You Can't Hurry Love

Chapter Fourteen

DECEMBER 7th

Christmas is a wonderful time of year. The buildings are decorated with beads of pretty lights, the streets are filled with market stalls selling knick-knacks of all kinds-

Nope, that's not good. Scrap that. I scribble out my notes and start again.

With Ice-Rinks popping up in every district, it's impossible to deny that Christmas is well on its way and I'm just as excited now as when I was a little girl. Decorations have begun appearing in shop windows, mistletoe is now gracing doorways of public houses and festive dates with my friends are being made to experience the big smoke in all its Christmassy gloryness.

Christmassy gloryness . . . God, that sounds awful. I have a degree for pete's sake and of all the words in the English language, I decided to go with 'gloryness'.

I needed to get this bit finished though otherwise I'll have nothing to show Diane tomorrow and knowing her she might chop off my head and stick it on a pike on London Bridge to shame me like the mass murderer Oliver Cromwell. You may think I'm being dramatic but, in her eyes, failing to finish an assignment is just as worthy a crime as massacring hundreds of people. I wouldn't be surprised if she fires me on the spot. I know I would if I were in her shoes.

Come on, Dottie. Get it together.

Munch on some roasted chestnuts and have a sip of your mulled wine as you take yourself off for a wintry stroll around some of London's much-loved parks because, believe me, if you thought they were beautiful before, just you wait until you see them at Christmastime. I can highly recommend escaping the madness of the busy city around this time which is exactly what I plan to do this weekend-

But I don't know how to continue. It's been so long since I've actually been for a walk in a park that I don't know how best to describe it, and before you say anything, I'm well aware that this is the part where I'm supposed to get off my butt, get dressed and take myself off to the nearest one to get some first-hand experience and in any other circumstance, I would, but I can't. And there's a very valid reason.

When Matt and I were paying for our dinner last night, I overheard Lincoln discussing with some staff members about how he goes running every morning in the park down the hill. So I can't go there because I might bump into him and quite frankly, I didn't want to.

I just don't trust joggers, especially now I know that Lincoln is one of them. I tried it myself once and it was hands down the worst experience of my life. It was when Ben got turned down by that guy in our final year at uni. He'd decided revenge was the only answer and went on this crazy health kick, chucking all of my favourite food away (which I'd had to fish out of the bin and hide in my room), giving up alcohol (which lasted about three days) and taking up jogging. And who did he manage to hoodwink into joining him? Yes, you guessed it, me, and we'd only been running a couple of miles before disaster struck and I was chased mercilessly by the neighbour's dog for several streets. It was terrifying. I'd had to take refuge in a postbox until its apoplectic owner caught up with it. And where was Ben when I needed rescuing? Passed out on a park bench, his stitch apparently too severe to keep his best friend from being mauled to death by an over-zealous Alsatian.

Luckily for both of us though, this little fad hadn't lasted long, what with Ben realising he couldn't live without his favourite sweet and sour chicken from our local Chinese on a Friday night, and my new running trainers have been gathering dust at the back of my wardrobe ever since.

Right, let's get back to it.

But I couldn't concentrate. My fingers were drumming manically on my notepad and flashes of last night keep coming back to me in painful bursts. I can still feel the burning on my shoulder from Lincoln's touch when he pulled me against his body in what can only be described as a bid to sabotage my date, his innocent face fooling no one but himself.