Robyn’s Nest

One of my chums has given me a bit of a ribbing because I started my sunbed campaign this week, as I do every summer, in a bid to be a bronzed beauty on the beach.

I’ve started early (holiday is in five weeks) because it’s safer to build your tan slowly and that’s why I hit the tanning towers little and often. My quest for colour isn’t all about vanity though, it’s also a safe way to avoid sunburn when I step out on foreign shores. I do tan well once the base tan has developed but if my skin hasn’t seen sunlight for the best part of a year (which is likely to happen in this country) then I will burn baby burn. And burning is bad.

I refuse to stay out of the sun on hols, that’s the main reason I go abroad and bikinis just don’t look as good when you’re milk bottle white or lobster red. And I feel it’s better to tan slowly over time using UK sunbeds than risk a roasting on the Costa Del Sol. That’s my justification and I’m sticking to it.

However, today I am a tad on the pink side and an ickle bit itchy. And I know the reason, so it’s my own fault. You’re not supposed to use sunbeds when you’re lathered in body lotions and potions because they make your skin more sensitive. I am an avid user of the God of all moisturisers - E45 cream- and this is no problem.

But last night I indulged in a full body hot stones massage and mini facial which meant me leaving the salon looking like I’d tripped over an oil slick. I was coated in all kinds of massage oils and creams and the sunbeds didn’t take kindly to it - or rather my skin hasn’t.

Anyway, it won’t deter my bid to be tantastic this summer, it’s just another lesson learned.

Well, Bank Holidays are for drinking and, as a diagnosed binge drinker, I thought it rude not to indulge in an alcoholic beverage or two… or three.

Two nights out on the trot certainly took it’s toll on me and, needless to say, Sunday was less than productive. I didn’t actually get dressed until 4pm and that was only to scoff burger and chips and slump in front of the cinema screen (Forgetting Sarah Marshall is brilliant by the way; Russell Brand rocks!).

But my hangover was nowt compared to my mate’s. She stayed in on Friday but something odd happened on Saturday - namely her out of character intolerance to booze. We shared three bottles of wine and had a glass of champers each and that was it. But half way through the night the contents of her stomach decided to make an appearance on the nighclub floor. Time to take her home, me thinks.

I shuffle her into a taxi with the help of a fellow volleyballer - who is only 16! How can two 20-somethings be looked after by a teenager? Wrong! Anyway, my mate was house sitting for her boss last week and looking after her two doggies, so I stayed with her. I couldn’t remember where the house was and every time I asked drunken bud she just grinned at me like she had no idea who I was.

We found the house, I put drunken bud to bed, fixed her up with water and was about to turn the light out when the contents of her stomach decided to make a second appearance - all the way down the side of her boss’s bed and lovely cream sheets.

Now this bit is a tad gross, so if you’re sqeamish skip this paragraph. Drunken bud, still with inane grin on her face, simply brushed aside the vomit chunks which had fallen on her pillow and went back to sleep. I, meanwhile, set to task covering the offensive stomach contents (a Greek mezi topped up with vino) with kitchen roll before the two dogs rushed in for what they thought was an extra dinner. Yuk.

What a nightmare. Ironically, it was our end of season volleyball do and before the chucking incident our coaches had handed out some awards. In hindsight, I think there should have been one for biggest lightweight!

I usually embrace sporting opportunities, be it a game of netball, a run (or rather fast walk) around the park or some whacky new fitness class for a giggle. But there’s a time and a place for sport and I’m concerned that tomorrow morning won’t be it.

Tonight I’m hitting Brum for a girly night out with one of my bestest chums - having managed to shake off her new boyfriend. Three’s a crowd and all that plus I couldn’t find my gooseberry costume anywhere.

So, it’ll be just the two of us and if previous nights out are anything to go by, tonight could get messy. But my other friend is expecting me to sweat is out at a midday fitness class in Leicester tomorrow, followed by a session in the gym. And there’s nothing wrong with that, I’d usually lap it up. But with a hangover? With serious sleep deprivation? With severe dehydration? I sense I may be a tad grumpy come lunch time.

