Inspired by Jonathan Crinklybee's latest... I am only just beginning to realise that my childhood is now part of a different era, and has stories to tell.
I don't remember going on holiday before 1975, but to be fair I don't remember much of anything before 1975. That year was a landmark one: I started school, and we went on our first Foreign Holiday. We went to Majorca in low season, I think October, with some family friends who had children sort of the same age. I think it may have been their first Foreign Holiday too.
The first thing I remember about it is that the hotel we were supposed to be staying in hadn't actually been built yet. I think that was standard practice for the 1970s package holiday, and thinking about it it must have been horribly stressful for my parents, but when you're five you really don't notice these things. We were put in another hotel, and I loved it. I remember the checked bedspreads, the hot chocolate for breakfast, and tasting my first pistachio nut. Other good things I remember include having *lots* of different swimming costumes to wear (all but one of which had been borrowed from my friends), and some fat spiky cactus like plants that grew on the path down to the beach. There was also some spiny grass growing there, and I spent a lot of time snapping off spiky cactus, threading it onto spiny grass and making necklaces to wear with my many swimming costumes. This makes me sound like a little princess but the limited photographic evidence suggests I was a podgy pale kid having fun on a beach next to a building site. And why not.
I wasn't always wearing my many swimming costumes though (which was all more ok in the 1970s) and my #1 Majorca memory is of sudden excruciating pain between my legs. I remember screaming, and fighting with my mother, sudden cessation of pain, and some blood. Some years later I asked her about it and she told me that I'd managed - god knows how - to get a large pointy seed from the tall spiny grass stuck in my little vagina, and the cessation of pain was her hoiking it out. Maybe that's what did for my hymen, of which there was no sign when the time came.
Yeah, so I possibly lost my virginity to a grass seed in Majorca. Good start. Maybe I should count my blessings there was no one waiting outside a front bedroom in Blackpool 11 years later to hoist a bloody sheet up the flagpole as evidence of my honour.
joella
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Monday, May 04, 2009
A girl can dream
We paid a visit to my Significant Aunt in Shropshire last weekend, and a lot of fun it was too, although the main purpose of the visit, the initiation of Project Skirting, was shelved. I have never been able to get my sewing machine to run properly, it keeps clunking and jamming. It turns out that this is actually because there is something wrong with it, rather than because I am unable to RTFM. Which was disappointing, but also a relief. I don't like to fail with machinery. We discussed making it with her machine instead, which is many years older, many times heavier, and works beautifully, but it didn't feel like the right thing to do.
So we did other things instead, including consume rather a lot of Stinking Bishop cheese, together with the perry it is named for, following a walk of just the right Sunday length along the Shropshire Union Canal. We spent a lot of time in the kitchen, which is huge, solidly built, beautifully designed and stupendously clean. My favourite thing in it is the rubber gloves holder, which was constructed from the poles of two wooden kitchen roll holders sawn off at a slight angle and mounted on the same base. But I also like the Aga.
The reason the kitchen is so bang-on in every respect is that it was decades in the planning. My aunt and uncle spent many years living in married quarters on RAF bases dreaming of the kitchen they would one day build. And now they have.
As I thought about this, I realised that for years I have been doing the same thing, but not for a kitchen. There is a dream bathroom in my mind, which slowly evolves and may one day take shape. Not in this house though... my dream bathroom cannot be accommodated in a Victorian terrace with dodgy plumbing. I am not even sure it can be accommodated in Oxford, as the water here is hard hard hard, and my dream bathroom has a lot of glass to keep clean.
I already pretty much have my dream bath, which is long and narrow and deep and made of steel. But in my dream bathroom it would not have a shower over it and serious grouting issues. It would have space around it and a view out of a non-frosted window. There would be a big radiator with a rail over it for my big fluffy towel, a shelf or table for books, drinks, snacks etc, and some large potted plants oxygenating the steamy bathroom air. The floor would ideally be painted and sealed wood, with a deep pile bath mat one could wriggle one's toes in. The bath mat would have its own place on the wall (or maybe on one of those ceiling-mounted clothes airers with a pulley and a cleat) so it didn't stay on the floor getting manky. The lighting would be bright, I am not one of those candles in the bath people.
Baths are solo things, though we usually share the water to avoid enviro-guilt, but there would be a walk-in glass shower enclosure with two showers in it so two people could shower at the same time in the morning. This is the bit our plumbing could not cope with. Megaflos and power showers are even worse for the environment than baths, and also a maintenance headache, and electric showers are just a bit crap, so it would be a case of a decent boiler, a large hot water cylinder and a large head of pressure. Am sure it's possible.
The basin would be a classic, with two taps and a pedestal and a plug on a chain. I do not have this European insistence on mixer taps, I hate pop-up wastes, and I am fine with visible pipework, as long as it is elegantly done. It would have a normal mirror over it, plus one of those cool adjustable magnifying ones for detailed facial scrutiny, but there would otherwise be no mirrors in the room.
There would be two WCs, part of the bathroom but in separate alcoves. I am not squeamish about these things, but I like the idea of having my own toilet. If they're next to each other, with changing room-style swing doors, the plumbing wouldn't be overly complicated and there would be no arguments about who gets to go first or who left reading material about avant garde 20th century music all over the floor.
Finally, there would be a raised platform, ideally with a view out of the same window as the bath, which would be carpeted and which would have a couple of comfy armchairs and a small table for more books, a radio, snacks and drinks. This is where one would recline while waiting for the bath to fill, or to talk to the person who was in it, or to curl up afterwards wrapped in towels.
There would be lots of hooks on the walls for dressing gowns etc. And there would be lots of pictures on the wall. There would be minimal tiling, apart from splashbacks around the bath and basin, and lots of tongue and groove in seaside colours.
I have never seen this bathroom. I am rather hoping I never do until I get to make it myself. It would be very hard to appreciate my own bathroom once that had happened, and my own bathroom does its best with what it has.
joella
So we did other things instead, including consume rather a lot of Stinking Bishop cheese, together with the perry it is named for, following a walk of just the right Sunday length along the Shropshire Union Canal. We spent a lot of time in the kitchen, which is huge, solidly built, beautifully designed and stupendously clean. My favourite thing in it is the rubber gloves holder, which was constructed from the poles of two wooden kitchen roll holders sawn off at a slight angle and mounted on the same base. But I also like the Aga.
The reason the kitchen is so bang-on in every respect is that it was decades in the planning. My aunt and uncle spent many years living in married quarters on RAF bases dreaming of the kitchen they would one day build. And now they have.
As I thought about this, I realised that for years I have been doing the same thing, but not for a kitchen. There is a dream bathroom in my mind, which slowly evolves and may one day take shape. Not in this house though... my dream bathroom cannot be accommodated in a Victorian terrace with dodgy plumbing. I am not even sure it can be accommodated in Oxford, as the water here is hard hard hard, and my dream bathroom has a lot of glass to keep clean.
