The Awkward Girl's Guide to the Week | In Which There Are Neighbours Spoilers
Plus bonus appearances by Joe Jonas, Sophie Turner, and a snake.* (*An actual snake, I'm not talking about Taylor. Her too, though, obvs.)
Hi, it’s Amber again, with The Awkward Girl’s Guide to the Week, your regular look back at what I’ve been watching, reading, and otherwise getting up to this week. These posts are free to all subscribers, however a paid subscription will give you access to all of my other newsletter content, and is the only reason I’m able to keep writing this, basically, so if you are able to subscribe, thank you: it really means the world to me.
I started the week by sending my child to school on a public holiday.
What’s weird about this is that I knew perfectly well the school was on holiday this week. I’d been complaining about it for days, actually, because they’ve only been back for, like, A MONTH, and they’re ALREADY on holiday again: which, seriously, how are people supposed to WORK around here?
(I feel like it’s very early in the post for me to have descended into ALL CAPS, but here we are. If you have expectations, I’d advise you to lower them accordingly...)
So, I knew there was a school holiday. I had even planned out the school holiday, so there was at least one activity for each of the days; THAT’S how organized I was. Friday’s activity was that Max would be at his gran and grandad’s, having had his usual Thursday sleepover there. (Because, yes, Max has a sleepover with his grandparents once a week. Yes, we are very lucky. And yes, THAT’S how anyone gets any work done around here…)
But then, on Thursday afternoon, as I was packing his stuff for the next day, I guess force of habit took over, and I carefully ironed and then packed his school uniform, as usual. Then I sent him off to his grandparents, who got up on Friday morning and took him to school. Because why else would I have packed his school uniform if I did not, in fact, intend for him to go to school? Y THO?
So that was Friday.
Saturday’s activity was me having a crippling headache for most of the day. This was NOT, needless to say, part of the plan, and was also quite awful, really. But we move. (Well, I actually didn’t move much, tbh, but can you blame me?)
Sunday’s plan was holding snakes, and having an incredibly unflattering photo of me posted on Facebook. (Spoiler: only one of these activities was actually part of the plan, and given that I’d much rather hold a snake than be confronted with a candid photo of myself on the internet, you can probably guess which one it was.)
(That’s not the photo of me in question, obvs. That’s the snake. I looked much worse than that.)
Monday’s plan involved paying £23 to park in Edinburgh, where we were meeting our friends and their little girl at the Camera Obscura:
This is literally how I feel as a parent most of the time: dwarfed by responsibility and stuffed into a corner.
At the Camera Obscura we all went in front of this camera that was supposed to show heat and cold on your body, and this confirmed that I am 100% freezing. Basically just a block of ice, really. As in, there were virtually NO warm patches on my body AT ALL: which meant I got to spend the rest of the day vaguely worried that there was something seriously wrong with me, and that THIS was how I was going to find out about it. And then, at my funeral, everyone would be all, “If only she’d gone to the Camera Obscura earlier, she might still be with us now!”1
I mean it’s either that, or I’m a vampire. Could be that, I suppose.2
So that was Monday.
Tuesday’s plan was for Max to spend a few hours at a holiday club, so Terry and I could get on with some work, and I could worry some more about the whole “am I secretly a vampire?” thing. Honestly, my Google searches just get stranger and stranger.
(Plot idea: a woman visits a popular tourist attraction where she is inadvertently turned into a vampire. Chaos ensues.)
Anyway, my parents kindly offered to pick Max up once the club was finished, to give us a bit more time to work. “Great!” I said. “It finishes at 2pm. See you later!” So, along they went at 2pm, and, yes, it didn’t ACTUALLY finish until 2:30pm.
