20 20 Vision

Song to be sung to the tune of the "Lets all do the conga!, Let's all do the conga!"

"I have perfect vision!
I have perfect vision!
20 20 vision!
Don't need silly glasses!"


Once, about a decade ago, I went to an optomotrist who told me that whilst I almost had 20 20 vision, why not get glasses anyway? Getting talked into them, I got some really hidious tutle shell, round glasses (hey, it was the mid 90s. Turtle shell was hot back then). I tried them for about 2 weeks, during which my eyes started to hurt like crazy and them more I wore them and I worse my eyesite got. That was when I decided that it wasn't just vanity that would force me to stop using them, but a desire to not have headaches from those two pieces of glass.

Over the last few years I've been kindof worrying if I needed to go back to an optomotrist. Not because my vision was bad, but I was worried it wasn't staying good. Tuesday things on my screen seemed to be slightly blurry so off I took myself to the optomotortist for the dreaded test. (Btw, to all the optomotrists out there: before I ever go to another eye test again which involves you getting right up close to my face, I promise to use mints if you do too). Blurry vision due to worsening eyesight? Nope, nada, pas de tout. Apparently the fact that I'm a freak who doesn't blink enought is why I can't see. That's it. Dry eyes. Nearly kissed the slightly smelly optomotrist when he said I had perfect vision, bought myself some eye drops and danced the conga all the way to back to the office where I sung my little song to ol' four eyes Dr D (who is getting a fierceful pounding on my site these days!).

Hurrah! Ol two eyes is back, and I'm stayin' baby!

Off To France

We're off to Montepellier tomorrow for 4 days of lazing in the sun, drinking, eating, Tour de France watching in the Pyrenees and 1 night of camping!

See you on Tuesday!

What not to do when someone is really hungry and tired

Me: “When you get to Benugo’s can you buy me and eggs florentine?”

Dr D: “If they don’t have that?”
Me: “If they don’t have that, then an eggs benugo, or the other one with the salmon. In fact, buy me anything to eat, I’m really exhausted and really hungry.”
Dr D: “So basically, we could just get you some roadkill, wrap it up, add some sauce, and you’d eat that you’re so not fussy today.”
Me: “Don’t be mean. I’m very tired”
Dr D: “ You know, I have half a mind to not buy you anything at all, even if they do have what you want, just to see you sit there and cry.”
Me: “hmm.”

Don’t be mean to the girl with the blog, and the finickiness to blog you being mean.

Tower Depresssing

After coming home tonight from another shopping trip of house stuff (how much more stuff we can get in here?), C & I found a documentary called "The Tower, a Tale of Two Cities" on BBC1. This is based on an ex-council high rise tower, situated right on the river overlooking Canary Wharf, bought off Lewisham Council and has been refurbished and is now being flogged off as luxury apartments to wealthy city types. The whole idea of selling these apartements off is part of Lewisham Council's hope to regenerate the area, by brining in wealty people, which I guess means to just force poor people out. The documentary shows the juxtaposition of this brand "new" tower to it's sister tower, still a council estate, and still full of poor tenants, and the juxtaposition of these people's lives. Where one group argue about where to put their high def TVs, the other group battle with losing their businesses, dead beat fathers of their children, poverty and drug abuse. Showing these two completely different worlds, one ultra rich, and one ultra poor, living right next to each other, in identical towers, albeit for a splash of paint, is amazing, but also incredibly harrowing and depressing. It is especially interesting to me because the ex-flatmate and I used to live about 1 mile from these two apartments, and we watched them rip the guts out of the old council block, and refurbish it. So whilst there is an element of watching all these poor people's lives as they are being forced out of the area, and watching all the rich people as they come in, total naive of the area they are about to become a part of, I have to confess there is also an element of "oh look that's the pub across the road from the Asian supermarket" and "I wonder if you can see us speeding past in our car, doors locked, windows up so we don't get robbed?".

Tenants from the sister tower

The 'new' tower.

If you want to watch it, check it out on BBC1 at 11pm. I can't stress how good this documentary is. Well, by good I mean 'interesting, saddening, non life reaffirming'...

Afterwards though, I was so fucking depressed, that I honestly couldn't sleep, so to perk myself up, I had to watch some light, no brain content fluff, with lots of pretty people being upset about stupid things, rather than anything really life threatening like say, making sure that their daughters don't get raped on their way to school. Naturally that meant digging out an episode of "Sex and The City". Of course, being me, that completely back fired because in my attempt to make myself feel better, I ended up watching the episode where Samantha gets breast cancer. Just fucking great.

Friday Moment of Zen: Tell them this

There are WAY too many things happening in London this weekend:

1) Le Tour de France is starting it's Grand Depart in London for the first time in it's century history, making it the 3rd time ever that this cycle race has crossed the English Channel (ou la manche si vous préfèrez). On the Sunday the race starts, and they are cycling right past our house (well, techinally, about 2 mins walk from our front door, but when it is travelling all around France, I categorise 'down the end of the street' as past my front door), so we'll go out and cheer those crazy cyclists on. I do find it really amusant that Le Tour de France is starting from Trafalgar Square, the very square dedicated to the battle where the British kicked those frenchies butts in 1805. I wonder who thought that was a good idea. The British really never let things die! The time trial is on Saturday to work out who will start the race wearing the yellow jersey, and is going all London, taking in some of it's best sights, and should be a fantastic thing to watch! I, however will not be there on Saturday because Dr D and myself will be going:

2) To LiveEarth at Wembley! I've had a look at the line ups at the other Live Earth concerts, and I reckon the London one is the best! American girl turned Fox Hunting, Pint-Swilling, Fake Accent totting Madonna is playing, but so is Snow Patrol, Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chilli Peppers (and Genisis??). But I am really, really, really excited because I am finally going to get to see the FOO FIGHTERS LIVE!! AAHH!!! You'll see me right there, up in the nose bleeder seats, so far away from Dave Grohl I'd be able to see him better if I was in space, singing my guts out, and using my telephoto lens to try and get a good look at him! (God, I can heard Dr D from here moan already). Ahh. Everlong live. That's going to be FANTASTIC. And I reckon when all the acts we don't want to see are playing, like Keanne, we can just go to one of the many bars and help pay for Wembleys debts by paying for beer.

So, if you are in London, or in Britain at all this week and going to any thing good, let me know. And in exchange I will give you the power to be able to tell people silently what you think of them. In British Sign Language. This cracks me up because it's not every day you get to hear in a perfectly inanciated, posh, upper class english accent the words "fat cow".

Enjoy!


VideoJug: How To Insult Someone Using British Sign Language

British Summer = Cricket + Rain

We went to Lords on Tuesday to watch a 20 20 match with Middlesex vs Surrey. As a non-cricket watcher, I really only go for 3 things:

1. Lounging in the hot summer sun, drinking beer/wine/champagne
   
2. Picnic food
   
3. The party atmosphere
   

However, thanks to the stupid, crappy, flood enducing, cold, wet, horrid english 'summer' (and I use 'summer' in the loosest possible terms), we've spent the last month with barely any summer sun, and NO chance of floaty dresses, strappy tops, sandals/thongs (aka FLIP FLOPS if you're giggling to yourself).

