The Awkward Girl's Guide to the Week | In Which There Are Covid Tests
And I also narrowly escape the Victorian Workhouse
Hi, it’s Amber, with The Awkward Girls’ Guide to the Week, your regular look at everything I’ve been reading, watching, and otherwise getting up to lately. This newsletter is free to all subscribers, however a paid subscription will give you access to more, exclusive content, and will also help me sleep at night without worrying about money, so if you are able to upgrade, thank you: you have no idea how much it means to me!
This week’s newsletter was either going to be about me finishing my book, or it was going to be about us all getting Covid. For a while, it was unclear which way it was going to go.
Pretty much everyone in our street has Covid right now; including almost all of the parents and siblings of the kids Max plays with every day. Also, it’s been the hottest week of the year, so it seemed only right and natural that we would end up having to spend it stuck indoors wondering if we were going to die, right?
By Wednesday, I was down to the last chapter of my book.
That was the day Max was sent home from school with a sore stomach and a bad cough.
“It’s Covid,” I told Terry as I prepared to go and pick him up. “What did I tell you? Say I was right.”
But I was not right.
Max’s Covid test was negative. Just over an hour later, he was dancing round the living room to Tears for Fears (Don’t ask…), and asking if he could go out to play with his friends when they got home from school. Terry and I were starting to feel like we were the ones who’d been played. The chapter did not get finished.
The next morning, Max insisted he was far too ill to go to school, in spite of the fact that he was looking and behaving perfectly normally.
His second Covid test was also negative. He asked what was for breakfast.
We entered into a short, but spirited discussion in which I played Good Cop, Terry played Bad Cop, and Max kept forgetting that he was not, in fact, supposed to be a cop at all.
“If you can’t go to school, then you can’t go out and play with your friends either,” pointed out Terry in a ‘gotchya’ tone.
“We’re just trying to help you, Max,” I said, wringing my hands helplessly. “We just need you to do the right thing.”
“I want an ice lolly and a Dip Dab,” said Max. “Then I’ll talk.”
He went to school, where he apparently made a miraculous recovery.
I, however, did not finish the book that day either. I may finish it today, but, then again, maybe I won’t, because this morning I got up to a final demand letter from the council for £1,400 in unpaid council tax, which they say must be paid by the 20th of this month, or they will issue a “warrant”.
“For … OUR ARREST?” I shrieked, running upstairs and throwing the letter at a surprised Terry. “ARE WE GOING TO THE WORKHOUSE? WTAF?”
It turns out that the letter was “a mistake”1. We do not, in fact, owe the council £1,400. There will be no “warrant”, and — crucially — no workhouse. Yet. But this seems as good a time as any to remind you that paid subscriptions to this newsletter are one of the only things keeping me afloat right now, and you can read more about this, plus all of the things I have to talk myself out of buying every week, in my Money Diaries section, which you’ll have full access to if you upgrade your subscription:
Now, on with the show…
READING
I’m still reading Confessions of a Forty-Something F*** Up. Honestly, I think I’ll probably be reading this for a while, because, I hate to say it, but I’m struggling to really get into it. Maybe it’s just a case of too many “WTF am I doing?!” novels on the trot? Maybe I need to try something different, just to, I don’t know, cleanse my palate? Or maybe I’m just too tired to really concentrate by the time I go to bed at night?
I’m not sure. But so far I’m finding it a bit… formulaic, maybe? Like, there’s the married best friend who’s got it all together; the gay best friend who is here to prove how inclusive this novel is; the wine…
I’m probably being unfair here (and God knows, I’m in no position to judge, really, because my books are all formulaic AF), so I’ll continue with it, because I’m one of those people who feels like she’s failed if she doesn’t finish everything she ever starts. I may or may not delete that second paragraph before I send this, though, because I find myself in an awkward position whereby I don’t want to be negative about another author, but I also really, really want to talk about the books I’m reading, and there’s literally no point in doing that if I’m just going to say, “Oh, it was great” about everything. Is there?
(No, really, is there? Like, do you want me to be honest and chat about all the books I read, or do you want me to only feature the ones I love? Because I would love to know…)
Anyway, that was all a bit of a downer, so have this New Yorker essay about listening to Taylor Swift in prison as a bonus recommendation. “Her music makes me feel that I’m still part of the world I left behind,” writes Joe Garcia, who I had to keep reminding myself is currently imprisoned for murder, regardless of how well he writes about Taylor Swift. It’s a fascinating read, though (or, at least, it was for me, as a Swiftie). I’ve obviously also been reading way too much about Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas, who I previously knew next to nothing about, so, hey, guess who’s spent the week doing literally anything other than writing her book?
WATCHING
So, here’s the thing: there are 10 seasons of Benidorm. We’re currently on season 6. We only really have time to watch TV for a few hours per week, so this section of the newsletter would be really repetitive, if it were not for my newfound love/hate relationship with watching influencer morning routines on Instagram. Look at this, for instance:
Everything is perfect. Even the dog looks like it should have the words “actor portrayal” flash up on the screen when he appears. And, OMG, I ALSO start my morning routine with a Net-a-Porter delivery! Can you believe it?!
Look at this one!
The way she gracefully stands on her tippytoes to open the tasteful curtains! And has time to light a nice candle in the morning! The vaguely suggestive way she strokes the lamp! Why is my life not more like this? Why do I wake up and enter into a mad scramble to get everyone (Well, me and Max) dressed and out of the house in time for school, instead of wandering around stroking beauty products and looking like I have never been stressed in my life?
There are so many of these ‘morning routine’ reels on Instagram. The women in them all wake up at 5am to work out. They all have apartments with huge windows, and perfectly organized bathroom cabinets, which contain multiples of everything, just for the aEsThEtIc. They all look like models, and make me feel grubby every time I see them, because I’m literally sitting here writing this in the grey joggers I slept in, a sweatshirt that’s a slightly different shade of grey, and no makeup. I did not light a candle this morning, or embark upon a 32-step skincare regime. I have not stood on my tippytoes.
Where are the ‘morning routines’ featuring people waking up with weird pillow lines on their foreheads, and finding final demand letters from the council lying on the mat? Because I would watch the hell out of those, seriously…
WRITING
Finally, I updated my blog for the first time in weeks with this post about getting rid of 70% of my clothes, and trying a capsule wardrobe instead. This really follows on from a lot of the stuff I’ve been talking about in my Money Diaries series, and will probably only be interesting to you if you, too, spend most of your life buying clothes you don’t wear, and over-thinking outfit choices — and maybe not even then, tbh.
But it’s there if you particularly want to read it: and now I’m off to FINALLY finish that novel…2
Until next week, folks,
Imagine making the kind of “mistake” that makes someone think they’re about to be sent to the debtors jail, though? And then just being all, “Whoops, sorry, LOL!” about it?
I hope.
Those morning routines! 😮 Part of me is like - 'that is not real' and another part is 'what if it is....?'
Those morning routines are so fake they're hilarious 😁
And please keep writing about what you think of the books you read, it's always instructive.