"You'd never sell me mummy, would you?"

Posted by Katy Regan at 15:02 on 24 Mar 2010

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Egg and I are trying to book a holiday. This may seem like a simple thing to do but several big things are standing in our way. Well, actually, two big things:

1) We want to go in the Easter school holidays
2) Neither of us have any money, especially me.

When I say I don't have any money, I don't mean I am a bit skint and have had to give up my cleaner (which I have)  I mean I don't have ANY money.  I'm not going to go into the details - I do have my limits as to what I will broadcast on the World Wide Web, you know (although my mother would probably disagree with that.) But needless to say, having to shelve a half-finished novel last summer didn't really help. £5 now seems like a fortune and I have had to start washing up rather than using my dish-washer as the £9 (yes, £9 for thirty 'powerballs' - unbelievable!) cost of dishwasher tablets is beyond me. My hair-dryer has blown up and I now have stupid hair because I can't afford to buy a new one and without one, by hair is very big and very curly. Very Bobby Ball.

Anyway, suffice to say I am more skint than I have probably been since I moved to London when I was twenty-five and would sometimes not even have a pound for bus-fare (this was before the time of Oyster Cards).  This proved to be very good in the long-run as it meant I walked everywhere: from north to south London, from Battersea where I lived to off Carnaby Street where I worked. It meant that I was thin, fit and knew most of London like the back of my hand within a year of living there. It also meant I lived on cucumber sandwiches and paid my rent on my credit card (so sensible).

However, there was something a little bit cool about it too: young, hungry, wannabe journalist, blinking into the big city lights. I slept on a single futon on my friend's brother's lounge floor and worked in scabby pubs and in temp jobs (where I frequently got sent home I was so utterly rubbish all things organisational) anything to make ends meet so I could pursue my dream of becoming a published writer, which, by the way, basically meant working for nothing for around a year.

Well, anyway, that was then and now I am a published writer and I'm still skint!  At almost thirty-six this impoverished artist thing doesn't really hold much appeal and makes things like booking holidays difficult, um...that'd be impossible.

. Of course some people might say, why on earth are you going on holiday together anyway? He's not your boyfriend. You had a child five years ago now, move on!! But to be honest, we're still friends, we're still single, he still wants to be with his son on holiday and we need to pool what little resources we have to be able to go anywhere - so, well, that's just the way it is. Plus, I do quite like him (most of the time)

However, Egg and I seem to have a rather different approach to stuff like this, stuff like trying to blag a holiday out of nowhere and no money.  He thinks nothing of calling up someone he hasn't talked to for three years and asking them if we can borrow their holiday cottage for a discounted price -  I think that's just plain cheeky.  There is also the small matter of us never pre-planning anything. This has, in the past, been rather fun. One thing I like about Egg is his spontaneity and can-do attitude to life.  It's very refreshing and makes things feel exciting because you never know what might happen next. I can remember lots of times going on holiday or deciding to go on a trip out, then deciding to just get a B&B with nowhere booked. We once went all the way to Ireland with Fergus who was three months old with nowhere booked and just blagged it. As it was, this meant we stayed in the coolest little cottage in the coolest little village in the middle of nowhere in County Kerry where we drank Guinness with the locals and woke up to the view of a natural reservoir so round in shape and so clear it was like sleeping in a gold-fish bowl.

These are little experiences I know I would never have had if it weren't for Egg, but I'm not sure whether he realises this isn't quite so easy in the Easter Holidays - he seems surprised that things are booked up.  I don't mean to blame him, I'm as bad at planning things. It's just in most relationships, friends / lovers or otherwise, there's one sensible one and one flighty one  but with us, it seems we are doubly disabled.

  I have realised lately that the way my life seems to have turned out means I am not able to plan anything (not that I am inclined to anyway). Everything I look forward to is within the next 24 hours:  Picking up Fergus from school, what I'm having for dinner.. (I have become obsessed with ‘defrosting' things in the morning as it is one of the few things left I can control. Who'd have thought that taking out some Tesco £1 meatballs from the freezer in the knowledge that you will later make a homemade tomato and basil sauce to go with them could bring one person so much joy?!), a drink with a friend that evening, going to the Shoreditch House Literary Salon - TONIGHT!! To hear David Mitchell read from his new novel  -HURRAH !!!  Etc, etc.

I guess there are pros and cons to this: pros are that I sure do live in the moment since finanically, emotionallly in relationship terms, I have no other choice.. The cons are that I can't plan my life at all so I never feel in control of my own existence. It always amazes me when friends say things like: "we're planning a new baby this year. We want two years between them" or "in our five year plan, we'll live in the UK for another year then move abroad with my job." Five year plan??! I don't have a twenty-four hour one.

In answer to my holiday problem my mum, bless her, tried to help us by booking us a few days on one of her point-scheme time-share things (resorts all over the UK and Europe)  where we would get it free and she would get points deducted from her annual quota. However, alas, there were no places left (funny that since we are trying to book a week before Easter.) Anyway, she said to me: "I'll book you into Devon for next year if you like." I nearly fell off my chair laughing. Next year?! I have no idea about next year. I don't know if I will be single, Egg will be single, I will have all my mental faculties, I will be in deadline hell with book, I will still be talking to Egg (that's a joke. I'll always have to be talking to Egg...) or, at this rate, in prison when I go bankrupt or have to sell an organ. Fergus said to me the other morning, "mummy, you'd never sell me would you?"  That's how bad it's got, my friends. Desperate, desperate times...

(Oh and btw, if anyone's got a nice holiday cottage Egg, Fergs and I could stay in during the weekend of the 9th-12th April, we'd love you forever! What's that you say? You thought I'd just said Egg was a cheeky b****d for asking people he's not seen for three years let alone people he's never met?  )  Yeah, that was two minutes ago. Things are unpredictable in my world! XXX

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