Revival

My first blog in months – I need to wake this poor old page up from its coma so have added more links and tweets, and some beautiful pictures to spruce it all up. The realisation hit me on Saturday that it was a year since I’d finished my last university exam, and therefore a whole year since I made some of those great resolutions like writing a regular blog, since hopelessly abandoned.

 All is not lost though; in the meantime I’ve completed 5 months of temp work at an incredibly dull admin job, followed by 5 months of very much less dull, but unpaid, interning at The Daily Telegraph.

 

From September, I’ll finally be on a contract, will be quitting my pub job, moving out of my box room, and embracing London life to an even greater extent.

And in the meantime, I’m collecting my pennies from the pub and a lot of freelancing, and heading to Asia! Watch this space…

Power Walker

For someone who almost runs away at the thought of having to go for a run, is scared of aeroplane take-offs and couldn’t be coaxed onto the rides at Disney-land without an actual cash bribe, its odd how much I cannot stand the slowness of walking slowly.

It isn’t that it annoys me; I just don’t accept it. You know who you are, you snail-pacers with your hands behind your backs and your patient tread; you might be the ones who see every detail of London’s impressive streets and carry those precious memories with you for evermore, but move it please, you’re right in the way.

I just don’t understand how they achieve anything. Surely walking three times as slowly means you only get a third of things done in the day? So cynical, so stressed-miserable-Londoner, but so TRUE.

So I spend my life doing awkward little runs around people to avoid having to slow the pace and averaging about 4 crashes and frantic ‘sorry’s’ thrown over my shoulder on the way to work each day. The fact that I always arrive half an hour too early makes no difference, its just the principle.

The entire theory really backfires on the escalators though, when you decide to pace it all the way up the left hand side and then can’t bear to lose face with your fellow speed climbers by re-joining the lazy right so end up panting all the way to the top, thighs burning like mad.

The more I write, the less rational it seems, but I just know that I won’t change. Power-walking it down the aisle on my wedding-day? Should entertain the guests.

My friend has the perfect solution in the form of a beautiful little mint-green Vespa that her delightful boss has bought her for work purposes. Gone are her days of pavement battling as she zooms around like a bat out of hell. 30mph has got to be the ideal speed for living.

Post-weekend musings

Today is officially the most depressing day of the year. Lots of debt, nothing to look forward, and cold disgusting weather? Tick, tick, tick. At least I can console myself that I haven’t broken any New Years Resolutions, not having made any in the first place.

It makes much more sense to me that you make New Year Resolutions 3 weeks into the year when reality has well and truly thwacked you in the face like a big wet raindrop.

Making them on New Years Eve, accompanied by champagne, friends, family, or at the very least a slobbed out day off, will only make me silly and rash about resolutions. No more drinking, no more shopping, no chocolate; never going to happen.

But three weeks after New Year, I’m ready. I’ve handled 3 Monday mornings at work and survived; I can do anything. Coupled with a particularly heavy weekend of nocturnal living, me and my grainy throaty voice are resolved to have a better, more productive, more amazing year that will trampoline me at least ten rungs up the notoriously slippery and treacherous career ladder.

Meanwhile I will donate at least 500 grains of rice a day. Giving to other people is apparently what makes us happiest, so bring on the rice bowl at www.freerice.com.

Totally irrelevant, but irreverently happy

 

New year, new job, new shoes..

But just a wee hint of emotional trauma still remaining… Is anyone free of the Quarter-Life Crisis? Some of my crisis-induced thoughts below…

http://runninginheels.co.uk/articles/quarter-life-crisis/

 

Gavin and the Saracens, a Boxing Day tale.

My final gift from leaving my 2-weeks-turned-into-5-months temp job were 5 tickets to the Saracens v. Wasps match at Wembley yesterday.

Despite having stood on the sidelines of many a Uni rugby match in the freezing cold, fighting hypothermia with a thermos full of Baileys, my understanding of how the game works is still completely stunted.

I also realised that on my fourth trip to watch them play, my Saracens player knowledge is pretty much limited to a couple of funny names and some celebrity gossip.

‘Who plays for the Saracens, anyone famous?’ my sister enquired.

‘Well there is Kelly, whose surname we can’t remember. He was chatting to his manager in the pub at the next-door table to our very own parents a few months ago. He might be a proven international rugby player, but we can report that he likes chocolate ice-cream and his steak on the rare side.’

‘Then there is Neil de Kock, whose name always makes the commentator’s voice wobble just a little bit but we don’t mind because he looks okay in black and red.’

‘And there’s Alex Gooooooooooooode. The Wembley commentator goes bonkers every time he goes near the ball because he knows he’ll be able to let rip with a good long ooooooooooooooooo noise.’

‘But most importantly, this time, We’ve Got Gavin!’

We rugby aficionados were so engrossed in the first half of the game that we didn’t even notice his perma-tanned presence until the boys in the row in front started acting like they’d seen Justin Bieber and squealing down the phone about how close they were sitting to him.

