autumn

it's very very autumn today. it rained all day. it's dark.

sigh.

and this from someone who loves autumn. generally. when it's not being boorish and cracking dumb jokes and whispering behind your back. flirting with raindrops and howling with mirth.

and knitting is hard, goddamit.

my life at work

from a fantastic TED talk (check them out) by Emily Levine:

a girl is in the car with her elderly mother driving when she goes through a red light. the girl,worried about her mother's reaction, doesn't want to say anything (like - what are you doing - you're too old to drive) so she keeps quiet. her mother goes through a second red light. the girl says, tentatively, "mom - do you realise you just went through two red lights?" the mother looks at her in alarm and says, "what?? i'm driving???"

btw i am the girl in this analogy. i think i am, anyways

update

well i aced the move (heh heh heh - take that you silly techy people who thought i couldn't pull it off - you have underestimated me and showed your nefarious intentions too soon - round one: me). and yeah, i'm feeling a little smug about it. generally that means i am about to fail in a hitherto unimaginably spectacular fashion. i'll keep you posted.

i also put together the first edition of the new east kent rape line newsletter! in a 70 hour week! i'm quite pleased about that. it's badly designed, but for a first go - hey, it's better than nothing, and i will improve. i enjoyed it immensely so i think this will be much more fun than pain. it has also made me feel much less guilty about quitting helpline volunteering.

our team, "drink canada dry", came in second in the pub quiz on monday. we would have won but we were tired, slightly giddy, got a bit drunk, and didn't really pay tons of attention at a few critical junctions.

i have not started my knitting. i will though. i swear. soon.

h is snoozing in the doorway in his well-researched most-likely-to-be-tripped-over position and n is making a green thai chicken curry that smells so good that in a moment i will actually go into the kitchen and eat it straight out of the pot. no - not really. i'll wait, then inhale it at the table and burn off the roof of my mouth. ah the perils of greed.

knitting

i am about to embark on my first proper knitting project - a hat. ostensibly for n but i would wager that the chances of this hat being remotely wearable are rather slim and we will probably be chalking this one up to a "learning experience". this has not stopped me from buying yarn! and nice bamboo knitting needles! (i really wanted to write chopsticks there - hmmm - freudian? like the joke - how many freudian psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? answer - two - one to change the lightbulb and the other to hold his penis --- i mean ladder)

my friend k has been a patient goddess in teaching me and is forever calm in my various knitting crises. and i just found out our other neighbour, b, also knits! i am surrounded by wisdom. phew.

in other news work is manic. gigantic move this weekend and the politics are going insane. never fails. and this morning, 4 out of 5 lifts were broken down. have you ever tried to get 450 crates to the fourth floor of a building at 9 am with 600 staff all vying for the same (almost definitely soon-to-be-collapsing-under-the-strain) lift? i don't particularly recommend it.

and yes, i realise in that last sentence my numerical references were all over the place. sod it.

lisbon

last saturday we attended our friends' wedding. in lisbon. ahhhhhh. i will never get tired of the wonder, the sheer amazement of being able to go to these magic other places for a weekend. just like that. all casual-like. the wedding was beautiful - tasteful and classic, in a beautiful botanical garden in the late afternoon sun. there was more food than i think i've ever seen before in one setting. there was a cheese buffet :) :) :)

and lisbon was fantastic. charming. not show-off-y at all, but warm and inviting - and oh - those custard tarts - oh my! we were staying two doors down from the belem cake shop and started each morning with a dose of espresso and custard tarts that left us reeling out of the shop in pupil-dilated, sugar-laden ecstasy.



lisbon still has the old trams with their wooden paneling and hand brakes that screech as they tear down cobbled streets at a speed which starts fast and picks up pace as gravity takes hold, blowing cool air in the open windows. it's a city of stairs, and hills. lots and lots of stairs and hills. old buildings with tiled fronts, and all of the sidewalks in black and white tiled mosaics.

we spent a day on the beach as well, waves crashing in on mile upon mile of soft fine white sand. when it got too hot we'd retreat up to a beachside bar for a cold beer and water and some shade.



we were up early on saturday morning and climbed up to the bairro alto - narrow cobbled streets all shuttered, graffiti on every wall. the street was ankle deep in glass and plastic cups, straws and beer bottles, and the remains of hundreds of mojitos. it looked like some kind of party slum - amazing. as we walked up the street we heard water, and cleaners were coming down, bagging everything up and washing down the streets with huge hoses. the before and after was startling. the next night we went back to see what could have caused such devastation. all the shutters were open to reveal small bars, most with live music. restaurants opened up onto the street, tables were perched everywhere, and the whole place heaved with music and dancing. the mojitos were pretty good,too.

now it is back to our regular broadcasts, so to speak. but what a great city!

ahhh saturday

it's saturday morning - n is doing something clever and talented with music software, h is snoozing, until very recently with his head on my leg while i drank coffee and read - there's a wet patch on my thigh from his nose. it's cloudy but the met office swears it will be sunny later. we need to finish our coffee, grab some breakfast and head out into the fields to get blackberries before it gets too hot to be out in heavy trousers and thick boots and gloves. it seems the best blackberries this year are well defended by nettle patches so precautions must be taken.

