A load of old bulls!

I know it's been a whole month since I wrote but, to be honest - I was in some godforsaken hole in Yorkshire for two of those weeks - without broadband OR mobile phone coverage (talk about the dark ages!) and it's taken me two more weeks to recover!

Let me fill you in on the holiday (ha! I thought holidays were supposed to be restful - well not this one!) First of all it took about a gazillion hours to get there along roads that were getting smaller and smaller by the mile - motorway, then dual carriageway, then single line traffic till eventually we were crawling down this track that was more mud than tarmac and Dad had to keep backing up to let other cars and tractors and lorries and even sheep go past.

Belinda was going all dewy eyed: `Oh isn't it beautiful...' (Excuse me!) and: `Smell that wonderful fresh air...' (if that air was fresh, they'd better start making air fresheners called pigs' muck!) and; `Isn't it magnificent?' (Yeah, if you like the colour green - which, if you remember my bridesmaid trauma you'll know, I DON'T!)

Anyway, we finally got to Margaret and Ed's ("Call us Grandma and Granddad" - er... NO! because you're not my grandma and granddad) and I was put in this poky little room at the top of the house with a sloping ceiling so that I banged my head if I stood up too near the window. They might not have noticed but I am slightly taller than your average 2 year old.

I spent ages trying to get reception but Ed said the only place round here was up at the top of the hill - great! What he didn't tell me was that the hill went up and down like a roller coaster, so that every time I thought I was almost there, it dipped down again and then I had an even bigger hill to climb. Ggggrrr! By the time I got to the top I was exhausted - and I still only had one bar on my phone. At least I did get through to Daniel and managed to say about three words before it broke up, so I had to go down again. Still, I thought, that won't be too bad because downhill's always easier. But when I turned round - oh my God! There was a whole herd of bulls staring straight at me! Aaaagggh!

Now as you will know, exercise of any sort is not my favourite pastime, but on this occasion, I thought running was preferable to being gored by a bull - and lucky for me I'd got my new trainers on. So I set off - but I'd only gone a few meters when the bulls started running after me - and they were faster than me. If I wasn't careful I was going to get trampled to death in a stampede. But the worst thing was, I was running downhill so I was getting faster and faster and building up so much momentum that, when I slipped in this disgusting heap of ... well I'm sure you can imagine... I couldn't stop myself. I went head over heels, tumbling over and over, gathering speed and manure like a huge stinking snowball - or, in my case - cowpat-ball - until I finally came to a halt at the bottom of the first dip. Phew! But then I heard this rumbling and the bulls were after me again. Help! I had to get up and start the whole escape thing again. It was like a recurring nightmare all the way down the hill: climb mini-hill, run down, slip in disgustingness, roll in more disgustingness, come to stop, climb up away from rampaging bulls, run down, slip in grossness again etc etc etc

Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, I'd just got the gate at the bottom of the hill looking like Manure-girl Queen of the Cowpat, when this boy (who couldn't have been much older than me) was standing there grinning like some big, stupid grinny thing: `You've brought my cows down for milking, have you? That's saved me a walk. Thanks.' Then he gave a whistle and they all came over to him. `Do you want me to walk you back to the village with the cows?' he asked, still with this smug smirk on his face.

`I can manage,' I said and walked back with as much dignity as I could muster, caked in mud and poo. The countryside is disgusting!

Anyway, I'm writing this in the library and the great pink Blob has just come in and said she wants a word with me. Oh boy! That's NEVER a good sign. I'll tell you some more tomorrow.

An excess of grandparents.

I know, I know, it's been ages! But, I'll be honest, I've been freeling a bit fed up. My plaster came off and I'm off crutches now - which is BRILLIANT! But I'm still walking with a limp, like I'm some sort of arthritic crustacean. I mean, how unsexy is that?

I'm back in school again now - just in time to break up for the spring holiday, but you'll never guess what... my dad's only said we've got to go and spend the whole two weeks of it with Belinda's parents - in some back-of-beyond village in Yorkshire which is full of coffin-dodgers and yokels. And he says that this time Daniel can't come too. Their place is too small apparently - and it's a holiday for family! Durr - hasn't it occurred to him that they're NOT my family?

I've got Gran, and my real mum's parents are still alive (OK, so Tasmania is hardly round the corner, but they send me presents and stuff, so they still count.) Why would I want Belinda's mum and dad to try and muscle in on the grandparent stakes? That sounds like too much of a good thing, to me - defo!

Call the Fire Brigade!

Two days! Two days! That was how long I'd been back in the Land of the Living (well, if you can call the people at school living - more like the Land of the Undead!) before I was barred! Can you believe it?