I imagine tomorrow morning going something like this:

• Wake up to sound of very loud noise and wonder where the hell I am and what that beeping noise is (alarm clock)
• Wipe the eye bogies from my face and peel my tongue from the roof of my mouth
• Try and sit up without feeling sick
• Trip over mate on way to the toilet and then just sit there for ages
• Head to the kitchen, stub my toe on an empty wine bottle and tread on discarded and dried up contact lens, which now resembles a shard of glass
• Search for liquid refreshment - no Lucozade, only pinot grigio, so plump for warm tap water instead
• Attempt to pull on my trackies and hoodie and look like an athlete, no time for shower
• Scrape hair off face and tie in an off-centre ponytail
• Recycle last night’s eye make-up and grab car keys
• Hit the motorway, feeling not all that in control of the car
• Pick up friend and get comments like “you look like shite”
• Make it to exercise class and crave Nurofen for thumping headache
• Fail to sweat because body is trying to hang on to every bead of moisture, as dehydration does its worst
• Snap at friend who’s super alert after staying in last night
• Drown myself in the swimming pool - anything to stop the pain
• Get rescued by fit lifeguard but lose my bikini bottoms in the process
• Die of embarrassment as fit lifeguard hands his phone number to my mate

Okay, so maybe I’m being a bit negative and over dramatic but I think a session in the gym tomorrow - no matter how much I want to do it at the moment - is a tad ambitious after a night on the tiles.

Tonight one of my friends and I are both going on dates, although not with the same guy and not at the same place. That would be awkward.

But we do share the same opinion on dating. It’s a bit of excitement combined with a lot of effort, and usually the result is disappointment. It’s not that we’re being overly negative here, just talking from past experience.

But I least I know Date Guy is tall enough for me. I text him to ask his height - the alcohol consumed on the night we met has clouded my memories somewhat - and told him I was trying to decide whether I should wear heels or not on date night. Yes, he probably thinks I’m odd now, but at least I know he’s not short. I couldn’t lower myself - literally - to date a guy shorter than my 5ft 9ins.

Anyway, Date Guy is a couple of years younger than me and someone I met on a night out before Christmas. We became Facebook friends, swapped mobile numbers, and have arranged to meet several times before now but something always got in the way.

So, tonight’s the night. And who knows, maybe if we like each other we’ll have a second date in September time?

PS The picture above depicts some dates (the fruit variety) - I was trying to be clever - but they could mistaken for pieces of poo. I felt an explainatory note was called for here.

My eyes are so tired and dry and I’m blinking so much that people probably think I’ve got some kind of nervous twitch. I haven’t, I’m just fookin’ knackered.

The reason for my sore peepers? Dehydration’s probably got something to do with it - I don’t drink enough water - but I’ve been overdoing it on the sport front lately and it’s taking it’s toll.

They say exercise is good for you, and I’d be the first to endorse that fact usually, but today I think I need a bit of a rest. Last week I spent five out of seven nights playing sport - korfball, netball and volleyball - and last night I had korfball training and netball training back to back. I resembled somthing along the lines of a beetroot with a sweat problem when I got home!

So, not only have I got tired eyes, but my bones are aching too, particularly my shoulders, and my calves are twinging at regular intervals - probably not a good idea to be wearing killer heels to work then, eh?

Despite the utter relief that I’m not playing in tonight’s netball match (’cos I’m not insured/affiliated to the league yet) and my desperate need for a night in front of the box, I do think sport is a truly great thing.

Not only does it allow me to eat pretty much what ever I want (diets don’t work for me, and I can easily polish off a tub of ice cream in one sitting), it keeps me fit and gives me a great social life. My sporting chums are much-os fun-os.

I’ve never been a fan of the gym, I haven’t got the motivation to attend, although I have on a couple of occasions invested in an annual membership only to give up after a couple of inspired months. Lessons learned there.

Sport, on the other hand, gets me motivated from the off. I play because a) it’s a chance to catch up with mates and get the latest gossip, b) it’s a fun way of keeping fit, c) if I don’t keep playing/training I might get a bit rusty, which leads to d) if i play/train crap then I may lose my place on the team or sacrifice some of my court time to better players. I’m hoping at some point there’ll be an e) - fit male players to dribble over - but at the moment this is not the case.

So, tonight’s sporting activity will include changing channels on the TV and trying out new seating positions on the sofa. And if I’m feeling really energetic, I might run a bath.

