BOF and the Most Efficient Holiday

Belligerently Optimistic Flatmate had a week off recently. He used it wisely, as a springboard for money-saving initiatives. I'm not sure if this is normal. Back at university, whole weeks could slip by without the achievement of a single task. Now that we're grownups, every hour not spent in useful activity is an hour wasted. 

Case in point: last year, my friend Sam (Surprisingly A Mother) had a baby. On the first day of maternity leave from her cut-throat shiny-happy job, she tweeted: 'So much free time! What shall I do with myself?'

Being green is sexy

Oh Sam. How can this be? Was it so long ago that we were students applauding ourselves each time we produced a sentence? We spent whole weeks in Topshop; hours on Facebook; days walking to and from the library in a nonchalant fashion. Not to mention all that time playing quiz machine. The very act of tweeting bespeaks an unhealthily efficient attitude to social media. 

To return to BOF, now investigating insulation. The first step was the acquisition of meters. As I understand it, the council provides such things for free on request. Apparently, our saving on electricity may amount to almost a whole pound per month. The downside is that the cold water no longer runs. How very green.

But Project Efficiency did not end here. Next came the world's most thorough washing-up episode. Pans, spoons, unused tea-pots: nothing was forgotten. It was great. BOF even took the thin vases in hand (fret not money-saving mavens, the retail orgy* that produced them took place in IKEA). They are impossible to clean: but he did have a good go at getting a sponge stuck inside one with a wooden spoon.

I should take some responsibility for the money-saving madness. I performed a devious act a few weeks back. I discovered the bargain that is Sainsbury's own brand tea. 

'Bring back the PG' begs BOF

27p! Eighty tea bags! Surely they couldn't be twelve times worse than your average PG Tip? 

They are. The tangy taste of dust puts a real downer on your day. What I want to do is bin them. But we've renounced waste, so we muscle through. 


BOF thinks I haven't noticed that he has been surreptitiously buying new tea and adding it to the top of the 27p box. One day, we will stumble across our Basics Tea again, decomposed to compost at the bottom of the cupboard, a small tea tree growing from it. 

We shall use it for a window box! The greenest of city activities. Equilibrium restored.

*That will play havoc with my keyword search. I've already had 'horny cockroach' bring someone to the Kate in the Countryside homepage this week. What a disappointment that must have been.

(Lucky) Escape to the Countryside

Apple Day happened last weekend. For those of you who are not familiar with this illustrious occasion, it celebrates the end of the apple harvest. It is not - as PG (in her other guise as the Apple Hostess) was quick to clarify - the one day in which all apples are picked on all farms. Thank God. It's more an educative opportunity regarding apples.

The weekend's warm up to Apple Sunday was not so cerebral.

Friday's quiet drink with friends involved an accidental visit to the m&m's 'World' in Leicester Square. There, bouncers wore m&m's ties while shop assistants with sad eyes danced uncomfortably to the hyperpop next to m&ms inexplicably arranged to look somewhat like the Beatles. 

Terrifying

'Just look at all the different flavours of m&m's!' enthused Unlikely Militant Raver, one of the chums, trying to stay upbeat. [There were three (3) flavours.] Failing to fight the place's atmosphere of canned hopelessness with enthusiasm, we left.

It became clear that - to UMR - such an experience could only be topped, post pub, by a visit to a strip club. No matter that it was 9.30 and a third of the party was female - UMR would not be deterred. Attention transferred from chocolate pellets to naked chicks, he struggled to get us on board.

'Come on you bores! It's this great place my Grandad's told me about. (Pause. Confusion.) We'll walk past - see what's going down.'

The club of choice is just by where I work. Which is nice. We approached the bouncer: 

'Oh look! What about this place?' (UMR, acting) 'We could just grab a drink in here guys.'

Bouncer: 'Lads, lads, er, this place is not the sort of place you go for - er - "drinks".'

UMR: Right. What sort of a place is it then?

Jez

Bouncer (both awkward and smarmy. Think apologetic Jeremy Kyle): Well, it's got girls in. 

UMR (politely, in manner of enquiry): Girls?

Bouncer (coy): So - er - a bottle of champagne will be … so I mean you'll have to buy drinks for the girls. 

UMR (feigning sudden understanding): Aaah! The girls take their clothes off!

All look at me.

KitC (scrambling for taking-charge-of-the-conversation pleasantries): Er … busy night so far? Good ... turnout? So. Shall I leave?

Thank God for Sunday and the wholesome opportunity to sample the repertoire of this year's apples. Down in the countryside I found an idyll of apple-enthusiasts - not to mention the highlight: PG stashed up in farm outfit. Occasional animals and aesthetically-pleasing children ambled past the apple juice like extras in an Austen remake. Though the long-promised Apple Quiz did not materialise, there were plenty of Enid Blyton activities (apple bobbing, old-school pinball) to make the day an extravaganza of loveliness. Kate in the Countryside restored.

College Mascot

Not Mine.

In an awesome act of boho chic, one of my University friends SAM (Surprisingly A Mother) has produced a Sprog. This was slightly surprising. Even more amazing (to me only) is that I'm not his GODPARENT. I've got so much to offer surely? Training in punctuality, advice on aggressive entertaining and, most useful of all, a mild fear of children. A couple of our friends did make the cut: their triumphal cufflink-shining as they prepare for the big Christening bash in December grates daily.

In an unrelated event, my University English group learned that our Director of Studies - the gentleman that interviewed us and then nurtured us through the shock of it all - is retiring.

At our college, an arcane law requiring fellows to leave in the year of their 67th birthday means that one of the best teachers I came across at Cambridge will be arbitrarily ousted months from now. True, the statute did prove a convenient way of getting rid of that insane Nazi bloke who used to pose naked in the windows of his rooms when male freshers walked past. But in Mr Goodling's case, it seems a total waste.

Anyway, the connection between these two facts is this. Sam and I decided to make a day trip to Cambridge to see Mr G and lament that he's leaving. Ever portable, Sprog came too.

Ambling into your university town months after leaving with your friend and her baby prompts a certain crisis of nostalgia. You know that it's not your town any more - Sam's baby proves we're not about to pop into a supervision - but it doesn't stop you spending half an hour at the Porter's Lodge making the Porters agree that the college isn't as much fun these days. Something they ultimately do, only because you've distracted them with a tiny baby.

Happily Sam had explained to Mr G about the new addition to our English group before we arrived. He had apparently asked so sternly on the phone 'And what is your news?' that she'd blurted out 'I've had a baby!' before hanging up, barely waiting for a response.

I felt fairly limited when my response to the same 'What is your news?' question ended with me gabbling nonsensically about Kate in the Countryside and my fledgling writing ambitions. I was back in first year again, hoping not to let him down.

 

I exaggerate.



Elegant as ever, he knew all the right baby questions to ask and pretended not to notice as Sprog mewled and puked with increasing regularity throughout the afternoon. And he enquired so delicately about our careers that I almost told him what I do for a job, despite how out-of-place it felt in the oak-panelled book-lined haven.

And as we caught the train back to London, clutching gifts of books (including The Lustful Turk - which Mr G owned in duplicate), soothed Sprog fell asleep straight away. I could see Sam thinking the same thing as I was: is it too late to ask Mr Goodling to be Godfather?