Ketchup for one

When I was 17 years old, I left home for university and moved into my first flat. My parents were paying my rent and I had a small allowance for food and expenses until I got a part-time job. I had been waiting for a place of my own since I was 14, I was so excited to be making my own rules, decorating with my second hand furniture and charity shop crockery and doing my own grocery shopping. That task alone signified my journey to independence. I had accompanied my mother on countless expeditions to our local supermarket, I knew what you bought for five people and how to make your dollar go far enough (mince, not steak, ice confection, not ice cream). I still waver between the budget range and the posh range at supermarkets to this day (though the posh range wins  more often now that I'm earning proper money).

On my first visit to the supermarket as a not-living-at-home teenager, I realised I not only had less than one-fifth of my mother's grocery budget, I also only had to buy things for one. I don't really enjoy cooking (though I'm told I'm quite good thanks to parents who insisted I knew the basics before I left home) and I'm often happy with something-on-toast. So I was pretty much after staples. Coffee, sugar, bread, butter, ketchup. I bought the cheapest coffee on the shelf. It was instant coffee and the absolute worst, worst, diabolically worst coffee I've ever tasted. Pablo brand coffee if you're interested (and here's an equally bad TV ad for it http://youtu.be/m3uSVIZEuvM), I don't think they make it any more. Probably because it's carcinogenic. But I bought it because it was cheap and it came in a tiny little jar, which I thought was quite sweet. I also bought a bag of sugar, a small tub of butter and the smallest bottle of Heinz tomato sauce I could find (we don't call it ketchup in Australia). I was so proud of my first purchases for my new life. These small items, so insignificant, so mundane, so ORDINARY, were symbols of of fearless independence, of making my own decisions, of freedom. And I couldn't wait to embrace it all.

Twenty-two years later, I have just come out of my only serious relationship, eight years with a good, kind man, who remains my friend, even though he's decided he needs to make his own choices about his future. It's been three weeks since I moved into my own place, a tiny flat by the seaside and I'm not going to pretend it's been anything but difficult to adjust. Once again, the insignificant, the mundane, the ordinary, have been the momentous emotional triggers - seeing the dishwasher open in the 'wrong' kitchen, making toast for one in my four-slice toaster, scanning the supermarket shelves and the disappointment of remembering I don't need to think about what he'd like for dinner. Coming home to an unfamiliar place, without my friend there to talk to - it's been hard.

But tonight, I went to the supermarket with only two purchasing goals - dessert and ketchup. There were individual chocolate sundaes on special (I'll let you know how they turn out) and I found the ketchup at the end of one aisle. I saw the big bottles first, the kind I'd always bought two of, because we tended to get through them quickly and they were often two-for-one. I frowned. I didn't need a bottle that big and they weren't on special. Then I saw the little ones beside it. At half the price. So I picked one up and suddenly I was in the kitchen of my student flat in 1989, putting the tiny jar of Pablo into the empty cupboard - MY empty cupboard - the vague smell of Formica and carpet cleaner in my nose and the thrilling anticipation of my independent future ahead of me.

And for the first time since my relationship ended, I realised I was excited about making my own decisions again. I realised that I could go back to being the strong, creative, vibrant person I was before I decided taking care of another person (even though he'd never asked me to) was more important. I realised that desperate, aching pain underneath my breastbone might not stay there forever. For the first time in weeks, I felt good about something, without the sharp, bitter taste of loss tainting it. I was going to be okay. Not all the time, not every day, not even every hour, but I was going to be happy. Happy about my decisions, happy about my plans, happy about my future. Happy buying ketchup for one.

