Roomy

On opening my front door, I was confronted with a glowing smile and the exclamation "Roooooomy". He threw his arms around me, gave me a huge kiss and demanded to know where the beer lived. He hadn't even crossed the threshold. I have a suspicion that I am going to get on well with actor number 2.

We've already planned a cookery evening, he is coming to see Rough Stuff's band play and we have bought a box of cigarettes for the apartment for emergency purposes.

Most importantly, Roomy loves Herbert. Normally visitors, including close family and friends, peer into his hut nervously wondering if they dare stroke his shell. Not this guy. The hut doors were opened and Herbert was in Roomy's palm before he had taken his coat off. "Aren't you the most beautiful baby?" he cooed. "I am going to christen you The Soldier." If tortoises are able to express their emotions, Herbert's was certainly one of utter shock. The Actor tried to feed him cheese; Roomy is more likely to offer him a Cosmopolitan and a canape.

Digging the actors

Over the Summer months I decided to add my name to the digs list of one of Manchester's finest theatres. Within the week an actor had confirmed he would like to move in. Having hated the experience of living with people I barely knew in uni, I was more than a little suspicious about how I would adapt to living with a man thirty years my senior.

I'm embarrassed to admit that before I divorced, I had never spent a night alone - ever. My parents didn't trust me to not have sold or burnt down the house while they went on holiday so I was entrusted to friends parents, or worse still grandparents. Repeats of The Golden Girls and Columbo do not make a particularly thrilling Saturday evening when you're 16.

Then I moved into Halls, followed by a brief stint in a shared house with an English hating French man (this was also in the most burgled street in the UK. How I miss Leeds. No really, how?) and then I sealed the deal and bought a house with the husband. Whenever he went away I would stay with friends, or visit family.

Fast forward two years and I love living on my own. I can iron naked, dance round the kitchen to Hugh Masekela and Herbert the tortoise can roam the apartment without living in fear of being crushed to death. Except he can't. He has to stay in his hut pining, I have to get dressed before plugging in the iron and Hugh's trumpet hasn't blown so much as a single note of District Six since the Actor moved in.

But now the Actor has gone. His run has finished, the curtain has come down. He moved out on Friday after three months of a relatively easy living arrangement. Yes, he did change the locks while I was on holiday, he washed more clothes than I ever witnessed him wearing and he tried to feed the tortoise cheese.

So it is with baited breath that I await the arrival of The Actor 2. He arrives this evening and will be staying with me until mid-December. I've met him briefly, and goodness was he eager. About everything. Like Rupert Everett in Shrek, every facial muscle moved as he spoke and his enthusiasm for my apartment left me questioning the state of the other digs on the list. Because if he changes the locks, it might be me moving out.

A weekend in need of cleaning

Last weekend I went to Whitby for a dirty weekend. Rough Stuff observed beforehand that the phrase "a dirty weekend" does not translate into any other language; that our friends in Europe would interpret our break from the city as a weekend in need of cleaning. He may be right literally speaking, but it turns out that it is Girl on a Barge who needs a good rinsing clean of the questions floating round in her emotional maze of a brain.

The weekend itself turned out to be anything but dirrrrty. Despite the torrential rain that had me anxiously checking the forecast for four days before our trip, the sunlight was radiant from the moment we got up and it stayed with us throughout the three hour car drive. On arrival at our blissful seaside abode, we began to explore. Walking along piers, climbing across cliff surfaces (particularly rewarding in ballet pumps and a sparkly top) and sharing scampi in many a seaside cafe made for a rather innocent yet extraordinarily intimate weekend. He was honest with me about The Ex (who rang him while we were away. What is it with ex-girlfriends wanting to be "friends" as soon as their exes are happy again?). He has told me more about his past than I will ever be prepared to tell him about mine. He bought me a flashing keyring with my name on that is guaranteed to last for ten years without changing the battery (how DO they do that?)

So why did the questions continue to rain down on me?

• There are the completely unjustified questions such as When Will He Hurt Me?


