A day in the life

Since I started that full-time work thang, my weekdays are comfortingly and irritably predictable.

6:45am: What is that?!

6:45:07am: Alarm. Right. Off.

6:50am: What is that!?!

6:50:04am: Alarm, right. Off.

6:55am: God, what was Miley wearing last night? Could I pull off nipple tassels? Probably, but you really need suitable cigarette trousers too.

7:03am: Still no abs.

7:10am: Mentally trying to piece together an outfit in the shower. Trying to remember what I wore yesterday. Trying to remember if it's going to be dry enough for those cute open-toed tan sandals or not.

8:10am: Not. Wet toes on the clutch.

8:22am: "I'LL PRETEND MY SHIP'S NOT, SINKINNNN'"

8:57am: Tea or coffee. Tea or coffee? Green tea... and black coffee.

10:46am:

1:45pm: Lunchtime.

The time of day I give myself to do productive tasks for myself. Like:

• book a wax
• make a few personal phonecalls, "Mum, what's for dinner?"
• browse the same section of makeup counter but never actually purchase anything
• buy snacks I'll regret as soon as I've eaten them
• wander round River Island gazing at the beautiful materials I can't afford
• nip down to Primark and buy a slightly worse-quality, worse-aesthetically version to make myself feel better
• return to work feeling worse about my calorie count, worse about my bank account, better about my daily step count.

3:06pm: 

5:50pm: Why does the gym always smell weird when you go in, but not when you come out? 

The gym must be the only place I really zone out. Headphones on, sporty men on the televisions, less sporty men in the gym. Are they rugby players today? Or perhaps it's cricket? I don't know. All I know is that I'm convinced I've contracted asthma since starting this run. Will I ever get to 5k? Actually, it'll be a miracle if I get to 3. Perhaps you're just thirsty, have a drink.

Stitch. Stitch. Ow, oh bugger, forget it, go do weights. How far did you get anyway? 2.4k?! Just call it a warm up.

Bloody hell these things are heavy. Progressive overload my arse. I'm about to progressive overload my willpower.

Why am I sweating so much? Do other girls sweat like this? If I bring a towel I'll be that weird girl who sweats so much she has to bring a towel. If I don't bring a towel I'm that really sweaty girl. Gross if I do, gross if I don't.

7pm: Thank god, it's over.

7:36pm: I feel great, I feel so great, exercise is great, I bet I could do a triathlon you know. I am a new woman. I might even have abs tomorrow.

8:01pm: I'll just have enough pasta for a small village tonight I think. A hamlet really.

8:24pm: Spontaneous trip to the supermarket for coconut oil, prosecco and the latest analysis of "what does this text mean though?"

10:18pm: Biscuits, group chats, Friends, typing about boys and #freethenipple. 

11:23pm: Tried to go to bed early. Tried to read. But Netflix.

A Roundabout Chapter Between London and Hampshire

Locations are pretty sticky topics for most people. They're often so definite. Shoutout to all of the Victorian literature nerds who get the title reference.

My mum has this video tape of me, when I was perhaps three or four years old, leaping and singing in our back garden. I was in the throngs of a Disney princess stage and Beauty and the Beast was the film that I knew I would resonate with for my entire childhood, and beyond. I'm singing the lyrics to the opening musical number:

"I want adventure in the great, wide, somewhere. I want it more than I can tell."

When you have a security in a place, like family and job, it's hard not to feel bound to your ties. Even if you begin to outgrow them.

I love Hampshire like I love my parents. I owe it everything, it is my history, my beginning, and it'll run through my veins wherever I go. But like all loves, sometimes the timing isn't right, you can outgrow them, and you can yearn for change. 

You know a relationship isn't working when you lust over something else with such a passion, you feel guilty. I'm still very much in a physical relationship with my hometown, but mentally, I'm unfaithful.

Although my body is currently lying in Hampshire, much like Jane Austen's, my heart and soul escape with every spare moment they get. Through British Vogue, Richard Curtis romcoms and friends Instagram photos, my soul gravitates towards somewhere much bigger, much louder, and far more exciting.

A city I once thought held little for me now holds everything. More friends in one place than I've ever had, the promise of opportunity and enjoyment; ultimately, a lifestyle I desire so strongly I've shed tears over it.

Meanwhile, in my more wild, fur coat buying fantasies, my imagination takes me to streets I've walked only once. The streets of Rachel Green, Carrie Bradshaw, Taza. A few years ago I was convinced I'd go. I'd make it happen somehow. I grew out of it. But it's back. Unrealistic and all encompassing. I feel about New York how I feel about my future husband. It's not a reality right now, but it will be. And I love that thought already.

Elizabeth is Missing; or just prone to the female condition

The first in a series of articles on the novels shortlisted for the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize begins with Emma Healey's debut bestseller, the wonderfully acclaimed Elizabeth is Missing. Spoilers as always.

Praise for Emma Healey is exactly right. Like everyone says, for her to so intricately imagine, and write, from the perspective of an elderly woman with advancing dementia is incredible. And frightening.

To reach out to an audience of younger people who are increasingly frustrated and fearful of the elderly and becoming old, and make them see the other side in such a plain way is really something special. And is doubtlessly the most fascinating and important thing to take away from Elizabeth is Missing.

When it comes to plot, it isn't necessarily the most complicated but how can it be when the protagonist can't remember her own name? I regret to say that the endings are a little more predictable than I would've liked, however maybe this is intentional, there's a good chance Maud has known all along about the fate of the missing women.