“She’s been having a bad week,” my mum told the woman who runs the holiday club. “She doesn’t know if she’s coming or going. Also, there’s a possibility she’s a vampire, so there’s that, too.”3
But, vampire or not, I still had to make it through the rest of the week, and here’s how that went…
READING
Honestly, this week I’ve been mostly reading my own damn book: which, considering that I just finished writing the thing a week ago, has been a hard slog, really. I absolutely hate editing. I always want to just finish the book, then move onto the next thing, and forget all about it. But the deadline is looming, so I’ve spent the week editing, procrastinating, and generally wishing it was next week, when I don’t have to do those other things any more, and can just concentrate on the newsletter, instead. Which is just way more fun.
(I should probably take this opportunity to remind you that you can pre-order the book in question here…)
Here are some things I’ve been reading in the meantime:
WATCHING
FINALLY we get to the part of the newsletter where I get to talk about Neighbours. Because, honestly, this entire newsletter is just an excuse for me to talk about Neighbours, really. It was a bit of a risk, setting up a Substack just so I could one day talk about my favourite soap to a largely indifferent audience, but my time has come, guys, and you better believe I’ll be making the most of it.
So, Neighbours, as you may know, returned to our screens this week, after it was cruelly axed by Channel 5 (You can watch it here, btw, and if you don’t have Amazon Prime, you’ll get a 30-day free trial with this affiliate link, which has the added benefit of helping keep me out of the workhouse… ), and taken off air for a year. But now it’s back. And OMG, what a wild ride it was. As in, I ended the first episode literally shouting “WHAT?! WHAT?!” at the screen. And then it just got weirder.
For the first time in the history of its production, Neighbours managed to pull off a plot twist that absolutely NO ONE saw coming: which was quite surprising, really, because normally their “plot twists” are so clearly signposted that by the time they actually happen, they already feel like old news.
But the decision for Toadie — who married Melanie in what we thought would be the last ever episode — to marry Therese — who got back together with Paul in that same episode — was so out of left field that I’m still 80% sure that the season will end with Paul waking up, Pam Ewing style, to find Therese getting out of the shower, and that’s when we’ll find out it was all just a dream.
This is exactly the kind of thing Neighbours would do, though, and that’s why I loved it. And also hated it in equal measure, because, ewwww, Toadie and Therese! It makes no sense! It kind of gives me the ick! It’s a bit like if two of your cousins started dating or something. But, at the same time, it meant the show got to come back in true, absolutely bonkers style, and honestly, I love that for them.
In fact, to hell with it, Ima start a Neighbours Substack, so I cam talk about this some more. Just a sec…
OK, here you go:
So now at least I’ll be able to stop talking about it here…
THINKING ABOUT…
… how Sophie Turner allegedly found out Joe Jonas was divorcing her via the internet, and responded by doing this…
“picture me thick as thieves with your ex-wife”
… and then immediately suing him for custody of their children, like:
And then she went out with TayTay again. ICONIC. It’s a cruel summer, right enough. Well, it is if you’re Joe Jonas, obviously.
I have so many questions: not least of which being, where did Taylor find a denim jacket that big?
Most of all, though, I’ve been thinking about how staged these photos look (I mean, seriously, it’s giving ‘Taylor leaving the gym in 2014’, isn’t it?), and how deeply strange — although undoubtedly fascinating — it is to break up with someone like that. What’s actually going on here? Why has Taylor started courting media attention again, after years of hiding away from them? (See also: this iconic pap walk, after which everyone present — plus Ryan Reynolds — immediately unfollowed Joe Alwyn on Instagram.) WHAT DID YOU DO, JOE? And why am I even thinking about this, instead of getting on with editing my novel, like I… oh, yeah: that’s why.
(Also, the two Joes — Jonas and Alwyn — now have the opportunity to do something hilarious in response. We’re waiting, guys…)
Until next week,
This is an actual worry for me; please don’t write in about your cousin’s best-friend’s sister’s dog who was diagnosed with an incurable disease at the Camera Obscura, and is, like, totally dead now. My health anxiety will not handle it.
I do have to be specifically invited — often more than once — before I will cross someone’s threshold. And I’ve frequently been accused of looking dead when I just don’t have makeup on. It’s all starting to add up now, isn’t it?
Maybe not that last bit.
Oh my god, the caption on the Camera Obscura photo! I love you.