flossing the cat

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As you will know by now,  I'm a self-confessed scaredy-cat. Slip roads, space hoppers, rounders, and checking voice mail, all give me the willies, as does the line: It puts the lotion in the basket. And don't get me started on that feathered monstrosity from the Seventies, Emu.  But now, following a recent visit to Bounce Below , a disused slate cavern featuring suspended trampoline nets, I have to add trampolines to the shit list. I should have known better, of course. Anything that describes itself as “offering a degree of physical challenge” is not for me.  But, as we are on a family holiday at the time, and there has already been an awful lot of visiting national monuments, a trip to a subterranean playground seems in order. ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE We make our way to Llechwedd Slate Caverns, boarding the underground train to the trampolines. “This is the actual old mining train”, I say, reading the leaflet. “It’s Victorian.”  “OMG. W...

At the risk of sounding like a hater, I HATE flashers. I don’t mean folks who like to show you their bits. Unless you’re talking about Rihanna. If I ever see any of Rihanna’s bits, ever again, I will pluck out my own eyeballs. I mean motorists who think it’s the done thing to flash you with their headlights for no discernible reason. Take the other day. There I am, driving along the country road into my village, when a motorist flashes me. I check the speedometer. The instrument panel. The mirrors.   Nothing. A second motorist flashes me, then a third, this time with eye-melting LED headlights that emit more light than a nuclear explosion.   In a state of high anxiety, overwhelmed by the mind-altering pain of the retinal burn, I consider the following possibilities:   a) There is a corpse on my car roof. b) The radiator grille is spewing out Plague. c) The flesh-eating flying demon from Jeepers Creepers is preparing to swoop down on my car...

Today, I have been mostly thinking about the pros and cons of working from home, which I’d like to share. I'll begin with the bad news:  1. Working from home can mean extensive periods of isolation, leading to a catastrophic degeneration of socio-personal skills. In extreme circumstances, this can mean going to ridiculous lengths to avoid human contact, such as using the sewer network to get to the post office, or leaping from branch to branch in the overhead tree canopy to avoid footpaths.    2. Conversely, working from home can also mean getting so ridiculously over-excited at the possibility of human contact, that when the postman delivers a parcel, you end up speaking in the jumbled, rapid manner of a psychotic:     ME: Oh, hi, sorry I took ages ... I was upstairs in the bathroom … Ha ha ha! Ooh! I’m so out of breath though ... can’t believe how unfit I am ... still, what’s it like OUT THERE? Haven’t been OUT today! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Le...

Everyone remembers their first kiss, right? For me, the story involves a widowed second cousin-in-law, twice-removed, who lived in Carmarthenshire with some other cousins, who went by the name of Great Auntie Maud. (Fuck knows why I’m specifying the exact degree of kinship of those involved.) Suffice it to say that Great Auntie Maud was as old as Methuselah, and may have even been a childhood friend of his. Anyhoo, one day, during one particular visit to our cousins’ home, Great Auntie Maud shot up from her armchair as we were leaving, and stood in the doorway, blocking our exit. “Give Auntie Maud a kiss goodbye then”, she said, turning to me. I was thirteen and three-quarters at the time. And although kissing somebody was on my bucket list, Great Auntie Maud looked nothing like a) Andrew Ridgeley from Wham, b) John Taylor, the bass guitarist from Duran Duran, or c) Stephen Jones from Form 3C, who were the usual objects of my kissing fantasies. “What you waiting fo...

Let me get one thing straight. In spite of my buffed appearance, I am NOT a gym bunny. I loathe exercise more than I loathe Facebook updates about exercise.   I loathe exercise more than I loathe the new iWatch. I loathe exercise more than I loathe the idea of shitting on the pavement in full view of the world’s media, which is also to say that if I’d been the one running the London Marathon in 2005, shitting on the pavement would have been the highlight of my race, Paula. All of which makes my recent love affair with an exercise bike, frankly, disturbing.  It all began a few weeks ago, during an episode of PMS so severe that not even smashing the kitchen up – normally a marvellous stress-buster – would have worked. So, having read that exercise was good for regulating hormones, I approached the exercise bike gathering dust in the study. “Hello Mr Bike!” I said, brightly, hoping he’d forgive the years of neglect. “Are you pleased to see me or is that just a m...

Once upon a time, when I was a not-so-sweet sixteen year old, I quit shaving my legs.  I can’t remember the exact reason - it was probably more to do with youthful contrarianism than feminism – but I do remember that unlike other acts of teenage rebellion, my shaggy young forelegs were a transgression too far.    “No gorillas in the back seat!” shouted a handsome sixth-former (on whom I’d had a long-standing crush) as I boarded the school bus, his face so full of fear and confusion it was as though I’d rocked up the aisle in a witch’s hat and bikini top, a giant veiny dildo strapped to my skirt, roaring I’M HERE, I’M HAIRY, I WANT TO FUCK YOU. Backwards. And at double speed.  Exiled to the front of the bus to sit with the first-formers, I reconsidered my options, which were a) continue the experiment in not shaving and risk being stoned to death in the schoolyard, or b) conform to the fucked-up idea that says women must not be allowed to thrive in their natu...