheeses, jams, chutneys, last night's leftovers. And then we went off skiing. Or didn’t, depending on the weather and our mood.

The toyboy content during this break was rather thin on the ground. There's always the ski instructors, of course, but we all remember The Great Val d’Esire Massacre a couple of years ago, so poignantly documented in TBD2 'The Daily Male'. I decided not to go there again. I chose Megève instead.

Holidays are for kicking back and going with the flow – or in this case, the snow. I didn’t even work ... WELL I COULDN'T, COULD I, BECAUSE I’D LEFT MY LAPTOP ON THE PLANE! Can you believe that - me, whose laptop is an extension of my right hand, forgetting to put it back in my holdall when we landed in Geneva?!

And so it cowered, frightened and alone, under seat 9D, whimpering quietly to itself, wondering whether it had done something terribly wrong until an honest cleaner picked it up and handed it in at the airport's Lost Property where we were reunited on my return.

Although no fresh toyboys were added to my arsenal (the use of this word will no doubt jar with Mr. Is-Good-Good-Enough as he's a Spurs supporter) I did stick a few new irons in the fire. Some of them had marshmallows on the end as I’m rather partial to soft pink squidgy things especially when dipped in rich, dark, melted chocolate.

And apart from cuckoo clocks, fondue, yodelling and charming mountain villages nestling in the crisp white snow, the Swiss do excel in rich, dark, melted chocolate...

Friday 12 March 2010

HE DUMPED ME!

He read my last blog, reckoned I was about to dump him and beat me to it! We had a couple of days respite when I kinda missed him - or maybe I just missed 'it' - then we started texting again.

He hasn't asked to see me and I haven't asked to see him. I've been away and really busy but I've no idea what's going on in his head and I'm not sure I really care. I suppose the fact that we're still in touch must indicate something but I'm not sure what. A slower letting go rather than sudden death, perhaps?

I think we got too easy too soon. But is this a fault? I was quite enjoying 'having someone' while certain in the knowledge he wasn't The One. There've been so many Ones over the past years, how will I recognize the next One anyway?!

What I did recognize was the fact that the romance ebbed away fairly quickly. I searched for it behind the sofa and under the bed but I couldn’t find it anywhere... and when he had the nerve to comment that I was ‘as comfortable as a pair of slippers’... Well! Really! What was a girl to do?

Romance is like fresh cream...it has a very short shelf life and goes off once you expose it to the light.

If you ask couples who've been together forever whether they’re still 'romantically' in tune, they may look at you rather quizzically as if they haven’t quite understood the question. It’s probably not something they care to ponder over, for if they did and the answers came back negative, it would open up enough cans of worms to stock a fishing tackle superstore.

Although being in a relationship does have its comfort zones, I never want to reach the point where my emotional life contains no rollercoaster rides, no passion, no drama, no excitement, no thrills and therefore no soaring highs and no crashing lows. All the things to which I am addicted...

It's such a shame that no matter how hard we try to preserve it, that delicious stomach-churning exhilaration that accompanies each new encounter seems to last no longer than a butterfly landing on our shoulder. Perhaps that's why one of my other addictions is 'firsts', because when the conversation dwindles down to a rather plebeian intercourse about the weather, work and what you've had for lunch, it's definitely time to pack up and go home.

So here I am swimming upstream again not sure if I'm headed towards a muddy maelstrom or about to float peacefully on a placid lake. Whichever it is, I shall enjoy the breast stroke as well as the crawl!

Old Romantic or New Romantic doesn't really matter as long as romance is present somewhere.

Off skiing next week so pray I don't break anything unless it's someone's heart.