Led by the smell of old biscuits that so often accompanies a poor fake tan (the English rose look is in this year, Gavin, its ok to go luminous), we suddenly saw him sitting only metres away from our seats.

Maybe he has worked out the exact shade of Rimmel that you need to turn out brown on camera, but in real life he looks the colour of Christmas clementines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Months of strutting it on Strictly have also clearly taught him about dramatic timing; he casually strolled behind the other players jogging off to warm up, waiting for a big enough gap between them so it would be quite obvious who the wolf-whistle Mexican wave would be for.

I know you have to walk slowly to do up your jacket zip Gavin, but I agree that its best to make sure Charlotte knows that 30,000 people at Wembley fancy you with some crowd-pandering too.

Still, he was so close to scoring a try within two minutes of playing that I forgot his Tangoed complexion and started to cheer for the Saracens properly instead.

Hooks for Books

 

 

Ive just started another blog. Aka taking a break from the manic Christmas decoration hanging that is going on downstairs…

Have a look at Hooks for Books or the link on the left!

Eurostar travel chaos

There’s nothing like using your blog to document the uselessness of public services in the face of that totally unpredictable phenomenon, snow in winter.

There I was, tucked up in my hostel bed in Paris, all ready to arrive at Eurostar the next morning an excessively organised 2 hours before departure.

Then came a phone call from my friends who had stood in the queue already for 3 hours and who had realised that their fate was probably to live out the rest of their lives in Gare du Nord, and they’d like me to join them.

Off I trotted, armed with Milka bars, to join 500 other stoic troopers who hadn’t given up and gone hotel hunting at 9pm on a freezing Paris night.

And there I stood, dreaming of the bed I’d abandoned, for the next 5 hours. Occasionally we did a lap around the station to keep warm, or went up to hear the rumours invented by the Eurostar staff about what was going on, apparently made up solely for our entertainment.

9pm Customer Service Lady: ‘You want us to stop people pushing in at ze front? But zey are french, zey don’t understand queuing.’

9.30pm French Policeman: ‘Main non, I cannot stop people pushing in. If I used violence, someone might film me and if it got on the internet I might lose my job’ (ACTUAL quote, adapted from French and accompanied by Gallic shrugs)

10pm ‘Ah Oui, zere was 3 trens, but now a driver ‘as run off into ze night so zere are just 2.’

11pm ‘Where are you in the queue? Oh just round the corner? You will definitely be going tonight.’

12am ~ Break for carols. Solidified new friendship with half the queue who also joined in, then we sang Happy Birthday to one of our new mates.

1am – (Announced in person by a small Frenchman with a quiet voice, to about 1% of the queue) ‘You won’t be travelling tonight. There are no more trains. Go and sleep on this train and come back tomorrow. You will get priority, I promise.’

2am – We refuse to go and sleep on train, we don’t believe we will get our places back. 40 of the last protesters are sent to sleep in the check-in area, where we kip on the floor illegally and try not to think about the fact that we’ve been banned from bathrooms for 2 hours.

4am – Wake up, kicked out into freezing station to wait some more. Make lifetime bessies with more people in sympathy.

6am – A load of newcomers to the station stroll up the stairs and casually are allowed next to us at check-in, no queuing, no problem. We start shouting and showing them our bleary floor-smudged faces as evidence that they should get to the back of the queue or risk our wrath.

10am – Finally reach London, welcomed back by a text from Eurostar warning me of minor delays.

Come on Eurostar, it’s not like you got it all right last year…

How to drive in the snow

Lurgy erupted into the office today. A death rattle in the far corner, cataclysmic sneezing behind me, weepy eyes and red noses all over the canteen.. and the muffled speech of the healthy ones using suit sleeves as gas masks and guzzling satsumas like there was no tomorrow.

All the misery and downcast moods make me more inclined to write about sunny summer days in the Caribbean. A picture will have to do though, because I am in the LAST 3 DAYS of working here and must finish the spreadsheets, the dreaded spreadsheets, before 3.30 when the office closes because of snow… love it love it. There is a high chance I might not get out of the car park though, someone spent 25 minutes earlier in a skidding hell trying to leave and my snow-driving knowledge is limited to two rules yelled out by dad as I wheel-locked down the drive this morning; ‘try not to brake’ and ‘steer in the direction of the skid’. Might as well call the RAC in advance and prepare them for the inevitable.

Songs for a night in Paris

Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu’on m’a fait, ni le mal
Tout ça m’est bien égal
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
C’est payé, balayé, oublié
Je me fous du passé
Avec mes souvenirs
J’ai allumé le feu
Mes chagrins, mes plaisirs
Je n’ai plus besoin d’eux
Balayés mes amours
Avec leurs trémolos
Balayés pour toujours
Je repars à zéro

Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu’on m’a fait, ni le mal
Tout ça m’est bien égal
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Car ma vie
Car mes joies
Aujourd’hui
Ça commence avec toi…

 

We had a whale of a time

Click here or there for my dance and theatre review of Sebastian Rex’s ‘Cliched’ and ‘Mind the Gap’ yesterday…

Thank you Blue Elephant theatre for great entertainment on such a freezing night!