She’s got a way

Firstly, do not read old diary entries. They will make you realise, that, a – you have lost touch with too many people who were there for you when you needed them (And you don’t even know their real name so you can facebook them) and b – that what you thought then and filled your diary with was a damn sight more profound and soul searching than you manage these days.

I’m a Northerner. Yes, that is a capital N. I don’t know if people outside the UK will get this, but bear with me. I’m from the North and I’m damn proud of that. I don’t just mean I live in Newcastle, but I was born in the North – Lancashire to be precise – and there is something in me that is, and always will be inherently Northern. It’s why, when I watch Peter Kay I’m crying with laughter but also know that that is just how my family is as well. I’ve lived in the South, but I’ve never felt I belonged there, it’s too… much for me. Too self-centred, too soulless, too dreamless. This is all in my experience of course.

So, yes, Northern. Which is why trips to the capital these days tend to leave me slightly annoyed. Take Saturday, for instance. Yes, thanks to the NCT, my Valentine’s Day was spent getting up at 4:30am to get the 6am train to London for a, compulsory, study day to begin level 2 of my course. The workshop started at 10am. There’s my first problem. No-one has looked at that time and thought that it might be difficult to get there if you live outside the ‘sanctified’ south east corner. 6am is the earliest train I can get. My only other option is to travel down the night before and stay in a hotel. But this is a charity after all, I don’t want to waste their money. So I don’t. I book myself the cheapest train tickets I can, and head off for the day.

I have to spend moments of the day listening to women complain that they had to get up at 7am that morning. 7? Really? I was pulling out of York station at that point. But anyway. The workshop starts and the first thing the tutor does is say, "If we don’t have our breaks, help yourself to drinks as you want them, I reckon we can finish by 3:15, that OK with everyone?" Of course, they all think it’s great. I have a trained booked at 6pm, makes zip all difference if we finish at 4 (as advertised) or 3:15, it still involves me standing in Kings Cross station, freezing, with a book, missing reading to my daughter and not getting a romantic meal with my husband. If this was a one-off, fair enough. But they do this for EVERY study day I’ve been on. Why not just say it finishes at 3:15, or even 3:30 to begin with so that those of us from outside the south east and not driving can also get home at a reasonable hour, instead of falling in at 9:30pm, completely exhausted and going straight to bed. It’s a good job we don’t do Valentine’s day in our house, really.

One final comment from the day almost tipped me over the edge. As a level 2 student, I have to run 2 course and have 2 of my sessions formally assessed, which means someone has to come and see me in action. The tutor running the course says, "Don’t worry, someone will even come to Newcastle, I think one of the assessors has a child at uni there." Firstly, "even come to Newcastle"? it’s not the back end of nowhere? It’s a major frigging city in the UK. It even has an airport, it’s not like it’s hard to get to. But also, I don’t care if no assessor has any connection up here, YOU made this a course/pass requirement, you’ll come and watch me, god damn it.

There is a north-south divide in this country, although sometimes it’s more like a London/UK divide. (Honestly, one more story about the snow in London and I was ready to march on the BBC. It’s snowing, in the UK, in winter?! Never! I mean, it only did that most years when I was growing up. When did this country start to fall apart cos of a bit of bad weather?!) I hate it, I hate the ocassionally sneering way in which Northerners are treated in the media.

But, you know what? I wouldn’t be anything but a Northerner. I must have some kind of martyr complex.

Until there is a next time…

xx