Possibly Unacceptable Documentation

I am so sick of writing documentation specs at work that no one ever reads that I am seriously contemplating leaving this sentence in, and seeing if anyone even notices:

“Essentially, the desired functionality would be to allow the user to copy, rename and move cf files without T fuking it up.”

Tempting… very tempting…

My First Centrury

So how did I do? My first century cycle ride? My first 160 kilometres? The same distance from London to Bournemouth, or Sydney to Newcastle?

Well the good news is that I did it, and I didn't die in the process! The bad(ish) news is that it took me 11 hours (including lunch and stops) to finish it...

I have to be honest and say I didn't actually cycle the whole thing, because there were some really large hills in there (one of which went on for a mile at about a 14 degree incline) and the first 40 miles were absolute killers. What seriously didn't help though was when I started the ride, I got a guy from Halfords to check my breaks. 6 miles into the race, and I'm struggling - really struggling, and I'm slightly panicking that I can't get past 9 miles an hour. I started to almost cry thinking "I can't do this, why can't I do this?" and then wondering how I was going to get out of the London to Paris cycle - what would I tell everyone? How would I get their sponsorship money back. It's about this point my mind wonders back to the Halfords guy and I remember that there was something funny about my back tire when he was fixing it. I get off, pick up the bike, spin the back wheel and stop, the guy from Halfords tightened up the break too much, and the wheel was rubbing the whole way, so I was practically cycling with my brake one the whole way.

I met some really nice people along the way (once all the hard core serious cyclists got out of the way) some of which are also going to be doing the London to Paris cycle in July. One group of guys I met were a guy, his father in law and a friend. His father in law was definitely a fan of tough love. During the day I met them on and off, and the father in law told me the following: I wouldn't be allowed to complete it since I had walked a part of it, at the top of the killer hill (with the "sting in it's tail") he was at the top and said "there's an ambulance here for you", and he also told me "You have to catch up with my son in law, you're way fitter than he is!". Tough love.

Some of the more bizare comments I came out with include "Only 46 more miles to go!" "Only 35 more miles!" "Yay! Last 20" "Oh God, why are there still 12 more miles to go??".

A busy 48 hours

This is possibly one of the most busy weekends I've had in years. Not because the FA cup final was on, but because today I learned to drift drive on a Caterham 7 in Silverstone. And it was excellent. But more on that later (though just one thing: At the end of the day we had a drift assesment around the track. And not only did I get the title of "most improved" but I also kicked Calv and Magic ARSES!! Oh yeah baby.)

Tonight though I am absolutely shitting myself. Tomorrow I have to get up at 5.30 am to get to Tonbridge Castle in Kent because I stupidly signed up to cycle the Castle Bike Ride - 100 miles around Kent. 100 miles. 160 kms. 100 fucking miles.

The reason for this stupidity (see the topographical map, which basically shows the first 30 miles as being the ultimate killer of all killers) is that I am using this as a practice run for my London to Paris cycle, which incidentaly is the only thing I think about these days. I keep reading online training guides and cycling fantatic forums which usually have such helpful hints as "to be a true cyclist make sure you're cycling 70 miles a day"

I feel like I'm going to be sick because I'm tying myself into so many knots... I am absolutely shit scared right now. This is the most physically exhausting thing I've ever signed up to do. Thankfully a friend of mine who has done the John O'Groats to Lands End cycle (basically the very north of Britain to the very south of Britain) told me that cycling is a mental thing: so as longs as I keep myself fed and watered and keep a positive attitude, then I should make it... And he told me to ignore all other "purist" cyclists and just remember, I can do this, even if it takes me the 7-10 hours...

Oh god.... I feel scared.

What the fuck did you do London

I go away for 9 days and London FUCKS up the political landscape??  BORIS FUCKING JOHNSON? what the fuck happened? 

I swear it's not another holiday

I know, I know, it sounds like a holiday, but it isn't.