Yay! I handed in my CIPR essays on Friday so my month of hell is finally over. However, handing over 6,000 words of public relations blurb (probably nonsense in my case) wasn’t as pleasureable an experience as I’d hoped.

A few of us wanted to get rid of our essays on Friday - four days before the official deadline - but we found it a tricky task to formally hand them over. I shalln’t bore you with the details but my whole experience of studying this diploma a has been one of disorganisation.

And considering us diploma students all work in the public relations/communications industry, it’s the communicating part that seems to be falling down. Lack of student cards, wrong information, delayed information, conflicting information, incorrect dates etc.

Working in newspapers was no different. Despite the fact the whole purpose of our jobs was to communicate news, there was very little internal communciation going on. Ironic eh?

Anyway, tis done now. The first part of the diploma assessment is over and as soon as I parted with those 16 sheets of A4 I thought: “Oh my God, my essays are rubbish, I really should have tried harder.” I honestly have no idea if they’re any good or not and I have to wait a good couple of months to find out. But the pain isn’t completely over.

No sooner had I handed in my essays, our tutors launched into a tutorial on the next lot of assessments, a planning one this time. Cripes chaps, give us a break! They seem to assume we’re fully informed about this diploma course, which is not the case. We don’t know what the deadlines are or what these assignments involve. Another communication issue.

Oh well, perhaps this diploma is teaching me more than I realised. Good communication is difficult to achieve!

My mates and I have decided that if we reach old age and still don’t have a boyfriend we’ll all move to Singleborough and live happily ever after - together! I’m fortunate enough to have a healthy gaggle of single female mates to share dating (horror) stories with but we each live in fear that we’ll be the last one to settle down.

It’s not that we all hate our single status (well, only when people look at us as if we have a disease) but more that we’ve had so many dating disasters that we’re not sure getting married and settling down will ever be part of our equation.

Inspired by this blog post on the single saga, I’ve tried to ask myself why I’m single, a question us singletons are often asked. Well, the answer is ‘cos we won’t just settle for anyone. I guess, between us, there are plenty of offers, but not many that you’d actually want to accept.

There seems to be a dearth of cute, intelligent, sporty men with good jobs, a bit of ambition and a sense of humour. And that’s all we’re asking for! And the ones we actually fall for tend to be commitment-phobes of the highest order - or “emotional fuckwits” to quote the immortal words of Bridget Jones.

So, what’s a girl to do in the meantime? My advice would be to enjoy yourself; fill your life with all the things that make you happy - handbags, hairdressers and shoes maybe? and don’t be afraid to pretend you’re one of the Sex and the City gals. Men? Easy come, easy go.

After approximately eight hours in the car on Saturday it’s fair to say I had a numb bum and a burning right foot. But my work buddy did comment on my “good driving” as we raced down the motorway towards Torquay to carry out some student interviews at one of our degree ceremonies.

This work colleague had never before driven on a motorway which I found highly unusual as it’s where I seem to spend most of my life, particularly between junctions 14 and 21 of the M1. She wouldn’t have been comfortbable driving such a long way and into the unknown, but given the choice between driving or catching a train, it was a no brainer. But I guess driving is different for some than for others, depending on experiences and circumstances.

Growing up in the shire, it was a case of learn to drive or remain stranded. With just two buses a week (slight exaggeration perhaps) driving was a ticket to freedom and I intended on buying mine early. I had my first driving lesson on my 17th birthday (after throwing up courtesy of too many celebratory drinks the night before) and drove everywhere. I drove my mum 30 miles to visit my nan every weekend, I drove my dad around the shire’s country lanes not long after a hefty snowfall and I drove my mum’s friends to the pub on a regular basis. I actually got caught driving my car without an adult by my side once. I was just moving my car from mum’s house to dad’s house (only about 200 metres up the road) and who happened to drive past me? My driving instructor! Whoops.

I ditched my L plates less than three months after my 17th birthday and then I drove EVERYWHERE. Even 100 metres up the road to my waitressing job! I drove my mates to college, I drove to Weston Super Mare (first proper experience of motorways) for a girly weekend and I drove to London regularly to see my then boyfriend. I loved driving!

That’s not to say I didn’t have a few close calls. I hit a motorbike a couple of weeks before I passed my test - his fault, not mine - I had a scrape with a bus while trying to navigate the grimness of West Bromwich, and I scraped a parked car when exiting a shopping centre. I’m only human!

