Friday 30 March 2012

Monday 19 March 2012

st augustine's abbey, canterbury

every year, kent tourism hosts a weekend where people in kent can apply for free tickets to see kent tourist attractions. this year, we applied and got tickets to go to st augustine's abbey, in canterbury. i've never been - it's outside the main walls, and not on any of my paths through the city, and for years i didn't even know it was there.

the abbey is all ruins now, but interesting for that. there's ruins from the romans, then from the first abbey in 597, then anglo-saxons, then normans (those pesky normans!).

the red bricks below are roman bricks. i read somewhere that although romans built with bricks in britain, when they left they took the knowledge with them, and it was centuries before bricks were made and used again.

these tiles were on the floor in one of the chapel alcoves


unfortunately all this peace and tranquility were given short shrift indeed by the necessity of having to go shopping while we were in canterbury. ghastly. however, we persevered, and are making progress on the whole "get the house looking ok" thing and the "oh my god we actually have to organise this whole wedding party" thing and the "argh why won't wedding clothes just buy themselves" thing.

from the sublime to the utterly prosaic - such is life.

Saturday 17 March 2012

bill withers

"i think it was thoreau who said that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. i would like to know what it feels like for my desperation to get louder."

Friday 9 March 2012

in which i become the type of person who

spends 2 1/2 hours online trying to find the perfect shower curtain.

i found three. all in the states. what do they know about shower curtains that we don't? i can't risk the prohibitive shipping and customs of buying them, so in order to make me feel like i haven't completely wasted my friday evening (oh god i really have completely wasted a friday evening) i present you:

1. the kraken:

2. the monologue (by dave eggers no less) ((i love how this starts "i am your shower curtain".))

3. going swimmingly. i think this is my favourite:


i realise i am "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good" as far as shower curtains go, but i am helpless. never mind that the current one has broken through 5 out of 10 of it's already repaired (if you can call duct tape "repairs") shower ring holes, and that you need the dexterity of a brain surgeon to maneuver the curtain into the one exact position where it will keep water from escaping each side, a dexterity not forthcoming at half six in the morning, i might add.

and yet - it's often the first thing i look at in the morning, and it's important. i think i would like a shower curtain with the shipping forecast written across it, or a kelp seabed, or perhaps helpful diagrams of nautical knots.

i do have a rather dreadful head cold - perhaps we should just blame this whole incident on that and step away slowly...

Friday 2 March 2012

baby i'm back

in oh-so-many ways.

i'm back in the uk. i was almost a month in canada. my father died. i was glad i could be in canada for so long, and be there when i needed to be, and i'm glad to be back here, at home. that's all i really want to say about that, for now anyways.

i'm back at my old job. yes, i ditched the sparkley new job in and went back to where i belong. you cannot imagine how happy this has made me. earlier this week, i grinned at n over dinner, sighed happily, and exclaimed how happy i was to be back at camden. "no shit," he laughed. "wouldn't have picked up on that one." i guess it's obvious.

i'm back knitting. when i was in canada, i couldn't knit. i wanted to - i started projects, knit an inch, and stopped. six times. since i've been back i've finished a hat and one sock. phew.

it's not all back though -lots of forward too. n and i are getting married in may, and there's a party to plan. the best kind of planning. although i still think we're taking about someone else, even when i am writing it. i imagine i will feel like that all the way through. apparently there is lots you are supposed to do for these things, but we are jettisoning most of them. some out of cash flow, some out of laziness, some because they are batshit crazy. i'd still be happier getting a civil partnership but in the uk, you can only get those of you are both the same gender, and you can only get married if you are different genders. makes no sense to me.

and life goes on. which, all said, is a good thing, i think.