Which brings me onto my next point. Missing women. Healey seems to really shine a light on female vulnerability in this novel, in so many ways. Portrayals of vulnerable youth, elderly, mental, physical, social situation.

Healey demonstrates how women are prone to physical decay, mental trauma, and even death. In fact, three women die in the novel, one presumably at the hand of her husband, one of physical health and another knocked down in the street – each death centre to the plot. Considering that women are supposed to live longer than men, this seems like a lot.

But then again, Healey presents a very female-centric world, with the main character's immediate family consisting mostly of women. Women are represented as the centre of the family, dutifully bound to look after their mothers, sisters, daughters, whether they like it or not. While the men seem to leave and live as they please, disobeying the law, migrating to other countries, dying of old age, etc. It's a world that doesn't seem fair, and yet it seems accurate – so it's hardly going to be the feel-good novel of the year.

It's not that the men are ever portrayed as evil, or the women even particularly downtrodden, it's just a saddening portrayal of the human condition. It's sad to see Maud as a young girl while the reader knows she can barely remember her identity in the present. It's sad to see Helen struggling with caring for her while still trying  – singlehandedly  – to raise a family of her own. And it's sad that this exact scenario is happening to so many families as I type.

It's easy to see why Healey's debut became a bestseller. It's relation to crime fiction, readability and portrayal of dementia is at times comic and always heartwarmingly charming. It challenges first-person narration in a topical light and for that I would recommend it to anyone having to deal with dementia – in any shape or form. So let me try and forget that this novel reinforces the vulnerability of women, because that's not the point. Right?

A woman wild

Growing up on novels with names like Housewife Down, The Playground Mafia, novels which may as well be entitled 'Domesticated', imagine my delight when I was so aptly gifted a female writer, female protagonist, true-story named Wild.

Disclaimer: this is not going to be an onslaught of feminist praise for Strayed, although I could very easily write this like that, but this will include spoilers – so if you haven't read the novel, or watched the film, proceed with caution.

The novel came into my hands by way of a friend who picked it up from a 'leave one take one' shelf in a Croatian hostel. The copy, distinctly American, sports an Oprah Book Club sticker, so by the time it reached my hands, back in a small town in England, even I felt like the book had taken its own title too seriously.

Firstly, I am cautious about addressing it as a "novel". It's been called a 'memoir' to agree with the ever-stricter genre conventions, but I'd rather call it an experience.

For the first time in a long time, I found I couldn't put a book down.

Cheryl's adventure is something anyone who's gone through a great loss, hard time, or a seriously long-ass walk, can appreciate. It's not a journey of one woman, it's the journey of anyone who's ever felt alone.

From the very beginning, and throughout the text, Strayed repeatedly returns to the concept of 'a woman alone'. She is abandoned by her father, left by her siblings, divorced by her husband and, the catalyst of it all, orphaned by her mother. She is a very literal stray. And, after being beaten down by her situation, she does everything in her power to take that appellation back.

I could write an essay on why it is important that Cheryl picks her last name. But who has time for that? The important point is that, by calling herself 'Strayed' she owns the term. It cannot be used against her, instead it defines the positive qualities of 'a woman alone'. It might not have been wholly her choice to become an orphan or a divorcee, but it was her choice to become 'Strayed'. It signifies her independence, individuality, and is more than fitting for her adventure across the country.

Which means it also counteracts any vulnerability associated with the idea of 'a woman alone', something Strayed herself struggles with at the beginning. Women are brought up believing that they're damsels in distress in even the most common of situations. We're told not to go out at night. We can't trust members of our own species. So the idea of a female – and what's more of a young female – on her own, in the wilderness, for over a hundred days, is incomprehensible.

I wouldn't say that she's not vulnerable; in fact, Strayed frequently demonstrates fear and there are a few close calls, but most of the time the dangers she's exposed to are equal for men or women. The Pacific Crest Trail doesn't care about your gender if it's going to kill you from pneumonia, or exhaustion, or by bear. She continually exceeds her fellow hikers', companions and her own expectations to gain the trail name 'Queen of the PCT'.

What's more wonderful, is Strayed's underlying commitment to writing. No matter what else changes about Strayed is the fact that she is a writer. Its evidence lies in her carefully chosen quotes from cultural figures such as Churchill, Shakespeare, Joni Mitchell, and Emily Dickinson, her reluctance to part from The Dream of a Common Language and the 'Books burned on the PCT' epilogue – a 'further reading' bibliography for the literary hiker wanting to follow Strayed's novel footsteps. Meanwhile we are reminded that when she finishes the trail, no matter what happens, she will wait tables in the evening, and write in the day.

And I wonder if, for Strayed, the journey would've never been fully complete until it was written down. As with some writers, the physical journey is just the beginning. The literary version –  amended by memory or by fictional licence – is the real journey. Some things cannot be processed as they happen, and instead, processing by way of writing is the real cathartic experience. It certainly seems that way for Strayed.

So I implore anyone who hasn't read Wild yet, don't watch the film first. It's clear from the text that this was never intended to be adapted for Hollywood, although I'm sure Strayed was chuffed to find out Reese Witherspoon was going to play her. This text really is something to be experienced one of two ways. And, I'm sure Cheryl would suggest that 300 pages are much easier to conquer than the PCT.