Glutton for punishment

Have trained my workmate to throw me a chocolate whenever she gets one.

I feel a trifle ill.

However, the end is in sight because only the horrid toffee and plain dairy milk are left so I can stop eating chocolates for breakfast, elevenses, as a post lunch treat, 3pm pick-me-up and 5pm only-30-minutes-to-go reward. It's quite a relief.

We have ourselves quite the merry not so little Christmas do

Skye and I decided that we ought to have a Christmas do and to hell with the fact that we were only giving people a week's notice. And then we kindly told Mike, seeing as how he lives here on the weekends, just so he wouldn't feel left out. And then the rejection texts and emails poured in and we thought, 'bugger, we hate our friends, why the hell can't they drop all their other plans and come to our soiree?', but pretended that we didn't care.

But we went ahead anyway, and it was, of course, terribly well attended, despite us not telling anyone that we'd (Skye) made Santa's Filthy Grotto. Some charming photos are floating around. I made asparagus rolls so that Mel would come. She was threatening not to, so I pulled out the big bribes.

Side note: I had a conversation recently with someone about how you have to make asparagus rolls with canned asparagus, otherwise you just don't get that 70s housewifely feeling of accomplishment, or that nice squishy white bread and canned asparagus feeling of goodness. They were asking why on earth I'd use canned asparagus when there's so much fresh about. I don't think they'd ever had a really well rolled asparagus roll.

I think some other things have happened but obviously nothing particuarly impressive. Work rolls on - it's mostly good, but I do have the feeling that something is missing. Not sure what. It certainly isn't chocolate. All the companies that print or typeset for us have been sending us huge tins of chocolate for Christmas. One sent us an incredibly swanky box that had a four-page menu and a chocolate the size of a piece of toast. We were all very polite about not taking it, whilst secretly coveting it. And then, disaster. Word got around Sales and Marketing that editorial had treats and one morning we came in and the incredibly big piece of chocolate was gone. And no one would own up to eating it. I believe the cleaners were blamed.

London continues to get quite bloody chilly and I curse that I have yet to find a pair of woollen stay up stockings because I loathe tights and gussets. It's a hard life when this is my biggest worry.

I really do sound rather shallow, sometimes. Not all the time, of course, but quite a large percentage of it.

Am spending Christmas with Katie and Mike and Mike's family in some small village somewhere. Am going to be on my best behaviour. It can be done.

And then I believe I get a Kruse on the 28th. And if I don't, I might throw a tanty.

Cooking with gas

I feel that I may have been a bit too harsh about bananas last week. They’re edible if they’re sliced. But only then.

I managed to beat Skye home from work on Monday but my triumph was cut short when I realised that we were having a power cut. As was most of the street. Not to be deterred from food I gleefully fired up the gas stove with handy old matches and set about having a glass of wine whilst I cooked by candlelight. Skye, pre-warned of the darkness, came home bearing pizza. No risotto for her. But we did manage to set off the alarm, meet the new neighbours because of this, and get permission from the landlord to take the alarm apart by force, if necessary. In the end we only had to cut some wires.
However, our night was about to get much more exciting. We played Scrabble by candlelight. I won, but it was pretty close and there was some name calling.

Went to Crowded House on the weekend, although Kruse refuses to believe this. I think he’s just jealous. It was very good, with much audience participation and holding up of cell phones in lieu of lighters. On the tube on the way home a man asked me if my name was Shasta or Clarissa or something similar. To which I said no. Well, it’s not, is it? He pondered this for a bit and then asked if I was in Philosophy 201 at the University of Canterbury. Right university, but wrong class. Which I said, but I don’t think he believed me and whispered loudly to his friend that he did know me and it was philosophy that we took. If I had been feeling generous I probably could have helped him work out where he thought he recognised me from, but I was more in the mood to hum ‘Better be home soon’ to myself (last song of the concert, very apt) instead.

Spoke to Spanna in Melbourne and was immediately overcome with a longing for summer and drinks in the garden bars of pubs with the chums who live there.

And I finally got around to posting some presents home, so those should be turning up in about six weeks.

Spanna proposed a theory last night, and I’m inclined to agree with her, that the tube sucks energy from people through their feet. And happiness. Am not liking the tube.

And for my next trick . . .

Have been living at Mike and Skye's for two days and have already managed to give Skye and myself mild food poisoning.

Also, I was fortunate enough to experience a trip to the emergency room. Katie decided that enough was enough with my swollen foot and made me go. I did some waiting. Some reading. Some admiring of the public toilets. And then some x-raying. And some explaining of how I hurt my foot in the first place:

'So this guy was being a wrestler and picked me up and body-slammed me onto an airbed and on the way down I hit my foot on the table . . .'

The problem was, of course, that the nurses just stopped listening after I said 'wrestler' and concluded that along with my charming accent, I was a charming lunatic. Fair call, really.
But, foot is not broken, just really, really bruised and swollen so any plans I might have had to get round to doing some exercise have had to be shelved and now I spend all my spare time eating chocolate and reading. So very little's changed.

I've done older women before

Yes. This is indeed the way to get a woman. I mean, if it weren't for Kruse and the fact that I didn't find this wee 20 year old at all attractive, hell, he'd have been in with that line.

Side note: why are carrots and bananas so horrible?

