Mission 029: Where Susan tries to avoid everything piscine

First, a little background. I am no longer in London, but travelling around Portugal, one week into a mammoth trip with the Buckwell. You an read more about the trip here .
So far, there are plenty of interesting sights and surprises, one of which is that there is a peacock 2 metres from my foot. Actually, she is a peahen, to be precise.
Over the last week, the Buckwell and I have been sampling a range of Portuguese dishes, many of which have been of the piscine variety. I have had sardines, prawns, golden bream, sole, tuna, monkfish and skate. And I am heartily fed up with all of it. Don't get me wrong - it's been tasty, and unlike the Buckwell, at least I like fish. But one meal finished me off. The biggest fish stew known to man as served up at a beachside restuarant to myself, the Buckwell, along with his brother and brother's girlfriend (latter two pictured here looking in disbelief at the pot'o fish. Eight people would have struggled to get through it. We four didn't stand a chance.And now my new mission is to avoid all fish for at least 3 days.

Mission 028: Where Susan takes some exercise

In just over a week, the Buckwell and I are going snowboarding in Verbier. It will be my first time on a snowboard, and the first 'active' holiday I've had in a very long time. And I have not prepared my body for the shock.
So today's mission is to try and minimise the inevitable pain and suffering by reminding my hamstrings, calves, gluteus maximus and other muscles that they exist for a purpose other than walking to Clapham Junction train station. I am going to use the gym 2 floors down in our apartment block for the first time. (Sauna and swimming pool use don't count.) I'll be coaxing the best out of my body by putting some really nasty techno/dance type music on my ipod. Afterwards I'll wind down with 200 or so revolutions of the hula hoop (upstairs in the privacy of the lounge).
So just in case you know me and will be seeing me over the next few days, be prepared for me to whinge about being aching and stiff.

Mission 027: Where Susan finds a decent waterproof jacket by the weekend

Is there a clothing item that you need and should really go shopping for? Do you, like me, know that whenever such a need arises, the chances of you finding said item are slim at best - unless of course, you have no money to buy it, when your chances of finding it increase exponentially. Wouldn't you rather just open a bottle of good wine while someone reads your mind, finds the item and delivers it to your door with a smile and a guarantee?
I have a need for a good quality (read 'quite expensive') Gore-tex jacket, in a common size and colour, suitable for walking in the Lake District, snowboarding in Verbier and many other outdoorsy type pursuits. I also have the money to buy it. And I need it for this Easter weekend. Oh dear, I feel despondent already. The chances are next to nothing of me finding it by tomorrow lunchtime. And that's if I even make it to the shops.

If you know somebody who can source such an item (in black, women's size 10-12 please), please send them over this evening to slip it under my pillow while I'm asleep. A bit like the tooth fairy did for me many years ago, only with money, not jackets.

Or damn it, I will have to embark upon my shopping mission tomorrow. Without any confidence whatsoever. Oh dear, I feel another failure coming on.

By the way, I haven't got my photos done yet, either.

Hopeless, I am.

Mission 026: Where Susan gets her picture taken

I slept very heavily last night. So heavily in fact, that I didn't even stir when the Buckwell got up.
Instead, the alarm aurally bashed me awake at 7:10.

I was having a dream where the Buckwell and I were on a train to Iran. I was trying to speak Arabic to some Iranians on the train, and one of them kindly reminded me that they spoke Persian. Yet they were shaking my hand and saying 'Ahlan, Ahlan', which is 'Welcome' in Arabic. That's when they weren't speaking English to me – with a heavy Eastern European accent (hey, I don't know what Iranian accented English sounds like yet).

I don't know what it all means, but it has reminded me that I need to get a photo taken for my Iranian visa application for our intended visit in April, otherwise I'm not going to get it back in time. So that's my mission for today - file under boring but essential things to do.

Get to the back of the line

... to congratulate me. I successfully managed to avoid queues until the end of the week, and EVEN AT THE AIRPORT. Freakily, there were no queues at check-in, or at the luggage scanning bit.
I salute me. Or rather, my luck.

Mission 026 - Where Susan takes her chances

This morning I had a strange thing happen.

