The DNA of dating

‘I read somewhere that if given a choice between sex and peace of mind, she said, most people would choose peace. Personally, I said, I do fine with a little anxiety.’
The Story People

It took them 13 years to outline the basic sequence of the human genome, to ascertain what makes us broadly genetically different from other living things. Obviously, within the human genome there are multiple variations, but ultimately they’ve worked out what bits of the stuff of life make up humanity.

I wish someone would do the same for the genetics of a date. I know, I know, I know I keep going on about this. But seriously – unless someone clarifies soon the anatomy of this particular aspect of male-female interaction, the chances of this particular combination of DNA being passed on to further the human race are slim.

So, I intend to begin mapping it, for the benefit of confused single womanhood wherever she may find herself.

Here’s what I know so far…

The fundamental definition:
A date is one guy, one girl out together. 

It should be noted that this in itself is not sufficient criteria to mark it out as a date. I could go on a job with one of my male work colleagues and that would not be a date.

Therefore, the fundamental dating criterion must accompany at least two of any of the following to constitute a date:

Hand holding

Kissing

Not splitting the bill

This list needs to be longer in order to completely cover the whole anatomy of all permutations of dates, daytime, nighttime, first, second and third dates. Anyone got any ideas to add, based on their research?

The M1

On the 50th anniversary of the opening of the first section of the London to Leeds Motorway, more commonly known as the M1, I woke up at 4.45am to travel its length. I was on a job to the Marie Curie Hospice in Bradford and we had to be there by 11am with a large orange Big Brother style chair to conduct interviews and a photo shoot.

The moon was setting large and red as we joined the carriageway at Junction One, slowly sinking in front of us as the sky got lighter and lighter. It was apocalyptic and we were too sleepy to comment. We stopped for breakfast and when we pulled back onto the motorway ten miles from Derby, a clutch of large water cooling towers steamed into the morning air straight ahead of us, and the towns we passed adopted a rigid linear pattern of parallel lined terraces clinging to the hillsides. I know terraces and water cooling towers exist elsewhere in the UK, but somehow, these two sights heralded the fact that we were suddenly in the north.

We left the M1 at Leeds to veer left to Bradford. Driving downhill towards the city centre all of a sudden we could see the city spread out in front of us in the valley, smeering itself up onto the hills surrounding it. Mills and towers and row upon row of yellow stoned houses. To me, it was the evidence of such great pride and industry, a one-time powerhouse of British economy and trade.

‘Why did so many people come to live here?’ asked my colleague as we passed our umpteenth curry house. ‘To work in textiles,’ I replied. ‘Were textiles made here?’ he answered. Maybe it’s because I did the industrial revolution for GCSE history. Maybe it’s because I’m from the north. But I wondered how many people don’t know or have forgotten that it was manufacturing and trade with cities in the north and the midlands that made Britain wealthy enough to be a world power? (B would say this is evidence of my northern chip.)

And at the end of the day we drove back down the entire length of this motorway, sticking to a 50mph speed limit most of the way (was this speed limit chosen particularly today to honour the anniversary? I wondered) as the moon rose full into a clear early darkening sky. The second motorway I’ve driven the length of this year.

And so the moon set and the moon rose, a complete motorway. And it was good.

Flirting with the devil

B models her homemade hat (not quite up to Canadian standards) while we cunningly capture Wearing-Very-Little Red Riding Hood in the background.

Hallowe’en. London being full of foreigners and migrants, it’s not just the kids who get dressed up for Hallowe’en. Grown ups get to play too. Brits don’t normally do this kind of thing, but Australians, Americans and Canadians all seem to have celebrated Hallowe’en with costumes their whole lives. So instead of it being a case of ‘when in Rome do as the Romans do’, it seems in London, the Brits do as the Gauls and other Barbarians do and wear silly clothes.

B is the ultimate Canadian.

‘In Canada,’ she began, as she so often begins, ‘you can dress up in whatever you like. It doesn’t have to be scary.’ And to prove the point she showed me a photograph of a kid in her home town dressed up as a Rubik’s Cube. It was fairly disturbing, nevertheless.

My friend PJ had invited me to a Hallowe’en party at his house, so B, RM and I all decided to go. B was running a church anti-Hallowe’en party first. RM came round here to get ready and we chatted about how we were never allowed anything to do with Hallowe’en when we were kids.

