Pinch me

‘do you want to get married, and run away?’ Goo Goo Dolls – Iris

I think Duncan’s a little worried about me at the moment.

We went out last Thursday, to the pub quiz as usual and for the first time in months I had managed to arrange it so that Gemma (formerly little Gemma of the shared house) could come with us. We had a great time catching up, reliving the days of 6 girls in one house and talking about where we were now in our lives. Gemma is now engaged to her boyfriend Al (and has been since September, although there isn’t a ring in sight seeing as how he is still a poor student and all) and next Friday will pick up the keys to her new house, which although it needs work, is still hers (or the bank’s, whichever you want to look at it, I prefer the former). Helen is also looking at moving in with, and I think buying, somewhere with her boyfriend. Well I think it’s more that he is buying somewhere and then she will move in, start contributing to the mortgage and eventually get her name on it. It’s all a bit sketchy at the moment. Then Tony and Kelly joined us (in the pub) and announced that they had put an offer in on a house a little bit further outside Newcastle (yes, it’s fine for them to not want to live in the centre and to move a couple of miles away so that we never see them anymore, not that we did see them much in the first place, but heaven forbid we should want to get out of the city centre!). I’m not sure if it has been accepted yet. They said they’d find out the next day and as it hasn’t been announced to the rest of us yet, I wonder if they were beaten by another offer. Anyway, they are buying a house and moving onwards and upwards. (On a side note, am I surely not the only one who thinks that it is a huge step from dating someone for 5 months to buying a house with them? I mean, we moved in together, but we had a get-out clause should it have all gone horribly wrong. I would hate to see something happen and they end up like Claire and her ex James who live together and hate each other because they can’t sell the house. But, anyway, it’s their life right?)

Of course I reacted the only way a friend should when faced with the above news. I was happy for them all, congratulated them on their happiness, etc, etc. In fact I thought I’d pulled the whole thing off quite well. Only I can’t hide anything from Duncan and he spotted straight away the feelings of envy that I have. I want that to be us, buying the house, planning a future. Whilst we have planned a future, one that involves eloping and coming back to announce our marriage via a huge party for everyone, I want it now. I suddenly feel slightly left behind.

Work is going ok. It seems that either my area is remarkably easy or that I just know how to make it run with minimum input. I am rarely required to work late to sort things out and often find myself with plenty of tim to do other jobs for Caroline. I take some sort of pride in this fact. Kerry was up again last night, so drinks with work people was necessary again. He has also invited me to Staines the Thursday before we fly to SA, to meet the rest of the people I deal with. As work will pay for train tickets and, should I want to go overnight, a hotel, it would have been crazy to say no. So I didn’t.

I picked up my tickets for SA last week after the doctors. You know, I had one injection and I could barely move my arm for 2 days – I have to go back in ten days for 2 more and am dreading the pain already. Last week I had tetanus, low dose diptheria and polio, next time I’m having hepatitus A and typhoid. I turned down the yellow fever, rabies and malaria, partly cos I couldn’t afford them, but also because Cape Town and East London aren’t considered dangerous areas. Fingers crossed this is true. We’ve had a nightmare with Duncan’s tickets as it turned out that SAA sent the tickets 6 months ago to a non-existant address – 12A instead of 129. The tickets are now lost and they are faffing about calling SA and rebooking them. They even suggested that Duncan visit their offices to speed things up and probably didn’t understand why he laughed at them (the offices are in London, we are not. In fact, we aren’t even close to the damn place, which they’d know if they read their screen!). All we can do now is spend money on calling them every two days to pester the hell out of them and hope that they turn up in time. Ah… what I wouldn’t give for an easier life.

Until there is a next time…

xx