9. I don't hate dogs

"You are a dog hater."
"No I'm not. I just have issues around how they greet people."
"That is the very essence of the dog. The greeting."
"OK. So I have issues around the "very essence" of dogs. I don't hate them."
"You're more a cat person."
"Yes I am. I am more of a cat person. I don't hate dogs. I just have issues around their greetings. Or their respective "very essences", if you like."
"You hate my dog, don't you?"

And that was it. The relationship was over. Even if I managed to cleverly circumvent that question, the next would back me into a corner where I would have to admit that I had no positive feelings for his stupid, freaky-tailed dog.

Here's the thing: I like the idea of a dog. I like the idea of running along a beach with a dog. Or, at least, running along a beach with a dog if I had smaller breasts or an amazing sports bra. I like the idea of throwing a stick, but am not equally drawn to grappling to get it back. I mean, I want the dog to run for the stick, sure. I want it to scrabble to a skidding halt on the sand. I want it to maybe growl a bit as it picks the stick up, then maybe have a bit of a chew of the stick. I'd like the energetic running back with the stick, too. That's all fine. But then, I really would like the dog to drop the stick. And they often want a bit of a grapple. I'm not a grappling kinda gal.

I never even got to stick throwing with Scott. When J first took me home to meet his parents (that's a whole other posting) there was this whole routine where he had to go in first to calm the dog. Then, after shivering on the doorstep for a few minutes - for it was a winter romance - I was allowed over the threshold. My ear muffs offered little protection from the incredibly alarming noise that emanated from this animal's huge mouth.

Anyway, after a couple of visits, Scott stopped barking at me. So, you'd think things would improve. No. No, they didn't. That's when I got to see what had been going on while I'd been shivering outside. The dog went so crazy when it saw somebody it liked that it went into a leaping and tail-wagging frenzy. Here's how stupid this dog was: it leapt around and wagged its tail so hard that it hit furniture, walls and doors with it. And after, oh, a good few minutes of this, the end of the tail would start to bleed because it had been so bashed. And, if the dog wasn't eventually physically restrained, people would start to get splashed with dog tail blood.

Scott was a bad greeter. He wasn't a humper, like my sister-in-law's dog. He wasn't a slobberer like my friend L's dog. He wasn't a snarling in the corner kind of dog, like my uncle's disturbed greyhound. He was a wild and gory freak show of a dog. And I knew that I'd never come to love him like I love my imaginary sand-skidding, non-grappling, wind-in-his-hair dog. I knew I could never take part in the daily bandaging up of his tail. I knew that I had no desire to nuzzle into his neck as I restrained him from being so deranged he would self harm on the kitchen cabinets. I knew that and J knew that. That was that.

8. I know a little place...

I've always wanted to 'know a little place'. I have this romantic idea that, one day, I'll be welcomed into such a place, ushered to a lovely table, have morsels of delicious food brought to me and, as the evening wears on, be cajoled into dancing on the tables with a gregarious proprietor. I think I've watched Barefoot in the Park once too often.

A couple of months ago, just as we arrived in town, a swanky new boutique hotel opened up. In solidarity with the new kids on the block, my friend, E, and I went along to sample its restaurant. This could be my little place.

Worn out by the house move that somehow managed to incorporate the packing and unpacking of 300 boxes, we kicked back and spent a couple of leisurely hours over a gorgeous lunch. The food was so utterly divine that, at one point, I offered to marry the chef. Turns out he was already married, as am I, and I'm not sure he was interested anyway. Furthermore, the waitress didn't find my little joke so funny and let his wife (the restaurant manager) in on it. So, yes, the visit ended on a bit of an odd note, but E and I have waxed lyrical about the food ever since, particularly the whisky cream dessert.

This morning, I felt it was safe to go back without being recognised. Especially as I wouldn't be ordering the whisky cream for breakfast. D (husband) and I walked the mile into town to build up our appetites. However, I'd already sneaked in a peanut butter and banana on black bread sandwich while he was in the shower, so wasn't exactly ravenous. I scanned the menu for something light, pretending to be virtuous, and went with the fruit salad while D ordered the 'Lancashire Bacon Butty' - phwoar!

