Is It Just Me? (19 page)

The looks of confusion turned to horror. I then swept as confidently as I could out of the room. I’m not sure it was the best solution, but it worked in so far as the scarf was fairly see-through, so the nudist element at least rang true. The meeting was a memorable one for all concerned.

I think that’s quite enough of me and my crazy body worries. And no doubt far too much information. MDRC, how are
you
feeling? Bit peaky? Blithe and bouncy? Vaguely repulsed by all this bottom talk?

Well, I’M feeling officially repulso. You may not be a hypochondriac any more, but I most certainly am, and I am now freaked right out.

Don’t worry, Little M, it’s really not that bad. These days, we are positively obsessed with being and staying well. Everyone has some pill or person they swear by. We are culturally over-wrought with the idea of conquering mortality. All you hear is:

You all sound like witches. And more obsessed with health than I am.

In many ways, my younger hypo self, that is true. It’s now cooler to do Pilates and eat blueberries than get drunk of an evening. But it’s predominantly positive, if not frankly a little dull. And I don’t buy in to too much of it. Everything in moderation I say. People lead long lives without popping supplements. We’re all about the supplements. Either way, you should be pleased to hear that the health neurosis you’re currently suffering from does wane.

So you’re not neurotic at all now? You’re a total chillaxed funster with nary a care in the world?

I wouldn’t go that far. I may have lost the fear of illness, but I am now a bit of a health and safety nut. But that’s an age thing, I think: life starts to seem a bit more perilous.

Is it just me, or did anyone else turn thirty-five and find they were unable to rush down a flight of stairs without imagining themselves in a broken-legged heap at the bottom? Or started suffering a sudden, inexplicable fear of slipping in or out of the bath and shower? I was walking down a steep hill the other day and started gathering momentum, which unexpectedly forced me into a run; I’ve never been so scared in my life. I screamed the whole way down, and when I got to the bottom of the slope I felt I’d achieved something extraordinary. When did this happen? And when did I start becoming aware of my knees? I mean, as a thing to worry about (I have always known they were there; I didn’t suddenly go ‘What on earth are THESE halfway down my legs?’). Now, I certainly wouldn’t jump off something – chair, table, bale of hay – without taking a moment to worry on behalf of the old knees. It’s the forward roll/handstand conundrum all over again.

Tragico alert! What about the Hart sense of adventure? I always thought I’d be a brave explorer, a swashbuckling pirate type (though obviously I never want to go to the tropics because of all the diseases). You sound like a proper wimp.

Just getting on a bit. Remember we are as old as Miss Handel now.

MDRC, I’ve hit upon a sure-fire way of knowing that one is approaching middle age: suddenly taking about 60 per cent more interest in public loos than you used to.

What? Loos aren’t interesting.

Well, not to you: you’re far too busy trying to become the next Kylie. But past the age of thirty-five, one suddenly finds oneself becoming a tad more particular: does the loo in question have the right loo paper? Is it clean enough? And you find yourself saying things like, ‘Ooh, that’s a lovely hand drier. Real va-va-voom there. Must be a Dyson Airblade’ or ‘Oh my goodness, a wicker bin! It seems we’re not all going to hell in a handcart after all, ha ha!’ and ‘That was a good one, Marjorie. Lovely soap and you get one of those little hand towels that you use just for yourself and then throw extravagantly away’ to ‘Ooh, I love a hand towel; I don’t need to go, but I will – sounds fun.’

You have officially turned into my worst nightmare: a middle-aged unadventurous frump like Great Aunty June. IT ‘SOUNDS FUN’ TO USE A LOO! EVEN THOUGH YOU DON’T NEED TO GO?

I
am
nearly forty. I’ve got to get my kicks somehow.

