New Year's Eve - then and now

An image I remember very clearly from my childhood was my dad lamenting the quick passing of years. "Stop the world, I want to get off!" He would exclaim, and I would laugh at how funny and strange it sounded.

Now I kind of know what he means - though I certainly don't want to get off - but slowing down the world a bit might do the trick.

It was six New Year's Eves ago that I introduced the bloke to my friends in Barcelona. Six! It was only the second time I'd seen him since we'd got back together after our fateful re-meeting at the club where we'd originally met.

We were still figuring out what we were to each other. I hoped we would stay in each other's lives, but we were still practically strangers then. Held together by a shared past in London - a thin string that could easily snap at any time.

It was a time before Facebook and Twitter. My Space was limping along there somewhere but no-one was really on it. The distance between people seemed much bigger in those days.

We were so late as we hurried along the deserted streets towards the Director of Barcelona's flat. We got there with about 15 minutes to spare before the dongs of the New Year would signal the start of 2006.

When we arrived the party was in full swing. And it wasn't just any old party - but an Eighties-themed fancy dress party. The bloke had flat out refused to dress up, so I hadn't either - though I had brought my Orville doll along to somehow contribute to the theme.

But everyone else had gone all out. Kung Fu Cath looked like one of the Kids from Fame, the Director was an eerie George Michael, Jim was Superman and Dave was a 'calm down calm down' scouser. You could have forgiven the bloke for being a bit overwhelmed by it all, but he thought they were brilliant.

Got himself a Brugal and coke and lit up a cigar and got down to the serious business of getting to know them all.

By the next day it felt like we were all the best of friends - members of an exclusive club that no-one else could join. We ended up in a bar in Gracia, where Jamie - another new friend who ended up being worth his weight in gold - broke the no playing the piano rule, but somehow got away with it.

And the owner of the bar looked like Salvador Dali, and didn't seem to mind when we told him so.

We remembered this and more five years on - New Year's Eve 2011. Another fancy dress party at the Director's flat - cult film characters. But this time the bloke dressed up - making an excellent Dr Gonzo from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to the Director's Raul Duke.

And that wasn't the only change. A glance around the room at midnight confirmed how much we had all moved on. There was Jim - AKA the Dude from the Big Lebrowski - with his arm around his wife Jane, dressed as the guy from Alien who has the little baby one bursting out of his stomach. And giving the costume extra effect was Jane's baby bump - the new arrival is due in February, and it's the best news ever.

Then there was Dave - Marty McFly from Back to the Future - and his wife Kirsten (Princess Leia) and of course the Director and Science Chick - also fulfilling 30-something male fantasies as the Star Wars princess.

It was mind blowing to think that five years ago these people didn't know the other even existed. While they clinked glasses with their friends and danced the night away they had no idea the person they would spend their lives with was out there somewhere doing the same.

Since then people have left the group - gone back to Britain to rejoin 'the real world' and we've had new additions, like Gav (who had a pillow up his t-shirt to portray Walter from the Big Lebrowski).

We've all moved up notes on the career front - Kung Fu Cath even has an assistant - but nights out are still as fun as they ever were.

Long after doing the grapes (and it's the first time I've ever managed to eat them all - even despite the long black hair of the wig for my The Ring costume getting in the way) the Director gathered the troops to take us out to a warehouse party in Poble Nou.

In the taxi on the way down Kung Fu Cath asked the driver: "Do you know who I am then? I'm a cult film character."
"No I don't recognize you," he said.
"I'm Uma Thurman from Pulp Fiction," she told him.
"Oh, so what are you doing in town, promoting a film?"
"No, I'm only dressed as Uma Thurman from Pulp Fiction. It's a costume."
"Well I haven't seen it. So is this your first time in Spain? Can I have your autograph?"

By which point she decided it was easier to just go along with it, and autographed his taxi receipt book "Happy New Year, lots of love Uma" Classic.

The warehouse party was full of mud that soon crept up the front of Science Chick's pristine white skirt, which had to be binned afterwards. The drinks - poured into tiny plastic cups - were so strong they were undrinkable. The bathrooms were worse than the 'worst toilet in the world' from Trainspotting and had to be flushed by a man with a hose. But it didn't matter - we were all together.