I guess I’ve never been afraid to drive or, more importantly, drive to places I don’t know because I do it so often. And it’s not always a painless process. My first trip to London involved pulling up every two streets or so to consult the A-Z, and a volleyball mate and I couldn’t find our way out of Cambridge after a match and doubled the amount of time it should have taken to get home.

But I do like driving and I do like cars. I’m actually on my ninth car now would you believe it. My worst car being a company car, a scabby Ford Escort to be precise, which did little for my street cred, and my best car being a top of the range Peugeot 307 XSI which cost me so much in fuel I couldn’t afford to drive anywhere and needed constant repairs. Boo!

I think the only thing I don’t like about driving is when the passenger knows where they’re going and you don’t, because they always fail to navigate properly and assume you’ll get in the right lane. Like the time my nan directed me into the fourth lane to the right and then asked me to turn left. Doh!

I also struggle to pay attention as much as I should when I’m chatting. I did go through a phase of looking at the passenger when I was talking to them (in my teenage years you understand) which I grew out of when I realised it was incredibly dangerous. And on Friday I seemed incapable of following a mate’s car because I was so distracted by my passenger’s chit chat. But I am a safe driver, honest!

My favourite drive was when I got to drive a Porsche Carrera, except I had my nan in the passenger seat. Cruising down the High Street for all to see was cool, but not so cool when there’s a granny in the front seat!

This picture (click here) represents how I feel at the moment - down to a tee. April has been hell and the frustration at having to put my life on hold while I write two 3,000 word essays is building up. I may well explode at some point.

I’ve swapped a few emails with some of the girls on my course and they’re all feeling the same - that if they hear the words “dominant coalition” or “propaganda” one more time they will lose the will to live.

And it’s funny how things like washing up, vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom suddenly become appealing tasks when the laptop and PR Handbook are sitting on the table, waiting to be put into action. I would rather do anything than sit down and get my essays done.

The good news is I’m pretty much there, they just need tidying up. I have no idea if they’re any good and will just have to hope and prey they make the grade - I’m not looking for a distinction or even a merit. A simple pass will do just fine.

I’ve just taken a couple of days off work to get cracking with these wordy wonders and I would honestly rather have been at work. Wednesday was a day of torture with fine tuning diploma essay number one straddled by a visit to the dentist and an appointment with the contact lens chap. The good news? I have sparkly white teeth and can see to the end of the road. The bad news? I am brain dead.

So, here’s to another weekend of misery. I’m working tomorrow (no pretty Naval pilots to look at this time either, boo hoo!) and Sunday will be dedicated, in its entirety, to finishing these damn essays.

On the flip side, this time next week my essays will have been handed in to the relevant bods at London Met Uni and it’ll be out of my hands. My life starts again next Friday.

Do you ever feel like you’re taking too much on? It’s one of my vices - I just can’t say no! (within reason, of course).

Years back I was one of those saddo people, stuck in a negative relationship, didn’t go out much - and certainly not at short notice - and spent most of my time eating. What a bore.

Since then I’ve gone full circle and as much as I crave a night in front of the TV every so often, just to have a break, I find myself getting increasingly restless. There are so many things I want to do, and there just aren’t enough days in the week to do them.

Obviously, work takes up a lot of time but without my job I’d be skinterooni and work’s not all that bad either - interviewing Naval pilots for example!

At the moment, as well as work commitments, weekly volleyball training and weekly korfball training, I’m tackling the CIPR Diploma in Public Relations, have registered for a shorthand speed development course, am about to join a netball team, am organising my friend’s hen weekend, arranging an end of season volleyball do and trying to bolster my fitness (so I’m ready to hit the beach this summer) by using the cross trainer as much as possible.

In between all this I need to eat, food shop, tidy, do washing, read Media Guardian and Heat magazine, catch up with friends and family, paint my nails and regularly apply fake tan. Nightmare. And because I don’t live all that near to many of my friends and all my relatives, I spend a lot of time in the car.

So, what’s the solution? Start saying no to things? I just can’t do it. Yes, I’m busy, and no, I don’t have much down time, but there’s nowt better than getting a sweat on at volleyball or hanging with my mates. Would I sacrifice that for a night in front of the box? No way!