• There's the plain stoopid questions which focus on something completely insignificant which I manage to blow out of all proportion. These tend to start with an assumption based on a fact. For example, Rough Stuff is in a band. Rough Stuff is fit. So When Will He Cheat On Me? (this is particularly unfair because - do I dare immortalise these words in print - I trust him implicitly to never cheat on me


• Then there's the downright inexcusable questions which centre around whether he too will change into a knife-wielding psycho like an ex of mine who would hold a knife to my neck if the kettle "boiled too noisily"

And then, something altered. The shift in me was so small that I barely knew it had happened, and yet it couldn't be ignored. Sitting in the corner of a traditional tea-room sharing a cream tea and a coke float, I felt it click. Pachelbel's Canon, a piece of music that over the years has sewn itself into the fabric sleeve of the soundtrack of my life, was playing softly in the background. Rough Stuff was slurping the remaining ice cream out of his coke float. It was an enchanting moment. Click. It's time to remove the quotation marks encasing the word boyfriend, it's time to stop being hung up about events goneby. We're a blank canvass, we are delightfully new.

We are clean.

Is it better to receive?

Last week three of the girls in the office where I work received flowers from members of the opposite sex. It transpired quickly that they were being wooed by ex-boyfriends who had serendipitously decided to send flowers in the same week. One bunch came with a helium balloon which floated above her desk declaring "Love" in its own unique shiny foiled way. One bouquet - the most beautiful lilies I ever did smell - was tied up with ribbons and held a card with sentimental prose from an ex-lover.

Today I myself have been wooed. It has been building for a while - he has chatted to me more and more at my desk, smiled at me in the corridor and last week he told me that he had a gift for me. Despite my protests of having a boyfriend*, he brought the gift in for me today. A box of 20 fags. Benson and Hedges to be exact.

My friends' gifts were wrapped in vibrant paper and pretty bows. Mine came with a label telling me that I was risking ageing of the skin and infertility. Still, I have displayed them proudly on my desk the way one would a vase.

* Please note the distinct lack of quotation marks when referring to the boyfriend. It's amazing what a plate of scampi and a coke float can do for the soul. But more on that tomorrow. For now I have a box of cigarettes to smoke whilst I plan how to let Mr Loverman down gently.

Bums on seats

This may be a somewhat biased stance given the fact that I work for an arts organisation based in Manchester city centre, but to me Manchester is the cultural heartbeat of the UK. Whether you are an apathetic arts attender whose annual arts experience hinges on the latest Corrie dropout starring in the Opera House panto, or a budding creative type searching for a platform from which to bear your inspired soul this city has something to offer you.

One of the many perks for those of us fortunate enough to be working in the industry is that our diaries are crammed full of (often unused) invitations to press nights, openings, private views and previews. We are drowning in a canal of social engagements issued by marketing managers in the vain attempt that their event will be so spectacular that we will do nothing else but talk about it to whoever we meet for the next month. In reality, this is simply not the case for the vast majority of us who take our positions for granted. More often than not we decide not to attend at the last moment, throwing caution to the wind and our complimentary tickets in the bin as we head off to The Bayhorse for a quick pint and then a chippy tea.

Isn't it time to rethink who we invite to press night? We are living in a city that includes some of the most deprived areas of the country. Arts organisations, or Arts Council England North West at the very least, play at jargon tourettes: community engagement, audience development, increasing participation from "BME's" (the most despicable term I have the misfortune to work with).

If we must cheapen participation in the arts by dissolving it down to "bums on seats", can't we at least be a little more intelligent (and do I dare say it, but CREATIVE) about whom those bums belong to?

Three Little Words

Attracting chaos and hilarity is something I do with relative ease, and for the most part I enjoy it. Friends can rely on me to regale them with stories of birds hanging themselves from my balcony, ceilings falling in, The Actor force-feeding Herbert cheese and other such nonsense that seems to hurtle my way on a daily basis. However it would be rather pleasurable to occasionally enjoy life's finer moments without an attached farce. No such luck. After meeting my friends tonight for the first time, and enjoying a rather fine evening at the Royal Exchange Theatre to watch Henry V, Rough Stuff provided the slapstick.

After tenderly gazing into my eyes, Rough Stuff announced that he was "gonna just say it."

"Oh Christ," I thought. The concussed conversation outside Mojo's about falling in love minutes after I had literally fallen several feet came flooding back to me.

