I have an update for all of you who have been waiting avidly for news. I've been saving up witty things to tell you about it, plus some thoughtful observations about male gynaecologists and feminism, but something has just interrupted my laptop time and is more pressing.
DAVID BECKHAM MAY BE ABOUT TO SIT NEXT TO ME.
I'll describe what's happening right now. Picture the scene. I am sitting outside at my gym. Okay, it's a health club, but if you call it that straight off the bat people usually aren't quite sure what you mean (Is it residential? Can you do detox programmes there? Why can't you just say gym like a normal person - oh right, you don't want to sound posh).
So it's a posh gym, with loads of play areas for kids, sports grounds, a cafe and an adults-only bar with decent wifi where I often work when I'm working 'from home'. Because then I don't get lonely, or interrupted by ankle-biters, and anyway I don't like carrying around heavy money when it can be spent on endless coffees and health snacks.
As it's sunny, I'm sitting outside on the terrace, because the wifi stretches that far, a friend has given me the fear about vitamin D deficiency and it's usually deserted mid-morning.
Except today it's not. A very expensive west London prep school is holding its sports day on the football pitch. There are men wandering around in red waistcoats. Oh right, they're the jazz band, Jesus look at the size of that tuba, what is this, the Great Gatsby?
A barbeque has been fired up. The smell of burger is not helpful. HELLO I AM ON A FAST DAY PEOPLE. The 5:2 diet is hard enough when you've been to the gym and had no breakfast but please don't make me cope with a saliva rush to the mouth so early in the day.
Some tennis coaches behind me are discussing a sighting of DB, who is a parent at this school. Apparently he is more 'wrinkled' than they were expecting.
People are coming to sit down. There are many tables, and I am at the far end. The tables are filling up. Wow everyone here is so beautiful. It's like The Affair, with toddlers.
They are starting to get near my table. I am getting looks. I'm not going to move! I'm a member! I'm here almost every day (in order to get some semblance of value for money)! I practically live here! Recently I have started bringing my own lunch in a tupperware, and my own fork, and brazenly eating it while taking advantage of the complimentary salt and pepper! Okay, the ketchup too, but I feel a bit bad about that.
Right, all the tables are taken. The tide has swept in around me. I'm trying to look engrossed in my screen. I'm going to refer to DB as XX from now on because I have the font so large (my optician says I don't need reading glasses, my eyes are just slow to change focus and I don't blink enough. Like there's anything one can actually do about either) that anyone behind me could easily read it, and I bet they are, the nosey fuckers! But maybe I should stick to DB, because I should not be cowed because this is my land! I am the red indian! They are colonial soldiers. That's quite a good metaphor actually, because I have red hair. But actually there are quite a lot of American accents going on. Perhaps they're Kevin Costner in that film. What was it called? Oh, I can't remember, how annoying. But I must move on.*
Where is DB? I mustn't look up. Play it cool Tallon. He could be really near me. Presumably all the other parents are so used to him and un-starstruck there wouldn't even be a ripple, a murmuring, a vibe at all when he approaches.
It's not fair. I'm surrounded by all these Notting Hill mummies with their long hair and FlyBarre figures eating burgers and CHIPS right under my nose. I hate you. I want you! I'm on a fast day, you Instagram-perfect families. I will not go inside!
A man just asked if he could take the other chair from my table. I let him. Even though he wasn't DB. Even though he was going to use it to sit on to eat chips off.
Oh Jesus, Pimms? You fuckers. I'M ON A FAST DAY. I could murder a Pimms. This has become a test of my character. I will not fail. Oh God I need a wee. But I'm staying put.
Wow, I've never seen such a big logo of a man playing polo on a pony. It takes up the whole of that man's left pec area on his shirt. Is it ironic? Or is he eurotrash? I mustn't stare. I'm putting my (£12 Marks & Spencer) sunglasses on.
I wonder how much the men in the band get paid. Jon used to play the clarinet. He was in 'wind band', a phrase that to this day still makes me snigger. I'm doing it now. Whenever I need to make myself smile I just say to myself 'Jon was in wind band' and it always works.
Help, what else is open on my screen? I was just ordering a tax certificate from my bank. I mustn't let these people see my bank details! They must not know I only have £63.72 in my bank account til the end of the month! Maybe I should take up an instrument. It could be lucrative. I played the double bass for a whole year at school, just to be different, and also so the school would be forced to buy one so I could borrow it. That's quite a Gatsby-ish instrument actually. I could fit right in. I'm not doing the waistcoat, but I did buy a panama hat from TK Maxx the other day, when I discovered that they didn't have any wooden spoons, highball glasses, spatulas, plastic laundry baskets, washing-up bowls or any of the other things on my list, and felt I needed to buy something so as to alleviate my crossness and foolish optimism in getting a trolley when I entered, then pushing it round, empty, for twenty minutes.