Instead of hot summer cricket at Lords we were subjected to this:


with somtimes TEASING sun like:



I WANT THE CANCER INDUCING SUN BACK! I am CRAVING the possiblity of getting sunburnt. I am vitamin D deficient!!! On top of that, I keep listening to the soundtrack to the Ex-Flatmate's and my holiday to St Maarten last year, all the songs from Radio Calypso that they kept playing whilst we were hooning around going from sundrenched beach to sundrenched beach, and this has made me even more desperate for some hot weather, so much so that I am seriously thinking of going on a holiday, even if no one wants to come with me! So this is a shout out, an open invitation, a plea to the universe: if YOU are thinking of going somewhere where we can take our pasty bodies out on a beach, in swimsuits that no one wants to see us in, drink cocktails with little umbrellas in them, and eat bbq's every day, let me know, because I am sick of this crappy weather:

Some Good News At Last

I have finally worked out why I am so happy that Alan Johnston was released by his kidnappers in the Gaza Strip. After all the crap news we're getting at the moment like:

• cars in London being filled with nails, gas canisters and the such, and left to explode in the middle of the west end.
  
• 2 guys setting fire to their car, and driving it into Glasgow airport
  
• all those doctors in the NHS being arrested for possibly trying to kill people
  
• that kid Madeleine still being missing after 60 days now, probably by some pedophile ring
  

it is so good to actually hear some fucking good news for a change!

To be perfectly honest, after 114 days, I really did give up hope that he'd be released. If you don't know who he is, Alan Johnston is a BBC reporter who was kidnapped whilst out on assignment at the Gaza Strip on the 12th of March. I was surprised when he wasn't killed after his first month of capture, but when they released a video of him strapped to the eyeballs with explosives recently, I figured that was it, game over. So good work to everyone who worked so hard to get him freed, because we get so little good news these days, it's just nice to know that someone who looked like a dead cert, pardon the pun, for things going pear shaped for him, maybe not everything always turn out badly, and perhaps there is still hope that despite all the death threats, bombings, and red-alert-we're-all-going-to-die security levels we're living through at the moment, maybe it'll be alright for us too.

Calv's Friday Moment of Zen: George and Alan

As it's Calv's birthday this Sunday, he's harrassed asked me to put this post up with the Volvic adverts featuring tyranasourus Alan and George the Volcano. I like these ads, but not like Calv and Li, who litterally piss themselves laughing whenever they talk about them. Which in Calv's case is quite often.

So Happy Birthday Calv. Just for you: the Volvic ad. Pity the water tastes like crap

Overheard in a music store

Why is it that people who play random instruments seem more often than not a insanely posh? I was standing in this tiny music store to return a cello case, and a woman was being served, who must have played the harp, based on how she was going on about this harp tuner and that piece of music, but I realised how unposh I am (especially in my jeans and trainers) when the shop keeper and the woman had this conversation: (now remember: You have to read this with the west london, sloaney fake Gwyneth "I'm English" accent:)


Shop keeper: "Oh I promised myself I wouldn't eat anything today but I'm getting frightfully peckish now"
Harpy Woman: "I do know what you mean! I have to go to a gastly nibbles party tonight, so I'll have to pop out and get myself a bite to eat soon. Did you know that my 9 year old son was told off in his IT class for listening to Elgar. So I thought I'd buy him some music so he can have a bash about at it!"
Shop Keeper: "That is lovely isn't it! And of course he'll be able to play some of it naturally"

Gastly? Bash About? ELGAR? Playing ELGAR at 9? I mean I like Elgar but I'm 29 and the Elgar pieces I like I can't even play it! What sort of freak at 9 is this kid? Enough to make me feel inadequate! If you'd like to see what I mean, check this out from youtube:



I can not play like this and I do not do any of these uber serious facial expressions, unless she starts to manically giggle whilst playing which I'll admit, I do do sometimes. Usually when I've just fucked something up...

Friday Moment of Zen: Tasty Tasty Tasty

We’re off to the Taste of London festival tonight for hopefully a bang up night of Michelin star food, drinks, good times and celebrity heckling. Unfortunately my old mate, that twat, Jean Christoff Novelli or his equally annoying coutnerpart Anthony I've-Kissed-A-Goat Warol Thompson will not be there (who will I try to insult to their faces now?!), but Angela Hartnett from the Connaught will be, as well as Stuart Gillies from the Boxwood Café and people from Fino (who make the yummiest Crispy Pork Belly!). The weather report has said it's going to be pissing down all day, so I'm wearing massive hiking boots, which really goes a long way to making me feel all feminine.





If you're in London this weekend, I'd say you'd best get your arse to Regents Park because this is a fantastic 4 days of foodie treats! If you're not, then this is my Friday moment of Zen: A Chocolate Bunny getting the brunt of my annoyance and anger. I hope you enjoy it more than the bunny did!

I'm a pretty vegan bunny

What's that? Can't hear you?

I can't see!

AAAHHH! YOU HEARTLESS BITCH!

Mother Plucking

I have just come home from a night out at the theatre (christ how posh do I sound??!). Despite having spent the last 1/2 hour bitterly complaining to C about how tired I was and how I wanted to go to sleep, it still has taken 30 minutes between getting in the door and collapsing under my duvet. Why? Because recently I have been reading and watching and listening to too many bloody guides that have the opposite effect of making me feel motivated for how to look good, act good, be good, eat right, drink well, blah blah blah, and instead have made me paranoid and anxious. There is this constantly and annoyingly stream of information, with advice and helpful hints for making us all be more feminine and 'beautiful', like How to Look Good Naked, Trinny and Susanna's What Not to Wear, Trinny and Susanna's What to Wear, How to Walk In High Heels, How to Look Fabulous Without Making it Look Like You're Trying to Look Fabulous Even Though It's CLEARLY Taken You 2 Hours to Get Ready To Go Out To Ensure You're Looking Fabulous. Plus hanging out with my girlfriends who are all annoyingly pretty, with their annoying ability to walk in stiletto heels, have the right hair cuts, have the perfect cool clothes and be exceptionaly well put together, that recently are making me feel downright inadequate. On top of that, if I wasn't getting enough advice on my physical appearance, I am also recently being barraged with their advice for how to "be a single girl in London": I've been put aside and told I need to 'act single and start flirting' with bartenders/waiters/any man with a pulse. The entire world seems to be conspiring against me right now, that instead of making me feel motivated, upbeat and attractive, I just feel unattractive, depressed, unhappy and all other adjectives describing 'ugly'.

So tonight, rather than just falling straight into bed and sleeping, I've stayed up extra late to pluck my mother fucking eyebrows. This, only a few weeks after having unleashed a plucking on them that skinned the poor little buggers within a inch of their lives. I have learned the ultra hard way that the difference between looking tidy and looking constantly surprised, or even worse, bald just above your eyes, really is a total of about 5 hairs.