Rough Stuff: "I love you."

I looked at him intently, then looked away, and then back at him. In my mind, this flirtatious eye dance lasted a mere nano-second but by the time I looked back at him his face had crumpled. Before I had the chance to respond, Rough Stuff did his best:

"Well I don't love you, but I could love you someday. But not now. Obviously. No, I don't love you at all. Forget I said anything."

He high-jumped over the back of The Circle Club sofa we were sitting on and disappeared off into the toilets for at least twenty minutes, leaving me to wonder whether I should feel relieved or rejected. Over the years I have been subjected to every kind of line from men - some romantic, some downright dirty. Never has a man told me he loved me and then retracted it with immediate effect. He may as well have issued a press release with an embargo of "until further notice."

After twenty minutes he reappeared looking like he had been shot. I allowed him to ramble on for a further twenty minutes before announcing "Look, I love you too."

"Thank fuck for that" he sighed as he visibly crumpled in relief, and squeezed me so hard that the under wiring of my bra popped out of its cotton cover.

And they say romance is dead.

Get Rich, Get Shoes Quick

It may be somewhat naive, but I have always prided myself on the fact that I am not a frugal person. For instance, being economical with the truth has never appealed.

Mam - "Does this make my bum look big?"

Me (innocent four year old) - "Nope, your bum is just big."

Playing it safe equals not playing at all. Perhaps that's why I married at 20, divorced at 25, paid £400 for a tortoise when I was struggling to make the rent. Mostly I think my life is richer for it. If only I could say the same for my bank account.

When my fellow students were holidaying at V Festival, I was honeymooning in Barbados. While friends who earn thousands of pounds more than me are wondering if they should take another tenner out for a dirty burger on the way home, I'm slapping the credit card down and ordering champagne all around. Not any more. Yesterday I issued myself with the ultimate commination - if I don't save a percentage of my income each month I'm not allowed to buy shoes. The responsibility on my shoulders is immense - if I'm not careful I could single handedly destroy Top Shop Shoes. My hands are shaking nervously as I type. There is nothing else for it. I have to find lucrative ways to earn more money and quickly. My Get Rich, Get Shoes Quick Plan is shaping up reasonably well.

Five weeks ago I lay mine and Herbert's home wide open when I added my name to the Royal Exchange Theatre's digs list. Less than a week later The Actor moved in. Home has quite simply not been the same since.

I've also decided to wrap my car. Unfortunately this does not involve wrapping it up in shiny paper and giving it back to the finance company with a small but perfectly formed bow and gift tag reading: "With love, you robbing rascals." Instead, I have applied to have my car wrapped by an advertising company. For a whole twelve months I could be driving around Manchester in the form of a one woman marketing campaign, promoting anything from Stella Artois to Durex. Oh dear. The things I will do for shoes never fail to astound me.

Falling Down

Last week's impulse to run back to the staff stairs in Mojo's and hide from the world turned out to be misguided, foolish and potentially perilous. I will not, under any circumstances risk life and limb by going up to the staff staircase ever again. Not even for the Mary Poppins-esque view of Manchester rooftops that impressed me so much the first time.

I blame the entire episode on Rough Stuff. He texted me on Saturday evening to tell me he was in a beer garden in Salford with the lads. Would I like to meet his social family, he asked quite casually, with no apparent notion of the turmoil he was inflicting upon me. What should I wear? What if they didn't like me? Does this mean he's serious about me? How serious is serious? Should I be concerned that he may be getting a bit too heavy? But hang on. Weren't we supposed to be going to the cinema? Does the idea of spending an evening alone with me repel him already? Oh God, he's gone off me and he's using his friends as a shield to resist my advances?

So of course I went along. I needn't have worried - Rough Stuff's friends are almost as genial and as engaging as he is, and they made me feel as though I had known them for much longer than a couple of hours. The evening was going well so we decided to move on to Mojo's, at which point I realised it was exactly one month since the first night Rough Stuff and I had got together. There was nothing else for it - as soon as we arrived we raced upstairs, tried the door... perfect! It was the first opportunity I had had all evening to be alone with him, so I wasn't going to waste any time in not kissing him.