Honestly! I spent the whole weekend going on at Dad to let me go back to school before I died a slow and lingering brain-death and, against all odds, he agreed with me! (Stand back in amazement that my dad and I agree on ANYTHING!) Then, to be fair to him, he did his bit to get me rehabilitated into normal life by sucking up to The Crusher and .....



...Ta-da! Tuesday morning, there I was hobbling around the corridors of Archimedes High on my crutches. Ah - the smell of the bogs, the sounds of stampeding feet, the cries of anguish from Mr Kingston in registration - it was soooooooo good to be back.



Seema and Arlette were great at helping me around. Of course crutches, apart from being the most unbelievably uncomfortable implements of torture, are a complete fashion nightmare:

1) I've had to wear one of those disgustingly geeky backpacks to carry everything around in

2) I've had to have my blouse sleeves rolled down to protect my arms but my jumper sleeves rolled up because the arm grips are too tight to go round both. I look like some sort of nerdy farmer's wife.

And,

3) You should see the blue cotton shoe the hospital's given me to wear over my plaster - it's got velcro fastenings and everything! Gross!



But, apart from the clothing crisis, things were going pretty well. Daniel was being really sweet and carrying my things around when Seema and Arl weren't around and even the staff were being nice to me. But then - disaster!



We were in Science yesterday afternoon and I was a teensy bit late - because it takes me soooooo long to get up the stairs. Anyway, the lesson had already started when I got there. Mr Mukerjee was standing over a bunsen burner at the front and he waved for me to go and sit on the bench - right in front of him! I was like; durrr! No way am I sitting at the front! But he insisted.

Arl was with me so I lurched my way towards the front but, we were just passing Mr Mukerjee, when suddenly, my crutch caught the strap of Chelsea Riordan's bag which was sticking out from under the bench (she's such a creep, she always sits at the front).
`Aaaagh!' My crutch slipped sideways and I reached out to stop myself falling on to my broken leg, but I accidentally grabbed the rubber tube of Mr Mukerjee's bunsen burner.

`Help!' I screamed, as it writhed and wriggled in my hand like a flaming snake, hissing and popping as I tried to control myself and it. Fortunately, I managed to steady myself on my other crutch but when I let go of the bunsen burner, I dropped it on to some papers on the front bench. And they caught fire! I couldn't believe it. How irresponsible - to leave papers on a bench next to a naked flame!

`Sorry, sir,' I said as I tried to put out the flames by banging them with my crutch, but all that did was flick some of the papers over on to the window sill where the spare overalls were heaped up in a pile. Ooops! The next thing I knew, they'd gone up too and then the blinds started smouldering and dripping red hot blobs of plastic on to some packets of paper towels and.... well, I'm sure you can imagine the rest.
And all that in a matter of seconds. Honestly! That place is a total fire hazzard.

Of course Angus Lyle thought it was his birthday, Christmas, Diwali and New Year all rolled into one! Which didn't help with the evacuation of the building. What with Angus jumping up and down and rubbing his hands and me hobbling on my crutches, it's a miracle we're not burned to a crisp.

So, after all that, The Crusher has banned me from coming back to school until my plaster's off. How mean is that?
And do you think I got any sympathy from Daniel? Oh no! He was all, `Well, when I broke my leg.....' Ggggrrrr!

A crutch to lean on.

I think I might book myself a week in Hell just to have a rest!

Not only have I got arms like He-man - which is a sentence that should never cross female lips - but also, I'M BORED!
I thought it would be great having six weeks off school, but it's a complete nightmare.
1) I have to remember everything I want for the whole day and lug it downstairs in a backpack in the morning - on my bottom.
2) The stupid school have sent a stupid amount of work round for me to do - plus, Dad has got extra work from the stupid Dungbeetle and he comes round to home-tutor me - AT HOME! Talk about an invasion of privacy!
3) I'm missing out on all the goss. I mean, I know Arl and Seema phone me at lunchtime and after school, but it's not the same as being there in person. It's like I have to hear it all second hand - which is sooooooooo annoying.
4) I only have Gran and Belinda for company, which means that my conversations are either about motorbikes and wrestling, or yoga and wholefood. Mmmmmm - stimulating (NOT!)
and
5) I'M BORED!!!!!!!

Last week wasn't too bad because it was half term so my mates came round a couple of times, but they've gone back to school now and I'M FED UP! I can't even lug my sorry self to the bathroom and wallow in a few bubbles to drown my troubles.

There's nothing else for it - I'm going to have to do the noble thing. I'm going to have to bite the bullet, grab the bull by the horns, face my fears - I'm going to have to go into school on crutches!

