Viva La Diva

Charles and I went for our third (well, his fourth) run today. It didn’t feel any easier than previous weeks, but I’m obviously getting a bit fitter as I made it past our first ‘stopping point’ before I actually had to stop. Wahey!

Charles was a bit grumpy afterwards because he didn’t feel he’d pushed himself hard enough today. OK then, wait until next time Charlie-boy, you’ll see what pushing yourself is all about… I’m not going to let you stop the whole way round the park! Then you’ll have something to be grumpy about – beaten by a gurrl! (Woo, a challenge!)

We came out of the park at 6.20 and I was supposed to be at someone’s house for pre-dinner drinks at 6.00. I’d obviously need a tardis to achieve that one. But I sped home, performed the quickest shower and change in the whole history of humanity (shower, into posh frock, put up hair, do makeup – 20 minutes flat!!). Then zoomed down the, thankfully empty, motorway at 90mph to arrive just in time for dinner at 7.30. I have no idea how I managed that!

The dinner host was William, a friend from work, and our dinner was to celebrate the Queen’s 81st birthday. I’m sure she would have been impressed had she seen us! There we all were in our posh frocks and tiaras (the girls) and our suits and sashes (the boys), and even William’s granny had her tiara and sash on. Very nice! Wish I’d remembered my camera.

Eight of us being squashed around a four-person table made for a very cosy dinner atmosphere. Then afterwards we left a few people chatting in the kitchen, and William and Natalie started dancing around the sitting room whilst me and granny looked on. Initially I did my ‘po faced and stiff arsed’ bit and refused to dance with them:

"Oh no, I’ll look silly, I can’t do that kind of dancing. I can only do tango." Good grief, how boring am I?!

But then Natalie dragged me up and I soon fell into the swing of it. Wriggle, bounce and sing-a-long, hey it was fun! Who’d have thought it!

I was wearing my glitteriest tango shoes because of the dressiness of the evening, and thank goodness for that – they may be high heels but because they are designed for dancing in they didn’t hurt my feet, no matter how much I jumped around in them. So we danced, jumped and sang along to a whole load of Abba songs, the soundtracks to Muriel’s Wedding and Priscilla Queen of the desert, Whigfield, Village People, Cher… it was a wonderfully gay music choice, absolutely perfect for having fun to. William was pretending to be a leery Scottish bloke on the pull at a disco, wiggling his hips and lips in an exaggeratedly meaningful way at us girls, and me and Natalie were responding in kind:

"Och, would you laike a flash o' ma dress?"

And so many bad pick-up lines were flung around:

"Hi I’m Fred Flintstone, I can really make your bed rock."

It was so silly, my tummy hurt from all the laughing!

And then, oh my god, William put on Adam and the Ants! Adam Ant was my big teenage crush, and I’m such a saddo I can even remember exactly where I was the moment Stand and Deliver went straight into the charts at Number 1 (lunchtime, sitting on the concrete ‘toadstools’ at my school, with a gaggle of girls all huddled around someone’s crackly radio). So I sang and imaginary-drummed my way through several songs, happily regressing to my childhood.

I was the first one to chicken out of the evening at 1.30 am, so I don’t know what time the party went on until. I left with Viva La Diva (Eurovision winner for Israel a few years ago) ringing in my ears, and a throat hoarse from all that singing.