I went to register with a new doctor and get the obligatory health check. Nothing strange about that. The next bit is where it gets weird.

They couldn't go through with confirming my registration at the doctors because I was already on there. Or rather, there was somebody with my name living at my current address 4 years ago. Susan Wills, middle initial M, White Other, hazel eyes. But born 2 years after me, fatter, taller, a smoker and heavy drinker. (I probably shouldn't have looked at her records in the interests of patient confidentiality, but the nurse brought them up on the screen.)

This has spooked me just a little.

Given our birth years, I figured there's an even chance that the other Susan Wills would be on Facebook. So I looked. There are 11 Susan Willses on there. Only 2, including me, in London. Did the only other London Susan Wills live at the SAME address? If so, it disturbs me even more now that I have seen her face. Although I'm certainly not about to embark on a Dave Gormanesque experiment.

However, given the chances of this extremely bizarre event, I think it's only fair that my next mission is to buy a lottery ticket...

Mission 025 - Where Susan tries to save the world

First off, I’d like to declare that I am a greenie. Have been for years. Hell, I even had my own tree from when I was six. I used to hug it and everything. I am also a militant recycler and, until recently, was a co-leader of the voluntary Green Team at my workplace. And I was using carbon-neutral transport to get to work long before it was fashionable.

Right. Now that I’ve established my credentials, there’s something I want to get off my chest. (It’s been festering away a good while.) Is it just me, or is all this green business (and I don’t use the ‘b’ word lightly) becoming a bit too much like a religion? Suddenly, everywhere I look, there are avid greenies milling about high streets and websites everywhere. In droves, they are buying jute bags, devouring organic broccoli and converting their cars to bio-diesel.

It’s as if they’ve been born again – and they want the world to know. Like all new converts to a religion they are overzealous; they want everyone to join them in the Church of Green; to save the world from itself.

Yet what they don’t realise is that the Church of Green has been taken over by the Church of Commerce. And membership to that is not about how green your behaviour is - it’s about who buys the most green stuff. Ironic, really, as the key principle of sustainable living is REDUCE. Then comes REUSE. Then comes RECYCLE.

Now I didn’t see CONSUME MORE STUFF in there. Did you?

It’s all very well to be devouring eco-friendly options, but only if they replace less eco-friendly ones. For example, I have no truck with people who drive 5km to their ‘local’ farmers market in their SUVs. Or people who buy designer jute bags to do their shopping in, then continue to put all their vegetables in single plastic bags to be weighed. Adopt a wider view, people.

Green is becoming the status quo – its commercialisation grows every day. It’s been scooped up into the brand lifecycle and is feverishly working its way to cash cowdom as I write. We should all know the end result of commercialisation. Commodity. Then ennui. Which will mean the death of green. Although Commerce will go on.

So to save Green, better lose the preachiness, especially if you’re not the perfect apple-hued tone (and few of us are, surprise, surprise). Stop adopting the first, new, ‘cool’ green thing that comes along. Make being green an integral part of your life, not a clip on fashion accessory. I hate to take a line from one of the bishops in the Church of Commerce here, but it works: Just Do It. Or most of it. But whatever you do, please shut up and do it quietly. You’re boring me to death.


Psssst (whispered): My latest mission is to take the stairs instead of the lift for the next week, thus conserving precious planetary energy. And firming my flubbery, blubbery thighs.

I smell success

Yesterday, I thought that I may have reached a crisis in my mission to avoid queues.

I headed to one of the biggest queue-danger zones - the supermarket at lunchtime. There, I loaded up my basket and headed to the checkouts with trepidation. But when I got there (ominous jaws music...duuuum dum duuuuum dum) the queues were surprisingly small. Two people in each, at most.

So I took a calculated risk. I browsed the nearby nut display, while keeping a lookout for movement in the basket-only line, hoping that I'd spot a break in the queue.

And then it happened - a new checkout lane opened. I sprinted forward, narrowly missing a distracted, baguette-waving pensioner (I don't think the baguette was being waved at me) and practically threw my basket at the checkout fellow.

I am SUCH a sad piece of work.

But one more day of it and I will have completed my mission.