Okay, I'm going to have to go inside now. I need to eat, and pee. Some of the people who aren't DB have finished their food items of more than 500 calories and have wandered over to the playground. So they didn't drive me out. I won.
Would it look weird if I went back into the bar on a somewhat circuitous route, being careful to demonstrate that I am definitely not scanning the remaining crowd for DB? I mean, yes there is a door right behind me, but this is my manor. I'm allowed to walk wherever I like. Hell yes! I might even let out a little bit of wee just to mark my territory. If I pack up my laptop bag and my gym bag it'll look authentic. They're quite heavy though. I can't do a cool walk when carrying both.
I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it for YOU. I'm not even going to take any props. I'm just going to stroll to the end of the terrace. Because I'm allowed...
I'm back. I did it. I didn't see him though. Even though I came back the long way and took my sunglasses off. This is not dignified. It's beneath me. I must concentrate. I have stuff to do! This tax return's not going to do itself, is it?
I've moved inside. Ordered some edamame beans (94 cals). Even though the bitches on the table next to me left half their chips and three-quarters of their Pimms. But I didn't minesweep. I returned to my normal world. Where were we?
Oh yes, my pipes. Long story short, I had the coil removed, felt very sorry for myself, was told my womb lining would heal by itself within three months, the infection didn't get any better, I got some mega antibiotics, I puked a bit, and now I'm fine. But I do feel a little sore, in both senses of the word, about the whole thing.
I don't think I'd seen a gynaecologist before this incident. Not for non-baby-related things. And even then, is an obstetrician the same thing? I know in American medical shows they're always talking about oh bee gee why enn.
Anyway, it sounds terribly grown-up to talk about 'my gynae', especially as I'm not sure how to spell it, but my gynae was a man. Which is fine. I was very grateful to him for fitting me in without an appointment. He was matey and well-built - just the sort of person you'd want to stop and drag you out with his tractor if you'd got stuck in a ditch.
But I don't think he really GOT it. I don't think he gets how unpleasant it is to have someone rootling around in your uterus. I don't think he can, because he hasn't got one. Dislodging and removing a foreign body with barbeque tongs from such an inner cavity hurts. At least the GP used some anaesthetic gel to numb the area when she inserted it, and that was a lot less traumatic a procedure. He suggested paracetamol when I asked about pain relief. I hate it when people do that.
In fact, when he told me to take my lower clothes off, he let me sit awkwardly on the edge of the bed, legs crossed, for quite some time without offering me any of that blue paper towel or anything. Upper half fully clothed, we carried on the conversation, while I sat and tried to pretend I was totally okay with being naked from the waist down.
It's not really his fault. I think his approach was to make it all seem as normal and friendly as possible so as not to alarm me. But I like a bit of medical formality, especially in this department. I don't want him to describe my insides as 'a bit gungey'. I'd rather undress behind a curtain.
He wasn't creepy in any way, and I know there's nothing untoward in a male medical student deciding to go into gynaecology. I suppose I just would have appreciated some sisterly sympathy. Afterwards I checked the names of of his colleagues in that department, and what do you know, there was only one woman, amongst about eight men. More gender-biased than other departments in that hospital actually. Odd, isn't it? I wonder why.
Feminism is all about equality, and, where there are differences, acknowledging and embracing those differences. Yes I think men and women should be paid the same for doing the same job, and should have access to the same opportunities. Men can be feminists. They often are. I feel for Matt Haig, an author who has recently been attacked for talking about mental health and men, and accused of 'mansplaining'.
I used to be the sort of person who would say, when pushed, that they believed in equality of opportunity and all the things that basically amount to feminism, but that I shied away from describing myself as a feminist because it was a word that came loaded with so many connotations. Then I read Caitlin's Moran book, and have been proud to call myself a feminist ever since.
Here's another thing I keep going over in my mind - when I, half-jokingly, said to the gynae that I was going to start a campaign for the male pill, he said something that I've heard expressed elsewhere too. 'But can you trust them to remember to take it?' Which I think is an insult to men.
My husband would be happy to take it, if it were easily available. After all, I took pills and put hormones in my body to stop us getting pregnant before, in between and after having babies. I carried those babies. My body will never be the same again. Let's not even talk about the births. Why should contraception be my responsibility forever more? I've ended up having to take the same antibiotics they give to people infected with anthrax in order to clear up an infection in my womb that spread to my bladder, possibly my kidney and set off my back pain because the whole of my lower torso was so inflammed inside.
I bet David Beckham is a feminist. I wonder if he'd take the male pill. If only I'd had the chance to ask him.
*Dances With Wolves
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