Down, up, down, up, down, up

 Well it's very much been a week of ups and downs. Though as I said to son if the downs are as bad as it's going to get then we should count ourselves lucky.

On Tuesday we had tickets to see James Acaster at Brighton Dome, we'd been looking forward to it for ages. I know we've been to see loads of comedy in last 6 months (I never do anything by halves), this was THE one.

The set was surprising (see photo), very low end. But most comedians just have something like a projection anyway as they are in a different location every night. You'll see in the photo that the two seats in front of me were empty and we were very near the front. That's always a worry - but don't worry I was ignored throughout. Though there was a lot of intense eye contact - husband said he felt the same too and he was screened so I think that may just be a James Acaster skill.

Aaaanyway, just as we arrived at the theatre I looked down and the beautiful bracelet that husband had bought me for our anniversary present was no longer on my wrist. I was devistated. We'd just walked through the centre of Brighton and so chances of finding it again were slim. This meant that as I sat down I was actually itching to get home to double check it hadn't dropped before we came out.

The show started. James Acaster introduced a support act (groan - support acts are always a gamble, but I understand newbies need a chance). The support act he introduced was a Luther Vandros support act. Given the background it seemed like a jolly jape. The support act came on and started singing. I was expecting a mike drop moment as the support act just laughed and went into comedy...... but no. What happened next was the longest 30 minutes of my life. It literally was a Luther Vandros support act.

Now I hate Luther Vandros, but more than that I hate support acts (Elvis aside, that's allowed). There is a slim chance that if I'd gone out with the girls and necked 20 Side Cars before the show I'd have thrown myself into it and had fun. But I hadn't. I was already in a bad mood and this sent me into a spiral of dispair. Most of the audience were like me, but there were a few people who threw themselves into it whooping and laughing.

As we were in the middle of a row we couldn't escape without causing a huge stir. Eventually we got to the interval. I heard the person who'd been whooping saying pretensiously to the people with her 'oh that was just soooo James Acaster, you never know what you're going to get'. I managed not to punch her in the face.

The thing is before the show I decided not to get a drink because I was sad about the bracelet, I thought if I'd calmed I'd get a drink in the interval, but by the interval I was in such a blue funk a drink was out of the question. So instead I decided to scratch another itch and went into the Pavillion gardens to see if I could find my bracelet. That was the last place we'd walked before arriving at the theatre. Unfortunately no bracelet was found.

Got back to the theatre and husband had left his seat. I wondered where he was. I disturbed the people between me and my seat and was about to sit down when I heard 'You've done it again'. I turned around and there in the row behind me was husband. I had to disturb everybody I'd just shifted to get out again and then repeat the activity in the next row. Not the most popular person. The reason husband said 'again' is that actually I make quiet a habit of this. On our second date I lost him in the cinema having been to the loo. I sat alone in a side seat until I heard my name being hissed towards me from a seat in the middle row about 10 rows ahead of me.

To his credit James Acaster was brilliant, really funny. The whole act was him being the UK's leading James Acaster tribute act. This at least explained Luther Vandros, but I still don't forgive it. It's not what I came out for. I hate feeling trapped and actually I think it was self-indulgent bullshit. So I left the theatre feeling I'd had a great night, but feeling pissed off at the same time. An odd mix.

Husband and I walked back to car looking at our feet, but didn't find bracelet. Got back to car park and in last month it's gone up by £2.50. It was a tenner for 2.5 hours - OUTRAGEOUS. Arriving home both of us started hunting high and low for bracelet, but it was nowhere to be found. Sad times.

I looked online to see if I could find another of the bracelets, it was an important one becasue of the anniversary. There was nothing left in my size (7 inch), but I did manage to find a last in stock at 8 inch. I decided to go for it, I'd rather have one that wasn't quite right than none at all. I'd just take the financial hit (this is turning into a very expensive month).

The weekend arrived. It's dad's 90th next weekend and I'm helping with catering. I'd been put down for a flan I'd never made before and home made hummus. I have made hummus before about 20 years ago, it was so disgusting I've never tried again. So I needed to crack it. So in the morning I went into the kitchen and husband and son headed off for sons second driving test.

About an hour and a half later I was upstairs getting dressed (had started cooking in PJ's). I heard them come back in and son said 'Where's mum'. Now I thought this was good news, if he'd failed he'd have stomped off to his room to lick his wounds. So I rushed downstairs as fast as my sprained ankle would allow (it still hurts) to find out the result. In fact son hadn't passed.... or failed... the A27 had been closed due to an accident and the two of them sat in a traffic jam for over an hour and the test was missed.

Taking all of the bad stuff and shoving it deep inside to fester and give us ulcers at a later date, son and I then headed off to Sussex University. This was another of his growing up events he'd insisted on organising himself. Sussex was the first University on his list of visits to decide where (and if) he'd like to go. Of course he'd done zero planning and we arrived in the rain with no idea where to go. Eventually we got parked and found the tent where people were greeted and sent on their way. Turns out we'd missed most of the talks (though it all worked out in the end). We headed off to the technology building - it was a ghost town, we were so confused. 

We wandered around for a while and eventually went back to the tent to find out where people were. They kindly walked us back to make sure we were in right building. Turns out we had been, but we'd gone through the back door - all we'd needed to do was find the front entrance. First we went and spoke to some existing students then we had a tour of the facility. Part of this was a sit down talk from a tech area that I thought was amazing. It was about filming and media. The fact I loved it meant that it would be of no interest to son. The only thing that was interesting was creating games, but as husband used to be a games programmer as a family we are painfully aware that there is no money in that as a career. 

However, eventually we ended up in the area that has a focus on AI which son's interested in (that and Cyber Security). This whole tour was done at pace and as mentioned earlier my sprained ankle is still a challenge. I discovered the only way I could keep up was to swing my elbows side to side, so I walked through the campus like a cockney geyser from Mary Poppins, with son keeping well away from me pretending he had nothing to do with me. Though I was gratified to see that even with my bad ankle I was less out of breath than most parents as we climbed up about 500 steps.

Sunday was a much quieter day. The garden is getting strangled by bind weed, but I just can't motivate myself to go out there, using my ankle as a bit of an excuse - though a little bit of it is true. However, on the Sunday I stuck with the excuse and didn't do the gardening. To be honest I can't even remember what I did on the Sunday, but I mention it for one reason. As it got towards suppertime I started to think what'd cook for supper. Never easy when you're riddled with 'can't be bothered to cook'.

I went into the fridge in the utility room to see what we had. We had some chicken thighs, some celery.... I opened the salad drawer to see what other veg we had - ahh peppers - this was beginning to feel like a hoisin caserole (don't knock it for those can't be arsed days). As I picked up the peppers something glinted at me. Husband had walked into utility room moments before and also saw the glint - we both looked closer. There curled up at the back of the salad drawer like a sleeping snake was......... the lost bracelet!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How it got there we'll never know!

So that's why the title this week is down, up, down, up, down, up - at least it ends on an up. I now await the replacement bracelet to turn up. I'm not sure what the returns policy is. Though I may keep it in my jewellery box in case I once again suffer from my lost bracelet talent. Maybe I need to buy everything in twos from now on!!!!