we've been drinking elderberry wine that we started this time last year, and it is so good that it has spurred us on to pick lots this year so we have the same pleasure next year. I highly recommend this as a motivational technique, if you can bear to wait long enough.

this is my last free weekend before my project at work kicks off with a series of five weekend moves, all of which i will have to supervise. knowing that makes this weekend particularly sweet and luxurious. it also defends against allegations of laziness and sloth. one must conserve energy after all. although, as my mom pointed out, i am not actually very lazy, i just have different priorities (aren't mothers just fantastic at putting a positive spin on things?!). picking berries for wine is much much more fun than dusting.

procrastination

goal of weekend: to get organised - put all that paper away, check accounts, find receipts for expenses, file work stuff, put away alarmingly swaying tower of clothing in bedroom, dig out drycleaning from aforementioned tower etc etc.

time spent avoiding the above: 48 hours

time organisation actually took: 45 minutes

i know. i know.

sometimes you gotta laugh

ah - it has been one of those days - (still is - i just had to retype that as my caps lock was on). the ones where you wake up tired, grab what you thought was a clean shirt only to realise on the train that is the shirt you hung back up because you decided it was no longer good enough to be a work shirt once you dropped a beet on one shoulder (what? this hasn't happened to you??) so you have to keep on your cardigan all day and it's muggy and hot in the office. and it's the day where you find out that "lots of furniture in storage" means "no furniture in storage" so your whole move programme needs to be altered and you have a packed day cause you have to leave early to get to an appointment near home.

you get on the wrong northern line tube because you forgot you were getting on at king's cross and not euston and have to get off at angel and switch and you almost miss the train you left early to catch but you run and just make it and get to your appointment only to realise you have left just enough time - maybe - to catch your train home from your appointment and if you miss it the next one is in an hour not half an hour like you thought because you always forget that. and the thought of an hour before you get home is frankly unbearable. so you power walk like a madwoman and it starts to rain and you get there and the train is delayed anyways and you are muggy and sweaty and just plain exhausted and you no longer care that your shoulder is beet-pink.

and you get home and feel snappy then apologise then say fuck it, i know it is wedensday and we are not drinking during the week (which is going very well and is improving life to no end generally) but sometimes you just need a beer. and then you whack your elbow - right on the funny bone - really really hard when you reach down to get the beer, and then , really, you just have to laugh.

swishy dress

yay for friends who pick up fabulous clothes at charity shops just in case. the case in question turned out to be a wedding we're going to in lisbon in august. and the dress is truly fab - black with white polka dots (about the size of a ten pence piece - the polka dots, not the dress - are you kidding? i am 35 and - if you're being kind - rounded. no flesh exposure here.) it's empire line, so i can eat like the piglet i am and best of all there is absolutely no danger of any bits falling out of said dress - not that this has ever actually happened to me, but the fear of it is always near when you are wearing strapless stuff.

i swore i wouldn't wear a dress to this wedding, not being overly fond of them and flat out (ha ha) refusing to wear heels. but a chic trouser ensemble will involve some sort of cash transaction, which is untenable in the CEC (current economic climate :) ) and best of all, this dress will ball up in the bottom of my backpack and not need ironing. no checked luggage on this trip - just the dress, a swimsuit, a pair of shorts and maybe 2 tshirts. we'll buy towels there.

i can't wait - i feel like i haven't been away in forever - not without an agenda anyways. i loved going home to canada this spring - no doubt about it - but i really really miss these long weekends in a new city. i've never been to lisbon and it looks like so much fun. and of course, the wedding itself will be lovely - i'm not into the wedding thing personally, but hey - if it's what you want, why not? these two are a great pair and i have every hope of happiness for them. anyways i'm getting ahead of myself - i just didn't want to sound like i only cared about ease of dress and wedding banquets! ok you can stop snickering now.

yarn fetishes

on tues, my friend k is going to attempt to teach me how to knit. in preparation, i went to the yarn shop in town and bought a brightly coloured soft ball of wool that the wise knitting woman assured me would be perfect for a beginner. I figured if the wool was pretty i'd have an easier time refraining from stabbing my own eyes out with the knitting needles in complete frustration at my inability to keep anything vaguely resembling a consistent stitch. (poor k has no idea what she has let herself in for.) i left the wool on the table and went to put away the groceries.

now humphrey, our greyhound, loves all things woolen. you cannot leave out knitted slippers, or scarves, and especially not mittens or gloves as they will rapidly be transported to the depths of his bed to be chewed/sucked/slurped over at his leisure. my fabulous mother crochets afghans and we learned early in our post-humph life to put them away if we wanted to keep them. if we forget and leave them on the couch, he is there like a shot, nesting away. have you ever tried to get dog hair out of an afghan? disgusting. this also explains why sometimes in the winter when people come over they see blankets on the table- left there to keep them out of humph's clutches and then forgotten about until blushes at table-setting time. last christmas mom solved the problem by crocheting humph an afghan of his own, bless her. he does love it but i think the lure of the forbidden plays a part in this as he'll still go for ours, given half a chance.

i'm sure you can work out what happened next.


"what? this wool? honestly, i have no idea how it got here - no siree. leading into my bed you say? lady i don't know what you're talking about..."

i hope k knows how to get it back to a usable ball again.