Today, in about 11 hours time, I am off to Phoenix Arizona for 10 days. But it's not for a holiday. I am going to Phoenix, as is my mum, so we can visit my aunt, who is very sick. I don't really fancy going into the details (which is I suppose a violation of a theory that Freud had- if you mention something then it means you want to talk about it, or else you won't have mentioned it in the first place. Dr D and I used to scream whenever someone did that "ah-ha-HAAA! You're breaking the T&D law!! SAY IT! SAY IT YOU BASTARDS!" but unfortunately I found out that we didn't invent that theory. Freud did. Or he'd pinched it from someone else).

Anyway, I'm off to Phoenix, which I believe I have already been to. Well, I say "been to" but that's only if you count stopping between El Paso and the Grand Canyon on our US road trip a few years ago to have a lovely dinner of greasy pizza in Phoenix. If this counts, then yes I've been to Phoenix.. Personally I don't think this counts as having "been to Phoenix" somehow.. surely there is more to this city than a strip of fast food joints in car park... Though I am tempted to see if I can find the place again, just for old time sake - you know, check out the old haunts, the places we knew and loved so well, all that pizza, all that coke, all that... car park space.

So what am I doing up still at 1.45am? Trying to encode my sodding dvds into a format that my sodding ipod (not encased in beef) can play. I've had no end of annoyance with this stupid procedure. Every single thing that could go wrong with this has gone wrong, and I am about to give up and go to bed. All I want is to be able to watch a couple of Studio 60s and maybe some Battlestar Galactica (or as Calv fondly calls it "Battlestar Gay-Lactica") whilst I'm away.. is that too much to sodding ask for? Apparently YES.

I'll try to post whilst I am away, but if I don't then you know why... it's because after years of becoming acclimatised to the crap English weather, I've disintegrated in 35 degree Arizonian heat... I just pray to god that my suitcase turns up....


*** UPDATE *** 2:19AM
Yes, yes YESSSSS!!! I knew my honours degree in Computing Science wasn't for nothing!! Am not hopeless sado still up at 2.20 AM swearing at her sodding pc!! Finally I have managed to get disk 3 of Studio 60 all encoded/decoded/whatever and on iTunes ready to go, but I have also decoded disk 4 and am converting it as we speak. YES!!! Am slowly joining the ranks of nerds who actually know how to use their computers for things other than blogging, web surfing, and java development. Get in!!!

WTF Wednesday? Rollin' with my Kobe

This is so weird and definitely counts as a "what the fuck???"

Japan's Solid Alliance is selling Ipod Nano cases that are designed to look like raw meat! At the very least they've had the good taste to make it look like expensive bit of raw Kobe beef. And to add to the realism, it even comes in a cellophane-and-Styrofoam pack.

Now don't get me wrong. Despite the fact that I am definitely a "please kindly just wave my steak at the open grill and bring it to me bloody as hell" girl, even I can not see any reason why I would want my mp3 player to look like a piece of dead animal.. I really don't think I am their target audience somehow.... Would it sell well with vegetarians you think?

As a very, very, very short aside, for an amusing example of flame wars gone bad, check out the comments on the Raw Feed page where I found this weird piece of gadget paraphernalia... This is a perfect example of what happens when people on the Internet, drunk on their own sense of anonymity, get too stuck up their own arses... very funny..

"Get off my god damned land"

Me, standing in my yard, gun in hand, pointing at the offender. I stare, eyes squinted, and say in a low voice "get off of my god damn land" and bam! Pull the trigger. SQUIRT. Warm, soapy water goes all over the branches hanging over into my yard from my neighbours massive rose bush, which is covered in black aphids. And when I say covered, I mean, the branches, the leaves, the shoots, everything is covered in little black crawling insects. And NOW they are migrating into my yard. They've gone over my walls, onto my balcony, on to my door frame, all over the pots, everywhere. And since I watched a movie about killer ants that, well, kill everything and everyone they come in contact with, as a child, I have a horrid distates for little insects. They make my skin crawl. EEK.

I've read that squirting soapy water is a pretty good way of killing aphids.. apparently it clogs up their breathing apartus and they suffocate. I've also read that ladybirds are a good way to get rid of them, but they are £25 for 25, and there is no guarantee that they'll stay on the plants... And I don't much fancy having to make 25 little leashes to chain up my ladybird slaves...

