Oh what a night

So we set off for our little tin hut rather late on Friday - BNF was out with a friend and didn't get home until later. I was going to drive and had packed up my banger (don't like driving the whale (stylish whale but still) that BNF drives). I had half a tank of fuel but thought I'd stop at the petrol station at the end of the road and fill up.

BNF arrives home and annouces he's only had a glass and is okay to drive. Now, he is by far and away a better driver - and faster. Which means that we'd get there sooner. So, yay! Our usual road comes up as having had an accident on it so we decide to go the longer way round to avoid queues. It's still a nightmare as all the traffic cones in existence were having a cone symposium on the A14 and it was down to one lane - so, not as quick as we'd hoped and we reckoned we wouldn't get there until 11am. My car - which is old and tetchy - at this point decides to go from 'yes, just over a quarter of a tank' to 'FEED ME NOW'. Okay, no panic - we know where there's a petrol station coming up - just about where we turn .... now. Except. The exit is completely coned off and we can't turn. Before we know it, we're driving round Felixstowe looking for petrol stations. We see a few. They're all shut. By dint of the gps on my phone - which I have never used before - we get to the nearest one at 11.30pm. It's shut and all we can do is wait until 6am when it opens. Six and a half hours is a veeerrry long time to be sat in a Morrisons petrol station. Even Waitrose would have been a bit more glamorous, for pity's sake. It was cold, it was uncomfortable and I nobly managed not to bite BNF's head off when he said perkily that it would make a good story one day. Instead I took his hand and told him that if I had to be in that circumstance, I would rather I was with him than anyone. (I confess that I was thinking about managing my mother's hysteria at this point, should it have been with her. I didn't mention this).

It was not the best night of my life. I will not be reprising it as a honeymoon idea. Or at all, ever, if I can possibly help it. I had a bath mat over me as the only warm thing in the car (I was in a knee length skirt and bare legs). We had nothing to eat, nothing to drink and obviously no 'facilities'. I haven't left my make up on all night since I was about 20 and I swear I could feel zits gleefully forming.

Unsurprisingly, the weekend looked up after that. Back to the tin hut for 3 hours sleep and then up and a 7 mile walk to blow the cobwebs away. Then MORE fizz with one of my best friends, her husband and my god-daughter - and those Lola's cupcakes which were delicious. Amazing they survived the Morrisons night really - if ever a woman was in need of copious amounts of buttercream, it was me that night. Then some spankingly fresh crab and skate from the fish sheds and a very long, very comatose night's sleep. The next morning I had an upset stomach (unusual for me) which consisted of an invisible giant twisting my stomach in his hands every now and again, leaving me breathless and incapable of doing anything but ride the wave of pain out (man). We did another 7 mile walk despite this. Then we went home.

Today, my stomach pain has developed into a can't-leave-the-loo burst of diarrhea which means I'm off sick from work (not good timing but frankly unavoidable). Okay, TMI but it's relevant because doesn't this mean that all calories will be instantly er, 'washed' through me? Could it be in time to cancel the cupcake? My mum reckons I'll be slimmer - but 'only because you'll be dehydrated'. Pah.