I already pretty much have my dream bath, which is long and narrow and deep and made of steel. But in my dream bathroom it would not have a shower over it and serious grouting issues. It would have space around it and a view out of a non-frosted window. There would be a big radiator with a rail over it for my big fluffy towel, a shelf or table for books, drinks, snacks etc, and some large potted plants oxygenating the steamy bathroom air. The floor would ideally be painted and sealed wood, with a deep pile bath mat one could wriggle one's toes in. The bath mat would have its own place on the wall (or maybe on one of those ceiling-mounted clothes airers with a pulley and a cleat) so it didn't stay on the floor getting manky. The lighting would be bright, I am not one of those candles in the bath people.
Baths are solo things, though we usually share the water to avoid enviro-guilt, but there would be a walk-in glass shower enclosure with two showers in it so two people could shower at the same time in the morning. This is the bit our plumbing could not cope with. Megaflos and power showers are even worse for the environment than baths, and also a maintenance headache, and electric showers are just a bit crap, so it would be a case of a decent boiler, a large hot water cylinder and a large head of pressure. Am sure it's possible.
The basin would be a classic, with two taps and a pedestal and a plug on a chain. I do not have this European insistence on mixer taps, I hate pop-up wastes, and I am fine with visible pipework, as long as it is elegantly done. It would have a normal mirror over it, plus one of those cool adjustable magnifying ones for detailed facial scrutiny, but there would otherwise be no mirrors in the room.
There would be two WCs, part of the bathroom but in separate alcoves. I am not squeamish about these things, but I like the idea of having my own toilet. If they're next to each other, with changing room-style swing doors, the plumbing wouldn't be overly complicated and there would be no arguments about who gets to go first or who left reading material about avant garde 20th century music all over the floor.
Finally, there would be a raised platform, ideally with a view out of the same window as the bath, which would be carpeted and which would have a couple of comfy armchairs and a small table for more books, a radio, snacks and drinks. This is where one would recline while waiting for the bath to fill, or to talk to the person who was in it, or to curl up afterwards wrapped in towels.
There would be lots of hooks on the walls for dressing gowns etc. And there would be lots of pictures on the wall. There would be minimal tiling, apart from splashbacks around the bath and basin, and lots of tongue and groove in seaside colours.
I have never seen this bathroom. I am rather hoping I never do until I get to make it myself. It would be very hard to appreciate my own bathroom once that had happened, and my own bathroom does its best with what it has.
joella
Friday, May 01, 2009
Not so much about the workers
Ten or so years ago, when I was young and shiny and we believed in our political leaders, M and I got up (or possibly stayed up, I have done it both ways round and can't quite remember) for May Morning. It was a glorious dawn, and on the way into town we bumped into two of our friends, heading in the same direction, and we all parked our bikes together and walked up to Magdalen Tower.
These two were rarely seen out together, as one of them was married to someone else at the time. I don't approve of That Sort Of Thing, but I'd only really ever known them as a couple, and who was I (or indeed am I) to tell other people how to manage their relationships. It wasn't the first liaison of its kind, I did know that, and I assumed there was some kind of tacit 'arrangement' in place.
We were early enough to find a great spot, listened to the singing, squeezed into the very unfashionable Mitre for a couple of pints, wandered down to the Covered Market for a drunken breakfast and then parted ways.
It was the perfect Oxford May Day experience, except for the fact that when that week's Oxford Times came out, there we all were on the front page, beaming up at the tower. Whatever kind of arrangement *was* in place, I can imagine it didn't encompass appearing together in the local press. Rumour has it someone went round buying up every copy of that week's edition in West Oxfordshire. I still have mine.
By the time it came around to falling on a weekend again, we lived on the other side of the bridge (which is always closed from around 4am to stop drunken students jumping off and braining themselves on shopping trolleys other drunken students have thrown in the river). We wandered up Cowley Road around 5ish, stopping to pick up various friends on the way, feeling like we were calling for them on the way to school. We stayed east afterwards as well, drinking Guinness at the Temple Bar (still in its pre-makeover formica and urinal cakes phase if memory serves) then back to ours for kedgeree and Bloody Marys in the garden.
It's great, is May Morning, if you do it right. There's something deliciously transgressive about going to the pub before breakfast... it sort of reminds me of Lytham Club Day in my teens, when the pubs were open ALL DAY. Hard to imagine now what people used to do between 3pm and 7pm on sunny bank holidays.
And if you're only here for a few years, then yes, clearly you must get up and get out there. If you live here though, and you don't have a thing for Morris dancing, and you have to go to work afterwards, and you're SO not a morning person, then all you get is the aftermath... girls with smudged mascara and bleeding feet, boys who have been drinking for so many hours that every civilising vestige of their expensive education has been obliterated and you just want to drive a stake through them and their can of Red Bull.
On balance though, I wouldn't be without it.
joella
These two were rarely seen out together, as one of them was married to someone else at the time. I don't approve of That Sort Of Thing, but I'd only really ever known them as a couple, and who was I (or indeed am I) to tell other people how to manage their relationships. It wasn't the first liaison of its kind, I did know that, and I assumed there was some kind of tacit 'arrangement' in place.
We were early enough to find a great spot, listened to the singing, squeezed into the very unfashionable Mitre for a couple of pints, wandered down to the Covered Market for a drunken breakfast and then parted ways.
It was the perfect Oxford May Day experience, except for the fact that when that week's Oxford Times came out, there we all were on the front page, beaming up at the tower. Whatever kind of arrangement *was* in place, I can imagine it didn't encompass appearing together in the local press. Rumour has it someone went round buying up every copy of that week's edition in West Oxfordshire. I still have mine.
By the time it came around to falling on a weekend again, we lived on the other side of the bridge (which is always closed from around 4am to stop drunken students jumping off and braining themselves on shopping trolleys other drunken students have thrown in the river). We wandered up Cowley Road around 5ish, stopping to pick up various friends on the way, feeling like we were calling for them on the way to school. We stayed east afterwards as well, drinking Guinness at the Temple Bar (still in its pre-makeover formica and urinal cakes phase if memory serves) then back to ours for kedgeree and Bloody Marys in the garden.
It's great, is May Morning, if you do it right. There's something deliciously transgressive about going to the pub before breakfast... it sort of reminds me of Lytham Club Day in my teens, when the pubs were open ALL DAY. Hard to imagine now what people used to do between 3pm and 7pm on sunny bank holidays.
And if you're only here for a few years, then yes, clearly you must get up and get out there. If you live here though, and you don't have a thing for Morris dancing, and you have to go to work afterwards, and you're SO not a morning person, then all you get is the aftermath... girls with smudged mascara and bleeding feet, boys who have been drinking for so many hours that every civilising vestige of their expensive education has been obliterated and you just want to drive a stake through them and their can of Red Bull.
On balance though, I wouldn't be without it.
joella
Monday, April 27, 2009
No country for old brands
This morning we found ourselves at a Welcome Break on the M42, needing a brief respite from lorry spray, tailbacks and general greyness. In the coffee queue, I saw a sign that awarded the southbound M42 outlet of this forgettably named hot-drinks-and-panini franchise five stars, for attaining '96% brand compliance'. I thought this was about the most depressing thing imaginable - although then I sat down and opened the complimentary copy of the Daily *spit* Mail, a brand from hell if ever there was one.