I hate gardening. I kill every plant I touch, and even when you think it'll all be ok, you get an invading army of aphids running amock in your garden. Will it never, ever end???

Cycling to dumpsville

No, not that dumpsville. The Dumpsville that is the London Olympic Site.

Now that I am going to Paris on my little bike, the only thing I can pretty much think about now is how painful this 300 miles over 4 days is going to be..

Sunday two weeks ago, I officially started training for my London to Paris cycle ride by joining the London Cycling Touring Club on a Sunday 2 star ride from London Victoria to the Olympic site, via the east end, and then back through Greenwich. A 7 hour bike ride, which should have taken about 40km.. Whilst it was good to get some experience of what 7 hours on a bike would be like, unfortunately it was just a bit, well, slow. 8 miles and hour is not fast, especially when the ride was supposed to be the second hardest they do (the hardest being training for segments of the Tour de France). Whilst the leader was really very nice, he did turn it into a bit of a tour guide operation. It started with describing different interesting buildings in London (where the first cycle shop in London was, stories about St Pauls) but as the day progressed the stories became more and more random and, well, less interesting. We cycled deliberately on a detour soley to go past a gastro pub near the Magics house (personal note: The Magic - we have to go to The Gun. It looks amazing!) so he could show his wife where he met a friend once, he then showed us his old school, 3 of the houses he used to live in, the very spot where he watched Prince Phillip open the Cutty Sark to the public, and finally to the place where he got chucked into the mud by some school friends in the 50s.

On the plus side, I got to meet some nice people, and I now know to expect from a 7-8 hour cycle. A very sore arse.

Last Sunday C and I went on another cycle ride with the London CTC. Half an hour out of London, and despite it being pretty much Tory voting countryside, it was lovely out there. And today, for the first time (I'm ashamed to say) I went to the gym to start training on a bike (point - by first time, I don't mean first time ever just the first time for training for this insane ride).. Apparently, according to the literature that I got from my charity, one hour in the gym is equivalent to 2 hours in the saddle. Unfortunately, I really hate gyms. And when I say hate, I really do mean hate. There is no roads, no wind in my hair, no sun, no rain. Nada. Just oonce-oonce-oonce music blaring, and ultra fit people being uber aggressive with dumbells and what-not. Yeesh.


And finally, I've also started my fund raising, which entails me making cakes, bringing them into work and shamlessly asking for donations in return. I've so far made a Victoria Sponge, dark chocolate florentins (whose recipe I've nicked from Clotilde at chocolate and zucchini), apple tartes, and today, a coffee and walnut layered cake. All have been pretty lovely (buttercream icing is very popular), so I now have to get my still-sore-from-Sundays-cycle arse into gear and make more food.

Speaking of sponsorship (hint hint) if you would like to sponsor me, drop me a line at tryingtopanda at yahoo dot co dot uk and I'll send you my sponsorship page... Nudge nudge, wink wink, know wha' I mean, say no more.

Worst Feeling In The World

After a night out in a pub, drinking 3 too many pints, and then going to a restaurant and drinking awful house red wine, getting into a cab and saying "Where's my laptop?"

Driving to said pub. No laptop. Crying eyes out all the way home. No laptop. Horrid realisation that all my photos from China and past holidays are all gone now because I have, yup you guessed it - no laptop.

Best Feeling In The World: Calling up restaurant with awful house red and hearing the words "Silver Dell? Yes, we have it".

I love my laptop. I am giving it the biggest kiss ever. Geek girl, reunited with her most loved geek toy = joy.

You're Friday Moment of Zen: Kebab-y!

Damn you cruel fate!

The Red Polar Bear, owned by Kazem Ariaiwand is officially the worlds most northern kebab van! Mr Ariaiwand moved to Spitsbergen after a failed asylum attempt in Norway, and set up his business in an old military van last year in Longyearbyen. Having already been to Svalbard once, it seems we have to go again! Kebabs!! The most northern kebabs in the world!! We've already been to the worlds most northern McDonalds in Rovaniemi, it seems only fair to have a chicken kebab with extra hot sauce back in Longyearbyen.