‘My mum’, she said, fixing her witch’s hat on her head, ’answered the door and gave the kids balloons with Bible verses on them instead of sweets. And then she asked them their names and made us pray for them later.’ Growing up Christian in the UK was clearly very different to growing up Christian in Canada. Taking part in Hallowe’en was definitely going to condemn your soul to hell in those days.

This was the first time I’ve ever dressed up for Hallowe’en and I went as Ursula from the Little Mermaid, complete with two socks stuffed with buttons sewn on by RM for eyes to look like her eel companions, Flotsam and Jetsam. I had read an article online talking about how fancy dress costumes for women on Hallowe’en tended to just end up a bit tarty. I didn’t want to look like a tart. But with two stuffed socks pinned to your skirt, it’s virtually impossible to look tarty.

B came home from her ’saving children from the darkness of Hallowe’en’ party and we headed off out into the darkness of Hallowe’en.

We only knew one person at this party and it was PJ, who I barely recognised as a scary clown. We met lots of people who I’m certain I wouldn’t recognise again without the fangs, white face paint, darkened eyes, knives in their heads, dripping blood or french maid’s aprons. 

There were plenty of examples of tarty costumes too. But the amount of flesh exposed paled in comparison to my stuffed socks and B’s homemade-out-of-the-Work-section-of-the-Saturday-Guardian pointy hat. 

I spent some time chatting to a guy with a pizza tied to his face. RM chatted to a couple of vampires and a brown ghost. B disappeared into a corner to flirt with the devil. O the irony.

What goes around comes around

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3

I walked through Bedford Square again last night. The last time I walked through was about a fortnight ago, but last night the street furniture had changed again. The Architectural Association have taken down Driftwood, the Summer Pavilion I first passed earlier this year. I’ve passed it so many times it had literally become part of the furniture. But now it’s gone. A sign that the summer, in spite of the mild temperatures, is over.

Later on, I came out of the tube station at Clapham South to discover three new trees planted outside the flats next to Tescos. Bendy birch saplings planted sometime since Sunday. Apparently autumn is the best time of year to plant a tree because the soil is warm from the summer sun and damp from the autumn rain. A young tree finds it easier to root well. Three trees signifying the onset of autumn.

And all my bio-rhythms are completely out of whack because the clocks have gone back and I’ve been staying up late. The slowly decreasing amounts of daylight make it harder and harder to get up and get active in the mornings. But I know this lethargy will only last until mid-December, when the days will start to lengthen again and the growing light will slowly bring us all round so we sit up straight and stretch out.

I read a lovely article about the Benedictine nuns of Stanbrook Abbey, members of the Conventus of Our Lady of Consolation, in the Guardian today, who have moved wholesale from their gothic convent in Worcester, miles and miles north to Wass in North Yorkshire to a completely eco-friendly new smaller convent. It was a long process for them, beginning in 1997. “If we had known then what we know now,” said the abbess, Dame Andrea Savage, “I think we would have pulled down the shutters and told the Holy Spirit we weren’t in.”
We don’t like change but change ultimately has been good, with the nuns agreeing that their new environment lends itself much more to contemplative prayer.

Sci-Fi writer Isaac Asimov said this: ‘The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be,’ echoing Greek philosophy and the thoughts of the writer of Ecclesiastes – ‘What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.’

Change happens, whether we like it or not, slowly and gradually, sometimes without us noticing, sometimes shaking up our lives. Summer pavilions get taken down, trees get planted, clocks go back and then forward and then back again. What goes around comes around.

Notes from a road trip: part seven

Shower facilities: 7/10 – extra points for the parrot
Self-timer photos taken: 0 – but this one taken by CC’s uncle should count right?

The Story: It was with great sadness that we set out from Cerne Abbas. The cloud we were camping in had still not lifted, but our spirits were undampened. We drove to Southampton to have lunch with CC’s uncle – butternut squash and chilli soup, followed by ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches, coffee and carrot cake. Yum.

We walked it off in now glorious autumn sunshine in the grounds of Royal Victoria Park next to Southampton Water, watching the ferries and freighters leave the harbour, and looked at the graves of soldiers of all nationalities who had died at the military hospital here from the Boer War, and both World Wars. It was a very peaceful afternoon.