Closing it with a shudder, I drank my bucket of Americano and thought about brands. They are fascinating things. Brand compliance at the Welcome Break is about replicating the Coffee Shack (or whatever) experience. I may find the Coffee Shack experience soul-destroying (because what I really want to find on the M42 is someone offering tiny espressos and spicy noodle soup in a Vietnamese roadside stylee, and that is *never* going to happen), but there are times when we all look for the comfort of the familiar. For example, there was nothing to compare to my happiness when I sourced Laughing Cow cheese and Vimto in the Hot Place. You know where you are with Laughing Cow cheese and Vimto, and I needed to know where I was. Maybe some people feel like that after they've survived the M5-M6 merge, and Coffee Shack is there to deliver.
But if that's all there was to it we'd still all be driving Austin Maestros and cleaning our bathrooms with Vim powder, and Little Chef wouldn't be in so much trouble. We must all spend more, on new things, all the time, or capitalism will FAIL! (Um...)
Enter marketing, and hate it as I do (and I've linked to Bill Hicks on the subject before, but it's worth doing again) I have my buttons and there are brands that push them.
Sometimes, there's a brand that just gets it right. You want their stuff because it feels good, it looks good, it works better than anything comparable, it makes you feel good. It also tends to cost twice as much, but you think to yourself, maybe it's worth saving up for. And maybe it is. Apple, DeWalt and Le Creuset all come to mind.
But much more often there are the brands that you want because their marketing people have done a good job. If they've done a *really* good job you think these brands somehow help you say something about yourself. In my purchasing lifetime I've fallen for JPS, Ellesse, Aveda, Stolichnaya and Billy Bag, among many others, in this way. None of them worth the money (though my Ellesse trainers are now 12 years old and serving well on the allotment).
Somewhere in the middle there are the brands that help you navigate the overwhelming choice of everything everywhere. You have to wash your hair with something. You have to put something on your toast in the morning. You place yourself somewhere on the multidimensional axes of smell, taste, cost, quality, aesthetics, ethics etc, you make your choice, and if you've got any sense you stick to it. Here I would put Lurpak, Neals Yard, Fat Face, Moleskine, and the Co-op Bank
Having said all that, my Feelgood Wine Of The Summer for 2009 is Black Tower Pinot Grigio. Go figure.
joella
Closing it with a shudder, I drank my bucket of Americano and thought about brands. They are fascinating things. Brand compliance at the Welcome Break is about replicating the Coffee Shack (or whatever) experience. I may find the Coffee Shack experience soul-destroying (because what I really want to find on the M42 is someone offering tiny espressos and spicy noodle soup in a Vietnamese roadside stylee, and that is *never* going to happen), but there are times when we all look for the comfort of the familiar. For example, there was nothing to compare to my happiness when I sourced Laughing Cow cheese and Vimto in the Hot Place. You know where you are with Laughing Cow cheese and Vimto, and I needed to know where I was. Maybe some people feel like that after they've survived the M5-M6 merge, and Coffee Shack is there to deliver.
But if that's all there was to it we'd still all be driving Austin Maestros and cleaning our bathrooms with Vim powder, and Little Chef wouldn't be in so much trouble. We must all spend more, on new things, all the time, or capitalism will FAIL! (Um...)
Enter marketing, and hate it as I do (and I've linked to Bill Hicks on the subject before, but it's worth doing again) I have my buttons and there are brands that push them.
Sometimes, there's a brand that just gets it right. You want their stuff because it feels good, it looks good, it works better than anything comparable, it makes you feel good. It also tends to cost twice as much, but you think to yourself, maybe it's worth saving up for. And maybe it is. Apple, DeWalt and Le Creuset all come to mind.
But much more often there are the brands that you want because their marketing people have done a good job. If they've done a *really* good job you think these brands somehow help you say something about yourself. In my purchasing lifetime I've fallen for JPS, Ellesse, Aveda, Stolichnaya and Billy Bag, among many others, in this way. None of them worth the money (though my Ellesse trainers are now 12 years old and serving well on the allotment).
Somewhere in the middle there are the brands that help you navigate the overwhelming choice of everything everywhere. You have to wash your hair with something. You have to put something on your toast in the morning. You place yourself somewhere on the multidimensional axes of smell, taste, cost, quality, aesthetics, ethics etc, you make your choice, and if you've got any sense you stick to it. Here I would put Lurpak, Neals Yard, Fat Face, Moleskine, and the Co-op Bank
Having said all that, my Feelgood Wine Of The Summer for 2009 is Black Tower Pinot Grigio. Go figure.
joella
Monday, April 20, 2009
Up and down and round and round
There I was, thinking that I never did anything anymore except darn socks, explore cabbage recipes and stick pins in voodoo dolls of the Carolines next door, but it's shaping up to be quite an eventful spring. Gigular, in particular. David Byrne played Oxford the Thursday before Easter. Wasn't planning to go, but then M read the reviews of previous shows and decided that we had to. And there were still tickets, so we did. It was awesome. There were tears, there was dancing (incredible on stage, impressively awful in the aisles), there was jumping up and down and shouting of THIS AIN'T NO FOOLING AROUND. And there were men in tutus. They can burn down my house anytime.
A far more select gathering was the spring outing of Nonstop Tango. They make it as difficult as possible for people to come to their gigs by having them in out of the way places and not telling anyone about them. Which is a shame in a way as I think they're getting pretty good. They can practise in my middle room anytime.
NST played in the Brookes Drama Studio... just around the corner a couple of weeks later the mighty Polly Jean Harvey played the main Brookes venue with John Parish. I *hate* this venue, it's an overcrowded misshapen muffled-yet-booming hellhole where they won't sell you a bottle of water with the lid still on and you can't generally see a damn thing unless you're six feet tall thanks to all the corn fed students with hats on jammed up the front. *But* Andy made me an offer I couldn't refuse and I'm glad I didn't. We wedged ourselves into a good spot in the middle, and she delivered a pretty amazing set - I didn't know much of it, but that made the screams even screamier. Pig Will Not is the song of the season.
And we've also been away to see the Finnfans in sunny Swansea, where we dragged a crippled child to the beach (above) in the boot of the car and later ate nettle tops. It was excellent, as ever, and also featured gin, before, during and after the Marriage of Figaro.
So it's not a bad life, all things considered, though I wish my gherkin seeds would germinate and my shower would stop blowing its fuse for reasons I Do Not Understand.
joella
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Reality Checkpoint
... is a real place. Someone took me there once when I was a little, how shall we say, boxed. It's stayed with me.
So I was slightly freaked the other day when, walking up the stairs, I tugged at a corner of wallpaper till it started coming away. Feeling guilty (we have agreed to strip the wallpaper but we haven't actually agreed to start stripping the wallpaper, as we can't rewallpaper till we've rewired, and we haven't any money for rewiring, what with the Global Economic Downturn), I carried on up to my room. And then I saw on the wall, in tiny letters, in *my own handwriting*, the words PEEL ME.
Eight years nearly, we've lived in this house. I wonder when I wrote that.
joella
So I was slightly freaked the other day when, walking up the stairs, I tugged at a corner of wallpaper till it started coming away. Feeling guilty (we have agreed to strip the wallpaper but we haven't actually agreed to start stripping the wallpaper, as we can't rewallpaper till we've rewired, and we haven't any money for rewiring, what with the Global Economic Downturn), I carried on up to my room. And then I saw on the wall, in tiny letters, in *my own handwriting*, the words PEEL ME.