And as we left, trooping to the metro to go home there was that familiar feeling of returning home from a battle won. And as I looked at our mud-covered group I thought, These are some of the best people in the world right here, and they're my friends. And they always will be.

And that makes me grin like a loon, even now.

The big three – oh

When you were a kid, where did you think you would be when you were 30? Married with kids? Doing your dream job? Or maybe even rich and famous? Perhaps you didn't even think that far ahead. After all, when you're small, 30 seems so old. Almost a lifetime away.

I never really gave turning 30 a thought. It was like a far off milestone that I could see in my imagined future. Something to be filed away with 'meeting the man of my dreams' and 'getting married' and 'settling down' and all that jazz.

It wasn't really, until about a year and a half ago that I began to consider it.
At the time someone else at work was leaving her 20s behind. She turned to me and asked: "So, have you got any plans for your 30th?"

After telling her I didn't, it was ages away after all, I had a moment of clarity. It wasn't a far off event any more, it was actually going to happen.

It wasn't that I was thinking oh my god, I'm going to be so old, or anything like that. Bemoaning the loss of my youth. God not at all. I had a total blast in my Twenties, but I'm deffo moving into a different place now.

What does being 30 mean? Is it actually just a number? Will I feel any different? Do I actually feel any different now than I did when I was 18? Does anyone? I've learned a lot of lessons since the day I arrived in London with a suitcase full of bad clothes and almost pissed myself with excitement at being in a place which was so 'not Durham'.

But in many ways I'm still the same. I still get excited about going to new places, still try to see the best in people. Still hope that one day high speed trains will replace the need for air travel.

It's been a big year for me. I've had my first real brush with serious-ish health problems, I got engaged, and now (well on Saturday to be precise) I'm going to turn 30.

By the time my mum was my age she's been married for nearly ten years and had two kids (with me still to come) The bloke's mum had four by the same point. I guess it's just a bit different for our generation.

But I wouldn't have it any other way. And thanks to the bloke I'm managing to combine celebrating the start of my third decade with one of my big dreams – going to New York. I am one lucky girl.

We fly on Saturday, and once again I find myself almost pissing myself with excitement. I guess some things just never change no matter how old you get.

Happy Crack, Bar Fanny and other silly names

****The cast is off but the hand is still a bit rubbish. Apparently I need ten sessions of physiotherapy! Anyway, another short one in the meantime - a short trip down memory lane, with hilarious pictures courtesy of the fantastic Jim. Who else would think of making a collection of rude bar names?*****

I've loved every single day of living in Spain. But it was still a real wrench getting up at 6am to go to work, back when I had businessmen and women to teach English to.

The train to Granollers, just short of an hour away from Barcelona, was grey and grim in the morning. It smelt of London in the winter. You could have been a commuter stepping off at London Bridge, especially the days you had to open your umbrella as you walked out into the pelting rain.

But the one thing that always cheered me up, stupidly so, was walking past Happy Crack on the way to the language school. Ridiculous name for a kebab shop. ridiculous name for anything really. But it always had me chuckling under my crappy umbrella as I splashed through puddles - put the day off on a good foot.

I never took a photo of it. It's probably shut down now and turned into something else with a regular name. I missed a trick there. But there are others - even better - still standing in Barcelona to this day. My good friend Jim has captured them for prosperity so thought I'd share them with you - hope you like them.

Things I like part five - Daniella

With Daniella it was love at first sight. Which sounds ridiculous, but it's true.

Long before the bloke and I got back together he would send me the occasional email telling me bits about his life. And I would do the same. But of course it was only the good parts - the bits that made me sound extra fun and just that little bit wild.

After all you don't want to tell the person who once made your stomach tie up in knots (and still did a little) about your moments of self doubt. The times when you really scratched your head and looked at the years stretching off ahead, wondering where they would take you.

One of these emails came with a picture attachment. "I've got a cocker Spaniard," wrote the bloke. "Take a look at my bitch Daniella."

