Growing old (dis)gracefully..

Today, by some truly miraculous stroke of fate, I am in buoyant mood. This may have rather a lot to do with the following:

1. Last night I had a full 8 hours' sleep for the first time in as long as I can remember.
2. On Saturday I am flying out to Portugal for our golf event in the Algarve - admittedly, this will be five days of hard slog, but at least there will be sun, and as we march relentlessly towards another winter, sun is good.

Now I'm sitting here taking the time to be objective about my life, I must admit there have been other good things happening of late. I shall endeavour to take you through them in chronological order:

1. The Date with the Ex

As predicted, it wasn't so much of a date as a catch up, which was actually really lovely. Started off a bit embarrassingly when I went to the wrong 'theatre bar' (what are the chances?!!) and was half an hour late to meet him, but he soon put me at ease (in spite of the fact we met at an upmarket and frankly rather romantic restaurant) and we had a good old chin wag. I was, I’ll admit, somewhat baffled when he failed to mention his girlfriend of some five years for at least the first hour of our conversation, but once her name had been mentioned he seemed keen for us to meet one another, and duly arranged for us all to go to the same pub later that evening. This was, with the benefit of hindsight, his first mistake, given that she turned up with two friends, a little worse for wear, and proceeded to grill me about who I was, how I knew her man etc etc (all fairly reasonable questions considering). Turns out he hadn’t told her we actually dated back in the day, so I was forced to fudge the issue by playing the ‘old friends’ card, which I suspect I did with some degree of insincerity. The final straw was when I found myself sandwiched between the pair of them as her drunk colleague launched into an ‘aren’t you just the perfect couple’ speech – at that moment I had a rather out-of-body experience and wondered what the hell I was doing there, so duly made my excuses and left. All very strange, but lovely to see him nonetheless.

2. Majorca (and the Leo DiCaprio Lookalike)

Now I’m not one to brag, but it turns out my friend’s parents’ pad in Majorca is just a little further up the hill than Kate Moss’s – in actual fact we had the perfect vantage point from our (ahem) infinity pool, though I’m sorry to say she wasn’t in residence during our stay. The house was incredible, like something out of MTV Cribs, with a huge, perfectly landscaped terrace and garden, music that piped through every room in the house (and even through speakers cleverly camouflaged as rocks down by the pool) and the aforementioned infinity pool, which was simply stunning. I was only there for four days but what a four days it was, great company, great Mediterranean food, lengthy periods of lilo floating in the sunshine and general feel-good activities such as massages, haircuts, coffees and meals out. I also met a rather gorgeous Leo DiCaprio (my dream man, for those not in the know – embarrassing, yes, but true) lookalike on my third night which topped things off perfectly. His name was actually Leo too, which was rather uncanny, and he worked on a boat, taking people out on day trips from the Port. If only there were men like THAT in London..sigh…

3. Yorkshire

The day after arriving back from Portugal it was straight from the frying pan into the fire as I headed up to Yorkshire for our annual Three Peaks Challenge event. Words cannot do justice to the feeling of absolute depression that shrouded itself around me like a thick and rather damp mist the second I stepped off the train at Horton-in-Ribblesdale. Our hotel was chintzy in the extreme. It rained practically non-stop for the two days we were there, and not just any rain, I might add, driving rain, accompanied by howling gales, sleet, fog…the works. Getting up at 5am on the Saturday morning was bad enough, but climbing the second peak and setting up base camp on the summit, which was to become my home for the next five hours, was truly indescribable. Thankfully I was accompanied by a Yorkshire Dales Guide named Robbie who was rather easy on the eye and amusing company to boot – plus he’d had the forethought to pack a little orange tent (I believe the correct term is ‘kissoo’) which afforded us just enough protection from the harsh weather conditions to avoid contracting hypothermia. The real low point was realising all but one of my cigarettes had got drenched and we had forgotten to pack food for lunch. Oh – and when my plaintive cries of ‘this is checkpoint 4 to base, is anybody listening?’ were repeatedly ignored, only for Robbie to get an answer every time. Nice. Anyway, it was a successful weekend as far as raising money for the Charity was concerned, so that was the main thing. Plus I tacked on an extra day to visit my Dad, who now resides in a nearby village and runs a self-catering holiday let, which was nice, and long overdue.

4. The Proms

Worthy of note is the lovely evening I had with my good friends Chris and Pete at the BBC Proms last Tuesday. Was at the Royal Albert Hall where Chris’s company has a box that he was able to blag for the princely sum of £45! I felt like a real A-lister sitting there, listening to the strains of Mozart and drinking £45-a-bottle champagne, and even more so when, after the concert, Pete took me to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Knightsbridge for cocktails and sushi. Ah, the life to which I’d love to become accustomed….

5. Netball

Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before but I have joined a netball team. This is hilarious for a number of reasons, primarily because a) I haven’t played in a good ten years and b) I’m not exactly known for my sporting prowess or enthusiasm for team sporting activities. Still, I’m always up for a challenge and it seemed like a new and, er, innovative, way to keep fit, socialise etc. Plus it’s a mixed league so you never know who you might meet along the way, if you see what I mean! No luck on that front so far, I might add, and our first match was a rather humiliating defeat (final score 20-2!), but I have faith that we’ll improve – the only way is up!

And finally, this weekend just gone I finally hooked up with the 23 (now 24!) year old from way back in February (if you don’t remember this story, I’m afraid I have neither the time nor inclination to refresh your memory, suffice to say he was perilously close to being struck off my contacts list but has now redeemed himself enough to remain there for a little while longer..). It was fun, he was nice (very nice in fact), but my recent experiences with men have left me wary and I’m now determined to play it cool no matter what my heart, head or instincts tell me otherwise. I will NOT be made a fool out of again. My heart is quite happy rattling around inside its shiny new man-proof cage, thank you very much. And anyway, have been having far too much fun acting like a teenager of late to get myself bogged down in a relationship – Saturday’s bbq being a case in point, where we all ended up chasing one another around the garden with a super soaker full of tequila and beer, dressing up as Buzz Lightyear (particularly topical given the name of this blog) and generally creating carnage wherever we went. I’m 27 in three weeks’ time. Good to see I’m growing old (dis)gracefully…