I am still alive and healthy.

Random thoughts I’ve been thinking about this week.

One of the terms of this medical trial was that they would pay for all my transport costs to and from the clinic for every weekly visit that I would need to make. Initially, me being me, I thought it didn’t matter – I was more than happy to pay the £9 worth of tube fees every time. After all, I am essentially being paid £288 a day to pretty much do nothing but lie on a bed for 2 hours while they run a few health checks.

(One must not be greedy.)

After spending four days in the clinic for my initial dosing of the drug, one of the trial coordinators asked if she could order me a black cab home on my last day.

Um…. yes, please.

Random rant: You know what annoys the shit out of me about most London-based romcoms? It’s how the protagonists, who are usually working some low-paying, menial job, somehow manage to get black cabs everywhere.

(Who are these Londoners who can afford to take black cabs?)

So last Sunday I got escorted home in luxury.

It was lovely.

(I could get used to this.)

I asked my cab driver if he regularly drove people to and from the clinic for their trial days.

“All the time,”

he laughed.

Mmmm… why was I schlepping it across London for an hour and a bit every week in a noisy, stuffy tube filled with way too many non-smiling humans….when I could be in a fully paid-for black cab?

Why indeed.

I had to sit with that for a bit…

Another part of me felt bad.

How could I be so… um… wasteful?

Neurotic angel was already doing a full cost-benefit analysis of a journey that I wasn’t even paying for.

“It’s £9 there and back on the tube versus a £45-65 one-way black cab journey”

Good Lord, the extravagance!

How could you possibly squander so much money?”

It took me about 2 days of mulling this over

(I kid you not)

before I eventually shut her down and made peace with the fact that I was, in fact, quite capable of wasting other people’s money.

I really am.

It got me thinking about how ridiculous it was that I felt guilty about accepting something that was explicitly included in the terms of the trial. I would rather inconvenience myself than risk being perceived as someone who was asking for too much.

When in fact, I wasn’t even asking….I was rejecting something being offered.

Clearly, the roots of people-pleasing run deep.

Maybe this is the next step in my people-pleasing evolution: learning not to minimise my own needs, especially when someone has explicitly given me permission to have something nice.

NOTE TO SELF: Learn to say ‘Yes, thank you’ more.

My cabbie’s name was Mark, and he was such a lovely guy. We chatted the entire hour’s journey there and back

People are absolutely fascinating…

I started asking him if he had ever given any rides to any famous people, and he pulled out his little black book of autographs. For the final leg of our journey, I quizzed him about all the people he had met while watching beautiful London sprawl past the window.

It was a fun day.

Please note my arse has literally shared space with Sean Connery, Jamie Oliver, Noel Gallagher, Kate Moss, Richard Branson, Ralph Fiennes, AND Rupert Everett!!!

I mean, HOW COOL IS THAT?!

PS Please see proof attached 😉