Unfortunately it didn't take long for a member of staff to disturb us. She was less than impressed, so we mumbled an apology and headed for the door. Never one to let the opportunity of turning an embarrassing situation into a complete state of mortification and humiliation, I turned back to let her know that it was our one month anniversary and the staff stairs were of utmost importance in the blossoming of our relationship. However by this point in the evening I was on the slippery slope otherwise known as JD and coke, and multi-tasking was becoming more arduous. Forgetting that I was wearing flat shoes (they will be the death of me) I misjudged the step.

Proceedings become somewhat sketchy at this point. I can remember plummeting through the air with my head directly in line with the cigarette machine. I can just about recall having a premonition of how embarrassed I was about to become when I hit the floor. And then nothing. The next thing I remember is lying on my back with Rough Stuff holding my head and two members of staff hovering over me calculating how this was going to hold up in court.

Fortunately I walked away from the incident with little more than a bruised arse and a squiffy air of concussion. Feeling a little shaky, we went outside for some fresh air (i.e lots of fags - after hitting my head so hard on the fag machine that I momentarily passed out, I was insulted to have to pay £5.8o for 16 cigarettes from the sturdy little bastard). With a face brimming with care and concern, Rough Stuff took my hand in his and without the slightest trace of irony whispered:

"I'm finding it difficult to stop myself from falling for you."

With Mojo's staff stairs firmly blacklisted, I'm running out of places to hide.

Talk later?

Hey you...
It barely seems like two minutes ago that we were at school, arguing over the name of our newly founded cult. College was taken up with boys for me, girls for you (briefly) and a sprinkling of theological based discussion in the common room. Reality set in too quickly for my liking and before we knew it we had jobs, 'life' partners, debts. We didn't see each other from one month to the next and I soon depended upon your emails to update me on the sordid developments of your seemingly glamourous and fulfilling life in Dublin.

So how can it possibly be, dear friend, that today is the fifth anniversary of your death?

I decided early on that I could not and would not feel guilty for your passing. I can't be blamed for you not telling me how you felt, because it could easily have been the case that you did not know yourself. We often hide our true feelings from the world, even the world to which we are closest, and through doing so we hide from ourselves. Yet I feel guilty today. The world has moved on, and it is today that I have realised it. I miss you not being on Facebook; the fact that you wouldn't know what that is crushes my entire being.

My life has hurled itself in a variety of misguided directions since you decided to leave. I am frantic for you to know that I left my husband. Can you believe that I am divorced? The engagement threw you enough. I left the old smoke for the vibrant, life-propelling city that is Manchester - you would love it here as much as I do. I could take you to Cloud 23 and you will point excitedly at the Coronation Street set. We could go to The Pev and we could Lambada around the pool table like we did at The Mill. Remember? Of course you do.

Whilst being remarkably uninteresting or poignant to an outsider, your final words to me are amongst the most special words I carry around in my sentimental dictionary of remarks gone by. But not today. Today they make me angry, today I wish they would evaporate and leave me be.

Dear friend, I would love for nothing more to talk later. I know I will be forever waiting for your call.

x

"Girlfriend"

It certainly wasn't his command for geography that cajoled me into becoming first his FB, and now it seems his "Girlfriend." On hearing my dulcet Maccem tones he proclaimed himself to being a fellow North-Easterner, before discrediting himself as a reliable source by telling me he was from Rotherham. Nevertheless he made me laugh for the first time in too long, and by the end of the evening we had banished ourselves from the rest of the world (and the smoking ban) and had taken to the staff stairs in Mojo's.

For a fortnight I was adamant that all I was interested in was sex, sex, sex. No affection, no hand-holding, no gazing into each others eyes. We were to be Sex and the City style FB's and our relationship would consist of booty call's and beer. However real life is nothing like that of Carrie Bradshaw et al, and before long I found myself eager to discover more about him.

After not seeing each other for a week, and with both of our flatmates firmly in residence with no obvious intention of leaving us alone for the evening, we bit the bullet and went out for a date. Rough Stuff had done his homework and suggested we meet at Cloud 23 to watch the sunset. After spicy popcorn and one cosmopolitan too many, there was talk of dating and of me being his "Girlfriend". If I only felt comfortable enough to write it, say it or hell, even think the term "Girlfriend" without those hesitant quotation marks. It's enough to make me run back to Mojo's and hide on the stairs.

