flossiemoo

I was asked on friday if I'd work on the marathon on Sunday, and consequently spent the rest of Friday, Saturday and in particular the wee small hours of Sunday morning regretting it terribly. Panics about stuffing up, getting things wrong etc etc that seem insurmountable at 5am when you're pretending to yourself you're asleep as the alarm will be going off in an hour.

Anyway, as with all such matters I was wronger than a wrong thing. It was an incredible day.

Me and G from work were positioned at Cutty Sark and we got the standing-room-only tube and DLR there at 7.30am and the atmosphere was amazing even then. Crowds of people in their kit (loads in brand new trainers - don't they listen to ANY advice?), some with an air of 'another weekend, another marathon' and others with wives, mums and kids in tow nervously saying things like 'well I think this drizzle is better than sun' and 'I hope I don't need a pee too early'.

By dint of G chatting up a policeman we managed to get a great spot for N our engineer to set up camp, and then it was a case of chatting to people about why they were there etc. It was so incredibly emotional. I used to go every year when I was little, and hand out slices of orange but obviously didn't find it so heartwarming and heartwrenching back then.
Everyone running has a story and we heard so many of them. My throat contracted every few minutes once the fun-runners came swarming past - people with photos of their mum or brother in whose memory they were running.

Incredibly, I managed to spot my friend Bren who was running for the NSPCC - I shrieked 'BREN BREN!' and I think he thought at first that I was some random supporter till I sounded more urgent, then he turned, saw me and waved. Then in the middle of a link I got prodded and there was my childhood friend Richard, running for Children with Leukaemia' - I got terribly unprofessional and bellowed at him and blew him kisses!

Moved onto Isle of Dogs after a few hours, where a pub was blasting out tunes for the runners - you've not seen much till you've seen hundreds of people 17-miles-knackered but clapping their arms in turn to Queen's We Will Rock You.

Home at 3pm, having stood for 7 hours and as wet as a drowned rat, but on an absolute high. If you've never been to watch you MUST next year. It's so life-affirming and makes you realise that, actually, most people are good people;.

Friday night was catching up with Martin, Moggy, Michael and Mark. All the M's. Good especially to see Mark as we've probably not been out for the evening for about 3 years, a scary thought. As always I arrived hungry, but REALLY didn't fancy anything O'Neills had to offer (I have no idea why Mark insisted meeting there) so Moggy offered me a sachet of mayo. And I accepted. It did little to make me feel better, so when we left the two of us pretty much chanted 'we want chinese!' all the way to...another pub. More drink consumed on empty stomach made for much amusement, esp with the arrival of Peej and Bry, and much talk of Sol Campbell etc etc (what a let-down that turned out to be. Though obv I'm pleased for him that one of the rumours has proved to be untrue)

I staggered out at closing to my fave chinese, wobbled to covent gdn and got a cab home to share my bounty with K.

Saturday saw a visit from K's friend Ralph, so we watched Rangers lose pitifully to Hibs, then England win magnificently over Wales, then dashed into town to meet a friend at 2 Floors. Once more I was ravenous so we went to Ping Pong on Gt Marlborough St. Fantastic place - lovely dimsum (though no cheung-fun or shark fin) and beautiful Jasmine tea that unfurls into a flower in your glass. Went on to the Player before grabbing a cab up to Camden to meet up with a bunch of my mates and generally get drunk again. An aces night all round.

Sunday - recovery. Carluccios for lunch, Sunday papers, Scotland winning rugby and watching tv.

I am OFFICIALLY a retired old lady. Not only am I more or less working part time (but for a full time wage, natch) and an avid listener of the Archers, but I am now researching the family tree.

I got really into the Sheila Hancock 'Who Do You Think You Are' last week, got chatting to mum about it and she was saying how dad had started the research years back but never got round to finishing it.

Since then I've become a genealogy sleuth, tracking down members of the family left right and centre - there's something rather nice about looking at the original handwritten entry for your great great great grandfather in the 1851 census. I keep ringing ma or pa shrieking "Jane Spring's dad WAS REDSHAW SPRING!!" like I've just discovered who was on the grassy knoll. We've got a photo of my great grandad on board a ship (he was a sailmaker) and it just said 'Loch Broom, Melbourne'. Through email talk with people in Aus, we now know on the exact date the pic was taken (100 years ago next week!) and why (the ship had been stranded)

I am utterly addicted. K listens to me whitter on with a glazed look and distinct air of 'you were glamourous when we met' about him...

Well it was lovely - quite calm and peaceful and nice. Aside from occasional lapses into teenagerhood. Of course it was pretty much down to unreasonableness (if there is such a word) - firstly cos when I got home on Christmas Eve, mum had put her back out, and dad was in a bad mood. I tried to inject some christmas spirit into the proceedings by putting on the Carols from Kings, failed, and stomped off to the front room, bellowing 'oh RUIN MY CHRISTMAS why don't you?'. Ahem.

Midnight mass was at 8pm as our priest doesn't like late nights, so time to go to read my niece and nephew 'twas the night before christmas' in bed which was lovely.

Then Christmas day was an explosion of opening presents by said niece and nephew before they went to the out=laws, and I had a lovely calm dinner with ma and pa. Evening drinks at parent's friends playing Cranium resulted in the following phrases being said by grown-ups who should know better:
"it WAS a gay wedding but no muff-munchers there - Oh yes I know the terminology, I've watched Cathering Tate"
"nothing like a fur-trimmed nightie- keeps his ears warm"
"ooh there's a 90second egg timer in this game Dave - we could take it upstairs"
Us younguns sat with horrified looks writ large across our faces.

Rest of christmas was a flurry of visiting relatives, pub crawls, snow and eating eating eating. Marvellous.

Then to Manchester on 30th to reunite with OH, and to have a ridiculously silly and drink fuelled party on New year's eve. New year's day pretty much a write-off, apart from a faultless train journey home. OH is now full of bad cold.

So Friday was our department work do. We'd had Jerusalem booked but the woman in charge (see xmas card giver below) had forgotten to give them a deposit. So she trills into work on Thursday and says she has somewhere booked, and it's really cool etc etc. Called Cafe Bollywood. So we look it up and it's London's foremost place for Bhangra beats. All well and good if that's your bag, but for a work do it's not quite what I'd expect.

Oh I forgot to mention. She insisted we wear school uniform. What's the deal with this? Why do grown adults want to wear children's outfits?

So there we are, trudging to Mayfair in school bloody uniform when I ask her what kind of a deal she had to do to get somewhere at last minute and she replied 'oh they were really keen and said it was no problem'. That's when alarm bells rang. On the busiest night of the year, this place has loads of spare room?

So we get there and the bar looks quite glam and we're all wondering how long we can keep our coats on to cover our outfits, when the manager ushers us downstairs to what appears to have been the set of Byker Grove. I shit you not. A huge room, with a mural painted on a wall, a load of old battered sofas and a 3 metre square dancefloor in the middle. It could have comfortably held 300 people. There was 18 of us. In school uniform. After HALF AN HOUR they decided to put some background music on, at which point my white, fat, bespectacled boss found a microphone and started rapping. He also tried to convince everyone to dance on the dancefloor on their own for 1 minute. It was like an episode of The Office.

The free bar ran out at 9.30pm.

By 10 I was in the pub down the road with the sports team, watching post-match analysis on the TV.