The look of food is as important to me as it is to anyone, and I could see that my fruit salad was being aesthetically compromised by a big, bruised chunk of apple. Undeterred, I speared a blackberry and, attached to it, a considerable chunk of fluff. I signalled to the waitress who'd served us. Once she'd worked out I was asking her to come over, she put it on her to-do list. Eventually, she arrived, looked at the fluff, scooped up the salad and returned to the kitchen to check the chef's navel. It was unfortunate that she spoke in a voice only audible to herself. If there was an apology, it didn't reach me. However, another waitress (who was in a different queue to her colleague when they were handing out voices) shouted over to ask if I wanted another. No. Thank you.

D bit into his sandwich and, like the well-mannered man he is, did not spit it right out. Turns out the reason the toast (toast?) wasn't buttered was because there was more than enough grease swimming around the bacon to lubricate the engine of a 57 seat coach. The whispering waitress duly came over, looked at the pool of grease, rolled her eyes and took the second breakfast back to the kitchen.

No explanation was forthcoming so we got up to leave. It was all very unfortunate, and we decided to put it down to the chef being hung over early on a Saturday morning. It was only when the duty manager tried to charge us for our 'breakfasts' did we decide never, ever to go back.

I so want to know a little place.

7. I can pronounce Maugham.

About six years ago, I was having coffee with a friend, J. We were in Valvona and Crolla in Edinburgh. It was summer and the Fringe had started, so the place was buzzing. We'd managed to get a table by being eye-wateringly early. Most of the culture vultures were sleeping off last night's parties.

Once we'd ordered and talked shop for just enough time to justify J's company picking up the tab, we launched into our respective recommendations for what to see at the Fringe, fiercely defending our personal choices. As eloquent and articulate as J is, she failed to convince me of the merits of seeing Ladyboys of Bangkok once, let alone twice. I tried to explain that I'd been alarmed to run into a Ladyboy on the street after a show one night. White faced, sweating and holding his wig like it was some piece of roadkill, he'd dashed past me, leaving a trail of sweat and strange cologne. After that, I had no wish to see him wearing the wig. The magic was gone.

The conversation eventually turned to current reading matter. I went first.
"I'm reading Armistead Maupin's ... wait ... is it pronounced 'mo-pan' or 'maw-pin'?"
J's attention was drawn to a minor celebrity making his way across the cafe. She'd barely registered my question.
"Maugham. It's pronounced Maugham," she said, facing the celeb.
I was puzzled and tried to spell the the name in my head while silently pronouncing Maugham and trying to remember the name of the z-lister now sitting at table 8.
"Oh my God! You see him? When he arrived at his hotel last week, his room wasn't ready, so..."
And on she went. The meaningful conversation was officially over, and the descent into gossip was about to commence.

We gossiped and gasped for another half an hour or so, then went our separate ways. As I turned on my car ignition I was hit by a sudden slap of realisation. She'd thought I'd said Somerset; not Armistead! She thought I couldn't pronounce Maugham; not Maupin! She thought I couldn't bloody well pronounce Somerset Maugham, for God's sake!

What to do? If I rang her, it would seem desperate. Would an e-mail do it? A text? Perhaps I could make a joke. 'Ha, J, I think either you're going deaf or you think I'm going daft!' Something along those lines? I reversed out into the traffic, agonising over what course of action to take.

I did nothing in haste. I smarted and blushed and plotted a way to let her know that I can - of course I can - pronounce Maugham. Years of coffees have ensued. I have tried in vain to shoehorn Armistead Maupin or Somerset Maugham into every single one. And each time I've bungled it, leaving me even more frustrated. I started to read up on Maugham in order to help me with my quest. J once mentioned a light spanking session between her and her partner and all I could think was: 'Of Human Bondage'. It seemed such a leap, though, that I didn't get it out. I did once describe a mutual friend as 'The Constant Wife', but she didn't bite. I even invented a fictitious episode where I described how I'd been stuck, the previous evening, on a pub quiz question about medics who'd later gone on to become writers, and wondered if J could think of any. I don't even go to pub quizzes. Each time, she'd smile and move the conversation on. It was pathetic.

I saw J again yesterday. It's been a while because I recently moved 200 miles away. I was in Edinburgh to haunt my old haunts and see some Fringe shows. J was choosing bread from the deli part of Valvona and Crolla, looking composed and clever. She asked what I'd seen at the Fringe. There are more than 2000 shows on over the course of the month. She wouldn't be any the wiser if I invented a student production based on the work of Maugham or Maupin.

And, just as I was about to do it, I caught myself in the mirror and realised it was time to let it go. "I'm thinking of going to see Ladyboys of Bangkok."

