Yup. I think we’re out of the honeymoon period.

Pun intended.

Logan.

I let him out for the first time the other day. I wanted to keep him inside for as long as I could for several reasons: he hadn’t been neutered yet and was still only a kitten. Not to mention I didn’t actually own the garden despite living on the ground floor. And in all honesty, I didn’t want him to turn all tom cat and forget about me. But after getting him neutered, I had a change of heart.

I remember opening the window for him to go out for the first time, tentative little paw steps until he’d touched one down on the other side, the rest of the paws followed. He stood up on his back legs and sniffed in the air. He looked back at me, waiting for reassurance. He went a little further up some steps, then turned back again, looking right at me.

It’s okay little one. Off you go. Just don’t forget me when you’re out doing what cats do.

He’d gone further still, all the way to the top and then – out of sight.

I admit, panic swelled within me, I let out a little sob to ease the pressure. That was it. He was gone. I called out his name and his little head poked around the corner. It was then I knew he’d be alright.

See, Logan is smart. He knows no matter what he does outside, he’ll always have a nice warm bed to come back to at night. There will always be someone to stroke his fur. There will always be someone to play fetch with him.

And he knows there will always be a cup of tea waiting for him on the table.

Logan is definitely my cat.

The medal hangs proudly on my wall… if only because the previous tenants had a thing for hanging about a billion pictures and I have to find a use for the picture hooks somehow, don’t I?

I completed the race in 1 hour 37 minutes (I think, I can’t remember the exact time) and although I didn’t stop once throughout the whole thing, my time was so slow because I was jogging at walking pace next to my friend whose leg decided to give in before we reached the first kilometre.

She did keep telling me to go on and run without her, but I wouldn’t be a friend if I did that, would I? I think the lowest point of the whole thing was when an old lady overtook me at the fifth kilometre. My friend owes me.

Shortly after the race I received an e-mail informing me I could register for next years race if I so wish… and I did. If only to prove to myself I can run the race in good time (and the fact I want another medal!) It’ll be 2012 next year and it’s the closest I’ll ever come to being in the olympics.

So next May will see me returning to London, sans a friend and running at full capacity – that is if I can keep my fitness levels up. Turns out moving to the countryside means having to run up hills, which only causes to increase the mass of my thighs (and my thighs are big enough as it thank you very much.) So I’m not that inspired to train. Not that I can do much running at the moment anyway. I sustained a back injury last year and it appears to have returned.

For the foreseeable future I can be found down the local swimming pool in the hopes I can start running again in the winter time. You know when it’s dark, cold and miserable.

In the mean time, I’ve found a good use for my running trainers.

Logan, the only male in my life who doesn’t judge me on what I look like in the morning (because he knows I’m the one that feeds him) seems to have an affinity with shoes.

I love him more than chocolate, hell I love him more than sex – even when he decides to sleep half on my lap and half on the keyboard as I type this up. The bugger.

Finally, I’d like to give a big thank you to everyone who donated money to my chosen charity, Cancer Research – it means a lot. You saved my conscience by allowing me to give back for once.

Oh and raised money to be spent on research for curing cancer. Together we’ll beat it. Or at least get fit trying.

There I sat, teacup to hand whilst I proceeded to fold my knickers and file away accordingly. In the end, I found myself with four piles of knickers. Well five if you include the ones bound for the bin.

The first pile contained knickers that I would willingly remove clothing for in order to be seen, i.e. when things are going well on a date. These are the fancy, sometimes frilly, sometimes not, knickers which usually belong to a matching bra somewhere.

The second lot consisted of stuff I wouldn’t mind being caught wearing if say, I was knocked over by a granny on her zimmer car and was rushed to hospital with a fractured pelvis. Thus the (hopefully!) cute doctor was then forced to remove my clothing to assess the damage.

You can see I’ve given this a lot of thought.

