The Joy of Life

It feels like I've been insanely busy over the last month. But now I've come to write about it, I can't think what I've been up to. Let's see ...

Work has been better (if a lot more uncertain and precarious). I've steered things my own way on the next issue of the magazine and, as a result, I think it's looking like the best one yet. I've also been expending a lot of time and effort on my 'chocolate-dipped carrots' mission to show other areas of the company how to improve their communications and write things that people will actually take notice of. (I had originally planned to go down the road of 'big stick' mission, until my boss told me - repeatedly - that there were no sticks.)

I'm also getting to go on a scriptwriting course run by the BBC, which I'm very excited about.

After four weeks off allowing the eyes to recover, I've been at the pool every morning. The snogging couple have mysteriously disappeared and seem to have been replaced by touchy-feely dive-bombing couple. The new eyes are brilliant under the water and I don't have to faff about trying to get my eyes to accept contact lenses at 6:30 in the morning.

I wear a swim cap because the chlorine was ruining the colour of my hair. I look thoroughly mingin' and think I'd die if someone actually recognised me. Last week, when I'd been swimming for about 10 minutes, I stopped at the end, ran my hand round the back of my head, and realised that I hadn't tucked my hair into the cap. It must have looked like I was wearing it for reasons of fashion rather than necessity. How embarrassing. (Though still not as embarrassing as the time I failed to notice my swimsuit had ripped itself open across my chest until I was out the pool and walking to the showers.)

Talking about hair, Emma cut me a fuller fringe last weekend. I've been growing my hair for over three years now and I get really bored just asking for the same thing, so I thought a fringe would give me a bit of a change without getting in the way of my Rapunzelesque plans. I really like it and think it makes me look younger. Two people have complimented me on it on Facebook and Kirsty at work said it was "much better" - which kinda made it sound like it was awful before, but she clarified that she didn't think it was bad before, it's just "much better" now. (Kirsty is very honest. She'll actually tell women she doesn't know whether or not something suits them in the changing rooms. Harsh, but helpful.)

I've been out to see Leanne, Ella and baby Holly a few times. Holly is cute as a button but does scream her head off a lot more than Ella ever did. I was saying to Leanne that Holly cries with such force that her features disappear and she looks like Cartman in South Park when he gets angry - just a face with a cross on it. It must be really, really exhausting for Leanne.

The woman at my work who kept telling me to hurry up and have kids has abated her efforts somewhat. I found a successful way of getting her to shut up was to answer her truthfully whenever she asked what I was up to at the weekend: cocktails with friends at Harvey Nick's, long weekend in Berlin, girly-weekend up North, dinner cooked by 'date-guy', long run on the beach, shopping for new boots, coffee and a book in Waterstones, etc. And then wait for the golden silcence that always follows. I realise my existence my seem shallow, but it's always really good fun.

I still assume I'll feel like I want to have kids at some stage, but it does seem like there's ever more to compromise, sacrifice and risk. Someone recently told me about their experience of giving birth and having to be stitched up again. There was concern that she'd "ripped right through", so the doctor stuck a finger into her ass, wiggled it around and said "No, no, we're fine". Then she heard them saying things like: "I'm not sure where this bit goes", "well, you won't be quite the same as you were before", and "There won't be any blood getting to this bit, so we may as well cut it off". She still doesn't know what they cut off. I reassuringly told her it was probably her clitoris. I swear, I almost fainted when she was telling me this story.

What else ...

I've started fitness training with the army twice a week. Outside in the cold and dark. My experiences with this merit an entry on their own, so I'll write that up soon. I've also signed myself up for a 5K in January, a half marathon (yikes) in April and a 10K in May. I've also bullied Louise at work into running twice a week at lunchtimes with me.

Oh, and I'm just back from a family trip to Berlin (again, I'll write this one up more fully on its own). After all the Christmas markets, I feel distinctively 'Christmassy' and sent out the invitations to my Blessing of the Tree parties, booked in my boozy lunch sessions and will shortly be getting the tree down from the attic. Well, after I've had today's chocolate from my advent calendar.