6. Bird droppings

I'm awake at 4.45am because I can smell bird droppings. My husband, D, says I'm crazy and need to go back to sleep, but I'm not and I can't.

I have Googled "My bedroom smells of bird droppings" but am getting nowhere. I know that D is upstairs and sighing every time he hears a pause in my keyboard tapping. I know he thinks a long pause could be a precursor to my running upstairs and announcing what steps he would have to take this weekend to tackle the smell. However, I'm not going to give him the satisfaction.

I think that some of the smell has got inside my nasal passages. As it's now light, I consider getting out my bike and cycling up to the sea front, five minutes away. It seems a little chilly, though, so I make half a flask of coffee, put two slices of toast into a freezer bag and zoom up in the car. It all feels rather thrilling, and I realise it's something I'll be dropping into conversation for the rest of the day. I know even now that I will be tempted to make it sound like I was at the beach first thing as part of some sort of health or fitness plan. And I know I'll bend the time to 6.30am from 5am. I'm fully aware that those ninety minutes take me from crazy to admirable.

It transpires that the car park next to the beach is a whole other world at 5am. For starters, there's no ice cream van there at that time. Not that I wanted one but, still, it leaves a gap. And the very few parked cars seem to be inhabited by insomniacs staring out to sea. Three camper vans are cosied up for the night, one slightly steaming. And there are absolutely tons of gulls.

I pour my coffee into the plastic mug. It's too hot to hold so I search around the glove compartment for some insulation for my fingers. Wet wipes seem to be my only option. This is disappointing because I'd hoped to feel like I was in a cool movie or at least a decent-budget TV ad, but the wet wipes are ruining the mood. I decide to let the coffee cool while I eat my toast. It has sogged up a bit in the bag, but it's edible. I open the window and throw bits of toast out to the gulls. The man in the car nearest to me gives me a distinctly withering look. Suddenly, there are even more gulls. They're squawking and flapping, so I toss a full slice towards the beach and close the window.

Once the gulls settle down again, I try the temperature of the mug with my bare fingers. There's very little discomfort, so I decide to venture out of the car with it. My plan is to stand against the water quality information sign, sipping my coffee, looking out to sea, but I don't make it. The gulls have been disturbed by my presence and are circling and getting loud again.

As I walk back to the car, I smell bird droppings.

5. Fringe week zero

I love the Edinburgh Fringe. Love it with a passion. I love the weekend before week zero, when the performers start arriving in town, hopeful and rosy-cheeked. I love the constant flyering, the five star reviews, the no star reviews and the posturing in the Pleasance Courtyard. I love being one of six in an audience. I love taking a big gulp of hoppy air after sitting through an hour of nonsense in a crazily hot, blacked-out room. I love the day after the festival finishes when the city is handed back to its residents, and strangely soiled mattresses are abandoned on the pavements outside enormous Georgian New Town flats.

And I love the performers. Which is why I can't divulge the name of the show or the performer I'm going to talk about.

I'd been given two free tickets to a "Butoh-inspired show" by the wife of the performer. It makes me suspicious when people give me free tickets. More so when they give me two, and I don't recognise one of the words in a two word description of a show. Anyway, it was the first wet Monday afternoon of the school holidays, so I decided to take along my son - we'll call him T, as that's his initial. He wasn't actually up for going to anything Butoh-inspired, but I wanted to be able to discuss our shared cultural experiences at future dinner parties and parents' evenings, and only had a handful of Big Brother evictions and a Monster Truck Rally to date.

So, there we were, cultural mavens clutching our freebies, ten minutes early, no queue. Eventually, we were allowed in by a rather uptight drama student. The ritual for this at the Fringe is a silently proffered oustretched hand from said student. One then hands the tickets over and watches closely for a subtle head movement to indicate the way to the room where you'll be sweating out the next hour.

We found our seats by inching around in pitch blackness for raised surfaces. I located my seat by kicking it across the floor. It would seem that we were expected to spend the next hour sitting on gym balls.

There were three of us in the audience that day. I know the third person was from the press because I read the review. I'm glad he liked it, although how he balanced his notepad or could see what he was writing I've no idea.

When the stage eventually paled up to gloaming level, I spotted a man on the stage dressed in a chartreuse loincloth. He was partially obscured by a fearsome-looking eighteen hands high plywood horse. The man was perfectly still for, ooh, ten minutes, apart from occasionally opening his mouth into a silent scream. It then took him, ooh, another fifteen minutes to come to the edge of the stage in a series of s-l-o-w motion somersaults. This, for those of you who don't know, is all very Butohesque.