Why is it that woman feel that if they aren't making a consistent effort they are some how failing in society, destined to be alone in the world, possibly looking after hoards of cats? I have realised that being a size zero isn't the way forward (depressingly, as a size 12, I am far and away the largest girl in my team, and there are a few of us. They range from a size zero to a size 8. Then there's me. If that isn't enough of a kick to your self esteem, I don't know what is). Why do we feel the need to always be pruning, exfoliating, cleansing, toning, weazing through exercise classes, or exercise in general, epilating legs, filing nails, massaging cellulite, tinting eyelashes, dying hair, pumicing feet, watching what we eat, checking what we're wearing, and all the rest of the bloody crap that seems to be thrown at us? Why can men get away with doing frankly chuff all other than showering and possibly wearing deoderant if they remember, but if we haven't attacked ourselves with every possible beautifying device, potion, lotion, miracle cure for wrinkles, spots, and lines, known to man, we're not taking care of ourselves because "we're worth it"?

Why can't sitting on a couch, eating bags of pork scratchings and watching EastEnders be a perfectly acceptable way of life? Or is it it's not necessarily society that's to blame for women being ultra high maintenance, but ourselves? Are we our own worst enemy? Ugh.

Randomness of London

What I love about the randomness is Lonon is that you'll never know who you'll see on an average night out. Take last week for example. A friend and I went out for a few drinks and a meal at a cool Japanese restaurant called Tokyo Diner in Chinatownlast week. Deciding we wanted some ice-cream, we went to Leicester Sq around the corner, and right into the barriers for the Fantastic 4 world premier. So we ended up waiting for an hour, chomping down our Ben and Jerry’s' scrunched up against a metal barrier waiting for Jessica Alba and Ioan Gurrudd (aka the mean hearted Horatio Hornblower, dashing sea faring naval officer who marries Julia Swahala out of pity and then spends all his time ignoring her.. poor dear). Whilst Ioan, clearly was embarrassed that he has any association with this film based on the fact that all the would be C list celebrities and hanger ons strolled out of the theatre, looked at the crowd, waved etc, poor Ioan came running out, dragging his wife/girlfriend behind him, eyes to the ground, not making eye contact with anyone. Jessica, who was crowned the Most Beautiful Woman of the Year, on the other hand, who I didn't think much of, actually looks annoyingly pretty in real life, plus she was annoyingly nice when she did come out, waved at the geeks waiting for her, and autographed posters held up by spotty nerds.

So here is the fruit of our 1 hour wait: a very blurry and crap picture taken on my phone (incidentally, what is the freakin point of having a camera on a phone if the pictures it takes are so rubbish? I think I'd prefer to not have a camera if I could exchange that for extra battery life, but that's a whole other rant)

More Cool Stuff From the Grand Designs Live Show

If you're vaguelly interesting keeping polar bears from losing it's natural habitat, and reducing your carbon footprint, then this device is one cool little gadget. Called Bye Bye Standby it works by 'reducing daily energy consumption on electrical devices by completely cutting power to the devices plugged into it when they're not in use thus saving the power that these devices would otherwise have consumed in Standby Mode'.

Seriously it is really, really cool. Basically, it's an adapter you plug the power board to which powers things like your telly or dvd player. You then get a remote switch which works within a 30m range of the device, so you can then just turn off all your appliances in one go. The coolest part is that you can have multiple of these devices all configured to one remote switch, so you can turn multiple electrical devices off at the same time. And this is exactly why I'm going to buy it! Yes, I am interested in reducing my carbon footprint (not so much so that I've gotten around to offsetting all the airplane trips I've taken this year yet, though I have calculated that it would cost me about £25 to offset them all. If you're interested in seeing how big your footprint sites like co2balance.com are good. To whom you should actually pay the money to I'm still unsure because I did quick check on google to find that loads of these offset companies are not necessarily the best places to give my hard earned mula to. Perhaps just donating that money to recognised charities that actually do good conservation work might be the answer.. If anyone has any ideas let me know, and yes the obvious 'just don't take planes' is good, but in reality, I'm not about to stop doing that just yet..)

I digress. I'm going to buy the Bye Bye Standby not only for it's green factor, but because it is the perfect solution to the following tricky problems:

1. How to turn on and off the tv in my bedroom without having to get out of bed now that I've lost the remote control, because I am lazy.
2. How to have multiple little lamps in my bedroom and lounge room to create little pockets of mood lighting and and be able to turn them all on and off in one go, thus avoiding having to go around the room and do them individually, without having to spend a fortune on an electrician to rewire the whole house.

It's a fantastic find!!

Things I will start to do

1. Pay less attention to some of the rubbish people talk at me
2. Start eating more fruit
3. Try to post more regularly
4. Go to bed before 2am so I can stop waking up at 8.35 which just happens to be the exact same time I am supposed to be at the train station, on my way to work. Yes, 8.35 is not the time I should be jolting myself awake thinking "hmm, my spidey senses are telling me something isn't right in the world...", finding not only have I slept through both my alarms, but I have also managed to get up, get the alarm clock, bring it back to bed and put it under my pillow to muffle the sound in case it, you know, wakes me up, as is it's very raison d'être. All without me even remembering I've done it.

Right. As it's 1.34AM I think I'll post this, and go to bed. Ahh, 1.34. Nice early night for once.

Design Show Madness

Li and I went to the Grand Designs Live show on Sunday. Not only is she fantastic, she has some fantastic friends, one of whom is dating a guy who works as an event co-ordinator for large shows. One of which just happened to be the GDL. He recommended that we go on the last day of the show, because most of the stall holders all want to off load tons of stuff on the cheap rather than having to lug it back (a fact I had never considered). He then offered to bag us some free VIP tickets for free, show us around, and introduce us to the owners of these fantastic shops to see if we could get discounts! It was fantastic!

We started the day with him taking us to a stall where there were loads of lovely furniture, one of which was a £300 glass console table. When Li asked the owner how much for it, he looked at our new best friend, said "is she a good friend of yours?" and when he found out she was, he told her "if you can take it away with you today, you can have it". I.e. For Free. Gawd Damn! In the end, Li had to physically force £50 in to the stall owners hand, and we lugged her table back to the car. I have to admit I was pea green with envy! There was loads of nice stuff at this stall, but the last thing you want to do is be the hanging on friend who tries to then get stuff for free as well, because then it just puts the stal holder and our organiser friend in an awkward position. Damn I wish I had no scrupples!!


So we pretty much tried to spend the day as we started it. So everywhere we went, and whenever we saw something we liked, we'd ask if they wanted to sell their display items for a discount (well, honestly I say 'we', but Li has much more decorum than I do, and I became a bit unhealthily obsessed with trying to get something beautiful on the cheap). However, that tactic did help me obtain this lovely mirror and glass bathroom cabinet, with an even lovelier £80 discount. Whilst not free, a massive discount, and it not being from Ikea means that I was pretty chuffed with myself let me tell you. That was of course until our organiser friend said "why didn't you call me? I could have got you that for like £50!"


Highlight of the day:

1. Getting suckered into a £5 plastic broom, which everyone at the show seemed to have and feeling like we were in some super cool, super elite broom carrying club. Sadly it was the fact it had a squeegy attachment to it that made Li and I decide we couldn't live without it. I have swept my house dead clean now and used it to clean my windows, so perhaps survival would not have been possible without my rubber broom. Not witch like in the slightest by the way.
   