After I'd had a little chortle to myself about the Spaniard/Spaniel confusion I opened the attachment. The bloke's brown eyes hit me like a brick. But before I could start to dwell to much on the ghost of relationships past, I looked at what he was holding in his arms - the cutest white little dog I'd ever seen.

After I'd decided that she seemed to be smiling, I stopped to check out the bloke's messy Seventies-style kitchen. Then I started to think about who would have taken the picture. Not for one minute did I ever think that I would one day make dinner in that kitchen. That I would effectively walk right into that photo.

But I did, and Daniella was part of the bargain. All of a sudden I was part of a ready made family of three. Constantly picking white hairs off my clothes, out of my shoes, and even out of my own hair.

By rights, she should have hated me, an intruder stealing away attention. Because of me she was instantly demoted from sleeping in the bed to her own basket on the floor, and was banished from the furniture. But she didn't.

Maybe it was because I took her on nice long walks, unlike her master. Or maybe it was because I made said master happy just by being around. Or maybe it's because - for all I love her - she's really not that bright and couldn't connect my arrival to her new rules.

There were new rules for all of us, after all. I couldn't play the radio really loud in the morning - you can't really do that in a duplex apartment to your poor sleeping partner at 5.30am. He couldn't play the TV really loud till the early hours of the morning - you can't really do that in a duplex your partner who needs to get up at 5.30am.

Deep fat fried anything wasn't on my menu. Salad wasn't on his. We found a middle ground - as eventually did, both habitually and culturally I think. And Daniella was there through all of it.

I like her for this and more. How she barks in her sleep when she'd never dare do that in real life. For the way she'll bustle happily up to any living creature she finds in the street - where it's a rotweiller or an angry mangy cat. How she's so loving with the bloke's nephews, even when they pull her ears and poke her in the eyes.

There is nothing bad about my dog and all the memories I have connected with her are good ones. How many things or people can you say that about?

Dead battery

"We're fucked," says the bloke. "We are so fucked." This is serious - I've only heard him say this on a handful of occasions - one being the time when we accidentally did an illegal u-turn in front of the police. Well, the u-turn itself wasn't an accident, but doing it in front of the policia certainly was.

Like adults who only swear once in a blue moon, he wheels out the phrase at the crucial moment - and I know things are not good.

He turns the key in the truck's ignition. It wheezes like an old man then dies away to nothing. Turns it again, now there's only a high pitched scream, then silence.

"We can forget about going fishing," says the bloke, glancing sadly at the pile of rods stacked up between us. Then even more forlornly at the lake, glittering invitingly through the back windows of the chevvy.

The battery is dead. We are stuck in reverse in the lane by the boathouse, meters from the shore. The afternoon turns in a matter of seconds.

All business now, the bloke whips out his phone and calls for help. But he's soon spitting curses again when it dies too – cutting him off mid sentence. "Great," he says, putting the useless phone to his forehead, as if he could bring it back to life with the power of his brain.

I pass my mobile and he begins to tap digits from memory, pure Rain Man style. That's something I've always been fascinated by. Despite problems with dyslexia as a child he has a photographic memory where numbers are concerned. He can recite the phone numbers of friends and family, without trying, even as far back as remembering his landline in London, seven years long gone.

As he talks to his brother I get out of the truck, and sit down on hot concrete to wait.

"Charlie's coming to help us," he says. "If we're lucky we can get it started, go home and swap it for the car then get back in time to still go fishing."

And then: "Will you go get me some cigs while we wait?"

It used to really annoy me, him asking me to buy him cigarettes, when he knows I hate him smoking. But he looks so stressed it doesn't even cross my mind to argue. So I grab the euro bill out of his hand and set off for "el Club"

There's maybe two hours of daylight left, but el pantano (the lake) is in fifth gear. In my head it's Madrid's beach - with a sandy shore, families lounging on towels, boats roaring up and down dragging wake-boarders behind them like children running with kites.

I can feel grains of sand already in my shoes as I go, even though I haven't been anywhere near the shore yet.