Eight years nearly, we've lived in this house. I wonder when I wrote that.
joella
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Spring cleaning
I finally tidied up my Blogger template. I'm not using Blogger Layouts, which would make it easy to add things and take things away, because I've been around longer than they have. I could switch, but then I would lose all my template tweaks, and there are quite a lot of them - the random top right photo code, the archive posts in latest-first order code, some of the styles in the stylesheet.
But not switching means I have to add widgets manually, which means delving into already fairly messy code with my rusting HTML skills. So nothing changed for a while.
But then I noticed that my Jaiku badge and my last.fm quilt had both stopped working, and I don't like joella to look neglected. So I opened up TextPad and got to work.
1. Links to Atom feed and old blogs are gone: the first is now irrelevant - surely everyone can do feeds these days - and the old stuff, well, I know where it is if I want to read it again, but why would anyone else?
2. Jaiku = out. I had high hopes when Google bought it, and I liked the multiple feed 'activity stream', though it seems to have broken when they closed down for the Google migration, and I can't work out how to start it up again. And generally, I think they might have missed the boat. Though I'm keeping my account, just in case. It has cool.
3. Last.fm album quilt - I didn't fix this but changed instead to a 'recently played' list. I use last.fm all over the place now - with iTunes, on its own and with the awesome Spotify, so it's a better reflection of what I'm actually listening to than it used to be.
4. Twitter = in. I resisted for a long time, but then two things happened: first, I realised that several people who aren't on FB and I want to be in touch with *are* on Twitter, and second, the Facebook Twitter app meant I could update FB status via Twitter. They're a little bit different, I know, but I don't like the tedious RTing of bit.ly links that seems to make up the majority of (*shudder*) Tweets at the moment. It will evolve as a medium, I'm sure though, and I do like the 140 character constraint. Constraints are good for creativity. But yes, anyway, I've been using Twitter for a while, so it made sense to make the link. But if I start doing that blogging about updating Twitter and Twittering about updating my blog thing, someone please shoot me.
5. Tidied up the 'blogs I read' list. There are other blogs I read, but many of them are only updated v sporadically, or I read them for a very specific reason. So these are more like the blogs I would recommend. There aren't very many of them, but lots of my favourite correspondents just won't blog, dammit.
That's about it. And this is one of those posts that is mainly for my own future information. Sorry about that.
joella
But not switching means I have to add widgets manually, which means delving into already fairly messy code with my rusting HTML skills. So nothing changed for a while.
But then I noticed that my Jaiku badge and my last.fm quilt had both stopped working, and I don't like joella to look neglected. So I opened up TextPad and got to work.
1. Links to Atom feed and old blogs are gone: the first is now irrelevant - surely everyone can do feeds these days - and the old stuff, well, I know where it is if I want to read it again, but why would anyone else?
2. Jaiku = out. I had high hopes when Google bought it, and I liked the multiple feed 'activity stream', though it seems to have broken when they closed down for the Google migration, and I can't work out how to start it up again. And generally, I think they might have missed the boat. Though I'm keeping my account, just in case. It has cool.
3. Last.fm album quilt - I didn't fix this but changed instead to a 'recently played' list. I use last.fm all over the place now - with iTunes, on its own and with the awesome Spotify, so it's a better reflection of what I'm actually listening to than it used to be.
4. Twitter = in. I resisted for a long time, but then two things happened: first, I realised that several people who aren't on FB and I want to be in touch with *are* on Twitter, and second, the Facebook Twitter app meant I could update FB status via Twitter. They're a little bit different, I know, but I don't like the tedious RTing of bit.ly links that seems to make up the majority of (*shudder*) Tweets at the moment. It will evolve as a medium, I'm sure though, and I do like the 140 character constraint. Constraints are good for creativity. But yes, anyway, I've been using Twitter for a while, so it made sense to make the link. But if I start doing that blogging about updating Twitter and Twittering about updating my blog thing, someone please shoot me.
5. Tidied up the 'blogs I read' list. There are other blogs I read, but many of them are only updated v sporadically, or I read them for a very specific reason. So these are more like the blogs I would recommend. There aren't very many of them, but lots of my favourite correspondents just won't blog, dammit.
That's about it. And this is one of those posts that is mainly for my own future information. Sorry about that.
joella
Monday, April 06, 2009
And so to shed
It's a non-working Monday. I'm getting back into the habit.
One thing I have realised from a couple of years of mostly non-working Mondays (and quite a lot of non-working Tuesdays) is that I don't, after all, hate summer. No. It is mornings that I hate. If I don't have a reason to rise, then 11 is the earliest you're likely to see me. Quite likely later, in these days of wireless internet access, or if I am reading a good book.
I wish it were otherwise, but it's not, and I've gradually come to the conclusion that it's hard-wired. It gets gradually better with age -- was a time you wouldn't see me before 3pm -- but in those days my phamaceutical intake was more creative and I regularly stayed up till dawn. But I am not, never have been and never will be a morning person. In the winter, this doesn't feel so bad (except on the days when I don't get up till it's actually dark, those aren't good) but in the spring and summer it feels like a criminal waste to still be lying in bed managing anxieties while the man next door but two with the mail order bride* has been up and tending to his brassicas for, ooh, hours.
It is the modest ambition of the rest of my 30s to come to terms with this shortcoming. When I think about it, it has shaped my life. I have never commuted to work, I simply can't get up early enough, so my career has been defined by the jobs available within five miles - this makes me green, but that's an accident, not a design. I never went to nine o'clock lectures at university, and have but a sketchy understanding of the thoughts of Hobbes and Locke as a result. I don't make weekend plans before lunchtime. I have only very briefly considered having children, and one of the (many) reasons for not doing it is I couldn't face the early starts. I have never caught the worm. Our household motto is 'seize the afternoon'.
And I don't think that's going to change. So my new working hypothesis is 'that's ok'. Lots of good things happen in the afternoon, and I'm about to go and plant my gherkin seeds to prove it.
joella
* No empirical evidence of this. But I can't imagine this union happening any other way.
One thing I have realised from a couple of years of mostly non-working Mondays (and quite a lot of non-working Tuesdays) is that I don't, after all, hate summer. No. It is mornings that I hate. If I don't have a reason to rise, then 11 is the earliest you're likely to see me. Quite likely later, in these days of wireless internet access, or if I am reading a good book.
I wish it were otherwise, but it's not, and I've gradually come to the conclusion that it's hard-wired. It gets gradually better with age -- was a time you wouldn't see me before 3pm -- but in those days my phamaceutical intake was more creative and I regularly stayed up till dawn. But I am not, never have been and never will be a morning person. In the winter, this doesn't feel so bad (except on the days when I don't get up till it's actually dark, those aren't good) but in the spring and summer it feels like a criminal waste to still be lying in bed managing anxieties while the man next door but two with the mail order bride* has been up and tending to his brassicas for, ooh, hours.
It is the modest ambition of the rest of my 30s to come to terms with this shortcoming. When I think about it, it has shaped my life. I have never commuted to work, I simply can't get up early enough, so my career has been defined by the jobs available within five miles - this makes me green, but that's an accident, not a design. I never went to nine o'clock lectures at university, and have but a sketchy understanding of the thoughts of Hobbes and Locke as a result. I don't make weekend plans before lunchtime. I have only very briefly considered having children, and one of the (many) reasons for not doing it is I couldn't face the early starts. I have never caught the worm. Our household motto is 'seize the afternoon'.
