In actual fact I was abducted by aliens, taken off on a tour of the four nearest star systems and returned to the home planet this morning.
And I have the Lonely Universe guide to Alpha Centauri to prove it.
Woah, the hot weather arrived all of a sudden in the end didn’t it?
At least, yes, it was predicted plenty but it was also predicted several times before and came to nothing. So I heard the weather reports, did a mental shrug and carried on regardless.
Which is how I ended up staggering home the other night, carrying a coat and a jumper, with a headache from bright sunlight and dehydration. And walking into a bedroom whose bed was dressed as inappropriately as its owner - with a 15-tog duvet and extra blanket.
I’ve been playing catchup ever since: Substituting, whenever I have time, a pair of sandals for a pair of boots in the easy-to-reach shoe collection. Rummaging through drawers for my sunglasses and SPF moisturiser. Recharging my epilator so that I can at least have the option of wearing a skirt.
I’m almost caught up now. Which almost certainly means that the lovely weather predicted for this weekend will fail to appear.
I’ve kept the umbrella handy, just in case. Always wise, in England.
It’s only football, I told myself sternly, but it didn’t quite quell the irritation that a friend had chosen to text me with a cheer for Liverpool just at the moment when I was sadly fearing that my beloved Chelsea were about to lose in the semi-final. Again.
I put my phone to one side and ignored it for a few moments but I couldn’t control the urge to reply.
“Fuck you” I typed then deleted. “Ha ha” I typed then deleted.
I was angry. I knew it was ridiculous but I was. Mostly though, I was upset. And I wanted to let him know that he had upset me.
“So I send you occasional messages saying I’m glad when your team do well and you send me this?” I typed. “Thanks.”
And pressed send.
Instantly I regretted it. I felt so pathetically reactive, showing that I was upset over something so pointless, so trivial. I doubted he had meant to upset me, it was just one of those occasional repercussions of having chronically piss-taking friends. And I hate it when people get upset when I’ve said something as a joke, so why did I do it to him?
“No offence” came the reply almost immediately and I sighed. No, I thought, none was meant but somehow I took it anyway. My fault, not his.
I dredged up my sense-of-humour from under the mess of mid-match tension and realised how stereotypical football-fan I was being. Too often I have laughed at men who fail to see the humour in people’s jokes about their teams being beaten/relegated/bankrupted.
“I’m not offended” I typed (truthfully now) “But I thought only women underestimated the importance of football!!!”
Send.
I sat, continuing to chuckle at my own ridiculousness while remaining tense about the match. And then, suddenly, without really thinking about what I was doing, I picked up my phone and ran off to put it in another room.
It had been used as a portal for a Liverpool cheer and I was not prepared to allow it within sight of the game in case it jinxed it and stopped Chelsea regaining the lead.
Part of me knows that that move was as stupid as getting upset in the first place, but the irrational football-fan in me disagrees.
Coz it worked didn’t it?!!