   
2. Finding out I can get new floors for £11.50 a meter so that my bedroom can look like this:
   
   
   
3. Find these ultra cool lights, which I loved but not £190 worth:
4. Seeing this MASSIVE angelpoise light at the SAAB stall. This thing is way taller than me, and I so want one in my house. Except that it wouldn't fit even in my ultra high ceiling:
5. Stalking Kevin McCloud! The Grand Designs man! We kept seeing him (it's a bit hard not to see him if you follow him around like a puppy), and when we mentioned to Li's friend how I thought he was uber cool, he suggested we come back to the media centre and we could probably have a cup of coffee with him if we like. This was something I don't think I could have faced....
6. Walking right past Mr Kevin, with Li saying "oh my god, you completely ignored him! He was right next to you!!" then embarrasingly asking him for a photo, and making it sound like we were only asking it for the Ex Flatmate who loves the show... He looked so drunk he really didn't even know what was going on... or he was really bored and he didn't care... either way, I had Keving McCloud put his arm around me, and I have photographic evidence! (Looking at this pic, he definitely looks smashed...)

Great day all in all...

I'm not dead

Just insanely busy. It's been an insane almost 2 weeks of my stupid day job, (we're trying to work to the release of our software), out of work busy-ness, having a cold for almost a week, and being away.

So to update, cliff notes style I've:

1) This has been so long ago, but our little concert evening went really well! I won't bore you with the details but yes, air bowing did take place. No, I didn't fuck up so badly I thought "I'm never doing this again". Anyway, no one was really watching me, what with the other 4 fabulous cellists playing with me. Plus at the end of the night we had a giant "jam" session where we tried to sight read things like The Can Can (and then play it over and over again, each time twice as fast as the previous, until my arms felt like they were going to drop off!). I have come to the conclusion having watched some of the acts that there are some wacky, wacky people out there though.

2) Been to Brighton for 2 weekends straight, both to see my friend Li. First weekend to go see the Brighton Open Artists Festival where, as it says on the tin, artists open their houses to the public so you can look at their art. Or, as we were there really to do, take a sticky beak around their abodes. In both cases, their art work and their houses made both my art work and my house feel inferior. That and Li's damned house is so bloody nice that even things like her walls make me think "god her house is lovely. She's even picked really nice paint in every room. And wow, look how well it's plastered. Damn I wish my house looked like this". Last weekend was her birthday party, where she had a live band come and play. A live band! In her backyard.

2) C, a friend Pop and I went to the Mind, Body & Spirit Festival. (Dr D and The Magic - shurrup). All in all it was interesting I suppose. About 1/3 of the vendors there did massage, 1/3 sold books, jewellery, and other paraphernalia. And 1/3 where there to tell you your fortune and perform exorcism. Surprisingly, very few had the hag like gypsy qualities I always used to associate fortune telling with, but heck this was my first foray into this domain. Yes, in case you're wondering I did go to a clairvoyant, who said she could see me working in the health industry (programming and nursing not the same thing really) and that she could see a little girl in my future. So to all my female friends out there, this is a shout out that I am expecting, no demanding, that one of you to have a little girl that I can babysit, perhaps being the cool, slightly wacky 'aunt' figure in her life, who she goes to for sneaky glasses of kahlua when she's underage cause her own mom isn't nearly as much fun, cause dammit, I am not sprouting kids anytime soon.

The one thing she clearly said was that I was going to Vegas. And packing lightly. Jeez, I hope she wasn't meaning feet first.....

Pre Concert Nerves

Yes, I am still hacking away at the cello. For the past 8 months now, C, The Magic and I have been going to ELLSO (East London Late Starters Orchestra) to learn our respective instruments (2 cellos and a violin. We could almost make a band with that!), and even though our very kind teacher says that we're coming along really well, I still can't help thinking I sound like I'm taking a cat, stretching it out, and making it screech. Though I guess with a cello, that's more of a cow like screeching noise.. either way, it's not the beautiful, deep, non-scratchy tones of a cello that I fell in love with. In fact, sometimes when I play I feel like I'm actually offending the very instrument I'm trying to learn.

ARGH.

I've been told continuously that whilst it's not best to blame your instrument, the one I've hired from Guiviers is in fact, how do you put it, shite. As a beginners cello from a place that holds such prestige, I definitely wasn't expecting it to be the best one in our class, but I certainly wasn't expecting to be told it's the worst one in the class either. My cello teacher has finally realised his pleas for me to spend around £1000 on an instrument was falling on very deaf (and very mortgage laden) ears, so a few weeks ago he brought in a very inexpensive cello for me to try, and see if I wanted to buy. It's weird, because there's something about it that has me intrigued, as I keep finding myself smelling it. In orchestra rehearsal I find my nose pressed against it, taking deep breaths. It's got this really strange, sweet smell to it. I tend to do this mostly whilst being bored listening to first violins being told again and again how to play (as an aside: why not just play the way the conductor tells you? I don't get it? Why do they constantly need to be told two, three, four THOUSAND times what to do? Just do it. Please. The rest of us are ageing here). The thing is whilst I will probably buy it, I'm a bit disappointed that I haven't fallen in love with this new cello like I was expecting to. I'm wondering if it's because my teacher borrowed it to use in orchestra to show us how to play this really strange piece where we have to hit our instruments, play past the bridge, use the back of the bows to make noises. He then kept saying things like "hmm, this really is a terrible cello! I'm sure all of yours sound better than this! Wow, this bow is rubbish as well! I'm glad I'm using my worst instrument to show you how to play this piece. Now if any of you have better instruments, do not, I repeat, do NOT do this" - then he'd go ahead and smashes the bow against the bridge. Yeah that feeling of deflation that kicks in after your teacher, who is selling you the instrument, tells 30 odd people that it's crap is something that people should not have to go through. Consumer confidence is not riding high with this girl.

Tomorrow night we're playing at a pub in Greenwich. Our entire orchestra have split up into little performance groups to basically show off to each other, since in an orchestra only the selected soloists really get to stand out from the rest of the punters. So 5 of us in stage 1 cello (that's like the toddler school of the orchestra) are playing 2 pieces (well, playing could be a bit of an exaggeration. Hacking is another synonym. Crimes against music could be another), tomorrow night. When I practice alone, I think it sounds terrible, but there must be something about constantly being hungover at orchestra on Saturday mornings that makes me think as a collective, we could actually sound ok. Am I kidding myself? I guess we'll see tomorrow, when at the end of our two pieces people either give us a standing ovation as cello prodigies, or clap quietly and politely in that very British manner... C & I are also playing 2 other pieces, both composed by people from ELLSO. I am secretly chuffed we're allowed to play, since some of the people who are with us have been playing for years and years, and we've only been at it for 8 months. Plus, no one in the audience will really know which notes we don't actually know how to play yet, and that all my back extensions are just completely made up. 2 words for tomorrow night: Air bowing. Much like air guitar, in that no noise is made, but with an actual instrument between your legs. Oooh sounds a bit rude eh?

So wish me luck. I'm sure it will be fine. Besides, everyone there will be performing, so there is no real audience as such, so no one is really going to care what a bunch of first year cello students sound like. I might be a bit jaded but I don't really think anyone is going to care what anyone else sounds like, as long as they themselves don't hideously fuck up. Here's hoping I don't either!

Your Friday Moment of Zen: Let them drive cake

I saw this ad last night on the tv and it is fantastic!! Not just because it's cake, but because I have always had a bit of thing for the "Sound of Music".. (I defy you to find anyone my age from Sydney who didn't love the Sound of Music.. or maybe that was just something wierd with the all girls school I went to. I think I could recite the entire movie, sing all the songs, and possibly do the dancing bits too. Captain Von Trappe. Grrr).