And I don't think that's going to change. So my new working hypothesis is 'that's ok'. Lots of good things happen in the afternoon, and I'm about to go and plant my gherkin seeds to prove it.
joella
* No empirical evidence of this. But I can't imagine this union happening any other way.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Same old shit, different century
Not a great week for the ladies. Over here, we find out more about the man who killed his wife, daughter, horses and dogs before burning down his house, like they were so many things to cross off a list. Rich and dead, or poor and alive, I wonder which they'd have chosen if he'd bothered to ask them?
Over there, we have the public flogging of a teenage girl, for being in the same house as an electrician, at whom she may or may not have made eyes. The government are at least protesting, which is more than can be said a bit further over there, which is busy legalising rape within marriage, and making it illegal for women to *leave* the house without their husband's permission, unless it's an emergency, like maybe the electrician coming round.
Says one over there MP: "Men and women have equal rights under Islam but there are differences in the way men and women are created. Men are stronger and women are a little bit weaker; even in the west you do not see women working as firefighters."
Now a) if you don't see them that's because you're not looking, and b) I don't quite see how firefighting relates to consensual sex and personal freedom. But that's possibly because I'm, you know, a little bit weak.
And back over here, of course, there was Masturgate. Clearly Ms Smith has not covered herself in glory of late, but now we've all had to think about what her husband's been covering himself in, I can't help but feel sorry for her.
If it weren't for Michelle O, it'd be hell in a handcart all round at the moment.
joella
Over there, we have the public flogging of a teenage girl, for being in the same house as an electrician, at whom she may or may not have made eyes. The government are at least protesting, which is more than can be said a bit further over there, which is busy legalising rape within marriage, and making it illegal for women to *leave* the house without their husband's permission, unless it's an emergency, like maybe the electrician coming round.
Says one over there MP: "Men and women have equal rights under Islam but there are differences in the way men and women are created. Men are stronger and women are a little bit weaker; even in the west you do not see women working as firefighters."
Now a) if you don't see them that's because you're not looking, and b) I don't quite see how firefighting relates to consensual sex and personal freedom. But that's possibly because I'm, you know, a little bit weak.
And back over here, of course, there was Masturgate. Clearly Ms Smith has not covered herself in glory of late, but now we've all had to think about what her husband's been covering himself in, I can't help but feel sorry for her.
If it weren't for Michelle O, it'd be hell in a handcart all round at the moment.
joella
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Wok 2.0
We have a bit of a carrot glut at the moment, so I went looking for carrot recipes while M watched The Simpsons. I did this via old skool cookbooks... you get a feel for the author whose recipes you are in the mood for, and I was feeling a bit Prue Leith. I can't find her carrot fritters recipe online, but there is an Anthony Worrall Thompson one that is remarkably similar.
We got to work. I don't get on with the wok (partly because it lives on top of the cupboard and I can't reach it without standing on a chair, and partly because it has a complicated aftercare ritual), so M was doing the honours. He was grating away, and I was whizzing yoghurt with herbs and shredding lettuce. I only have one thing to ask of you, he said. Please don't Twitter about your fritter*.
As soon as the carrot hit the hot oil I had an urge to hear Neutral Milk Hotel's King of Carrot Flowers Part 1 - a song I just can't get enough of, but I worry that I play too much. Saturation means I might go off it, though come to think of it that's never worked for gherkins, The Wire, sleeping or any of the other things I indulge in too much of. Patience, joella, I thought to myself, and instead I lined up all 58 of the songs that come up on Spotify (today) if you search on 'carrot'.
There are worse ways to choose the soundtrack for dinner, though there was rather too much Beefheart (=any Beefheart) for my liking.
joella
*and I'm not, see?
We got to work. I don't get on with the wok (partly because it lives on top of the cupboard and I can't reach it without standing on a chair, and partly because it has a complicated aftercare ritual), so M was doing the honours. He was grating away, and I was whizzing yoghurt with herbs and shredding lettuce. I only have one thing to ask of you, he said. Please don't Twitter about your fritter*.
As soon as the carrot hit the hot oil I had an urge to hear Neutral Milk Hotel's King of Carrot Flowers Part 1 - a song I just can't get enough of, but I worry that I play too much. Saturation means I might go off it, though come to think of it that's never worked for gherkins, The Wire, sleeping or any of the other things I indulge in too much of. Patience, joella, I thought to myself, and instead I lined up all 58 of the songs that come up on Spotify (today) if you search on 'carrot'.
There are worse ways to choose the soundtrack for dinner, though there was rather too much Beefheart (=any Beefheart) for my liking.
joella
*and I'm not, see?
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Can I just say...
Three things, having just watched Newsnight.
1. The opposite of anti-abortion is NOT pro-abortion. Nobody is pro-abortion, at least nobody I've ever met. The opposite of anti-abortion is pro-choice.
2. Relatedly, young people do not get pregnant. Young women get pregnant. Can we please at least MENTION gender when we talk about teenage pregnancy?
3. Like Stephen Fry once said about Noel Edmonds: a short word about Michael Winner - No. A long word about Michael Winner - Unconscionable.
Calm down dear, I know.
joella
1. The opposite of anti-abortion is NOT pro-abortion. Nobody is pro-abortion, at least nobody I've ever met. The opposite of anti-abortion is pro-choice.
2. Relatedly, young people do not get pregnant. Young women get pregnant. Can we please at least MENTION gender when we talk about teenage pregnancy?
3. Like Stephen Fry once said about Noel Edmonds: a short word about Michael Winner - No. A long word about Michael Winner - Unconscionable.
Calm down dear, I know.
joella
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
If I don't make it back...
... said M, as he set off bravely into the drizzle in search of a bottle of white, you've been a very understanding girlfriend.
Glad you see it that way, I said. I worry that I have termagant tendencies.
But it takes all sorts to make a world.
joella
Glad you see it that way, I said. I worry that I have termagant tendencies.
But it takes all sorts to make a world.
joella
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Reflections on power, cheese, and deserts
Last week at work, a decision I have been pushing for for nearly a year finally got made, and got made in the direction I'd been pushing for. I was momentarily jubilant, then I went for a wee and when I came back the person who had been pushing just as hard in the other direction was a bit tearful. And I know, if it had gone the other way, which it so easily could have, so very nearly did, then the tears would have been mine. I had shed some only the night before. Yes, I thought it was that important. And so did she.
I wonder if my currency is higher, or things are moving faster, because of what happened in the Hot Place. Crises make careers, everyone knows that, even if you happened to be there by accident. For years I have had nothing but carrots, now, briefly, there is a small stick, and I get to wave it. My report about learning points has been read by high-ups and pissed a couple of them off, and I'm not used to that either. I am used to toiling in the detail round the edges of the main story, taken seriously by a few people (and I love you all) and reassured that my stuff is of course *important* but not, you know, important enough to do anything *about*. So I don't bother pulling my punches, because I'm not usually hitting anyone who's noticing.
It might be an interesting week.
