What's in the box?

The financial review continued last week, and I got a bit over-ambitious (which is by no means a rare thing for me). Having found a suitable extra-job (thankfully, it does not involve Scorpio Leisure), I piled on the hours and totalled it all up until it looked like I could pay off my mortgage in five years. However, I decided that I did want to live after all and scaled back considerably.

After having faced the prospect of being mortgage-free at the tender age of thirty (two), I now felt slightly depressed that I'd never be able to pull it off. I needed something to lift my spirits again - quickly. So I decided to buy a tortoise. How very retro.

A tortoise would be the perfect addition to my flat. I mulled it over. (I'm sure it would be quite independent and be happy doing its own thing, no hair means less fluff on my carpet, it could eat all the fruit and veg I never get round to (a live recycling machine if you will), it would casually wander through to join me as I sit writing, I'd come home from work and it'd be wandering around, it wouldn't make any noise. It would be very much like my wooden giraffe but somewhat more mobile - perfect.)

I discovered I could buy one online for a discounted price of £99. And free delivery - even better. I'd have to get it delivered to work (as I wouldn't want it being punted about the Royal Mail depot) but I quite liked the thought of everyone asking: "What's in the box?" And my response: "A tortoise." Whereupon I would indeed reveal a tortoise.

My mum was distinctly unimpressed. "You're not getting a tortoise," she said with an exasperated sigh. "I'm an adult, with my own property, you can't tell me I'm not getting one." "You're not getting a tortoise." "But I think it'd be really cool." "Why don't you wait until you have a big house, with a big garden." "When I have a big house with a big garden I'll get a horse. The whole point of the tortoise is its lack of need for space." "Well, we'll see - maybe Santa will bring you one." "Stop implying that you have any influence on this decision." It never ceases to amaze me how quickly I can regress to my four-year old self in certain conversations with my mum. A hideous image of me dressed up like Bette Davis in 'Whatever happened to Baby Jane?' flashed into my mind, and I made a mental note not to discuss my wackier notions with my parents.

I was explaining all this to some friends on Thursday night. I don't think any of them were really getting it. Sinead looked at me like she'd heard about as much as she could take and said: "I don't think you're in a fit state to have a pet ... hearing you talk about it being like a wooden thing that moves about."

"Don't worry," I said, "I'm not actually getting one. I found out that you need to buy a special tortoise table, a UV lamp and lots of 'natural' obstacles to place around your house in order to exercise the thing. That's a bit more complicated and messy than I'd originally thought. And also, I realised that it'd have to excrete all the leftover veg I fed it, so - again - more messy than I thought."

Hopefully though, my two jobs and my round-the-world trip will occupy me enough to keep me from ever actually buying livestock over the Internet.

Seasonal Accounting Defecit

January is the worst month and if I could, I would replace it with a better one. A month in Jamaica perhaps. But since I can't, I've developed my own method of coping with it. This includes booking a week's holiday in Santorini (with a moped and 5 days of scuba diving) and the planning of a 5 week round-the-world trip with stops in Las Vegas-San Francisco-The Cook Islands-New Zealand-Australia-and Kuala Lumpur. The only downside is that I'm about to start pushing drugs to school kids in order to fund this.

I drew a life map to help me discover/focus on what it is I want to achieve in the short-medium term. This is what I came up with:

• Fitter (happier) healthier - my gym sessions and seed consumption, I feel, is an excellent start.
• Get a grip on finances - desperately needed since I have no concept of budget - at all. I once queried with exasperation the price of my weekly grocery shop. The checkout assistant leaned forward and pointed out, in conspiratorial whisper, that I'd spent £16 on fruit juices. I now drink a lot more tap water and blend my own smoothies. Still, there's a long way to go.
• Travel - This is mainly why the point above is so important. I want to be able to take at least one fantastic and far-flung trip every year. This year OZ, next year South America.
• Writing - Must, must, must finish writing book. Fingers crossed this will lead to Jessica Fletcher-style life of glamour, wealth and intrigue. Though, hopefully, point 1 in this list will mean that the glamour is less mauve tapered trousers with elasticated waists, and more Nicole Fahri evening dresses. And that, facially, I won't resemble an over-stewed teabag. (Note to self: extra suncream whilst travelling.)
• Back to Uni - For a conversion course in something more useful like psychology. I've realised I quite enjoy talking to people and it would be good if I could do this for a living (if Jessica Fletcher thing doesn't come off right away). I figure if I become a psychological counsellor, I'd have a job I enjoy more and also a potentially fantastic source of information for my books.

So that's pretty much what the life map looks like. I think the financial stuff underpins it all though, so I'm currently looking at ways to boost my income. I underwent a financial review at my bank last week. I'd pre-empted the pain by doing a thorough review myself beforehand - scary stuff. At the bank, I was asked a series of questions about my aspirations. Luckily, I'd already mapped out my life and knew that "maintaining current lifestyle and travelling" was all I was really interested in. They asked how much I'd need for my holidays and I took a rough guess at about £3K - £4k. Needless to say, their little graphs came back with a shortfall in the short-, medium- and long-term. But this was obvious as all I'd done was tell them that I wanted to spend more money than I actually had - duh! So I need to get a pay rise of more than 5K (after tax) or work an extra 20 hours a week, every week, for a year. That's actually quite depressing, because the first one doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hades and the second one would involve more work. Hmm.

That said, I do feel a whole lot better for knowing what I want and what I have to do to achieve it. Which is about all there is to smile about given the utter shitness of this weather.

Ha Ha Happy New Year!

My first post of the new year comes courtesy of a giggle I had on Easter Road at 06:45 this morning. I was on my way to the gym and headed up past Iceland. A gigantic lorry was outside the shop, delivering an abundance of frozen ... stuff.

As anyone who owns a TV will know "...mums go to Iceland" is the theme of the store's branding. Perhaps less well known is its use of the little freezer symbol as an asterisk for related straplines.

The strapline emblazoned along this particular HGV was supposed to say:

"*because mums are heroes!"

I say "supposed" because some ingenious person(s) had completely obliterated the 'e' and the 'r', so that it now read:

"*because mums are h oes!"

Kerry Katona can't argue with that. And that's why I go to Sainsbury's.