I can't find the youtube link so I'm afraid you'll have to actually go to here to watch it from the Skoda site. It's a brilliant ad, and since all I feel like I've done for ages now is eat cake, this is a perfect, Friday afternoon zen like piece. Feel like eating a bit of tyre now.

Ahh! I'm so excited! Designers! Designers! Designers!

C was looking for things to do in London tonight and she's found the Grand Designs Live Show on during the 8th-10th of June!! I'm so excited! I am definitely going to go, and I'm definitely going to try and book some time with the BIDA interior designers one-on-one appointments. I am SO excited!

Grand Designs is a show on Channel 4 and More 4 showcasing some amazing houses, and their owners, whose houses are from an architectual and design point of view, pretty amazing. One house, for example, was build one a corner, built with not a single window facing out the street,. However, on the inside, the house was designed around a giant chestnut tree, so one entire wall was a giant curve, using the tree as it's mid point. This section was made entirely of glass walls/doors that could be slid, so as to pretty much open the entire ground floor. And because the outside walls were completely secure, the house, despite being half built with glass, was completely private. My description does not do it justice, so here is the link. This has to have been one of my favorite houses from all of the series. Even if the owners were a bit mad...

I am constantly in awe of the people on these shows, and their guts and bollocks to be able to make such bold and beautiful statements with their houses. And since I've just moved into my first flat (which btw looks heaps nicer now than it did a few weeks ago when I posted my distress at living in a newly moved in tip), I now want to have the bollocks myself to be able to make bold design gestures, rather than just playing it safe.

Anyway, so I am uber excited about being able to go to this show. It also means another night of wanting to go to bed early has gone completely down the pan, as I have now spent the last hour looking up design blogs and websites. Some of note, that are either my favorites, that I visit daily, or ones that I am sure I will start going to are:

• http://www.designsponge.blogspot.com fantastic site! I find so many cool things I can not afford here, but annoyingly most of the things are from the US so are harder to get here in ol' blighty
  
• apartmenttherapy.com - I have loved their smallest, coolest apartement competition. Loved with a capital L. So many cool places, and I've discovered my secret superhero power: to be able to spot Ikea furniture from thousands of miles away! Not as useful as being able to fly but still, I'm proud.
  
• decor8.blogspot.com Just found this a few days ago. The stationary competition has definitely caught my eye, since I am a big fan of paper and all it's parephenalia... Once on a road trip through North France, my friends were less than impressed when I wanted to take a detour to go to the Paper Museum. Why anyone wouldn't want to go to a museum dedicated to the art of making paper I simply cannot understand, but in the end, we didn't go because shouting won the day. And I wasn't loud enough.
  
• livingetc.com YAY! Finally a house/design magazine based in the UK I can look at on the web! There are loads of really good american ones, but again, nice to look at, can't buy anything though...
  
• designersguild.com/ I love their wallpaper!! AND their from the UK! Hurrah!

So that's my list of design sites I'm currently obsessed with. If only I could get enough time during my working day to look at them more often, rather than having to wait until 1am to do so, that'd be perfect.

First post as a Brit

Yes, here it is. My first post as an Aussie-Brit (sorry, I just can't get myself to say my nationality without sticking "aussie" in there first).

I've been insanely busy for the last week, which is not much of an excuse for my slackness with my blogging, but it has meant that this is the first time in 7 days I've managed to get time to sit down and write. This mostly has to do with my ruddy job. Stupid salary paying job. Expecting me to actually work for a living. Bastards.

The Citizenship ceremony:According to the website, the British citizenship ceremony is supposed to be something to mark the occasion of becoming British with a memorable event. This meant that we all had to get dressed up, go to the local town hall, and stand in front of which ever mayor (past or present) turned up, who came into the main room, all dressed in her ceremonial robes. The ex-mayor who presided over us was this woman so short and small I actually thought she was a midget. Turns out, it was a bit deceiving because the man in front of her, holding her Mayrol stick (used for changing the TV channels or for poking the people pealing her grapes I'm guess) was such a massive circus freak of a giant, it made this petite woman look look like a 3 child. I almost burst out laughing when I saw her. Not very stoic and British of me. After some speeches, we all had to individually say our names, and swear the oath to "give my loyalty to the United Kingdom" and to Liz. Next came the "singing" of the national anthem (well, I say "singing" in the loosest possibly term. Almost everyone mumbled their way through it, except for the comedy duo act of Calv and Dr D, who were on the balcony yelping their guts out, albeit slightly off key. I've been told that singing God Save The Queen without having your arms raised in the arm, excepting to see football players (be it rugby or soccer) try to murder each other and screaming "COME ON EN-GER-LAND!" afterwards is very strange indeed).

The whole thing was actually really fun. Calv, Dr D and C came to watch me take the oath so I can now go and live in France if I want without need of any visas. It was very weird, but everyone who was there, all 40 or so of us, were all grinning from ear to ear. I guess we all must have been thinking about the hard slog we had to endure for 5 years to get to this point, and if you've been here so long, you must have embraced some of the country (heck, they make you pass a "Life in the UK" test before you can even apply to check you know something about Britain) so by standing in that room, you were saying you too wanted to be part of it .

During the ceremony, I am ashamed to admit, but at one point I almost cried. I found that my mind started to wander, and I started to think about how long it had been since I'd lived in Sydney, and about everyone I left behind, especially my mum and dad, and what sort of life I could have had back home. The two options I think would have been still living with my folks, without much having changed since I was 21, or married, squeezing out sprogs. Would I have been happier? Who knows. What I do know is that I'm glad I stuck it out, because this is what I'd wanted from the moment I realised that my sponshorship lead straight to that little maroon passport at the end of it all. So all the homesickness, and missing friends and family, and leaving everything familiar I guess has been worth it. Plus, I do have an amazing network of people around me, which has seriously kept me sane (though barely!) for the last almost 2190 days in England.

As for my gift: I've been asked about this already. No, to my great disappointment I did not get condoms or a AK-47, which I think really would have captured the spirit of South East London. No instead I got this delightful passport holder, emblazoned with the Southwark Councils crest, and a little "Southwark" on the bottom. Just in case immigration in some foreign country ever wanted to exactly where in London I'm from. I'm actually a bit disappointed. Not that at this point in time I'm ever going to need one, but you know, a pregnancy test with "Your Courtesy of Southwark Council" would have been more apt for the area...

And finally, after the ceremony the two most hilarious, classic, only in Britain, racist things happened, (which are actually quite funny):

1) The compair was congratulating us all, and asking how we all feel. Then he said "OK, so now
you're all British, you have to go home and start eating roast beef, and roast spuds, and Yorkshire puddings. Remember, that means no more peas and rice OK!"
2) When I went to hand in my form to the photographer so he could send my pics back of me shaking the ex-mayors hand, he asked me:

"ok, you're the girl from New Zealand right?"
"no, I'm Australian" (me thinking 'there weren't even any New Zealanders at the ceremony!')
"Oh, that's right. Ok, I'm just going to write something on your form down, you know, just to help me remember who you are, and make sure I send you the correct photo"
"Um ok"

He, with a perfectly straight face, writes down: Australian. Chinese Looking.