Family history

My week off has been productive, enjoyable and relaxing.

I did fear that it might get off to a bad start when my mum told me she was meeting up with my mother-in-law for lunch on the Monday. I feared for the worst when she suggested I come along too. That's the thing, in-laws can be enough of a hassle when you're married, but when the marriage ends you don't necessarily get rid of them.

I did feel kind of bad since my in-laws always send me birthday, Christmas and Easter cards and the occasional 'thought of you' card in between, whilst I have tended to avoid any sort of contact at all. Not because I'm being rude or nasty, but just because it's for the best.

Anyway, as my mum pointed out to me, I'm in a completely different place now, and so much happier with my life that it couldn't really do me any harm. So I agreed to go along. I was glad I did. My mother-in-law was so thrilled to see me, I felt like I'd made her year. And I must admit, I rather enjoyed casually dropping into conversation all the things I'd managed to do in the last 3 years:

• buy my own flat
• earn almost £20,000 more
• write a book
• get a whole new set of friends
• compile my family history
• travel to Mexico, New York (twice), Hong Kong, Thailand, Cambodia, Santorini, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cook Islands, New Zealand and Australia
• start enjoying my life

Somewhat annoyingly, she's still looking for a nice neat explanation for why it all ended. She seems to like the idea that it was a 'youthful romance that just went on too long'. It's nice, but it's nonsense. Unfortunately, she's asking the wrong person. Like her, I don't have any answers. Unlike her, I gave up on looking for them a while back. The only thing I could tell her for sure is that I am happier than I've ever been before, and for the first time since my childhood I actually feel like I'm living the life I wanted to. That seemed to comfort her.

On Wednesday, I went off to the National Registrar's Office in pursuit of my ancestors. I got there at 0915 and was assigned a desk. I had a computer in front of me and access to pretty much any records I wanted to look at. So what did I do when faced with the possibility of looking up anything I wanted to? I searched for myself. I was berating myself even whilst I was doing it. You know all about you. And you actually have a copy of your birth certificate in the flat. What the hell are you doing? Ooh, ooh, ooh, look, I'm there. I exist. After indulging myself with myself, I proceeded to do some general research and then get to the bottom of some irksome points.

Previously I'd thought my ancestors all came from Fife and Ireland, but it's a bit more varied than that - thankfully. My mum's dad's mum's family all come from Clackmannanshire. My dad's mum's mum's side all come from places like Banff, Buchan and Inverallochy. And my dad's dad's mum's side come from East Lothian. My great great great grandparents actually got married in Constitution Street in Leith, which is a street I used to walk down every day on my way to work. I think that's quite cool.

Remember I told you about the rumoured suicide of my great great grandad? Well, I found it. He did commit suicide by coal gas poisoning. He was 70 years old. I thought that was quite unusual. The only old person I know who committed suicide was Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption and that was because he'd been on the inside for over 40 years and couldn't handle modern life. On closer inspection of the certificate, it appeared my great great grandad had malignant prostititis. I've reasoned that he was in so much agony there was no hope of relief other than death itself. It's very sad though.

The other interesting bit of information/gossip was that I found a correction entry for my great great great grandad's birth. I'd already tracked down his birth certificate and noted there was no father listed. Written under his name was the word ILLEGITIMATE. Anyway, this correction entry is like a little book all in itself. Apparently, about a year after he was born, his mum actioned a case in the Cupar Sheriff Court to have an 'Alexander Gilmour' named as his father. The court sided with her. I want to know how you go about proving something like that in 1862. I mean, there's no Jerry Springer DNA test. There's no cameras or mobile phones to record any kind of contact. How did they do it? Also, the Gilmours are the family that owned (and still own) the 'big hoose' in Largoward. High society scandal.

I imagined that if I were famous and taking part in that BBC programme about tracing your relatives that this would be the bit where I would excuse myself and wander off. The camera would zoom in on me and I'd be wiping away a tear and trying to compose myself.