Erring like a human

In which Penelope makes a boo boo at the office. Quite a good one, actually. Best worst mistake ever. Cross author. Manager who is unconcerned - and I am not in any trouble at all - but am now extremely paranoid about contents pages. Just as well we're trying to get rid of said author - it seems that my boo boo may have helped us to do this.

Aside from that, work goes well. There has been a great deal of cake in the office and I embraced it with gusto. Made a bit of a mess, but anyway ... Most interesting thing to come up lately has been whether or not to try and stay once my ability to work runs out in November. This does not mean my limbs fall off, making it difficult for me to run rampant with my red pen, but rather that the one year working part of my visa runs out - should I try and see how long I can work before I am deported? Or ask work to sponsor me. Which they might. However, itchy feet suggest not athlete's foot but urge to go walkabout.

Have gone to a music festival, which seems to be the thing to do in England in summer. Given that I don't really like large groups of drunk people and mud combined, I had a spiffy time. Probably helped that it was a small festival at Dom's parents' place in Yorkshire, wasn't too wet and I got to spend most of Saturday making my favourite breakfast, Bloody Marys, at the bar. They sold well. Kruse and I drove up, forgetting the tent but remembering chocolate and beer. We called ahead and by the time we got there, Caro and Mel had found us a tent and put it up. When we took it down on the Sunday we discovered an extremely large carving knife underneath it. Odd.

I also had a Bounty icecream bar. Do we have these at home? It was rather good.

Em got engaged a few months back and so I met up with her, Dan and Conrad on Sunday for a few drinks and a trip down a slightly foggy memory lane as we dredged up our time at Canterbury over a few bottles. Once again we all learned the hard way that you should never have more bottles of wine than people present. Although, I actually felt pretty chipper yesterday - but found doing maths particularly difficult.

I feel obliged to share with everyone the title of one of our books: Meaningful Funerals. Just in case you were thinking of having one that was thoughtless.

Dear God, what is that thing?

I seem to have the pox. Again.

And, hard to believe, but true, it's even more unattractive than usual. I look like I have been punched in the eye, with little blisters to top it off.

Apparently registering with the doctor who is right around the corner can only be done on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 11.30-12.30. No appointments can be made until you register. Of course not. So I went to a walk-in clinic and was soundly told off by a nurse for not having a stash of the prescription only drugs that I need so I could have already started taking them . . . was a rather bizarre conversation where she just got angrier and angrier and I became more and more confused - I have obviously been molly-coddled by the New Zealand medical people for far too long. Debated in my head about asking her if she was having a bad day and if so could she not take it out on pox-ridden Penelope but decided that it might not help matters.

Only good thing to come out of the encounter was a prescription and being weighed and not being horrified by the result. So I had some chocolate to celebrate.

It's such a pity that no one ever prescribes me an eye patch.