Rough Stuff: Enter Stage Left

I avoided Castlefield Locks for six weeks after The Boy temporarily shattered my ego. The mere suggestion of anything canal related provoked a prickly sensation throughout my entire being, and I would avert my eyes after leaving Love Saves The Day so as to avoid Castle Street. It seemed that who, or more appropriately what, had provided me with the most joy was now pointing it's finger at me and calling me a loser.

So it was with the utmost disapproval that I went along to my colleague and friend's leaving do at Dukes 92. The sun was shining, the wine was flowing and everyone was on top form. Sitting outside with friends and posing for classic Blue Steel type photos, it didn't take me long to forget that I was supposed to be being miserable, godammit, and that's when it happened. I let my guard down.

Rough Stuff: enter stage left.

Gone in 60 Days

I can't quite believe that it has been almost two whole months since I last attempted to splatter-gun small sections of my life onto Girl on a Barge. Time is a sneaky bastard isn't it? Because I have been thinking about the blog, I manipulated myself into believing that I am actually writing a blog, when in fact I have been doing nothing of the sort. I have, however, managed to place a large tick in the box next to each of the following "constructive" things to do:

1 - As the rest of the city recoiled at the thought of having to stand outside the pub to have a sneaky fag, I chose to take up smoking for the first time in my life. For the first six weeks I persuaded myself it was purely "social", but the tell-tale signs that suggest my face is going to look like a burst sausage by the time I am 35 are now firmly in place. I smoke in the morning, I have switched to the tonsil-numbing hardcore Marlboro's of which I have smoked almost 160 in the past week and last Wednesday I left the breathtaking view of Cloud 23 to go downstairs and take a few breaths of nicotina and monoxido de carbono (I bought them in duty free which immediately makes them ten times more appealing). I hang my head in shame.

2 - Facebook kidnapped me and pillaged my mind. After months of tut-tutting at every mention of My Space and/or Facebook I have succumbed. I am now poking people hourly, leaving mindless graffitti on "Friends" walls, and spending more of my working day on thinking of witty status updates than I care to imagine.

3 - I have had my heart broken by The Boy. Or was it my ego he broke? I can't quite tell. During our last evening together he suggested we take a walk along the canal from Rain Bar to Dukes. It could quite easily have become the most romantic / sexy / passion-inducing evening we spent together. Instead he chose to poke sticks at the many spiders congregating under the bridges. I know hindsight is a wonderful thing (if not a little smug) but the clues were screaming at me in the title. "The Boy"? Hell, this Girl is looking for a Man.

Blink

On Monday night I found myself at Dukes 92 for after work "networking". It was one of those evenings that you say you'll pop in for half an hour and you end up being the last one to leave after one too many JD's. In theory the event was only supposed to last an hour or so - the organisation I work for had arranged pre-show drinks for a select few before they embraced the magnificent Manchester International Festival's The Pianist.

Once the pizza and free wine had vanished so did the select few, leaving two friends and I who didn't have tickets to get drunk and put the world to rights. We stayed until the bitter end and when we were asked to leave for the second time we decided it was only proper to finish the night at mine with a bottle of JD.

Yesterday morning my friend texted me to ask why we had talked incessantly about men - we had tried to analyse the behaviour of at least three of the lesser sex and by the end of the night we were no further forward in understanding why men want to share a barge party with you one night, and then stand you up the next. I didn't have an answer for her. We are three independent women with fabulous careers, personalities and lifestyles. Why couldn't we find something else to talk about?

The answer came to me last night whilst reading Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink." In it, he talks about two female taste testers who have broken Oreo cookies down to 90 different attributes that they can distinguish between with any one taste. If we can break biscuits down into 90 categories no the hell wonder we have trouble fathoming out our male counterparts.

I didn't expect the moon on a stick...

.... but you didn't have to hurt me.