As a small aside, having checked out "The Worlds Most Northern" and I find I can cross the following of as places I've been to:

Town > 1000 people	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway DONE	78°13′N 15°33′E
City > 50,000 people	Tromsø, Norway DONE!	69°40′N
Metropolitan area > 1 million	Greater Helsinki (Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen), Finland DONE	60°10′N 24°56′E
City (proper) > 1 million people	St Petersburg, Russia DONE!	59°56′N 30°20′E

Shops and service facilities

Item	Place	Latitude/Longitude
Bank	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway DONE!	78°13′N 15°33′E
Automatic Teller Machine	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, NorwayDONE!	78°13′N 15°33′E
Night club	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway?? Where was this?	78°13'N 15°33'E
Pub	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, NorwayDONE!	78°13'N 15°33'E
Supermarket	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, NorwayDONE!	78°13′N 15°33′E
Tourist office	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, NorwayDONE!	78°13′N 15°33′E
University	University of Tromsø (ext link), Tromsø, NorwayDONE!	69°40′N 18°56′E
University campus	University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), Longyearbyen, Svalbard, NorwayDONE!	78°13′N 15°33′E

Anyhoo, just a small aside.

Ahh most northerly Kebab Van.. if only you'd been there when WE were there... I would have enjoyed you infinitely more than the cured seal meat I had, which was awful.

Why Wednesdays? Would you put a bunch of carnations in there?

Ok, ok, ok, I know technically it's Thursday but when I turned on my laptop it was still Wednesday so I don't care.

Why Wednesdays: note this is not a "Why is it Wednesdays?" but more "What the fuck is this? - on a Wednesday".

To kick it off, I offer up this as exhibit A: Uterus Vase by The Plug & Stéphanie Rollin

The Uterus Vase (or as I'm going to call it the WooWoo vase) is a limited edition of twenty pieces, all lacquer and varnish upon a resin core. The idea behind this vase is to "restore dignity to an over-utilized image". To me though it just looks like a big monster holding it's arms out... And honestly, I'm not sure how a bunch of gerberas would look in resin core white WooWoo.

Proud day as a cyclist

I hit my first pedestrian today! Oh yes, after many almost run ins with incredibly stupid lemings who just blindly walk out onto the street without looking if, say a bus, a truck, a car or a cyclist is hurtling towards them, I finally collided with a pedestrian. This morning a middle aged woman came running out infront of a bus, and into the cycle lane just as I was traversing that exact same piece of space. Bash! Right into her - breaks screeching in the rain, me bending the handle bars in an attempt to not go over the top, as I slamed to a stop, front wheel right between her legs. I screamed out, in possibly the most East end accent since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins "FAAH-KING HELL WOMAN!!". Unfortunatetly (or fortunately, I'm not sure yet) she wasn't hurt, and was still smiling despite my obsence Van Dyke impression, was very appologetic and asked if I was ok. This of course made it impossible for me to yell "why weren't you bloody well looking where you were bloody well goinig?" and I could only grumble "yes, I'm fine. Are you ok?". Grrr. I hate it when I want to be angry and yell at someone and they are nice to me. Inconsiderate feckless bastards.

Speaking of cycling, it's only 3 months 20 odd days (but whose counting?) until my London to Paris cycle. I've taken a more pro active approach to fund raising by deciding to start making cakes, bringing them into work, and hoping people will chuck some pennies in a donation tin in exchange for buttery goodness. I write up a little blurb about what it is that I'm doing, what I'm offering in return for their hard earned cash, and if possible a little bit of history about the cake (no not like "I've had these eggs in my fridge for the last month" but more "A Victoria Sponge is named after Queen Victoria because she liked them so much". I've also got my first corporate sponsor! Li kindly donated a bunch of Green and Blacks eggs which went down quite well! Unforunately they went down even quicker with people when I took the tin away and they didn't feel the need to donate any money.. Yesterday I brought in my first Victoria Sponge, and I have big probably drink induced plans of making custard tarts, bakewell tarts, coffee and walnut cakes... I figure this tactic will work 2 fold - 1 I get money for cakes, 2 I get to actually practice making cakes and sweets - something I'm not massively confident about because I get really bored eating cakes, so I never make them for myself.