Where would we camp for our last night? We drove towards Goodwood, reasoning that there were bound to be campsites in the South Downs – after all, that would be our fourth National Park of the week and the others hadn’t failed us. So we drove. And drove. And drove. And it got darker and darker and darker. But no campsites.

Eventually we pulled up at a pub called the Anglesey Arms at Halnaker and asked for suggestions.
‘You can park on the field out the back here for £5′. It was a deal. We settled ourselves in and then ordered food – I had Rabbit Pie with mashed potatoes and green veg and it was delightful, with no bones and lots of flavour – and earwigged the conversation. We were in a proper local pub, where the staff behind the bar regularly seemed to help themselves to a beer to keep the conversation flowing, and people came and sat with us for a chat for a while as the night rolled on.

Robbie the chef came and joined us, told me how to make the Rabbit Pie and his personal method for pastry and then offered us the use of the shower in his little attic flat the next morning. We gratefully accepted the offer.

His attic flat had all the promise of being really stylish, but was clearly lived in by a man. It’s the only way I can describe it – it had a bohemian, higgledy piggledy, disorderly thing going on that instead of looking like rural cottage chic just seemed a bit ramshackle. But the shower was amazing, and accompanied by the whistlings, laughter and chatter of his parrot. It could imitate several different alarm sounds and whistle the McDonalds theme music…

As I came out of the back door of the pub, Robbie and one of his chefs were sitting at a picnic table outside drinking coffee. On a tray was a cafetiere of coffee, a porcelain jug of milk and two cups. ‘I’ve made you some early morning coffee to have with your breakfast.’ For £5 we were being shown ridiculous amounts of hospitality and kindness.

And as we drove back to Brighton to reluctantly return Kermit to his rightful owner, I couldn’t help but think about all the acts of generosity and kindness and hospitality and warmth and welcome we had been shown on our little tour of the south.

Notes from a road trip: part six

Shower facilities: 4/10 – 20 pences again…

Self-timer photos taken: 1 – CC, me and the giant

Novel references: Lorna Doone

Number of 1 in 4 slopes ascended and descended: 2

Number of gears tried to drive up the 25 per cent incline: 4

Number of castles we failed to find on a first attempt: 2

Number of castles closed to the public once we’d found them: 2

The story: We took a long drive along the North Devon coast, through Exmoor, all the way from Croyde to Minehead, which was breathtaking. Especially the part when we drove down a 1 in 4 slope to Lynmouth and then discovered that to get back out again would require us to climb another 1 in 4 slope out the other side. We had got well used to putting Kermit into second gear to climb hills, but this was something else. We attacked the rise in fourth, quickly changing down to third, and then second, until we thought we might start rolling backwards and I dropped Kermit into first… the only gear that had consistently failed to stay in the whole week. With one hand keeping it pushed forward, one hand on the wheel and a large intake of breath we slowly chugged and revved our way to the top.

Like I said, breathtaking.

At Minehead where we struck inland and made our way back through Somerset to Sherborne in Dorset. Our plan was to visit the two castles owned by Sir Francis Drake, but in spite of being little larger than a country market town, the signage was so contradictory we first drove and then walked around and round in circles, before we managed to track them down. And then when we did find them, they were closed. We ate cake for lunch before attempting to navigate our way out of Sherborne – an almost complete absence of roadsigns pointing out of the town made this an exciting challenge… Clearly, like the Hotel California, you could check out any time you like, but you could never leave.

Still, somehow we managed it and drove a short way south to Cerne Abbas, to camp at Giants Hill Farm. The farmer wasn’t expecting anyone to want to park up at this time of year and took ten minutes to come out to us, after his teenage grandson had gawped at us through the window for a full five minutes, picking both nostrils at the same time, without calling him over. How annoying. As soon as we parked, a cloud descended and we found ourselves camped in a thick wet mist for the night.

Notes from a road trip: part five

Shower facilities: Appledore 0/10 – The toilet seat of the one loo was covered with muddy footprints, which meant we hovered rather than sat for our ablutions, and the shower didn’t even bear contemplating. So we didn’t. I’ve seen cleaner outside toilets. Fact.
Croyde 8/10 – We used them twice. Enough said. 