The third pile was home to knickers only suitable for that time of the month. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t purposely buy knickers just for that occasion, it’s just when my underwear become a little threadbare, or god-forbid –whispers- stained, they get relegated to pile three. It’s sort of like a hierarchy of pants.

One becomes two and two eventually becomes three. It’s just the order of things.

So what, must you be wondering, is in pile four?

Underwear that is too good to be used for that time of the month, but not good enough to show on a date or even to an unsuspecting doctor!

Do you see how complicated my life is? And this is only my underwear drawer.

Pile four contains, amongst other things, a Christmas themed pair of Miss Piggy and Kermit the frog knickers. The material is thick. They cover more skin than I’d like to admit to. Sometimes I wear them to bed under my equally hideous pyjamas.

I don’t like to wonder why I am single.

A few months ago I was dancing wildly under the full moon in the Sahara desert. Now I found myself in the sprawling metropolis that is New York City. They couldn’t have been more different.

Growing up in London I thought New York wouldn’t have that much of an effect on me. I was wrong.

Much like when I visited Rome last year, I spent my first night in the Big Apple exploring the city with nothing but a notebook and a bottle of water in my bag. I didn’t even have a map this time, not that I needed it; what with the streets being arranged by numbers: 5th Street was next to 6th Street and so on. I could count.

I remember coming out of my hotel on the first night and turning the corner… and squinting. I was greeted to the bright lights of Times Square. My face lit up. Not because I had a million worth of watts shining down on me but because I’d made it to New York City.

And I made it without managing to eat once on my eight-hour bus journey over from Montreal. My first port of call was to eat something. The sights and sounds of the city could bloody well wait for my stomach to stop growling, thank you very much.

I slipped down a quiet side street off of Times Square and rolled into the first dodgiest pizzeria I happened to come across.

They had slices of pizza in that joint wider than my arse, which let me tell you, is a feat you can’t even begin to imagine.

“Excuse me, what pizza do you recommend?” I asked the tiny, slightly greasy looking guy behind the counter.

He just looked at me for a moment, not quite understanding what it was I was saying. They do speak English in New York, right?

I tried again.

“What’s your favourite topping?”

He pointed over to a mozzarella, tomato and spinach slice.

It worked for me.

“I’ll take a slice of that one then, thanks.”

He nodded and put the slice in the oven. There was an awkward silence for a minute before he broke it by asking me where I was from.

“London,” I said.

“Not many people ask my opinion on pizza,” he told me.

I got a feeling not many people asked his opinion on anything – ever. So I took some time talking to him, long enough so that the mozzarella on my pizza was just the right of amount of gooey.

By the time my pizza was perfectly melted, I knew not only where this guy was from, I knew where his parents were from too (Ecuador in case you were wondering.) I knew his name, how old he was and I knew that he was available to take me on a tour of the city when his shift was through.

Sadly, I only wanted the pizza. But I thanked him kindly and asked him how much I owed him for the slice.

“You’re sweet, it’s nothing for you.”

Funny, that’s exactly what the Nurse at the hospital said to me last month when I asked her how much I owed her for my prescriptions.

I wondered if this meant I looked as ill as I did when I was in hospital. I remembered I did rush out of the hotel rather quickly, did I even bother to check what I looked like in the mirror before I left?

But then if looking rougher than an arse being wiped with recycled toilet paper gave me the ability to receive free things – I wasn’t about to complain.

All this wouldn’t have been possible without the use of of my brand new MacBook Pro.

Something which I succumbed to buying within the first two days of my time in Canada.

I knew Apple enabled creative types to reach the best of their potential, I just didn’t realise to what extent. My MacBook battery wasn’t even fully charged when I entered the said coffee shop nearly four hours ago and it tells me I still have three and a half hours left.

I fear the rest of my trip in Canada will be spent in other such caffeinated establishments and if I’m not careful this blog will be reduced to ramblings of the inner workings of such places rather than the beautiful landscapes of North America.