As far as training is concerned - well.... that's another story. The charity I'm raising money for had an information day a few weeks back that I went to. And whilst everyone seemed nice, I met some pretty hard core cycling snobs - the kind that usually work at places like Evans where they don't talk to you unless you're covered head to toe in skin tight lycra (actually is there any other kind but skin tight?), are wearing cleats, and have the body of an adonis. If you're like me - sneakers, cycling shorts, t-shirt, and not adonis like in anyway, they have a remarkable less likely to help you and remarkably more likely to believe you're made out of thin air and thus ignore your existence completely. Much in the same way that sales assistants to do women in electrical or computing shops. Bunch of ****s.

Anyway, at the information day, I met people who are seriously hard core - one guy had already raised way in excess of the money needed for the event, was doing London to Southend cycle rides, going on rides with a cycle group every Sunday ("where we ride at about 26 miles an hour constantly"), and generally looked at me like I was never going to finish. When I'd mentioned I was learning how to ride in cleats but I had fallen over and hurt my hand, he sniffed "oh I did a similar thing a few weeks ago! Though I think I broke my rib. Did I go to hospital? Of course not, I'm seriously hard core and needed to be back on my bike the very next day or I will die. Besides, I don't need a doctor. I can push the rib back in and live through the pain cause I'm a cyclist".

Christ what in god's name have I got myself into?

Your Friday Moment of Zen: Being patronised the 1940's way

Why oh why did I go to Le Cordon Bleu school? All I needed to do was be patronised by this 1940s film made by the Home Economics Department at the University of Kansas. "Cooking Terms and What They Mean" is intended for young, newly wed white women and attempts to teach them how to interpret recipe instructions. "While the premise seems benign, it is delivered in such a way that puts the films main character, a twenty-something newly wed woman, on so low an intellectual echelon as to say she is incapable of divining meaning from common cooking terms."

In the film, Margie and Tim are just back from their honeymoon. Tim, being a man, heads off to work in the morning, while Margie stays at home, touching all her new appliences in the kitchen trying to decide what to make Tim for dinner. Will she be able to make Tim all the food he likes just like his mother?? What they don't show you is that after she makes a disasterous cake because she doesn't know what "cream the butter" means, she'll probably realise she can't keep Tim happy with her food, only use her kitchen as a place to drink sherry by the gallon, and sit around wondering why the fuck she didn't go off to university so she could be the one out at work and leave Tim at home to fuck up the cooking. And what will happen to Tim? Why he'll go out on the piss every night with his co-workers and try to pick up girls from the typing pool at the office of course.

Ahh the 1940's. Where the little lady was expected to stay at home and baby their hubby's just like mum. Watch this and enjoy. Enjoy the fact that us women are not expected to do this anymore. Unfortunately I actually know women who are still like this. And they're around my age.

Late Night Waiter

Heard in a late night cab home:

Me: "So if I make cakes for work and people don't want to donate money, then that's ok too. I'll just say 'well Jesus will judge you'".
Calv: "No, you should say "your god will judge you""
The Magic: "So would Einstein judge me for not paying for a cake?"
Calv: "Einstein's your god? Really? I'm a bit disapointed in that"
Dr D: "Yeah me too. Not Carl Sagan?"
Me: "Yeah Mag, Einstein? Really? I would have you thought your god would be much more impressive and unknown than that"
The Magic: "Well, to be honest guys he's not. I just thought I'd pick a name you might all know".


BAH-ZING. Magic was our waiter that night. Cause we got our arses handed to us.

I'd have posted yesterday if I hadn't passed out at 7

School is so much fun. But it's also absolutely exhausting!

Yesterday I gutted and filleted my second fish in my life, the first being on Monday. I've worked with fish a lot but I've never actually had to gut one myself... Just watched fish mongers and my mum do it... Yesterday we cooked:

Pan fried trout with beurre sauce
Medallions of pork with a herb crust and mustard sauce
Coconut Creme Caramels
Mixed seafood thai broth

I spent all day on my feet, but when I got home I was completely wiped out. So much started to feel like I was getting the flu, so at 7pm I packed myself off to bed, like a child in kindergarten.