Right, MDRC. That’s health and ageing covered. Life and death. Not doing too badly, are we? Now it’s time for us to traverse into the far jollier world of . . . Hold on. Perhaps you could, for this chapter, give some respect and, wherever you are, be upstanding (come on, up you get, that’s it: I want at least one person to come up to me in the street and say they stood for this chapter) for . . . HOLIDAYS.

F
or those who stood for this chapter, I thank you, and now please be seated.

So, here is the thing, MDRC – I love, love,
love
a holiday. Holidays are
very
important to me. Not because I’m some kind of pleasure-scoffing, layabout luxury-hound; I am quite the opposite, in fact. I am a fretter: a fretter and a fixer and a worrier – always have been. If I wake up in the middle of the night I find it nigh-on impossible not to pop down to the kitchen for a quick peek at the laminated To Do list on the fridge (stuck firmly on with a novelty magnet – currently a small plastic broccoli floret, thank you) which can then lead to my spending half the night cleaning out the downstairs cupboard, putting DVDs back in their right boxes, checking my insurance policies and doing a spreadsheet for the next eight months of work. In short, I find it very difficult to switch off. The only way to silence my inner fretter is to take it somewhere unarguably on holiday. Turn my back on the To Do list, step away from the Post-it notes, and forget about that untidy sock drawer which could so dearly do with my attention (I couldn’t possibly wear an odd sock – freaks me right out).

Seeing different things, being somewhere totally new, is the only way I can really wind down. I happily forgo haircuts, shoes and all the ‘right’ interior décor so that I have money to spare for holidays. We aren’t on this beautiful planet all that long, I figure, so I want to see as much of it as possible, as soon as possible.

I’m SO relieved. So, Mrs ‘I love a hand drier, and I’m scared running down a hill’, we
do
have a sense of adventure. We
do
put our health and safety anxieties to one side and go intrepid from time to time. Our life
is
escapade central. Yes?

Well, I go on holiday, yes. But it’s more lying down and pottering than full-on, high-octane adventure.

Oh God. How dull.

I don’t need hardcore adventure holidays to get my kicks, thank you very much. I don’t need to skydive to feel alive. (Rhyme. RHYME! Just in case you hadn’t noticed. Thank you. At ease.) I get my adrenaline kicks within the very exciting everyday life that I lead, I will have you know.

How?

Well, sometimes I give myself a rush by putting the toaster setting on high, and seeing if I can release the toast before it burns. That’s more than a thrill. Or there’s Rich Tea Roulette. When you dunk the biscuit in your tea for as long as you think it can bear before it disintegrates and sinks to the bottom of the mug.

^*
stares blankly, disappointed, speechless
^*

And my adrenaline-levels go through the roof when I’m waiting to see who’s going to be voted off a reality TV show. You know, when they do that heartbeat sound effect, and leave such long pauses before they reveal the names – it’s TREMENDOUSLY exciting.

‘
Reality TV show?’

They’re programmes on television with members of the public in, or sometimes celebrities (who are members of the public who’ve appeared once in
Holby City
). They’re usually either singing competitions where someone gets voted off each week, or dancing competitions (that’s obviously the best one). There is one for more generic skills which usually involves a hip hop dance troupe, a dancing dog and a plain, older person who we don’t expect to be able to sing who suddenly can and we cry. Or sometimes people just sit about in a house and chat and we vote off the ones we don’t like. It’s mostly the fault of this man called Simon Cowell, who’s basically the King/Evil Overlord of Saturday night television.

He can’t be more powerful than Larry Grayson. He was the best.

I’d forgotten our love of Larry. ‘Shut that door.’

So funny.

So funny.

Brillo pads, amaze-balls and totally hilaire.

Yes, whatever you just said. Simon’s nothing compared to Larry Grayson. And I think we should all take a brief moment to mull over that
^*
pause
^*
There’s Ant and Dec as well.

The guys from
Byker Grove
?

Exactly. They become major Saturday night TV stars.

Don’t be stupid – they’re about twelve.

I think they still are. That’s their trick.