Baking cures all evils except swollen feet

I spent last week recovering from the flu and baking because I'm fairly sure baking cures most things, except perhaps my pot belly. I ate a lot of cake. Good old Edmond's; when you've got no one else, Edmond's is always there for you, offering baked goods to get you through the hard times.

I think someone tried to pick me up on the bus on Friday night. A Kiwi, he very nicely stopped the bus so I could catch it when it looked like it was going to ignore me. Unfortunately, he decided this was a good enough reason to sit opposite me and chat. Londoners do not do this and tend to look at strangers who try to talk to them as though they are mad. We got some odd looks. However, being polite (that's your fault, ma and pa) I made conversation. Andrew is a banker. He plays rugby. He went to King's College. Turns out half his classmates were in my hostel in first year. I loathed them. I may have told him this a bit too vehemently. Cunningly I brought up Kruse's name as soon as decently possible, talking of my big strong boyfriend who can hoist the world on his shoulders. Best moment was when I was about to get off and Andrew said:

'Is this where you live?'
'Sure,'
'Isn't that a housing estate?'
(It used to be and I don't like the sound of snobbery in his voice.)
'Yes. IT'S FUN.'

Unfortunately, the grand exit I was planning on making after making this statement was ruined when the bus jerked suddenly and I almost fell on Andrew. And as the bus drove off and I climbed the steps to the gate, a drunk old man and suspicious looking youth passed me, no doubt adding the beauty of the environment.
I love living at Katie's.

Caught up with Lemon Nice and Nic Rowe on Saturday night for a few quiet drinks in Camden. Should have known better than to meet these two for quiet drinks at a bar offering 2 for 1 cocktails. Katie and I thought we'd escaped at 11am when they left to go to another bar. Unfortunately we ran into them about ten minutes later and they convinced us to go to yet another bar. Katie cleverly escaped in time to get the last tube home. I wound up crashing at Nic and Alex's, having lost my phone and been bodyslammed onto an airbed by someone not much bigger than me. It is amazing how booze can give one superhuman strength. Sadly, as this superhuman threw me onto the airbed, my foot hit a table and now it's all swollen and mildly blue and a spot sore. Bloody sore, really.

Hobbled home in time to call ma on the blower and have a good catch-up. And then I baked because we had a hot date at Chook's house for afternoon tea. High tea with the gang and there was much drinking of tea and scoffing of scones and clotted cream and lolling about on sofas, admiring Katie and Mike's lycra-clad bodies, yet loathing them for having spent their Sunday doing something as ludicrous as cycling.

The worst thing about London is the ludicrously early time that the tube closes. Of my five weekends here, I've spent four of them crashing at other people's houses because the price of a cab home would buy you a nice house in New Zealand.

Speechless

An unfortunate combination of the flu and a weekend of very little sleep and far too much socialising and, therefore, talking, has left me with no voice. At first I merely sounded as though I’d taken up smoking 50 a day. But by Monday there was nothing left. Tuesday wasn’t any better. Just as well I’m the new kid in town at work and don’t have to talk to anyone much. Have become quite proficient at sending emails instead of poking my head over the top of the cubicle-thingy and asking someone a question.

However, today I’m back to smoking 20 cigarettes by lunchtime, if my voice is anything to go by, so I’m clearly on the mend.

But the very good news of the day is that I have a bank account. I marched into the bank, with my lack of voice, and whispered loudly that I wanted, nay, demanded a bank account and here were my many bits of paper to prove that I really do exist. It was close, though. Some thoughtful tapping of the pen against their heads as they pondered if my NZ bank statement was eligible as ‘proof’ if there wasn’t a postcode on it. HA! As backup, I’d also brought along my contract. This changed everything.
Them: ‘Oh, you’re a professional. Here, have a credit card, too.’
Me: ‘I’m a what? Oooh, a credit card … what’s the limit on that shiny piece of plastic?’
It’s hard to concentrate when visions of shopping malls dance enthusiastically through my head making ta-ra-ra-boom-te-day noises, with drums and cymbals crashing as confetti falls from the sky.

I am, at this point, rather enamoured of the idea of credit card debt in two countries.

Last week saw the return of Ruthie and Mrs Spencer so we, plus Mike and Skye and Anna trotted off to The Sound of Music, the musical. It was fabulous and only mildly camp. This did mean that at times we were all giggling. The three little girls in front of us would turn around and look disapprovingly at us whenever this occurred. It transpired that they were chums with one of the small children who was singing and looking cutsey on stage. I tried to make friends with them by offering them chocolate. It seems they’d been paying attention to the ‘don’t take candy from strangers’ lesson because they just looked at me suspiciously. Admittedly, by this stage I probably had quite a few ice cream and chocolate stains on me, such is my gusto for sugar, so I probably looked dodgy. I discovered later one of the pitfalls of eating chocolate ice cream in the dark – stains all over my jersey which no one was kind enough to point out.

I have been accused of having an imaginary boyfriend. This is, in all fairness, from a friend of a friend who, in the past month, has heard me mention this ‘boyfriend’ but has yet to see any evidence of him, and I don’t help matters by admitting that I’m not too sure exactly when he’ll be turning up. I have ‘sad, almost 30-year-old delusional woman’ written all over me.