Self-timer photos taken: 1

Food and drinks consumed beginning with the letter C: hot chocolate

Number of times we got soaked: 2

Number of men who helped us out of a tight spot: 4 – one campsite
manager, two AA men and a bartender

The story: It was dark when we arrived on the north Devon coast. We drove towards Appledore and turned off at the first campsite we could find. Lots of caravans all parked on a slope, but no lights. And seemingly no owner.

CC knocked on the door of the nearest building and the man who
answered denied all knowledge. We decided to park up and then go out
hunting for the site’s office. But, after two days of rain, albeit of
different consistencies, we got hopelessly stuck in the mud. In the
middle of a field of empty caravans. It was ever so slightly spooky,
like being stuck in a caravan graveyard. So we went knocking on caravan doors to find someone who might be able to help push us out.
After all, if it rained more we could end up very stuck indeed.

Eventually someone answered the door, looking a little anxious, as ifwe could be police, and pointed us to the caravan where Red, the site manager lived.

He was everything you would imagine a man called Red would look like -
long brown dreadlocks, beard, hoody, flip flops and a surfer’s vocabulary. We caught him and two of his mates before they zoned out on hash for the night. He fired up a Mitsubishi 4×4 unused for several weeks, tied a rope to the back, dragged us out and then told us we could stay for the night for free, unless the owner came knocking on the door the next morning asking for a fee. An unlikely prospect.

Relieved we weren’t stuck anymore, we drank beer and ate pasta and slept soundly before getting up and out of the site as early as possible. It was just too weird a place altogether. But another free night’s camping…

We headed slightly further along the coast to Croyde, where the surfers congregate, but as we pulled into a campsite the steering failed and we got stuck in the middle of the road. A bit of reversing back and forth later and we managed to get into a car park and called the AA. We were visited by not one but two patrol units who dismantled the steering column, pulled out the steering lock that had come loose and put it all back together again. We were back in fine fettle, and after washing in the lovely showers, we set out along the coastal path towards Woolacombe Bay. As we set out, it was sunny, but we could see rainclouds over the sea. Silly us, we didn’t think that the rain might decide to drop on us just as we hit the part of the cliffs that stuck out the furthest. We must ahve only been walking in rain for five minutes, but it was five minutes long enough to soak us to the skin. Still we kept walking into the sunshine and the wind dried us off for the most part.

Woolacombe beach is long and sandy and was empty but for a few surfers, a glorious stretch of coastline. We bought pasties in the town, drank cider in a pub (staffed by yet another Mancunian) and then started to walk back. The inevitable happened and the heavens opened, soaking our nearly dry selves completely again.

So we stopped in another pub and were persuaded by the barman there to dry off, have a pint of ale and call a taxi back home. We didn’t need much persuading. And then chatting to the taxi driver, he persuaded us to stop for a drink at The Thatch in Croyde before going back to the campsite… Let’s just say we’re easily led.

Notes from a road trip: part four

Shower facilities: 4/10 – Warm, and clean and largely dry. But everything, and I mean everything, had a meter begging for 20 pence on it – plug sockets, hairdryers, showers. And given this was also one of the most expensive places we camped, that doesn’t really fly.

Self-timer photos taken: 0 (but one at arm’s length – does that count?)

Food and drinks consumed beginning with the letter C: cheese and tomato on toast, cider, chocolate (Bourneville)

The story: We left Dorset to stay in Uplyme that night, and drank cider in the first pub in Devon, reading our books while a group of Mancunians watched an Arsenal match on the big screen. At around 10pm a troop of Morris dancers walked in, complete with white trousers and shirts, slightly damp looking, since the rain had only just recently stopped. Or maybe it was from the sweat… They propped up one end of the bar, while the football supporters sat at the opposite end, and CC and I were in the middle, feeling conspicuously female. Traditional England is not dead.

The next morning we decided to leave the south coast and head inland, past Exeter to the wild badlands of Dartmoor. It was a cloudy, atmospheric day, totally appropriate for meandering across moorland, with epic Constable-esque skies, sporadic showers and sudden bursts of sunlight.