To the left there's a bare-chested man fixing the sail to the base of his windsurfing board, two little dark-haired, slack-jawed boys squatting down watching him intensely. Just behind them two tiny girls in bikinis chase each other round in circles cackling wildly.

I wonder at what their childhoods must be like, growing up with this as their playground. How wonderful to be dipped in delight on a daily basis, run barefoot through the surf before going home for tea. I can count the amount of times I went to the beach as a child on ten fingers, and though my memories are hazy, I remember wellies and raincoats to have played a starring role.

Before I can stop myself I'm playing my favourite game – the one that I stopped myself playing well before the operation, but have taken back up again now, now that i know that everything seems to be OK.

It's very simple - just looking at children and wondering if they could be ours - what would our kids look like? Would they be blonde, like the little girls tearing after each other, or dark, with deep brown eyes, like the boys, still sat watching their father with their hearts' proud eyes? Would they be shouting at each other in English, or Spanish? I can't wait to find out.

A car sweeps past and I have to look twice. It's a bright blue Mini Cooper with a Union Flag roof and wing mirrors. The guy driving it looks about as British as Antonio Banderas though. What on earth was he thinking? I'd like to drive a Spanish equivalent of the gaudy car around Durham and see what happens.

As the moving piece of Britain disappears from view my eye falls on a van emblazoned with 'DOGOKI' and 'CATOKI', which puts my mind in a spin. Is it like Karaoke for pets? But a backwards look reveals a slogan, todo que necesitas para tu mastcota (everything you need for your pet). It's nothing more than the van of a pet shop.

Up the concrete walkway, like a catwalk to pisshead-ville, is el Club, where the bloke and his brother finished up at silly 'o clock last night, playing 50 games of darts. It's straight out of the Seventies, a square mess of glass, metal and stone - decorated with ship's laterns, rope, and water skiis - with a terrace overlooking the lake. It could have been magnificent once, but now the white paint is creeping with black and green stains and the curtains are worn and patchy.

I push through the glass doors to see the bar manager Vol Damm sitting watching TV. No customers, only dust particles glistening in lines where the last of the evening sun shines through in rays.

Vol Damm jumps up to get me some change for the machine. He's a curious creature – mean face that screams 'hard as nails', tattoos and gold Nike tick earrings. He's Romanian but speaks flawless Spanish, much better than mine.

I want to ask him if his name is in fact the same as the beer we have here or if everyone is pronouncing it wrong. I want to know how he came to be running a bar here, in a comunidad in Pelayos, in the middle of nowehere.

But instead I put my money in the cigarette machine and say: "They're not for me, you know. They're for your friend," mentioning the bloke's name. Vol Damm laughs, showing a few missing front teeth. I smile back, remembering that the bloke has a sore arm from arm wrestling Vol Damm last night in a moment of madness. I consider telling him about what's happened with the truck, but decide against it, in case he feels obliged to help.

Back at the truck a crowd has gathered, each person alternating between scratching their heads and giving advice about what could be wrong. Even the guy from the boat house, who was arguing with the bloke half an hour earlier, is trying to help. There's a huge buzz of excitement when the engine revs into life suddenly, followed by a round of curses when it dies away after Charlie has disconnected the jump leads.

I sit down again to wait. The sun is sinking lower in the sky. Mums are trying to talk and bribe their ninos round to the idea of home time.

There's a tickling in my shoe, and I take it off to reveal a giant ant, slightly crushed at the bottom. I tip it out and watch it struggle around in crooked lines, several of its legs bent and useless. My stomach sinks when I realise I'm going to have to kill it. Silly thing to get sad about, it's only an ant. I eat meat, I wear leather. What's the problem? But still, as I crush it under my shoe I feel guilty. It's not moving now. Where does it go, the life?

I've barely had time to think it, when another giant ant comes along, lifts the remains of the dead one above its head like a champion weightlifter, and scuttles off. Waste not want not. Wow.

With a lion roar, the engine starts up. This time it sounds like we might be going somewhere. "Get in quick!" shouts the bloke.

The ants are immediately forgotten as I spring up - using my index fingers and thumbs like a champion sprinter - and run towards the truck. I won't tell him about them, it would sound like a silly thing to say it out loud.