For instance, did you know there is such a thing called a suicide cake? I discovered this yesterday, when you guessed it, I was sat in another coffee shop. Imagine a normal sized slice of cake and then multiply the height of that by three and then a little bit more just for the hell of it. Next, take the calorie content of a normal slice and multiply that by a zillion.

It’s huge. The amount of calories in one mouthful alone would have me running off the edge of a cliff.

Which is why tomorrow I plan on having a slice and staying as far away from cliff faces as I possibly can. And a pair of scales too for that matter.

I’m not stupid.

Well, maybe just a little. After seeing far too many Apple based products during my time in Montreal, I admit I became a little green and decided I must have something with a big fat Apple logo on.

So after walking an hour and a half into the French/Canadian version of Oxford Street, I found an Apple store (Pomme store?)  and proceeded to stare and drool in unhealthy amounts at the shiny, overpriced machines.

I approached a sales assistant

“Please be gentle, this is my first time with a Mac.”

“Don’t worry Mam, we’ll be gentle with the machine.”

“No, I meant be gentle with me.”

I’m in love. I’m just not sure if it’s with the weird French speaking town, Montreal, or my brand new MacBook Pro.

Only time will tell.

A travelling hat is something you buy on your travels, and usually on a whim. It’s hopefully atrocious and fashionable in somewhere only like Bulgaria where corduroy hasn’t yet been invented.

Walking down a quiet residential street today in Montreal, I happened to cross a Salvation Army shop – full to the rafters of other people’s unwanted junk. I had a very good feeling. The hairs on the back of my arms stood up, and I’m sure if I could feel my nipples through the mountain of padding, I would have felt them pop out too.

I entered the shop and was greeted by a jumble of second hand clothing and the undeniable tang of that clothing once upon a time, living on someone else’s skin. It was like walking into a Lush shop but instead of the sickly sweet man-made smell of soap, I was assaulted by the sickly odour of old-man.

My eyes travelled over the myriad of gaudy shirts and something-even-your-dad-wouldn’t-wear trousers, when I saw it: the hat stand.

It called out to me like a working girl flaunting her wears. I had to have something from her. Tentatively my hand reached out and stroked one of the goods; soft, green corduroy caressed my finger tips. On the top of the hat was a single button.

Twee is the only word I can think of to describe it. I imagine its original owner being a fifty-six year old man with a penchant for fishing and drinking beer straight from the can, his naked, hairy toes swishing about languidly in the waters of which he is fishing from. This is the look I wanted.

Before I knew it, I had the hat on my head and was busy admiring the mess in the mirror.

It was perfect. Suitable for featuring in one of my many LOOK AT ME photos which you take whilst on holiday.

Approaching the sales register, I placed the abomination on the top of the counter and waited to find out the price: $2.

Yes, I actually paid for the opportunity of catching headlice from a second hand hat.

As Madness once sang, it must be love.

The reality is much less glamorous than I’m making it out to be.

Sure it’s good to go out and date new people; good like chocolate starts out to be but after your third family size bar, all you end up feeling is sick.

And yet, once the sick feeling goes away, there I am reaching out for another slab of the good stuff.

It’s a vicious circle.

Dating is the act of putting yourself out there, showing off the best side of yourself in the hopes that the other person may like you enough to do something.

This may include but is certainly not limited to:

# Him laughing at your jokes.
# Him genuinely laughing at your jokes.
# Getting a kiss at the end of the night.
# Being asked out on a second date.
# Going back to his for a coffee.
# Rejecting the coffee and asking for a tea instead.
# Forgetting about the tea altogether and instead, having sex.
# Having sex followed by that a cup of tea afterwards.

Nobody does it like the British after all.

And yet even when you get to the final stage, then what? What’s the protocol? My past relationships have always gone from first dates to falling so deeply in love, I’ve very nearly drowned.

It’s a horrible thing to admit to; losing control all for the sake of a guy, but it’s what I’m used to.

