Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Sometimes these things just happen

Caught up in the excitement of a Saturday night at home, Skye, Mike and I get far too excited about watching Annie Hall and decide that what we really want to do is pretend to be chickens.

In other news, my German workmate offered to marry me so I could stay, which was very kind, if not terribly sincere. His reasoning was that as his country has bombed the bollocks out of Britain and he's allowed to be here, it seems very unfair that I, loyal subject of Liz, should be forced to leave. He is a nice man and together we have completely destroyed an author, which has given us no end of delight - I like to think that he will always remember me as the editor who had the guts to purposely forget a foreword, thus bringing a teetering author to the brink of insanity, which led to nasty letters allowing us to break a contract. Unfortunately, I shall remember it as my biggest boo boo to date. But with such a satisfactory outcome.

With only three weeks of work left it is with a great deal of delight that I have started agreeing to some outlandish requests from commissioning editors and authors, safe in the knowledge that I will not have to see them through to fruition. But I shall miss the gang - we've become so close the last few months as we've given each other the flu, in a continuing vicious cycle where one of us gets better only to catch it again from someone in design a month or so later. We compare symptoms with gusto, warning the American that his turn is next. He laughs in the manner of someone who does not yet believe. His time will come.

Socially, there have been drinks, some cocktails, some thefting of condiments that I had nothing to do with, unless you count the fact that the getaway vehicle used to transport the goods was my handbag, some watching of reality tv, which has just led me to hate everyone on the telly, and quite a lot of eating stuff. It's autumn: time to eat and get the all-important layer of plumpness needed to protect one from the chill of London. Which I shall then magically shed when I get home. I just need to lay a trap for the pixies in the backyard so as to get my hands on some fairy dust, which, when applied correctly, works in a similar manner to a gym workout. But way faster. Like overnight. I know it's true, I read it in Cosmo.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Baking Day: Resurrection

In which Dan and I decide to bring back Baking Day. But we had to have it on a Saturday because we no longer seem to have spare time on weekdays, what with our jobs, hectic social lives, etc. It was decided that Baking Day UK-Stylez probably demanded pie. So pie we did. Good pie. Marvellous pie. Mostly made by Dan. Alex and I watched him and admitted that neither of us had ever seen anyone peel celery before. I made apple pie - it was not as good as Dan's chicken pie but I think I kind of buggered up the pastry owing to Alex plying me with wine. Disappointing lack of people wanting to participate in Baking Day - I suspect they're still terrified that purple death trifle will somehow make a comeback. This is foolish as one cannot find purple death here.

Working backwards over the past few weeks for a moment - I was abandoned by the other ginger twin and am still sulking. And then I ate some Peruvian with Kruse which was great fun especially once I worked out that I sort of understood the waitress. Sort of. And then Roger turned 30 so there were drinks. And then I did some work and then another weekend came about and Amanda was down for the evening so we sampled some wine at a pub and I watched an old man try and chat her up, which was hugely entertaining for me. And then we crashed at her brother's house. He is a chef and, much to my disappointment, had an empty fridge because he eats takeaways mostly. And then I had to wake up a little hungover and work out how to get to Toast NZ where I was meeting Kruse and Caro'n'Dom. This was difficult, made worse by my inability to think but I was only half an hour late and as a reward I got to have steak and cheese pie and L&P and it was delicious. As was the NZ wine and beer that I also partook of. Disappointment of the day was Supergroove - awful accoustics meant we couldn't hear feck all.
I cannot recall if I did anything on the Sunday. I probably cleaned the bathroom and did a white wash.

All of that brings us up to Baking Day, and then roast lunch at Kruse's with Chook and then drinks at the local and then rolling home and being dreadfully tired at work on Monday.

Yesterday I tried to purchase some sensible work-type shoes that are waterproof as it transpires that all my other shoes are not waterproof and this is irksome. But, you know how it is when you actually need something and have the cash - couldn't find shoes that fitted EXCEPT gold sparkly dancing heels which I thought 'Fuck it, I want those' and they were on sale so it makes it okay, but the shop had bloody lost the left shoe of the pair. Oh the cruelty of this situation. So I bought a jacket instead. I sort of needed that as well.

And then I bought a flight home so will be getting to NZ on 25 November.

The new American workmate is settling in well. We have adjusted mostly to the fact that he is a little bit louder than we are used to, and so fucking happy all of the time, which we are still coming to terms with. Clare in design was so suspicious when he asked how she was early one morning, that she turned to him and demanded to know what he wanted. Learning curves for all. His teeth are not nearly white and straight enough though, which leads me to believe that perhaps he spent his teenage years outside of the States as I thought it was mandatory for all Americans to get their teeth done at this stage in their lives. When he leaves the office he says goodbye to all of us by name. And just that little bit louder than what the English deem necessary. I helped him make his first cup of tea - he looked flummoxed at the potential addition of milk. And he told us that he proposed to his wife after watching the Matrix. The poor thing is about to inherit some of my nastiest books, which I was going to try and get as nice as possible before I left but the imp inside says it'll be a good learning curve for him if I don't.

This weekend - it's looking all nice and empty. Which means I can spend that time waiting for Ben to update his blog instead of complaining that I don't update this one nearly enough.