For some reason, that made me laugh my arse off. Not in the least because I don't even look Chinese... What a welcome to Britain eh.

Britishness. 11 hours and counting.

Tonight is my last night as a citizen of only 1 country. Tomorrow at 1pm, I will be finally swearing an oath to Queen and country (how very James Bond), and becoming British. Right after the ceremony, I intend to get my British passport and standard issue, possibly Nike, track suit, obviously in bright pink (ooh sexy). I then intened to quit my job and start collecting my benefit cheques which everyone's tax money is paying for, start wearing Burberry with some real conviction, talk about those f’in imigrants comin’ to ma country and takin’ our bleedin’ jobs, and spend my first giro cheque. Also, according to the press, as a British woman, I should be drinking 110 units of alcohol a week, get into fist fights with other women, try to smash someone's face with a bottle and get arrested for GBH.

Hurrah! What exciting things to look forward to eh!

Tomorrow, I have to stand infront of some official at the local town hall. I have to swear an oath to the Queen (which I've already done just by being born in Australia for fucks sake). I get a little certificate (I'm tempted to hang it in the toilet, because, heck, everyone will see it then won't they?), get my photo taken, and get a gift whose origin is "local to the region". Now since I'm swearing allegience to Liz in Peckham Town Hall, I've been trying to think what this gift could be. Not a bowler hat I'm thinking. Since Peckham is in South London (pronounced "sauff london"), and it's all a bit dodge here, I'm torn between expecting one of the following: velour track suit, contraceptives or a baby pram.

Christ, I can't believe tomorrow I will be British. I've only been waiting for this for the last 5 years now, and now that it's less than 12 hours away, I kindof feel a bit, well, aprehensive about it. It's not that I'm unhappy to have made my decision to stay here, but it's not without some guilt and pain at leaving my friends, family, but mostly my parents, thousands of miles away, for such a long time. It's especially wierd since percurment of British citizenship has been my main reason for staying. And now that I've got it, it's just so, well, wierd. Like wishing for Christmas as kid, only to find that it's infact just another day, but with more food and shouting.

I guess all in all I'm happy about this. It's what I've said I've wanted, and now I've got it. I guess I just don't know what I'm supposed to want next... I suppose there's nothing else for it really. I'll just have to now start wanting a manor in the country, long to wear flat caps, breed horses and start fox hunting with hounds. Tally-ho old chaps.

Typing on a waffle

Just a quick post because I love this, which I found on slashfood.com today. It's fantastic! Chris Domino has created a waffle iron in the shape of a keyboard. This must be a sure fire way to be able to lure your geek away from their pc, even for only a few moments over breakfast, without them getting teary.

Truly random.

Friday Moment of Zen: A shout out to the big fella's boat

Last night we finally got broadband!!! It's taken over a month for BT to fuck about with out phone line, and then another 10 days for the broadband company to set it up. (BTW, I absolutely detest BT now. They fucked me around for 2 weeks straight, trying to get my old number connected to my new house. Everyday they would promise me that the phone would be connected by that evening, and every day I would have to call up and say "well you know what? Still no dial tone". I hope I never have to speak to someone there again, because frankly, they are truly rubbish).

Anyway, I digress. Now having gotten broadband connected to my house I tried to set it up last night, obviously to no avail because I didn't have any of the settings for the router or modem and also because, lets face it, I'm really not that much of a techinally minded geek who can set up home networks or fix media pc's. So The Ex-Flatmate had to get waken up at 7am Sydney time to help me through it, and give me all the old settings. In order to pay him back, in non monetary terms, for the hour international call last night, I'm going to post this link of where the boat with all his gaff (his bike, guitar, nerd books, porn) currently is in the world. At this precise moment, the CMA GCM Verlaine, call sign DASO, is just south of Sri Lanka. Seeing as he packed everything off about 7 weeks ago, at this rate, he should get his stuff, I dunno, sometime in the next year?

There you go, kindof zen like. Whilst none of us are on holiday, at least The Ex-Flatmates porn is taking a nice lesiurely cruise around the Maldives.

The name's Girl. SuperNerd Girl

Look at my cape! Watch me soar through Nerdville!

I am a nerd today because in order to do some testing for a client, for code which we'd written about a year ago, I needed to have access to a private method. Which I didn't have. In order to do this, I was shown the hacker ways of reflection today, to make my test class get around Java's security. Hell yeah, for that brief 10 minutes of coding, I was just like Angelina Jolie in that flick Hackers.

Well, just like except, obviously I actually eat food, so I have more body flab than Ms Jolie. I also don't have really cool clothes, don't have collagen enhanced lips, and my handle isn't anything nearly dangerous sounding as "Acid Burn". Oh, and I haven't adopted any kids from random Asian countries, I'm not going out with Brad Pitt. And yes, yes, I know I wasn't trying to foil an evil computer genius, or hide from the Secret service, but I was trying to work out why there is a really random bug in my code, using a hacky technique.

Other than all those things, honestly, you couldn't tell her and me apart. We could have been the same person.

Plus, I was more hard core because we didn't have any crap graphics to get through the security settings in my code. All java baby. Mostly run through Linux. Oh yeah. Nerd me up.

Your Friday Moment of Zen: Watching Time Go By - Literally

I've not done one of these in ages, but these really are zen like, and it kindof fits with a current feeling I have that time is slowly slipping by my fingers, PLUS today I found the bizarest site every, called cheddarvision.tv, where you can watch a block of cheddar ripen. In real time. Seriously.

So I started searching for some timelapse videos and these are some very, very cool ones:

This one, a whole year in time lapse, was taken by positioning a camera on a balcony, and taking a picture every five minutes for over a year. Then, selecting the bset 20 per day, the timelapse movie was made. It's really well done:



This one, taken during a thunderstorm, is also very cool. I love the way the clouds roll over the sky.



But this one is my favorite: a time lapse movie of a moon rise, which is just amazing.




Insanely zen like. Enjoy!

Travels in China: The Great Wall

I am still in awe of the Great Wall of China. To be honest, everyday so far I keep thinking I am in awe of something here.

The Great Wall of China, started by the Qin Dynasty, and continued on until the Ming, was one of the largest man made constructions in the world, and frankly, is worth the 9 hour flight from London to see.

What struck me as amazing was just the sheer size of it. As you get up on the wall, you can see it stretching out to the horizon, unfaltering, and amazing. Myself and another guy, Sonny, were the only 2 people to climb the highest point of the wall (admittedly, my competitive streak meant that I practically ran up the wall to get there before anyone else in my tour, because, well, that's the girl that I am). Once up there, I was kindof shocked to see that there was a gift stand, and a monument stating this is the highest point of the wall, and a dude ready to take your picture next to it, obviously for a price. I don't know why I was surprised, since I'd an hour earlier gotten myself a skimmed milk cappuccino from the freakin Starbucks opposite the Great Wall's tourist entry spot.... hmmmm... when the very essence of all things capitalist, like Starbucks, makes it into heartland communist China, I think they might as well sell of all their governmental assets and just proclaim themselves as a capitalist state.

Others might disagree I suppose.

Travels in China: Beijing Day 2: My Idea of Heaven

My second day in Beijing - from the endless posts that I write, but forget to actually, you know, post!


