"It started out so well...." To quote the opening line of the Queen song "Save Me" (actually that's not strictly how the lyrics go, but they aren't far off.) I am talking about yesterday, the day that I was meant to sit down and get together the figures for my tax return, which instead turned into the day that I .....went shopping. Oh la la, now there's a surprise.
Between 8am and 9am I was hugely productive. I sat on the bed, surrounded by paperwork, whilst half listening to Daybreak - research purposes naturally, just to see if it is as bad as they say. All that I can really remember is Adrian's pull-over, as my Grandma called them, and boy what a pull-over it was. I reckon that someone had pulled something over his eyes when he made that choice of outfit for the day. Bless. If that is all that I can remember about the programme I'm not really sure what that says about it and whether, in fact, it says more about me but anyway, there we have it.
So that hour was productive, despite the fact that it took me at least half an hour to realise that I was doing the figures for the wrong tax year but by then I was flying, so it didn't take long to catch up. That first hour was followed by a run for an hour with friends so, in its own way that too was productive, despite the fact that at one point it felt as though my head was about to fall off. When the going gets tough, one of my good running friends has this nasty habit of a) running faster and b) talking more. She reckons that there is logic to this in that it gets it over with much quicker and it also acts as a distraction. I just don't buy it personally but she's lovely so I'll let her off - and she does make me laugh.
So, on arriving home at 10am, that gave me two hours to do the tax figures before picking up child number 3 and that's where it all started to go so very, very wrong. Frankly there was only one person to blame. Yes, you've got it - Jeremy Clarkson. You see, my husband was going out yesterday to the Top Gear motor show at the NEC and for obvious reasons he didn't want to drive. Rather, he wanted a lift to New Street station. Well, for those of you who don't know Birmingham, let me tell you, if you are at New Street, you practically have one foot in the Bull Ring and I decided that it would be rude to be so close and not to pop in, just for a while at least. I make it sound like a fluke that I was there but actually it was a finally orchestrated shopping expedition with several missions to be accomplished in a very short space of time and you know what, I completed nearly all of them. The black boots that I was after, sorted. The grey tweed peg trousers from Oasis, definitely not sorted - they looked like jodphurs on me. The red Zara cropped jeans - sorted. The black GAP tux jacket sorted and with 30% off it was a top bargain too - and I was still there in time to pick up child number three on time. It's amazing what you can achieve in 40 minutes. Ah yes, but aren't I missing the point? That wasn't what I was meant to achieve yesterday now was it? No doubt my conscience will remind me of that the day before the dastardly deadline for the tax return to be filed actually arrives. Pah, what conscience? It was nothing to do with me. It was all Jeremy Clarkson's fault. Honest.
Just as an aside, I have written a blog post entitled "how to style an apple shape" for the new online Boden community page. Further posts will follow on how to style the other body shapes too. You can find the post at http://www.community.boden.co.uk/