So, watching a reality programme and seeing who gets voted off is your idea of an adrenaline rush?

Not just that! I went on a picnic recently.

A PICNIC IS NOT AN ADVENTURE!

Excuse me, but at thirty-eight and over six foot, trying to sit cross-legged on the ground to eat a meal is a
total
adventure. Have you ever attempted to eat with a plastic knife and fork, off a paper plate, while balancing the plate on your knee? And in company? That’s an adventure. I tried to cut into my pork pie and the knife broke, then my Scotch egg rolled off the plate and into some mud. What does one do in that situation? Wipe off the mud, and eat it anyway? Risky. I peeled off the meaty outside and ate the boiled egg. Result. And, once, on the beach, I sat down with fish and chips (not strictly a picnic, but still hardcore al fresco eating) and a seagull swooped down and took the whole fish from my box! It was terrifying. So don’t you go telling me that picnics aren’t an adventure, thanking you muchly.

Don’t you at least want to go on a proper adventure? Podge’s big brother Charlie just did a bungee jump in Oz. That sounds so cool. And one of those things you should do before you die.

I imagine you’d get there and realise that it could well be the thing you do
immediately
before you die, because of the simple fact that you are jumping off a high bridge with just a piece of elastic tied to your ankles, you FOOL. Do you really want to end your days, Little M, bouncing face-first off tarmac whilst a couple called Theresa and Ned from Bishop’s Stortford who are doing the jump to raise money for their donkey sanctuary take photographs? Three simple words to anyone asking me to do a bungee jump: ‘No’, ‘thank’ and ‘you’.

I did once attempt to go swimming with dolphins. That was pretty adventurous.

This sounds more promising.

But the blooming dolphins never turned up. On the one day I came to visit them, they saw fit to be elsewhere – perhaps there was a screening of
Free Willy
at the undersea Cineplex. The only creatures that did deign to grace me with their presence were seals. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘seals are better than nothing. They’re rather cute, little chubby water-bobbing things. This will still be life-affirming.’ And indeed it was, for the first five minutes. Until – and this is not a word of a lie – I found myself swimming behind a seal, and the seal chose that moment to release a poo. I swear that had my natural ninja reflexes not been as quick as they are, a seal poo would have gone right into my mouth.

No, I’ll happily walk along a river looking at the rapids – I just don’t need to be
in
the rapids. I’ll stand at the top of a mountain and look at the view, but I don’t then need to get a different angle on said view by dangling thousands of feet in the air in some kind of wobbly metal contraption. You say hang-glider, I say flimsy bringer of instant and terrifying death.

No, thank and you. Anything that can be considered an adventure sport is not a holiday. I see myself much more as a Tuscan retreat sort of a lady.

Oh, I’ve always dreamed of elegantly floating around an Italian village in a marvellous linen dress and a large hat, looking exceptionally beautiful. I would be holidaying with fabulous theatricals like Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, Penelope Keith and Alison Steadman.

Well, little one, this is still very much our dream. Judi, Maggie, Penny (if I may be so bold), Alison . . . and Eileen Atkins, Penelope Wilton, Imelda Staunton.

French and Saunders . . . Fry and Laurie . . . Michael J. Fox . . .

We’re less bothered about Michael J. Fox now.

Well, defo Emma Thompson.

Of course, Emma Thompson.

Ahh, Emma and I would be bestest friends always and forever. We’d go down to the lake together and swim, laughing and splashing, and then she’d tell me that she’d written a part for me in her screen play for the next Merchant Ivory film. I’d giggle with delight, and Anthony Hopkins would take one look at me and hear my beautiful giggle, and he’d fall madly and instantly in love with me. He’d hand me his Panama hat to wear, and . . .

Stop it now.

Sorry.

But you’re right. In our holiday dream, it would all be very
Tea with Mussolini
. Which is a film that comes out in the late 90s that you’re going to adore. All the top theatricals are in it. And Cher.