But I can't stop thinking about it later, when he does finally hook that first special fish that makes all the effort worth it.

Where does the life go when it's not there any more?

Operation

I have to have an operation. I've been told I have endometriosis. Two things I didn't expect to be writing in this blog - two things I debated over writing in such a public place.

After all, when I started writing El corte a la Inglesa I saw it as a place to post funny stories about my life in Madrid. Should I really be sharing the not funny, potentially uncomfortable stuff too?

But after much thought I decided to go ahead - after all this is all part of my life too, and writing about it might help anyone going through something similar to feel a little better.

if you don't like the sound of that, stop reading - I won't be offended. I'm sure there'll be more funny stories to be posted in the near future.

So, I'd never even heard of endometriosis a few months ago. Chances are, you haven't either. It's a condition that affects millions of women that causes cells which usually grow in the uterus to grow in other places in the abdomen.

It's very common - as common as diabetes, but no-one really talks about it, as it's a "women's problem". They don't know what causes it, and there is no cure - though there are certain things you can do to put it in remission. No-one ever died from it, therefore research into it is poor - no motivation for the big pharmaceutical companies.

I've already made big changes in my life to become more healthy living, but there's just no getting away from the fact that I need an operation - something which (in my head at least) happens to other people, not me.

I had two minor surgeries when I was a kid (not counting the three teeth I had out under general anesthetic) and at the time it all seemed like a bit of an adventure. if the adults said it was alright and it needed to be done, then that was that. I even sort of liked being on the ward, with all the nurses, and drawing pictures for all the other kids.

But of course it's different when you're an adult, saddled with all your irrational worries and fears. The most part of me knows it'll all be fine, but there's a tiny voice screaming in my ear, telling me to be afraid.

Luckily the health care in Spain is excellent, and double lucky for me that being in a foreign country, I've got the bloke and his family around me. They have been amazing - coming with me to appointments (hard to concentrate when you're flustered and it's all in your second language) and doing and saying the right things at every moment to make me feel better.

And the reaction from all of my friends has been phenomenal. So many messages of love and support, really getting me through the low moments. What would I do without them? Makes me feel sorry for anyone who has to go through this kind of thing alone.

As one friend told me - everyone has to deal with this sort of thing at some point in their life. So this is my time. I've been lucky with my health for almost 30 years - one minor blip in that time is not too bad really.

In fact, some part of me is glad this has happened as it's put things into perspective. It's made me realise how lucky I am. I knew I had a good man in my life, but it's not till now i've fully realised just how great he is. I know for certain he's in this for the long haul, and I can depend on him whatever life throws. Ditto his family, ditto my friends.

Health is such a gift, and we take it for granted. It's a smack in the face when you're told there's something wrong with you that can't just be fixed with a day in bed or a course of antibiotics. I have no idea what it must be like for people who suddenly have to deal with the fact they have a serious illness.

So, my resolutions - don't sweat the small stuff anymore. Be healthy, but also make sure I live a little. Where possible, take every opportunity that comes my way - because you never know what's round the corner. Be the first to offer support to anyone who needs it. And absolutely without fail, regularly tell my family and friends just how much they mean to me.

Role models

It's an interesting question – who are your role models? And who were your role models while you were growing up? We got onto discussing it at a work lunch while talking about the typical things potential employers ask you when you're going for a new job. It's probably something you've sat down and thought about yourself, the night before a big interview. What did you say? And did you actually mean it? Or was it just a calculated comment - something you thought sounded good, would help you get the job?

Some of us at lunch found it easy to pick people out. There were the obvious current ones – Barack and Michelle Obama, Nelson Mandella – and the obligatory joke ones – Jordan, Kerry Katona and Belen Esetvan.

Me, I find it almost impossible to see famous people or celebs as role models. At first I thought it was the job I do that's made me feel jaded towards these so called 'stars'. But If I think back, long before my days of celeb news journalism, I never looked up to these kinds of people and emulated them. Sure there are a lot of people in the public eye that do great work for charity, are leaders in their fields, are inspirational in many ways. But none of them speak directly to me. None have made me get off my arse and say "wow, I want to be like you".