Today we visited Tianamen Square - and in case you're wondering, yes someone in the group (no that wasn't me) asked where precisely the tanks tried to kill the university protester. Our tour guide told us in China they've never seen that footage (not surprisingly) and so she didn't know too much about it.

Visiting the Emporers Forbidden City was pretty amazing. Looking at the private rooms, squares and gardens, it's amazing to imagine that I'm standing in the very same spots as so many emperors who would never have imagined that the China of today would be the China of their future.

My idea of heaven: well that was 3 things:

1) The Summer Palace, where the last Dowager Empress of China spent 10 months of the year. It was so beautiful, that I was completely blown away. I could have spent hours there.

2) We went to dinner at a famous Peking Duck restaurant (we are in Peking after all), and there seemed to be an endless supply of beer, duck, pancakes, and my table was full of middle aged men and women, watching their cholesterol. Hurrah! I'm fully embracing "holiday mode" and normal food intake has been completely suspended until I get back. The fact that I can actually feel the fat starting to join up different parts of my body so that I resemble more of a ball like shape hasn't quite stopped me yet... not quite...

3) The company that my mum has been working with to help organise this tour sent us two ladies to come and give me and my mum massages in our rooms. And no, these were not "ladies" of that sort, just two, very friendly, middle aged women, whose hands were able to relieve tension in my poor old body. I've had loads of massages before, but I've never communicated with any of my masseuses as much as I did with these two women. Neither one spoke much English, so it was all through body language and pigeon English/Mandarin. I had bought a little Mandarin-English phrase book, and the fact that I could work out they were saying "fangsong" (relax), and how to say "we're walking the Great Wall of China tomorrow" more than made up for the 12 Euros I spent on it.

Another fabulous day in China all in all.

Most embarrassing moments: None yet - looking exceedingly chubby in my photos isn't pleasing me.

Best Moment: It's a toss up between standing on the edge of the man made lake, that's shaped like a peach, looking out on to the temples on the other side at the Summer Palace, and at dinner realising with increasing joy that no one else wanted any more duck and it could be mine! All mine!! Tricky.. I'll post some pictures very soon.

They should hang their heads in shame

There are many things I'm proud of in Australia. Lamingtons. Anzacs. Winning The Ashes. Stuff.

This however, is not one of them.

A show in Oz, called The Chaser, did an experiment to see what happens if you try to video the Sydney Harbour Bridge and a nuclear reactor that produces medical isotopes. If you're dressed like a clichéd Arab, you get the federal cops on you. If you're dressed like an American tourist, they give you instructions on how to get in the nuclear facility.

This is definitely not something I'm proud of. Racial profiling really does suck.



Sorry, I'm in a filthy mood today. All day I've been picked on, and listening to Amelie doesn't help. Hmmm.

China - First days in Beijing

From the backlog of posts that I write up, but forget to post: My first few days in Beijing

Yesterday, I arrived for the first time to the People's Republic of China. My folks are travel agents, so my mum, all on her own, organised an 11 day tour of China, taking in Beijing, Xian and Shanghai. I'm so amazingly proud of her, because she's at an age where she should seriously be retiring, and spending her time growing orchids, travelling, flitting away all of my inheritance and basically enjoying herself. Instead, she's still finding time to organise whole new ventures, like tours in China - working out where to go, deciding on the hotels, and doing everything you need to do to make sure people enjoy themselves on tour. I dunno, I guess I was just really proud of her.

We arrived yesterday, a day ahead of everyone else in the tour, and were taken around by the travel agency that working with my mum. Our first meal was hosted by the head of the company, and we had possibly one of the best chinese meals I've had in my life. It was what amazing - like nothing I've had before... One of the travel agents who joined us was this stick thin girl who barely ate anything. She'd just watch everyone eat, pick a tiny piece of vegetable or fish, leave it on her bowl, move it around a bit, and finally, after she'd was absolutely sure she'd used up the same amount of calories that tiny piece of lettuce would be poisoning her body with, she'd eat it. GRRR! This annoyed me no end, because here she sat infront me me - she was a living, breating reminder that just because I was on holiday, it did not mean that normal service should be suspended, and it did not entitle me to put whatever food or drink that passed in front of me straight into in my gob. Thankfully, my better senses took note of that reminder, and promptly chucked it out the window, and I happily and greedily pigged out. Something that would pretty much happen at every meal for the next 11 days!

Things that have surpised me so far:

1. Capitalism & Modernity: What has really surprised me about Beijing is how modern it is. Literally 5 mins walk from our hotel are loads of shopping malls, selling loads of western brands like Gucci, Prada, Esprit... I'm not sure what I was expecting, but huge shrines to capatalism in a communist country wasn't really it...
2. Lack of pollution: From what I've been told, I was expecting to be walking around in a constant pea soup thick fog of pollution from the chemical and metal work factories. Surprisingly though, it's been amazingly clear, with some of the blueset skies I've seen. Our tour guide says that the government has been trying to change because of the Olympics, and now soon some unlucky citizens in towns outside of Beijing will be looking after those factories, as well as their pollution..
   
3. Cold: Because I was moving house up until the day of my trip to China, I packed in a real half arsed way - just throwing in any old crap, being told that China was ahot and muggy. Hot my arse. I've arrived here to 6 degree weather, and have spent all day freezing my preverbial off. I'm hoping it gets warmer cuase I don't want to be wearing the same black jumper every day of my holiday... and I don't think that the 4 light summer skirts will do me much good...
   

Our first day in Communist China
Our first full day has been spent looking around the Hu Tong area, which is one of the last old areas of Beijing. Driving around on rickshaws, looking at the buildings which used to belong to Emporers officials, was really cool. Strangely, we ended up going into someone's actual house, so we can see that these buildings, some of which are over 200 hundred years on, passed from generation to generation (well, until the reforms in 1948) are still used today. What really made me smile was the fact that in 180 year old house we went to visit, the son had loads of football posters on the walls - one of which had the beautiful Thierry Henry on it. Again, this is not what I was expecting at all. It was a definite kick to the nuts of my preconception of what modern communist China is. No-one is wearing blue boiler suits. No one was demonstrating, with tanks rolling them over. Very few bicycles. To be honest, it looks just like any other modern capital. Am I disapointed? Well, possibly. But not enough to wish it was anything else but what it is..

Most Uncomfortable Moments:
This was going to be a dead cert this afternoon, but now... it's a possible toss up between these two:

1. My mid 60 year old mum saying to me "gee, there are lots of quite good looking guys around in Beijing aren't there?"
2. Me turning on the tv this evening, with my mum sitting in the room. In the day time, when the tv gets turned on, it displays a picture of the hotel. In the evening though, that little picture turns into a preview of the hard core porn that you can pay for. And embarrasingly, I couldn't get the remote control to change the channgel, no matter how hard I mashed every button on it. And if you think I'm joking, and was actually wanting to watch the porn, then no - hard core porn + your mum in the room does NOT enduce any good time feelings. Eeek

Mum asking me about hot guys. Mum watching me trying to turn off the porn... hmmm tricky.

Humph

People constantly bring goodies from their holidays into our kitchen at work, for everyone to enjoy, and to show off the fact they've been on holiday, and not in our damned office. Today, someone brought in nougat and biscuits.