During those first 25 minutes, my son discovered his gym ball made a farting sound if he wriggled in a certain way, and I discovered that my core muscles weren't what they were before I gave birth to the little wriggler. It's not that the performance wasn't riveting in its own way, but as my eyes became accustomed to the conditions, I spotted a small bench. Once Mr Butoh started his next somersault, I knew we'd have time to vacate and steady our gym balls, creep over to it and settle down to some stationary audiencing.

Things went exactly to plan. If Mr Butoh was surprised at our sudden advancement towards the stage, he was a thorough pro about it.

We were now on a level with his navel and I could see that he had a bit of shaving rash on his stomach. He was also covered in a white substance (Calamine lotion? Chalk?) from head to toe except for a vivid orange squiggle above his left nipple. Over the next 20 minutes, he walked backwards around the stage before disappearing stage left. I knew we had another ten minutes to go, so I resisted committing the Fringe virgin's mistake of applauding at the wrong moment.

He then slowly emerged stage right. The loincloth was gone. Mr Butoh was naked. My son was next to me, the press were in and the woman who gave me the free tickets was at the door waiting to ask if we'd enjoyed the show. Heading back to the gym balls seemed rude, so I studied the orange squiggle looking to make some sense of it all, while my son tried to stop laughing by hissing behind his palms. He later told me that it wasn't the nudity that made him laugh, but my resigned "Oh, God" as Mr Butoh started somersaulting slowly towards us again.

5 stars.

4. Global warming

I went to Sheffield today. It was hot, and the trains were chaotic and jam packed (two fatalities at the London end and a signal problem). On the way into Sheffield, I sat next to a supermodel in the making. Her beauty was somewhat marred by the fact that she alternated between gobbling sweets, glugging Ribena and heartily vomiting into a Sainsbury's bag. She left the bag when she got off the train. For thirty miles, it wobbled and rolled near my feet. At one point it touched my ankle. It was warm. I arrived at my meeting looking like I'd been chucking up for 50 miles.

On the way back, I stood for an hour and a half, initially sardined next to a darling girl who kept grabbing my wrist to see the time. A few minutes into the journey, she sat down on the floor. She was deaf and now couldn't see out of the window. She asked me to tell her when we were close to Stockport. I don't think she could quite believe how slowly we were moving, hence the continued wrist-grabbing.

Meanwhile, two businessmen moaned loudly about how selfish it was to throw oneself in front of a train on a weekday, and wondered why people didn't just swallow a handful of pills at home. I honestly didn't have the strength to swing for either of them.

At Stockport, the world's heaviest man stood on my foot. His genuine and profuse apology was delivered in the most paint-stripping breath I've ever encountered. However, he left an empty seat, which I nabbed for the last ten minutes - ending up next to a woman who kept laughing to herself.

Do you think it's the heat? Is this what global warming is going to be like?

3. Charity

Right, first of all, I have to say, I DO give to charity. I give time and money. However, both are in short supply right now, so let's just say I'm not buying a Big Issue every single week. I'm not exactly avoiding the sellers but I'm definitely making less eye contact. Anyway, this morning I went to the supermarket...

On the way in, I noticed two men shaking collection tins. I was paying for my groceries in cash and had seven pound coins, a bit of silver and quite a bit of copper. As I wandered around, selecting borderline ugly fruit and veg I would wash and chop myself, BOGOFs and cheese strings, I hatched a plan.

Just five minutes later, the collectors were on their hands and knees, scooping up measly pennies from the filthy floor and thanking me profusely. I tried to think of how it had happened. In my eagerness, I hadn't waited for the tin shaking to stop, had lurched forward with my handful of copper, trying to look more generous than I was. And here I was, my mean little plan fully exposed and two sweet men at my feet.

I could take the embarrassment of the scene, I could even take the smirks from my fellow shoppers as I stumbled to get away, but the profuse thanks rang in my ears way beyond the zebra crossing.

When I loaded the groceries into my car, I realised that I had to return to the scene to get my pound back from the trolley slot. I waited until the collectors seemed in conversation with someone and attempted to sneak past. Pointless. I caught the eye of the younger man and veered my trolley towards him. "There's a pound in there if you want it," I grinned. Smooth.