As one of our team pointed out, if you're in a minority, you need role models like this because often, you don't have much else to go off. She was the only black person in her Uni, for example. But I didn't have that issue.

“But you must have had someone you looked up to while you were growing up?” I was asked.

So I thought long and hard about it. Yes there was someone - my big brother Mike.

I have two brothers. I love them both of course, but it was Mike – ten years older than me – who became my hero.

He taught me it's OK to be different, good in fact to take your own road in this life. Break away and go somewhere both literally and figuratively far away from your everyday existence.

My earliest memories of my brother are of him painting. Doing his A Level art projects. Making huge clay heads and explosions of colour, which, if I was lucky, he would let me help him name. And painting his dungeons and dragons figures. Orcs, dragons and elves. I could sit and watch him for hours. He would tell me stories about ghosts and monsters to scare me, and sometimes he succeeded. But I didn't mind. I knew then he wasn't like other brothers.

He left home to train to become a priest when I was about eight years old, but realising that wasn't for him went to Liverpool to do a Fine Art and Theology degree – becoming the first person in our family ever to go to University. From that moment on he became almost like a mythical creature to me. I would look forward to when he would come home, bringing tales from Uni and occasionally friends or maybe even a girlfriend. Other worldly creatures who were vegetarians and spoke with strange accents. He would recommend me books – as he still does today – and I would devour each one. Everything from Tolkien to Stephen King and Richard Matheson – little gems that thrilled me because they told me what he liked, and it was all dark and interesting, and I liked it too.

One thing that really sticks in my mind was the time he picked me up from my guitar lesson after school. All of a sudden there was a commotion outside the school gates as the kids – and probably some of the parents too - crowded round to stare at the strange looking man with shoulder length orange hair, a manky looking jumper and jeans covered in paint and intricate drawings. Probably the sort of person you'd see every day in Eighties' London, but certainly not in Durham. At that point my ten-year-old self thought my brother was the coolest person in the world. Truth be known I still do.

He's a man of few words, never one to blather on about pointless crap. But when he does speak it's worth listening to. When he told me "Whatever you do, get out of Durham – go see the world" I took it as my gospel. And he led by example. Working in an orphanage in Romania, then after getting his PGSE qualification, going off to Africa to teach.

If I thought the stories from Uni were amazing, the ones from Africa made them look like a quiet night down the local boozer. I laughed so hard I thought my sides would split at one in particular – about one Christmas in Botswana. Him and his girlfriend had made a Christmas cake but a monkey came in through the window and pinched it. So Mike chased it around the room, screaming at it. He scared the poor monkey so much that it started pissing itself. But it didn’t let go of the cake. So there he was, running around his house, slipping on bits of cake and monkey piss, determined to catch the monkey. A lot different to any Christmas I’d ever had.

I wanted to be able to tell those kinds of stories. I wanted to travel. I wanted to be like my brother in so many ways. He is so creative – such a great artist. Like him I took A level art and my teacher quite unkindly told me I would never be as good as my brother. I was so angry at that I worked my arse off and managed to get an A, though I never had an ounce of the talent of my brother with a paintbrush.

Instead, words became my drawing materials. Writing is my creative outlet, and it’s something I’m damn lucky to be doing as a living today. But it might have been a completely different story if my brother and his girlfriend hadn’t let me live on the living room floor of their one-bedroom apartment in London after I dropped out of my ill chosen law degree. What if I hadn’t had that six months to sort my head out? If I’d gone back to Durham I doubt I’d be sitting here now, typing in my front room in Madrid. God knows where I’d be.

So thank you big bro. You paved the way for me to go and have adventures. Because of you, our folks weren't worried when I told them I was quitting London for Ibiza. Weren't surprised when I moved onto Barcelona and then swapped that for Madrid. And neither was I afraid, and never have I regretted anything I’ve done – and I’ve got you to thank me for that. I dance to the beat of my own drum but you gave me the confidence to find my own rhythm years ago.