Meanwhile, my personal equilibrium swings like a pendulum do. Well, maybe more like Newton's cradle do, as I think it's slowly coming back to rest somewhere manageable. Sunday evenings are warm times chez joella, as M and I both love to listen to Freakzone, which seems to occupy the interesting part of the intersection of our respective musical tastes. Freakzone listening happens in the kitchen, where one of us will tidy up while the other cooks dinner.
But tonight we both wanted to cook. I made lentil soup, which I have been making for ten years, can make with my eyes closed, and relies on a failsafe combination of good olive oil, cheap red wine and bay leaves. We didn't have any bread, so M baked cheese scones to go with it. I have never had a home made cheese scone before. What have I been doing with my life?
Towards the end of the programme, Freakzone played us Water is Life. Immediately, over wine, cheese and lentils, we hatched a plan to visit next year's Festival Au Desert. And this just two weeks after I swore never to leave the country again.
So I guess hope springs eternal. And amen to that.
joella
I wonder if my currency is higher, or things are moving faster, because of what happened in the Hot Place. Crises make careers, everyone knows that, even if you happened to be there by accident. For years I have had nothing but carrots, now, briefly, there is a small stick, and I get to wave it. My report about learning points has been read by high-ups and pissed a couple of them off, and I'm not used to that either. I am used to toiling in the detail round the edges of the main story, taken seriously by a few people (and I love you all) and reassured that my stuff is of course *important* but not, you know, important enough to do anything *about*. So I don't bother pulling my punches, because I'm not usually hitting anyone who's noticing.
It might be an interesting week.
Meanwhile, my personal equilibrium swings like a pendulum do. Well, maybe more like Newton's cradle do, as I think it's slowly coming back to rest somewhere manageable. Sunday evenings are warm times chez joella, as M and I both love to listen to Freakzone, which seems to occupy the interesting part of the intersection of our respective musical tastes. Freakzone listening happens in the kitchen, where one of us will tidy up while the other cooks dinner.
But tonight we both wanted to cook. I made lentil soup, which I have been making for ten years, can make with my eyes closed, and relies on a failsafe combination of good olive oil, cheap red wine and bay leaves. We didn't have any bread, so M baked cheese scones to go with it. I have never had a home made cheese scone before. What have I been doing with my life?
Towards the end of the programme, Freakzone played us Water is Life. Immediately, over wine, cheese and lentils, we hatched a plan to visit next year's Festival Au Desert. And this just two weeks after I swore never to leave the country again.
So I guess hope springs eternal. And amen to that.
joella
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Rearrange me till I'm sane
I've been back from the Hot Place for a week now. It feels like a lot longer, even though the calendar and the laundry basket both tell me otherwise.
Monday: went into work for a bit. Talked to a lot of people. Hugged some of them. Cried a bit. Came home. Dreamt about deleting things.
Tuesday: stayed at home. Thought I would go to the allotment. I got there eventually but I just sat on a plastic chair, staring at wet clay and hugging my knees. Have you got some time off? said J, from the plot over the way. I've been away, I said. I've just got back. Where have you been? he said. The Hot Place, I said. I work for NGO X. I don't really know what to do with myself. Just potter around for a while, he said, you'll feel better. And I did, for a bit.
Wednesday: went into work but in a drifty sort of way. Rearranged a few meetings, not wanting to be rude, and went to a few others. There is no money for anything at all this year, but we can't do free things because they are not in line with our expensive strategy. I'd taken a break from trying to square this circle, but it is not making any more sense than it did last month. Started to bleed, a week late. A little pressure valve in my head let off some steam. It condensed into tears during the lying down part at the end of yoga. Broke into emergency Temazepam stash.
Thursday: woke up into a softer world, then stayed in bed all day, alternately reading Ruth Rendell, tending to Sultana in Pet Society, surfing Hot Place blogs, and writing my 'learning points'. There are a lot of them. It was a good thing to do. There is a lot of blood as well. I tried to listen to my body, like they say you should. It seemed to be saying 'please drink red wine'. So I did.
Friday: Went into work, and got angry about something that on Wednesday had been down the end of a long tunnel. It's my job to get angry about these things, in a way -- and certainly if I don't, nobody else will, so it felt like a little trip back into the world I am actually supposed to be living in, rather than the one I stepped into briefly, where it is volatile and remote and normal rules do not apply. Here, there might be a point getting angry. But later, I had my first ever argument with housemate P, who is scathing about many things that I believe in, and believes in many things about which I am scathing. M intervened before it got too heated, which was sensible. We shook hands and left it for another day.
Saturday: Friendly allotment working party: lots of digging and we got the early potatoes in. Later, crumpets and a nap. Later still, pasta and vino at Fratelli's, where the lovely Ms Y reinvested the voucher she won in the animal sanctuary raffle. I can't remember what we talked about, which is exactly how I wanted it.
Today: I don't know. I'm still not feeling quite right, but I can see that at some point soon I will be. We've sorted out the shed, which is part of the official welcoming of spring chez joella, and M is cooking the pancakes that I missed out on the week before last. I don't want to *not* think about the Hot Place but I have to separate it out. It's not my story. It fits *into* my story somewhere, my story wanders around water, and women, and the indicators of civilisation, and a lack of faith in a benign universe, but the Hot Place belongs to other people.
This mild, damp, temperate place is my place, and while it can be hard to get your clothes dry, even harder to pay your gas bill and I'm SO BORED of parsnips, I'm mighty glad that my mix and match forbears set me down here.
joella
Monday: went into work for a bit. Talked to a lot of people. Hugged some of them. Cried a bit. Came home. Dreamt about deleting things.
Tuesday: stayed at home. Thought I would go to the allotment. I got there eventually but I just sat on a plastic chair, staring at wet clay and hugging my knees. Have you got some time off? said J, from the plot over the way. I've been away, I said. I've just got back. Where have you been? he said. The Hot Place, I said. I work for NGO X. I don't really know what to do with myself. Just potter around for a while, he said, you'll feel better. And I did, for a bit.
Wednesday: went into work but in a drifty sort of way. Rearranged a few meetings, not wanting to be rude, and went to a few others. There is no money for anything at all this year, but we can't do free things because they are not in line with our expensive strategy. I'd taken a break from trying to square this circle, but it is not making any more sense than it did last month. Started to bleed, a week late. A little pressure valve in my head let off some steam. It condensed into tears during the lying down part at the end of yoga. Broke into emergency Temazepam stash.
Thursday: woke up into a softer world, then stayed in bed all day, alternately reading Ruth Rendell, tending to Sultana in Pet Society, surfing Hot Place blogs, and writing my 'learning points'. There are a lot of them. It was a good thing to do. There is a lot of blood as well. I tried to listen to my body, like they say you should. It seemed to be saying 'please drink red wine'. So I did.
Friday: Went into work, and got angry about something that on Wednesday had been down the end of a long tunnel. It's my job to get angry about these things, in a way -- and certainly if I don't, nobody else will, so it felt like a little trip back into the world I am actually supposed to be living in, rather than the one I stepped into briefly, where it is volatile and remote and normal rules do not apply. Here, there might be a point getting angry. But later, I had my first ever argument with housemate P, who is scathing about many things that I believe in, and believes in many things about which I am scathing. M intervened before it got too heated, which was sensible. We shook hands and left it for another day.