We walked from a village called Postbridge, right in the middle of the moor, and then we drove back to the Warren House Inn, a proper, in-the-middle-of-nowhere pub which has had a fire burning since 1845. We were joined by a couple who were pottering around Dartmoor in their van for a week before heading to Brighton for a wedding. They had travelled from Newquay and told us that the surf this week was meant to be amazing – the equivalent of Big Wednesday…. That fixed it in our minds. We would drive to theNorth Devon coast to look at the boys. National Parks are all well and good, but you don’t have to have certificated status to provide a girl with outstanding natural beauty.

Notes from a road trip: part three

‘Anne and Henrietta, finding themselves the earliest of the party the next morning, agreed to stroll down to the sea before breakfast. They went out to the sands, to watch the flowing of the tide, which a fine south-easterly breeze was bringing in with all the grandeur which so flat a shore admitted. They praised the morning; gloried in the sea; sympathized in the delight of the fresh-feeling breeze – and were silent; till Henrietta suddenly began again, with:
‘Oh, yes!’…’
Persuasion, Jane Austen

Novel references: 2
- Ian McEwan - Chesil Beach 
- Jane Austen – Persuasion

Shower facilities: 9/10 

Self-timer photos taken: 2

Food and drinks consumed beginning with the letter C: cod and chips, coffee cake, coffee

The story: We parked up on a Haven caravan site in Weymouth. I have never been anywhere like it. It was like a caravan city, with advertising hoardings declaring ‘Tourers never die, they just go static’, it’s own Starbucks and WiFi for the site. As well, of course, as fabulous sea views and its own fish and chip shop.  We got some kind of two for one deal which meant we paid £7 for the privilege of heated shower rooms which were immaculately clean and equiped with full length mirrors and hairdryers.

Not that there was much point in using them. We woke up to torrential rain, swiftly abandoned our plan to walk to Portland Bill and drove there in Kermit instead. It was his first proper test on hills and he performed admirably, tackling them bravely in the rain, in second gear. Just running out to get a parking ticket got me soaked and then we discovered the lighthouse was closed for the season anyway. So we piled back into the campervan and drove along the coast to a little place called Abbotsbury where we found a tea room and ate cake for lunch.

We were the only customers along with the owner of a gallery from two doors up, so we got chatting. In walked a very glamorous lady who was clearly engaged in some form of relationship with the gallery owner, but, we decided, one in its earlier stages. ‘I’ve been living in Australia but I’ve come back here to get my life sorted. In more ways than one.’

Aren’t people intriguing?

It dried up a little so we got back in the van and drove first to Chesil Beach, which stretched and stretched and stretched out along into the distance, banked up at least ten metres high against the crashing sea, and then on to Lyme Regis, where CC and I walked along the top in a stiff wind with big waves crashing either side, inadvertantly nearly re-enacted Persuasion’s Louisa Musgrove’s impetuous leap from the Cobb.

‘He advised her against it, thought the jar too great; but no, he reasoned and talked in vain, she smiled and said, ‘I am determined I will’: he put out his hands; she was too precipitate by half a second, she fell on the pavement on the Lower Cobb, and was taken up lifeless!’
Persuasion, Jane Austen

Notes from a road trip: part two

Novel references: 0

Shower facilities: 4/10 

Self-timer photos taken: 3

Food and drinks consumed beginning with the letter C: cake, cider, cheese sandwiches

The story: We headed to the seaside to begin our meanderings along the south coast, parking up in Bournemouth to read the Sunday papers and people watch. We observed a first date start awkwardly and gradually relax into something pleasant taking place opposite us. Ah. Lazy Sundays. They’re the best.

Not wishing to repeat our showering experience of the previous night, we made our way to a campsite at Bere Regis, just north of Lulworth Cove so we could set out earlyish in the morning for a big walk along Dorset’s famous Jurassic Coast.

The following morning rose bright and clear – it was mild, blue and breezy. We couldn’t have picked a better day to visit a World Heritage Site. We parked up in the village, reluctant to pay for parking with all the school coach trips and retired couples and congratulated ourselves on how quickly we were becoming campervan savvy. Lulworth looked like a postcard too and we said hello to thatchers at work on the roofs of a row of cottages on the main road in. We started at Lulworth Cove and strode out along the clifftops, towards Durdle Door, climbing every steep rise and gasping for breath, before strolling back down to the next cove. We sat at White Nothe for lunch and looked out across the bay to Weymouth and the harbour where we would head to sleep later that night, before striking inland back to where we were parked via a valley curiously named Scratchy Bottom.