Today we prepared and cooked our own lobsters.. I have always maintained that as a meat eater it would be completely hipocritical of me to be squeamish about where my food comes from. Beef comes from cows, tasty bacon comes from cute pigs, KFC buckets comes from chickens - let's face it that probably are not reared in the most fabulous of conditions (and that's an understatement). But when I saw the little lobsters squirming around on the plate before they were to be cooked in a boiling broth, I felt a real twinge of guilt. Poor little bastards. Poor little tasty bastards baked in their thermador sauce with guyere cheese melted on top (oh yes, I still ate one.. vegan I will never be).

We also made squid ink cannelloni with a crab filling and sweet sauce. I found out how to extract chlorophyll out of spinach (slowly) and I rolled my own cannelloni sheets! I suck arse at making pasta and even with Chef watching over me I managed to fuck it up a little. One side was a longer than the other and when I was cooking them two of the cannelloni sheets stuck together in the pot. Idiot.

Tomorrow is my last day (sob) but I'll tell you what, making all this food all day in a boiling hot kitchen is tiring work. And bizarrely I have no appetite at all. Cause I went to bed so early the night before I hadn't eaten anything, so I had to force myself to eat some toast for breakfast. I then had to force myself to have some a couple of rings of squid in a lime, tomato, olive, caper salsa for lunch... God it sucks to be me right now!

First day at school

Today was my first day of cooking school at Le Cordon Bleu!! And it was fucking fantastic!! Hot, quick, tiring, fantastic fun!

I learned how to cut up a whole chicken into 10 pieces, how to fillet a flat fish, how to french trim a rack of lamb, how to make veal stock with veal knuckles (16 hours of gentle simmering people, 16 hours..), how to prepare mirepoix and what ration of vegetables to meat to use, what the french term for the oyster of a chicken is - Le sot l'y laisse - "the fool leaves it behind".

The whole day was fantastic. Absolutely 100% would love to do this forever fantastic!!

All except for when the chef put some cognac in my chicken casserole.... As soon as the cognac hit the hot pan and it's heady aromas hit my nose all sorts of memories of bad casinos and free champagne cognacs in St Maarten, drinking Armagnac by the unreserved bucketful at our favorite East End pub, and horrendous hangovers where I could barely hold on to the floor in the bathroom what with it spinning out of control all around me came flooding back. My face got this contorted "EEEK I'm not feeling so good" look to it but thankfully I pulled it together and managed to control my urge to gag out loud. Being sick on the kitchen floors of the prestigious Cordon Bleu cooking school simply would not do.....

4 weeks later

It's been almost a month since my 30th birthday, and what have I been doing?

Basically, anything I've never done before: so far, almost every week I've done something that I've not done in my previous 2 decades of life: skiing, dentist, hospital (not in that order). It's been fantastic!

My Almost Brilliant Career as a Ski Bunny
The most exciting thing I've done was go skiing in Cervinia, Italy with Li and her friends! And for all those of you who are now asking "how many bloody holidays can this girl take?" the answer is 28 sweet, sweet, non working days.

I've been skiing once before for a grand total of 2 days, about 12 years ago (god that sounds old), however that didn't work out so well for me.. I spent one day learning how to stand skis and how to fall on our skis. The next day we went up the biggest mountain I'd seen in Australia, where I was completely paralysed with fear of death, and had to be helped to snow plow down by a very unimpressed ski instructor. This time however, I refused to be gripped by fear and after 3 hours on the baby, baby, baby slopes, I was convinced that a life skiing was definitely one for me. I had decided then and there that we were all going to be going down the big blue run within 2 days - all part of my "just go for it" idiotic attitude I'm planning on taking now I'm in my 30s.

On our second day, Li, Mary (the girl I was sharing with) and I, who were all beginners, enlisted into ski school - which is just like primary school but for adults all acting like Bambi on ice. Within 3 hours, we were all snow plowing our ways down, and I was loving it. With my mantra of "knees bend, feel the boot with my shins, legs apart" I was plowing my way down the second level blue run. Snow plowing, which is the beginner skiers best friend and life saver works by keeping your knees bend, and your legs apart so the edge of the skis can slow you down as you go hurtling down the mountain. Unfortunately for me, I find doing this properly quite hard - my legs simply refuse to stay apart and my knees keep forcing themselves together - I guess 13 years of a catholic education with nuns really have driven home the idea that good catholic girls keep their legs firmly shut...