Saturday: Friendly allotment working party: lots of digging and we got the early potatoes in. Later, crumpets and a nap. Later still, pasta and vino at Fratelli's, where the lovely Ms Y reinvested the voucher she won in the animal sanctuary raffle. I can't remember what we talked about, which is exactly how I wanted it.
Today: I don't know. I'm still not feeling quite right, but I can see that at some point soon I will be. We've sorted out the shed, which is part of the official welcoming of spring chez joella, and M is cooking the pancakes that I missed out on the week before last. I don't want to *not* think about the Hot Place but I have to separate it out. It's not my story. It fits *into* my story somewhere, my story wanders around water, and women, and the indicators of civilisation, and a lack of faith in a benign universe, but the Hot Place belongs to other people.
This mild, damp, temperate place is my place, and while it can be hard to get your clothes dry, even harder to pay your gas bill and I'm SO BORED of parsnips, I'm mighty glad that my mix and match forbears set me down here.
joella
Monday, March 09, 2009
Here's one I prepared earlier
[STARTS]
The international staff who work in the NGO X Field Office live together in a ramshackle guest house. It is truly international -- at the moment there are people there from Malaysia, Chile, Kenya, Iraq, Sweden, New Zealand, the US and the UK. It is also truly ramshackle, though necessity is the mother of invention and people produce the most surprising things -- nutritional yeast for vegetarian pasta sauce, data projectors for outdoor film screenings, shisha pipes, ipod speakers, taco shells... the plumbing may leave a lot to be desired but you can have a surprisingly relaxing time on a Thursday night, considering.
I believe that diversity is good, and I love being in the middle of it, but you're never quite sure of yourself and there are occasional misunderstandings. My UNHAS flight back to the Capital City was one of them. It was made entirely clear to me (for reasons that may now be obvious) that I should return no later than Monday, but it remained entirely unclear to me who was booking it, and whether or not I needed to chase it up. It turned out that it was entirely unclear to everyone who was booking it, and that in fact it wasn't booked, but it could just as easily been entirely in hand.
So on Saturday, a rush booking was made for Tuesday. (There is a three day lead time because bookings need to be approved via official channels, and official channels take three days. You know if you have cleared the channels when your name appears on the flight manifest.) On Sunday, Monday's manifest arrived. My name was on it. And on Tuesday's. I had two flights out.
But two is a lot better than none. I condensed everything into faster typing, shorter conversations, detailed emails, and ran around looking for a pair of trousers that had mysteriously disappeared. All schedules are out the window at the moment anyway, and the only thing you can expect is the unexpected, so it actually seemed fairly unremarkable that I had my last couple of meetings at top speed while I was eating my lunch, while the car waiting to take me to the airport waited outside the gate.
'You'll see we have saved the bum beans for your last day', said one of my colleagues. She has quite a strong English accent, I wasn't sure if I'd heard her right. Sorry? I said. 'The bum beans,' she said. 'I hate the bum beans'. I looked down at my plate. I was indeed the only person in the room eating the ful -- cooked fava beans, raw onion, undersalted, not great, and with flatulence guaranteed. But if you want to be a vegetarian in the Hot Place, you take your protein where you find it.
I rolled my eyes, and said yeah, but what can you do?
The room fell quiet as we ate, and there were more of the dull, reverberating thudding noises that I'd heard first thing in the morning. I'd been ignoring it, as I'd been ignoring the late night gunfire ("usually a wedding, don't worry about it"), and the fighter jets screaming overhead, because everybody else did. The jets are so loud that you can't hear anything else over them, and they reminded me, in a weird sort of way, of the weekly fire alarm tests in the New Building, where everyone stops mid sentence for five seconds, then picks up exactly where they left off.
But this noise was different. And then I realised that it wasn't an everyday noise, and that it was getting to people. And *then* I realised that D hadn't been talking about bum beans, she'd been talking about bombings. And then I felt like an idiot. And then I left.
However, safely back in Capital City, I had to run back from dinner, slithering around on the sand in an undignified fashion as my stomach made ominous noises. I reached the guest house just in time, and as the world fell out of my bottom it occurred to me that she might have meant bum beans after all.
[ENDS]
I am back now. There's another post, but I think it may need vetting, so maybe I won't. I don't really know at the moment, and I'm not really ok, but I have Talked To Someone, and apparently if I'm still crying randomly and dreaming about deleting files in five days time, then I might have a problem, but until then, it's all to be expected. In the meantime I am drinking red wine, lying under a blanket, listening to 80s tag last.fm and trying not to think about anything very much.
joella
The international staff who work in the NGO X Field Office live together in a ramshackle guest house. It is truly international -- at the moment there are people there from Malaysia, Chile, Kenya, Iraq, Sweden, New Zealand, the US and the UK. It is also truly ramshackle, though necessity is the mother of invention and people produce the most surprising things -- nutritional yeast for vegetarian pasta sauce, data projectors for outdoor film screenings, shisha pipes, ipod speakers, taco shells... the plumbing may leave a lot to be desired but you can have a surprisingly relaxing time on a Thursday night, considering.
I believe that diversity is good, and I love being in the middle of it, but you're never quite sure of yourself and there are occasional misunderstandings. My UNHAS flight back to the Capital City was one of them. It was made entirely clear to me (for reasons that may now be obvious) that I should return no later than Monday, but it remained entirely unclear to me who was booking it, and whether or not I needed to chase it up. It turned out that it was entirely unclear to everyone who was booking it, and that in fact it wasn't booked, but it could just as easily been entirely in hand.
So on Saturday, a rush booking was made for Tuesday. (There is a three day lead time because bookings need to be approved via official channels, and official channels take three days. You know if you have cleared the channels when your name appears on the flight manifest.) On Sunday, Monday's manifest arrived. My name was on it. And on Tuesday's. I had two flights out.
But two is a lot better than none. I condensed everything into faster typing, shorter conversations, detailed emails, and ran around looking for a pair of trousers that had mysteriously disappeared. All schedules are out the window at the moment anyway, and the only thing you can expect is the unexpected, so it actually seemed fairly unremarkable that I had my last couple of meetings at top speed while I was eating my lunch, while the car waiting to take me to the airport waited outside the gate.
'You'll see we have saved the bum beans for your last day', said one of my colleagues. She has quite a strong English accent, I wasn't sure if I'd heard her right. Sorry? I said. 'The bum beans,' she said. 'I hate the bum beans'. I looked down at my plate. I was indeed the only person in the room eating the ful -- cooked fava beans, raw onion, undersalted, not great, and with flatulence guaranteed. But if you want to be a vegetarian in the Hot Place, you take your protein where you find it.
I rolled my eyes, and said yeah, but what can you do?
The room fell quiet as we ate, and there were more of the dull, reverberating thudding noises that I'd heard first thing in the morning. I'd been ignoring it, as I'd been ignoring the late night gunfire ("usually a wedding, don't worry about it"), and the fighter jets screaming overhead, because everybody else did. The jets are so loud that you can't hear anything else over them, and they reminded me, in a weird sort of way, of the weekly fire alarm tests in the New Building, where everyone stops mid sentence for five seconds, then picks up exactly where they left off.