Sanctuary in the city

The city felt empty yesterday morning. It wasn’t, by any means, still hundreds of people in suits trudging along the footpath, weaving in and out of slack-jawed tourists hauling giant suitcases, tutting at those who cause them to pause in their single-minded get-to-the-office-by-nine scurry. But the air was cooler, cleaner, than it has been for a few days and summer holidays meant the train was less crowded. The lack of closeness in the air, having a seat to myself, the streets free of jostling, shouting school children, made me feel like there was more room in the commuter chaos I find myself swept along with every morning. I wear headphones with my iPod, rather than earbuds, in an attempt to force out some of the ambient noise: other people’s tinny, over-loud earphones buzzing sibilant hip-hop, whining secretaries bitching about colleagues on their phones, housewives incapable of turning off the keypad tones on their mobile devices, which chirp incessantly as they fumble through text messages. Sometimes I wonder if commuting deadens brains to the existence of other people.

The tranquillity I felt yesterday might have been the lack of these distractions on the train. Or the kind of English weather I moved here for - blue sky, cool sun, slight breeze. Or Chris Isaak’s ‘Speak of the Devil’ on my iPod. I felt indulgent as a result and as I was about 20 minutes early for work, I headed to Prét for a coffee and one of their tasty salmon bagettes and snuck up to a place I know behind my office that is usually empty before the working day begins. The building owners have termed it somewhat grandly as a ‘roof garden’ and technically it is a roof and there are things growing, but it’s mostly concrete and steel, looking over more concrete and steel. It’s quite pleasant in a sterile, corporate way, but the best thing is that in the morning there’s no-one there. So I sat, reading, eating my breakfast, looking up at the buildings occasionally when the sun came out. I like my job, I like the work I do and the office I work in, but yesterday, sitting outside, drinking coffee and contemplating the city around me, was by far the most enjoyable part of my day.

When did I become a Ma’am?

I was in Prêt a Manger today, which I am most days, as I buy my morning latté from them. Prêt make the best lattés of all the chain stores in London. I'll go to Starbucks at a pinch (and load it up with vanilla or caramel), Costa as a last resort and Cafe Nero ONLY if the baristas are Mediterranean. English Cafe Nero baristas evidently all drink Nescafé at 40 degrees Celsius and wouldn't know a good latte if it imploded in front of them. The best coffee I’ve found in London (so far) is made by the lovely ladies at MUGI in Ealing Common. Polish construction workers drink it at 7.30am with nothing but cigarettes, so you know it’s good. Should you find yourself on the Ealing Common High Street, I recommend a detour, for the coffee and the hilarious music videos on Russian cable television.

I am a caffeine junkie and used to drink five or six cups a day. However, in a begrudging concession to my health, I only have one coffee a day now, as it made my heart beat irregular when I was a stage manager working 80 hour weeks in my 20s. So my one cup a day is significant and not to be treated lightly. I've tried to support my local small businesses and have gone to all the independent coffee shops in the five blocks around my office (mostly run by aging Italian men who employ contemptuous eastern European girls) and they all make terrible coffee. I mean the kind of terrible that makes you wish you'd ordered Maxwell House instead. I suspect they're all using Maxwell House to make coffee for their English customers, assuming they won't know the difference and keeping the really good, fresh, medium-roasted Italian good stuff for themselves. Bastards.

Anyway, when I was ordering my latté from the friendly folks at Prêt today, I realised that one of them had called me 'Ma'am' when she gave me my coffee. Ma'am. As in 'Madam'. Mrs. M'dme. Missus. M'lady. Not Miss. Or even Ms.

I realised that people had been calling me Ma'am for quite some time. In restaurants, bars, on the phone (where I tend to get 'Mrs' in front of my surname too) and certainly in the mail. And it made me wonder, when did I become a Ma'am? When did it become obvious that I was no longer a Miss? That I was now 'of a certain age' that commanded this level of respect from customer service types?

Is it my expanding waistline that lends me a matronly air? My lacklustre work attire (who can be bothered making an effort for pie charts?) or sensible walking-through-the-park trainers? I refuse to believe it’s crows feet, I have too much natural collagen (mostly thanks to 20 years of chips and chocolate), so it’s got to be my attitude. Evidently I have thrown off the exuberance and naivety of my youth and present myself (to customer service folks at least) an imposing worldly figure impressive enough to inspire in them the use of a befitting title. Or at least fear that I’ll get more annoyed with them if they call me ‘Miss’.

They might have a point.