At the end of our second day, this is where I decided that a ski bunny life was the life for me: ski all day, party at night, get a tan whilst lying on a deck chair in t-shirts in the amazingly hot sun with snow under my feet. So on the mountain, next to the Matterhorn I called Dr D and told him to tell our boss I quit:

Dr D: Um, yeah she says she quits... yeah she says she wants to be a ski bunny... yeah I don't know what one of those is either..

So am I going to properly quit my day job and become a fully fledged snow follower? Hmm I'm not too sure... our 3rd day skiing down the insane run to the village almost killed me - if my fear of flinging myself off the cliff wasn't enough, then perhaps the constant falling over as snow boarder after sodding stupid brainless snowboarder smashing into me kinda took the edge off it... My second last day I was tempting fate and honestly was expecting to break something - unfortunately for Li, she took the bullet for me. On our way down from the top of the mountain, her skis crossed themselves and snap she micro fractured her femur, and tore the ligaments in both her knees. Clearly not a girl for doing things in half's. I personally reckon this was all a master plan for her to pick up the burly Italian paramedics who skied her down the mountain in a sledge... she might not see it that way, but she was getting an fearful amount of attention from the Italian boys when she was upstanding, so I reckon her damsel in distress should have had them flocking to her!

This brings me nicely to my next "I've not done this before" of my 30s:

Attaching my feet to my bike and peddling like a falling stone
As I'm doing the London to Paris cycle, I thought it was high time I learn how to ride in cleats - pedals that attach to your shoes. Having got a pair for my birthday, the Sunday I got back from Cervenia Calv attached them to my bike and off we trundled to the local park so I could learn how to ride - again. Cycling round the park, I was really getting the hang of it.. the whole "feet attached to moving bike, twist my feet to get them out of the cleats" thing seemed like a piece of piss. That was until I went round the gentle bend, saw a man and his massive german shephard, slammed on the brakes and in slow blurry motion went crashing into the ground, smacking my head into a metal bar fence, and seriously hurting my hand..

Thought I'd dodged the bullet of hurting myself by not breaking anything skiing eh? Yeah, well fate really hates me..

I ended up for the first time in my life in casualty not just visiting but getting my hand x-rayed cause it hurt like crazy. Calv said the worst thing that could have happened was that I broke something in my wrist. I said no the worst thing that could happen is that we go to hospital and they find nothing wrong with me and me looking like a total baby. You know what? I could have been a psychic. The nurse looked at my x-rays and say "well, it seems you've only sprained your hand.. you'll be fine in a few days". Bloody crap - Li fractures her femur. I, like a hypochondriac go to hospital with a sprained hand. And by the next morning it started to feel allot better. Definitely that's the worst thing.

Not yet paying for his kids college education
The next thing on my "not done this before" tour of my 30s: seeing if I can help the local dentist send his kids to Eton.

Strictly speaking I have been to the dentist. Twice. But both times were those "first check is free, but after you're addicted to the pain of having a sadomasochist ripping into your mouth, you'll have to pay" visits, which I don't really count because they didn't do anything other than say "if you want that chip in your front tooth fixed, we'll have to remove your back 4 teeth" (Why?). However seeing as I am now in my more, ahem, mature 30's I thought it was only wise to go and get myself checked out... So you can imagine the amount of abuse I got when I said I'd not been in 16 years. My dentist told me before I opened my mouth he was expecting to find lots of problems, and then proceeded to tell me off for not having been before (well I can't imagine why not..) Fully expecting root canal or all of my front teeth needing to be replaced and being forced to live with the nickname "gummy" forever, I was shocked to my core when the dentist said I nothing wrong with my teeth. At all. GET IN!! I'm not "big book of British smiles" yet!! WOOHOO!!