Long live the tortoise

Six weeks ago Mother Earth decided to rudely evict me from my beautiful home on Salford Quays after three months of rain water, twigs, leaves and empty condom packets (how did they ever get on the roof) fell through my ceiling and ruined my flat. I quickly hot-footed it from the Quays to the Locks, but have failed to fall in love with my new gaffe in quite the same way. It could be something to do with the furniture the landlord has chosen. Mirrored wardrobes (positioned in the right way this could be a plus point), black leather sofas and silver painted kitchen cupboards make for a very masculine looking apartment, and I don't likey. It's Three Men and a Baby minus the random cartoon drawings on the walls.

So after a month of pondering on exactly what it was that was preventing my house from becoming a home, the idea was put to me that I should get a tortoise. And so I did. His name is Herbert, he is fourteen months old, and sits comfortably in the palm of my hand. Despite dropping him and almost drowning him - accidents on both counts, of course animal lovers - he is still alive and kicking.

The irony is that the person who suggested I should get the tortoise warned me that they may be a little high maintenance, when in actual fact he (and for the purposes of this blog we will call him The Boy), The Boy, is the thing giving me the most jip. Herbert on the other hand is doing wonders for my social life, my pulling power and my diet. Friends who I haven't seen in an age are suddenly dropping by, I have been invited on three dates from neighbours after being spotted on my balcony with the tortoise (thankfully this is not the place from which I dropped him) and I now have a constant supply of vegetables in the fridge. And he sleeps twenty hours a day. The perfect flatmate.

I heart Manchester

Everything about Manchester makes my spirit soar - how could you ever be truly miserable when you live in a city that offers the cultural delights that are Beetham Tower and the Pev within a two minute and seventeen second walk of each other (in heels)? I've lived here for over a year now, yet I still find myself constantly having to apologise for bumping into people because I'm too busy staring up at the skyline, or admiring the stained glass window in Central Library that always surprises me as I walk past.

Part-walking part-dancing to work yesterday morning (my Ipod selection was just too good not to) I found myself taking the longer journey along the canal path. It was half way through Marrakech Express and half way across the mini NewcastleGateshead Blinking Eye bridge on Castlefield Locks that the dawn of realisation struck as to why I heart Manchester quite as much as I do. It's the people. They are passionate, creative, friendly, exciting. They are fucking bonkers and I love it.

A barge was nearing the mouth of the canal as I was passing over the bridge and on it stood a Highland terrier with a piece of toast in his mouth, and a tall (some would say lanky but I'm not that rude) guy in his early thirties wearing a grey suit and pink tie. He had short dirty blonde hair and in his left hand was a briefcase that had seen better days. It was strange enough that this Rodney Trotter circa 1989 lookalike should be standing atop a barge but the fact that he was urinating into the water whilst the dog looked on was just too much to bear. Despite my ipod being cranked up to its deafening limits I could just about hear myself tut loudly in utter disapproval. But then the strangest thing happened. He smiled at me and said "Good Morning". Even when having a piss on a barge at 8.30am on a Wednesday morning, Mancs are the politest of folk.

What could I do? I smiled, mouthed "Good Morning" and then felt slightly dirty for the rest of the day.

So simple yet so beautiful

I realise that this may not be the most endearing of beginnnings, but I would like to begin my blog with something I read in my horoscope almost 15 years ago. To make things even worse for myself whilst ensuring I never have a repeat visit to my site, I'm going to 'fess up that this was the Mail on Sunday horoscope section. In my defence I was 11 and the only reading material I had available to me was the Mail on Sunday (courtesy of Dad who bought it for the telly guide because the boxes to write the lottery numbers in on a Saturday were bigger than the Telegraph's telly pages) or the Sunday People.

Horoscopes are normally even more useless to 11 year-old pre-pubescent girls than they are to 26 year-old pre-alchololic, workaholic, shopaholic women (yes reader, I achieved my three goals in life and not necessarily in that order), but on this occasion the astrologer dude skipped over the "love will bump into you in the rain and will begin with the letter Z" rubbish and offered us Cancerians something so simple yet so beautiful the words will dance around my soul forever.

"One cannot consent to creep, when one feels the impulse to soar."

And so, the first chance I got I packed my bags and moved to Manchester.