All These Highs And Lows

We went away to Westport a few weeks back, for a week of fancy dinners and golf like the affluent and aroused-looking couple in the Discover Ireland ad. No, not really. We went to stay in my parents' cottage on the side of the Reek, where it always rains and we cook lots of rasher-based meals. I was stressed out, having a hard time managing work and wedding plans, and Andrew was getting stressed out looking at me. I need to go I need to get away from everything... just for a while. I wanted our whole holiday to be like that Discover Ireland ad, so much so that I downloaded the Heathers album and burned it onto a CD for Andrew so that we could play it in the car heading wesht. So romantic, like. We'd both woken the weekend before with Remember When stuck in our heads, independently of one another and at the exact same time and well, I don't believe in signs but the part of me that desperately yearned for a week off work thought that that MUST BE ONE.

I get a bit like that when I'm stressed.

"I got you a present!" I said, grandly overstating the case as I handed him a blank CD-R. He put it on, and I gawped at him expectantly as the guitars jangled. He just looked confused. "What is it?" he asked, and my heart sank. Morto. I spluttered something about synchronicity and then mumbled embarrassedly about the music from the ad and us thinking the same thing at the same time and, and, and he just took my face in his hands and laughed (not at me, he stressed) and gave me a kiss. Now when they play the ad in the cinema he squeezes my hand and my ruddy cheeks redden.

We did go for a fancy dinner on our trip, like that affluent and aroused-looking couple in the Discover Ireland ad. It came with a complimentary bottle of plonk, which seemed designed with Discover Ireland ads in mind. The label read:

Vistamar invites you to pause for a moment in your day, daring to enjoy the simple things around you. That is why we have decided to bring different leisure activities to your table and transport you, through these varieties, to reliving the sensations of a ride on horseback, an outing on bicycles, a trip in a rowing boat or a refreshing walk along the beach.

The statement gets better with time, unlike the wine, which left me feeling more like opening the top button on my jeans than reliving the sensations of a ride on horseback. I’d had a refreshing walk on Bertra strand earlier on that day, the wind whipping up the sand from the dunes and the rain washing the freckles off my face. I couldn’t taste that from the wine either.

Clarified Butter

I told my boss that I'd need Tuesday afternoon off, for an appointment in Holles St. She got all excited for me, thinking I was pregnant, til she read the rest of the email. I'm going for a colposcopy, see, and that's not something to get excited about at all.

A colposcopy, for those of you fortunate enough not to have come across the term before, is a diagnostic procedure to examine an illuminated, magnified view of the cervix and the tissues of the vagina and vulva. It seems I have some abnormal cells on my cervix that the doctor wants to take a look at. A really really good look, by the sounds of all that illumination and magnification. I may also need LETZ treatment, which is where they remove the abnormal cells with a fine heated wire loop. We'll try not to think about that bit too much, as Andrew says it makes his gee hurt.

I know it'll be grand. I'm told that colposcopy is common. Not in a wearing-your-jammies-to-the-shops kind of way, but that it could happen, as it were, to a bishop. Friends have been there and done that and while they didn't buy any t-shirts, they're straight-up heart-on-sleeve sorts and they've told me what to expect. Discomfort, mostly, and upsettingly large images of my undergrowth onscreen. Not this screen, don't worry. I don't think they give you any of the photos to take home.

Still, common as it might be, I had to google it.

I'm scared, thinking about this invasive and potentially painful procedure and the potential consequences for my health should the doctor find anything untoward. I know that she won't. I have been reassured that this is precautionary and that the abnormalities are negligible. But I know that with the c word (either c word, you choose) you can't be too careful, so I'll take my doctor's advice and get it seen to.

My sister asked me today if I was all set for tomorrow. She probably meant mentally. Maybe she was wondering if I've shaved my legs. I haven't. "I went to Tesco yesterday and bought fannypads" I told her "and then to Carvill's for a flagon of Old Rosie scrumpy." I didn't tell her that I started crying a little bit in the Tesco aisle. It's so long since I bought sanitary towels that I was bewildered by the array of them on the shelf and think I might have bought pantyliners by mistake.