Tomorrow: Cooking, cooking, cooking
I have wanted to go to Le Cordon Bleu cooking school for about half a decade now. Finally, thanks to Calv, C, Dr D, and The Magic, I am going to a 4 day course starting tomorrow. I'm frankly shitting myself. I'm insanely nervous but looking forward to like you wouldn't believe!

So that's the cliff notes version of where I've been, what I've been doing, and were I'm going.

Friday Moment of Zen: Watching a massive brain hemmorage from the inside

One my biggest fears in life is realising one day I am having a stroke. Why? Partly because I keep getting told if I keep eating too much salt I'll end up having one, partly because I was the person who found my grandmother lying on the kitchen floor when she had hers and I had to watch her deteriorate - lose function, lose her ability to walk, look after herself, go to the toilet unaided. But mostly because I am terrified that one day I'll end up in a "locked in" situation - where I'll still be able to think, see, feel, hear but not be able to move my body.

This brings me to my "moment of zen".

Dr Jill Bolte Taylor is a neroanatomist who in 1996 found she had a ringside seat to her very own stroke - a massive hemorrhage in the left side of her brain. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness... All the while her brain was deteriorating she was processing its breakdown as if she were a "curious explorer taking field notes".

She's given a fantastic and fascinating speech on ted.com (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.) At one point she even says "Oh my gosh, I'm having a stroke! I'm having a stroke! And the next thing my brain says to me 'WOW! This is so cool! How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain from the inside out?!'"

Admittedly some of it may offend some people who think words like "energy force" is as disgusting as rotten cheese, but you should watch to see how she describes the differences between the left and right hemispheres, brings out a human brain, recounts the events of that morning in vivid detail, from when she thought her hands looked like claws on the exercise machine, to how at one point she could only dial her office by trying to match the shapes of the squiggles on her business card to the shapes of the squiggles on the buttons on her phone, to how one the way to hospital she thought she was going to die, to her shock when she realised she was still alive, to how 2 weeks after she woke up in hospital, surgeons went in and removed a golf ball sized blood clot in the left hemisphere of her brain, to how it has taken her 8 years to fully recover.

The reason why I'm posting about this is because for the first time in about 19 years I feel like perhaps if or when I have a stroke, maybe there could be some hope for me too. Watch the video - it's long, but honestly worth it.

Back with more stories of stupidness

Want to hear a story about us making complete tits of ourselves? Yeah course you do.

Dr D, Calv and myself were off to a housewarming party on last Saturday night. We get to the house, in the middle of a long line of terraced houses you get in London, and see loads of balloons and loud music and lots of voices next door. The thing is, none of us really knew where we are going and taking note of salient points like, I dunno, the address of the house is not our forte really. So we all think "well there's a party in there, and we are going to a party so we must have read the number wrong". We walk up to the front door, ring the door bell, and some bloke answers it who we've never seen before, but heck, it's a house warming - there are loads of people we wouldn't know. We mosey on in, start walking to the back of the house and then notice everyone looks about 17, they've all dressed in kinda slutty school outfits, and it looks like a scene for Skins or something... that's when it hits us: those balloons with "Happy Birthday" all over them outside are not because they didn't have any other type of balloons. The sign with "5 things to remember as a Christian youth member" was not an ironic little joke in light of all the booze that supposed to be inside, the totally out of character hip hop music was out of character for a reason. And the 17 year olds who all stopped their conversations and doing god knows what in the kitchen to stare at 3 30 plus year olds looking confusingly around were definitely not our friends...

There are lots of things out that are very embarrassing. Having to quickly mumble "sorry, wrong party" as you scamper out the door quick as you can, with a whole brigade of teenage brats laughing their arses off at your in definitely one of them..

Just about to turn...

That's it. I've got 4 minutes left of my 20s. In 4 minutes time I am moving out of the 18-29 demographic and smack into the 30-39 year olds. Out of the decade where men struggling with their mid life crisis would be attracked to me, and into the tick-tock-tick-tock decade, where according to popular culture of today, I should fear dying alone, being eaten by alsacians, and no one will notice I've died until the smell starts drifting through the walls.

I'm leaving my 20s. Right. Now.