So this year I promised myself I wouldn’t let it happen again. I wouldn’t get tied down and left for dead in yet another long term relationship. I’ve been on several dates with different guys so far this year already, some of which have wanted to see me again, others which haven’t. Or at least that’s what I’m led to believe due to the big-fat-zero amount of texts I’ve had from them in the aftermath of the date.

I don’t consider myself a bad date, I’m a lot better at them than I am in job interviews for instance, which perhaps isn’t saying a lot but it’s as good I’m going to get at being myself in such hostile conditions.

And by hostile I mean where I’m constantly at war with myself: shall I wear this, shall I say this, shall I do this, shall I text them, how long shall I wait until I text them… the list is endless.

With each date I go on, the fear of rejection becomes less; not because I’m getting rejected less, but because I simply end up becoming desensitised to the whole thing.

That’s what happens when you keep putting yourself in the same situation.

It works out great for casual dating, I’m just scared that when I do eventually find someone I like, I’d have forgotten how to care.

Dating is one big game, I just get the feeling I’m the one being played.

What the hell am I talking about?

You know when you meet someone amazing? Someone who completes you when you already feel whole? Someone who inspires you enough to end all sentences with a question mark, simply because using a full stop would mean putting a premature end to describing their awesomeness?

I’ve found that person in the most unexpected of places.

In between the bookshelves at work; with messy brown hair and glasses so officiously large, if they were to carry a wand around with them, they’d very well be mistaken for Harry Potter. Or a bit of twat.

No, I haven’t just discovered the literary delights of a certain JK Rowling. I did in fact discover those many years ago.

Instead, I have found something, or rather, someone, who I have decided is worth giving up my job for and eloping to Canada with. I won’t mention at this point that them kissing the place just behind my ear would induce me to act in similar, irrational ways. That’s just not important.

And yes, it’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever agreed to do (except for maybe that perm I had about six years ago) but I know it’s the right thing to do, because even when the fear of giving up a perfectly reasonable job eats away at me like a bout of terminal cancer, I know that I’ll be okay.

I know that whatever absurd, embarrassing, I’m-going-to-die-of-shame moments that will undoubtedly come my way in the following weeks, I know they will be shared in the best possible company.

I know that when I find myself back in London, jobless and with no money having spent it all gallivanting around Northern America with nothing but someone else’s clothes on my back – I know it will all be okay.

And even if it won’t be, I’m sure I’ll have a hell of time getting to that point of: Where did it all go wrong?

My only concern will be, when can we do it again?

Part of my problem I believe is that I speak without due care and attention. If I were to drive like I talk, my license would have been revoked years ago.

Picture the scene, one post-coitus evening found me lying in bed with a man and more importantly, a bag of kettle chips. Deciding the polite thing to do would be to ask if I could perhaps have one, or three, but not caring what his response would actually be, I asked whilst delving my sleepy little hand into that kettle chip bag, and eventually found my fix.

Delicious.

“These taste just like my deodorant.”

Why I felt the need to share that piece of information with this man, I honestly don’t know. I like to believe my awkward, embarrassing tendencies can be construed as charming.

I also like to believe in unicorns.

But it was true. They did taste like my deodorant.

It just so happened that I recently changed my choice of deodorant. I did it on a whim (like I do most things) because I fancied switching things up. I think it’s called living a little.

Either that or it’s called being swayed by clever marketing.

Enter: Salt of the Earth – Natural Deodorant.

The packaging read:

“I’m natural, really effective and I won’t leave embarrassing white marks on your clothes.”

I’ve been known to say the same to guys when trying to chat them up.

Essentially it’s a stick of salt which you rub onto dampened skin. Curious as to what a stick of salt might taste like, I did an experiment in the name of absurdity and gave the deodorant a little lick.

Conclusion: Salty.

So far it seems to have done the trick; no white marks with long lasting protection. Plus is dries within seconds and I’m no longer waving my arms about in air like a loon because I’m waiting for my old deodorant to dry.

Now I’m just waving my arms in the air like a loon because I want to.