But this noise was different. And then I realised that it wasn't an everyday noise, and that it was getting to people. And *then* I realised that D hadn't been talking about bum beans, she'd been talking about bombings. And then I felt like an idiot. And then I left.
However, safely back in Capital City, I had to run back from dinner, slithering around on the sand in an undignified fashion as my stomach made ominous noises. I reached the guest house just in time, and as the world fell out of my bottom it occurred to me that she might have meant bum beans after all.
[ENDS]
I am back now. There's another post, but I think it may need vetting, so maybe I won't. I don't really know at the moment, and I'm not really ok, but I have Talked To Someone, and apparently if I'm still crying randomly and dreaming about deleting files in five days time, then I might have a problem, but until then, it's all to be expected. In the meantime I am drinking red wine, lying under a blanket, listening to 80s tag last.fm and trying not to think about anything very much.
joella
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Blogging by VSAT
I'm having trouble putting my thoughts into words at the moment, I am in The Field (well, in a field office, The Field is down the road) and I have a million things to say. The first one is, for anyone watching the situation in the Hot Place, I'm fine. We're all fine.
The rest has to do with stars and sand and guns and water. It feels like a waste of bandwidth to compose online, as bandwidth is hard to come by round here, but tomorrow is our day off, and I shall attempt to write something.
Till then, let's say I'm not spending much time thinking about the recession. It's in the background, but the foreground doesn't leave much spare space.
joella
The rest has to do with stars and sand and guns and water. It feels like a waste of bandwidth to compose online, as bandwidth is hard to come by round here, but tomorrow is our day off, and I shall attempt to write something.
Till then, let's say I'm not spending much time thinking about the recession. It's in the background, but the foreground doesn't leave much spare space.
joella
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Going once more a-roving
By popular demand, I am going back to the Hot Place. It won't be quite so hot, but there will be other complications. I will be playing with Jing, so I have got myself a microphone headset, so I will in theory be Skypeable. I won't be Twittering, but I might be Yammering. I'll be blogging obliquely. I'll be MSNing. All of this is of course assuming there's an internet connection. There was last time, but that don't mean a thing.
I'm so looking forward to coming back. February will be over, the sap will be rising, and I can start on Project Gherkin (involving a propagator and some Seeds of Italy) and Project Skirting (involving a sewing machine and something from Clothkits).
joella
I'm so looking forward to coming back. February will be over, the sap will be rising, and I can start on Project Gherkin (involving a propagator and some Seeds of Italy) and Project Skirting (involving a sewing machine and something from Clothkits).
joella
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Holy Ikea, Vatman!
So I went to Rome. It was a significant birthday of my Significant Aunt, and there was a gathering of the clan. I didn't think I'd be able to make it, as I was supposed to be going back to the Hot Place. But that got postponed (only till this time next week, however, when I will again be engaged with the information management side-effects of protracted instability), my passport came back from the Embassy, and I was good to go. When I was 17, I went post A-level InterRailing with my friend R. We spent a few days in Milan, during which time we were harassed so relentlessly (the high point being when a traffic policeman touched me up while we were crossing the road) that we decided to hang out with three boys from Macclesfield who were staying in the same Youth Hostel. They weren't much better: we drank far, far too much, I was sick in a park, and even that didn't stop them trying to get off with us.
I refused to go any further into Italy, and I haven't been back since. I can hold a grudge for a very long time, but I admit it was time to reassess.
My very first impression was not great, but one should never judge a country by the men who try to get you into a taxi at the airport. I should also say that the combination of capital city prices and euro exhange rate make pretty much everything eyewateringly expensive.
But it's beyootiful, it really is, and the food is astonishingly good. It doesn't seem to matter where you eat or what you order, it was all totally delicious. They have the kind of restaurants that we just don't, I think -- little places doing local food all over the place. I had some artichoke ravioli that I think I will remember forever, and the best minestrone soup I have ever tasted. And the Chianti, well.
It wasn't all eating and drinking, of course, though I wouldn't have minded if it had been. We went on an open top bus to the Vatican, to marvel at the baroque wonders and sheer hugeness of St Peter's Basilica. As a firmly lapsed Catholic, I wondered if I might be smote down by a giant sword, or at the very least feel an urge to get myself to a nunnery, but I am relieved to report that I emerged with nothing worse than a cricked neck and a sense of awe. Dometastic!
The Sistine Chapel was a different matter. To get there, you first have to walk for about a mile, then you have to part with quite a lot of cash, and then you have to walk another mile, but this one inside, through endless galleries and chambers and chapels and corridors plastered (often literally) with cherubs and saints and gilt and bleeding hearts (but no liberals, not even one). You can't just check out the bit you came all this way to see, oh no. You have to traipse past every last statue and frieze and tapestry and mosaic they've picked up in the last five centuries. It's like Ikea on acid.
I'm not sure why they make you do that, but it does mean that by the time you stare up at Michaelangelo's ceiling your feet have properly suffered and you have an appropriate sense of your own insignificance. And you've made a donation to the men who did this to you. They're not as green as they're cabbage looking, that's for damn sure.
There are a few photos here, if you're interested (I'm waiting on the one with all of us and a gold sofa in it). And of course, it was great to see everyone. Jerusalem next time? (Just kidding).
joella
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
New boots and panties
The boots have arrived! Just too late for me to look glamorous in them in Rome this weekend. Although I am not sure I could ever look glamorous in Rome. Or at all really. However I did get some green sunglasses there that someone said I looked 'mysterious' in this morning, and that's at least as good.
And they fit! And I think I love them as much as I did before the saga started, but even if I don't, I'm wearing them anyway. With my green sunglasses. Watch out Michelle Obama.
So that's the boots. The panties, well I can't be the only woman in the world to have been forwarded this link by her boyfriend. I do have a pair of pink pants (about which, strangely, I have previously written), where do I send them?
joella
And they fit! And I think I love them as much as I did before the saga started, but even if I don't, I'm wearing them anyway. With my green sunglasses. Watch out Michelle Obama.
So that's the boots. The panties, well I can't be the only woman in the world to have been forwarded this link by her boyfriend. I do have a pair of pink pants (about which, strangely, I have previously written), where do I send them?
joella
Thursday, February 05, 2009
I'll be out for a while
But I'll be back in a bit. I am just walking through the snow, finding out if this is it.
(That's a bastardised quote, so extra points if you get it).
I have SO MUCH to write about -- dressing for success, the absence of snow ploughs, the Beautiful Georgian City of Bath, whether or not 25 random things about me are interesting in any way, how much I am enjoying the West Wing. But I am flat out stressed out at the moment, mainly because I am currently doing an old-fashioned five day week in order to complete an impossible assignment.
I have some new photos of toilets, too. Oh well. I have to focus on the urgent, and the urgent is currently a slippery walk away.
laters
joella
(That's a bastardised quote, so extra points if you get it).
I have SO MUCH to write about -- dressing for success, the absence of snow ploughs, the Beautiful Georgian City of Bath, whether or not 25 random things about me are interesting in any way, how much I am enjoying the West Wing. But I am flat out stressed out at the moment, mainly because I am currently doing an old-fashioned five day week in order to complete an impossible assignment.
I have some new photos of toilets, too. Oh well. I have to focus on the urgent, and the urgent is currently a slippery walk away.
laters
joella
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)