Oh my God! I can't believe I'm saying this.

Drunk and extremely dangerous!

Just when I thought I'd hit rock bottom, it was a case of grab your safety helmet, we're going subterranean!



Last Friday night Daniel's mum, Mary, and his stepdad, Donald, invited us all round to their house for a little party (in the loosest sense of the word!) And Mary announced that they were going to have a baby! Can you imagine it - at her age! I mean, she must be nearly 40 and Donald is positively geriatric.

Daniel was being amazingly calm about it all.

He said, `Well your dad and Belinda are starting their own family.'

I was like: `Durr! Belinda's ten years younger than my dad, but your mum's .... well...' There was no easy way to say this. `... old!'



Ooops! He got the hump about that big time and wouldn't speak to me. Great! I was stuck at a wrinklies' baby shower with no one to talk to but the inhabitants of the tropical fish tank. Daniel had gone into a corner with his rodent featured brother, Joe, and they were drinking shandy and trying to look all grown up and sophisticated - as if! Belinda and Mary were swapping pregnancy stories and Dad and Donald were slapping each other on the back and knocking back Donald's single malt whisky.



I had no alternative - any port in a storm - I went and sat with Gran who was throwing Bailey's down her neck like it was in short supply.

`Wonderful news, isn't it, love?' she slurred, taking another gulp.

`Mmmm,' I sort of agreed.

`Do you want a drop? she asked, offering me her glass of sticky beige liquid.

`Gran!' I was shocked.

`Go on,' she giggled. `You're fourteen and a half. Kids in Europe drink wine at every meal. It won't do you any harm.'

Actually, what she said made sense. I am almost fifteen and I am very mature for my age. And everyone else in the room was drinking (except Mary and Belinda) so I thought; why not? I grabbed a tumbler and poured myself a hefty shot.

But when I took a slug of it - eeeeooooowwwww! Yuk! It was disgusting!

`Aaaagggh! I've been poisoned!' I spluttered, putting my hand over my mouth and making a dash for the toilet. But I hadn't noticed that Gran had put the bottle down by the side of her chair and as I turned to head for the door, my foot slipped on it and..... well - think you can imagine the rest.



Four hours in A&E, a plaster cast from my thigh to my toe and crutches that were formerly used by the Spanish Inquisition as implements of torture! And I'm going to be like this for 6 weeks!

Can you believe it!

On the positive side though - I can't go to school for all that time and Daniel's feeling really guilty about not staying with me, so he's being very supportive. It's only a teensy bit annoying that he keeps saying: `When I broke my leg ....'

Ggggrrrr! Doesn't he realise this isn't about him - it's all about me!

A spot of facial bother.

Wow! Things are certainly looking up in my life.

a) Daniel appears to have grown out of his selfish streak and is being the most gorgeous boyfriend EVER!
b) The bruising and swelling has gone down round my eyes and the stitches are out of my lip, so that I can now kiss the most gorgeous boyfriend ever - lots!
c) Belinda took me to this doctor guy who is also an optometrist or something - it was some weird name that sounded like he was going to amputate my eyes - but he didn't! In fact, he prescribed me some soft lenses so that I only have to wear my Ugly Betty glasses in extreme emergencies.
Which means that:
d) I am now a brace-free, glasses-free zone. All I need now is someone to permanently straighten my hair and I'll be like Mary Poppins - practically perfect.

Daniel was so sweet - when I told him that he said to me: `I think you're perfect anyway.' I mean how fabulous is that? Am I the luckiest girl in the world or what?

Of course there's been the minor tragedy of my exam results. I know you're probably thinking that I must've failed them all - but it was even worse than that - I passed! With flying colours - well grades B and C anyway. But that means that Dad won't let me stop going to my tutor. You'd have thought he'd have seen what a good job I've been doing at learning and let me off, but ooooooh no! He says I've got to keep going because he wants to see some As in there by the summer. Yeah right! I think Belinda must have been putting the funny honey in his porridge, because the chances of me getting an A in anything, are about as likely as Dad becoming president of the Women's Institute in Japan!

Anyway, apart from the minor detail of still having to go to the Dungbeetle every Saturday, things are pretty good at the moment.

Uh oh! What's that I can see in the mirror? OMG! I don't believe it. It can't be. Not after I've just got rid of all the other facial rubbish that was spoiling my natural beauty. I've got a zit - and it's the size of Vesuvius! Right on the end of my nose. And there's another on my chin. And a couple on my forehead. In fact there's a whole rash of them up there. How come I've never noticed them before? I'm going to end up looking like Spud! Waaaaagh! This is soooooooooo unfair.