When I went this afternoon to try my first bit of nougat, someone walked into the kitchen just as I was about to put a piece in my mouth, and said "You know the first place that's going to don't you? Straight to your hips".

Humph... I know I'm carrying a little bit of holiday weight, but honestly...

I've got curtains!

On the running theme of my house, I've finally got curtains in my living room! (Naturally from ikea) I forgot to bring my camera in today, so I can't post the pictures of my long, flowing, white cotton curtains that are proudly hanging up in my lounge room. I desperatley wanted white indian silk curtains, that will catch the light in a lovely way, but for neither love nor money can I find them. Anywhere. Every other colour or type of silk. Just not the exact one I want. I know, I know - I should only buy something if it's exactly what I want, but I don't want to have an airline blanket hanging from my window in my front room 1000 billion times more than I want my perfect silk curtains, so I've decided to compromise for now. Compromise. That's a concept that's very much against my normal princess nature.

In the last 3 days we've also got all the shelves on my cabinet up, sporting some lovely books and an electric drill, plus a working phone line (yay! I can now get broadband installed. Life without the internet in your own home is a life I don't want to live every again).

3 jobs done, 20,574 more to do.

I'm currently obssessed with the apartment therapy's smallest coolest apartment competition. I love looking at other people's houses and seeing what they've done, especially when those people don't furnish their entire houses with that faux country farm style, so popular in magazines and diy shows. I have so many big ideas for my house, yet when I get home the only energy that I can muster seems to come to me in that perfect 2 hour slot between 10pm and midnight.

Annoyingly, since moving into my new flat, I've found myself obssessed with checking to see if the doors are locked. Usually, just as I'm about to fall asleep, I start to worry that the doors are in fact unlocked, allowing some chav to just walk into my flat, and brain us all with a shovel. Then of course that plays on my mind in my half asleep and dopey state, until I have to get up and check all the doors. And if I've only checked one door, and go back to bed, chances are I will start wondering about the other door has been locked, even though I know I locked it when I came home and no one else has gone through the door. Then up I get again, rapidly becoming more awake, go and check the second door, and trundle back to bed. Every single night I go through this moronic ritual. Every night. I'm hoping that this phase of paranoia is in fact a passing one, and that I won't end up, as I've always worried about, a paralysed-with-fear recluse, who pushes all the heavy furniture up against the doors to feel slightly safe in her own "castle".

Damned House

So, we've moved in. In fact, we've now been living here in my new flat for almost a month now..

So far, it's been going pretty well, except for the fact that we seem to be living in a constant state of "we've just been hit by a junk exploding bomb". I seem to be in a constant state of either: moving stuff, cleaning stuff, buying flat packed furniture to put stuff in, putting together said pieces of furniture, or standing back and watching the never ending circus of people try to fix my washing machine.

Below is the before and after shots of my house: The "before" shots are from the estate agent's brochure. The "after" shots are from last night:

Dining Area Before:



Dining Area After:



Kitchen Before:



Kitchen After:




Desk Area Before:



Desk Area After:

Living Area Before:


Living Area After:

I believe the technical term is "lived in".

I feel so embarrased having people round. On Sunday, Dr D and Calv brought our friend D around. I kept seeing their eyes look at all the piles of books, and crap, and clothes (all for good will, not just in a pile cause I feel like it), and I just felt, well, ashamed. At the time, pieces of an ikea cabinet where on the floor, which was taking C and I about 2 hours to assemble (when did Ikea furniture turn from flat packed easiness to requiring Jesus like carpentry skills?).

Brochure Version:
Our Version:
Speaking of Ikea, I also feel kindof ashamed that so much of my furniture seems to have come from there... I mean, it's not a like page 7 of the Ikea magazine or anything. For example, there aren't any fresh faced young couples, looking lovingly at their well behaved toddlers, playing on the floor, with their billy cabinets, in beech of course, proudly displaying pictures of them fishing, and 18 volumes of Tolstoy on the shelves. But I do seem to have aquired, over the years, and awful lot of Swedish furniture. Which is another cause of shame in my eyes... A friend of mine will wait until he's got exactly what he wants, spending weeks going from designer boutique to designer boutique, looking for one offs, like proper grown ups wanting to make their house look stylish and beautiful. I want my house to be beautiful too, but I don't fancy waiting for years to get there. Clearly I've been fully indoctrinated in the "instant satisfaction" society we live in. But still... I'd love to spend years scouring flee markets and tiny shops for the exact right one off pieces of furniture. Or at the very least, I'd like to buy stuff from Habitat. If only I could afford it.

So that's where my house is at the moment. My bedroom is sporting a very minimal, almost, japanese in nature look, with very little furniture in it. Well, what it lacks in furniture, it more than makes up for in big black garbage bags full of linen and clothes, piled on top of each other on the floor because I have no where to put them yet... The living room has a half built cabinet, and books, dvds, cds, and general junk, all around the floor in piles (organised piles darling, we aren't complete animals yet). The bathroom doesn't as of yet have a toilet roll holder, and the little nook where a desk will one day reside, is currently diplaying a lovely post modern installation, which I like to call "crap load of boxes, waiting to be recyled".

Home owner bliss/Home owner hell. Not sure which yet.

Egg-tastic

Li, from veganstore.co.uk fame (ethical food at very reasonable prices, shipped all over the world, for your guilt free pleasure), very kindly donated to our poor IT firm 13 delicious organic Green & Blacks easter eggs today! The squeel of delight that came out of us when we opened the box was deafening, and as you can see from these pics, that's alot of chocolate to get through.

Funnily though, of the 13 boxes that arrived 4 hours ago, only 5 seem to be left, meaning that there are going to be many people in our office who are about to contract type 2 diabetes.

Despite the amount of chub I've put on in China, that hasn't seemed to deter me from stuffing my face with chocolate today (not 8 boxes worth of chocolate mind you, I'm not an animal).

Obviously the empty boxes will soon join the "wall" between Dr D's desk and myself, to help keep the peace in the office...

Thanks Li! You truly are a superstar.

Back from everywhere

Holy crap. It's been ages since I've updated this blog.

In the last month the following has happened:

• FOP week came
• FOP week went - some brilliant meals, and more booze than I like to care to remember.... including 1/2 a bottle of some random italian liquer that Li and I polished off, after a night of wine, cocktails and dancing....
  
• I completed on my flat
• I moved into my flat, a week earlier than anticipated because I was too hungover from the Italian liquer FOP night to argue with everyone. To be fair, it was the best thing I could have done because the brilliant friends all pitched in and helped, like the fabulous people they are.
• The Flatmate fucked off back to oz.
• Any sadness I might have felt for his leaving, quickly disappeared when I realise how much crap he left in the flat for me to sort out!
• I went on an 11 day holiday in China. I would have blogged whilst away but had no internet access. I ate myself stupid, which has led to comments when I got back like "Well, there's something on the back of your coat, but you won't be able to see it because you're arse is so big now" - quote Dr D, 2007.
• C moved into my flat, and now we are living in domestic harmony. We've had our first, very domestic phone call where I asked her what time she was home, and what she wanted for dinner.

I've got entries for all these random events, which I will sort out over the weekend, and post next week. Watch this space.