Hello darkness my old friend

My weekend
By Lady P

On my weekend I didn't get much sleep and that trend continued right up until this morning so now I am a mess.
On Friday I went to Kruse's work drinks and drank pints like the English. None of this fancy pantsy wine business that we had at the work lunch earlier that day. I also demonstrated how a Kiwi woman has no fear of words that can leave an English chap shaking in fear. Might not have made any friends there.
And then we went home and got Chinese takeaways because we needed them. And then I fell asleep during the DVD. And then Skye and Mike woke me up at 5.30am because they didn't come into the house quietly enough after their night of messiness elsewhere.
Saturday - no one feels so shiny. Skye mentions the well-known restorative powers of tomato juice and vodka/lemonade and beer and we spend the day testing them. Kruse made soup. We ate soup. The sun went away so Mike and Kruse made a fort in the living room out of the sofa, chairs, sheets, a pole, some books and fairy lights and then we spent the afternoon/evening in the fort watching DVDs and waiting for the Chinese takeaway shop to open again at 4pm.
Sunday. Mel and John's flatwarming. Starts at 3pm, I make it by 4.30 after luring Skye into the fort with shandies, Chinese takeaways and Damien Rice for a few hours of lolling. We are good at lolling. The flatwarming is hours of entertainment and then not enough sleep on the foldout sofa, me once again squished between Chook and Kruse. Go home smelling like beer. Get straight into pyjamas and spend all day drinking carbonated stuff and eating cheese. Just as well it's a public holiday else I'd be at work right now.
Do not sleep well so Tuesday at work I put all the things that require intelligence into a pile for Wednesday and fantasize about my bed. However, at 5pm Dan tells me that Nic is in town for one night only and there is dinner in Clapham. I do the math and figure I can be home by 10.30 which gives me enough time to start catching up on sleep. I am not that good at math.
We see Nic and lots of other people and drink cocktails, which make me feel so much better. And we have dinner. And we leave before 10pm, so it looks like I might be home by 11. Until my train stops moving. It started again, but didn't like it so stopped again.
I get home by midnight, open the door quietly, only to discover that someone has piled all the recycling bottles by the door and I am obliged to walk into them. Clamber into bed and discover that sleep has already visited my house and forgot to leave any behind for me. Cocktails and curry in my stomach decide they are not chums. Not a good night. Wake up a sweaty mess and decided that have tossed and turned so much in the night that I don't need to go the gym and will instead lie in bed and have strange dream about Mrs Spencer and tissues and my dad's missing library book until 8am.
Get to work - pile of manuscripts from yesterday gives me the evil eye. Realise I forgot to raid chocolate cupboard at home and now have only boring old fruit to eat. Day is going downhill quickly. Gets worse when typesetter in India does not believe me when I say that Chapter 9 is in a completely different font and I need that book to go to the printer now. Have to leave office to go to shop to buy several different blocks of chocolate to make the day better. Am tempted to make fort in office in which to hide from world. I think I could sit under my desk and use my coat as a curtain for this purpose.

Trophy Wives Anon

New potatoes and hummus. Now I smell a bit garlicky but it was worth it. Not sure my workmates appreciate it, but I don't really care.

So, being the very popular person that I am, last weekend I had two parties and a barbecue to attend. Sadly, this being London, I failed to make it to one of the parties because it was ages away and straightening my hair took somewhat longer than I had anticipated. I had to straighten my hair because we were going to a stereotypes party and trophy wives wouldn't dream of having a haystack on their head like I do most days. I was rather pleased with my outfit. Never before have I had an excuse to wear white denim stretch capris. And a gold bejewelled Grecian tunic. The pink heels are an everyday wardrobe staple, however. I was also accompanied by the ultimate accessory - an ex-husband, resplendent in his tuxedo with lipstick marks on his shirt from other women. I don't think I saw Kruse without a bottle of champagne in his hand all night. Or the next day, as having woken up in our clothes in Chook's bed (me squished in the middle), we carried on carousing to Caro's 30th barbecue. Not enough sleep, more than a little too much booze and we were a trifle tired by 10pm on Sunday night when we finally got home. Work on Monday was downright hard. Probably worse for Kruse because it was his first day.

Yes, that's right, Kruse got a job. And has discovered the joys of the morning rush-hour tube. He is now determined to move somewhere closer so he can walk to work.

Best conversation had all weekend - what does milkshake, as in the milkshake song, mean to you? Great ice-breaker. Some very odd definitions from people, all of whom thought they were right. Best one came from Ebony who apparently once used it in a conversation as a pick-up line. I'm not too sure how you'd manage to make her suggestion look sexy, but, it takes all types.

Dirty old town

Thought de jour is my love-hate relationship with tomatoes. I lurch from adoring them as little, round, red pockets of deliciousness (this really only applies to the cherry variety) to detesting them unless they are somehow disguised, i.e. cooked/pureed/combined with vodka.

But anyway, back to dirty old London. Except I was wrong to fear the weather for it is summer. Twenty-three degrees, I'll have you know. No more wearing of the hated tights or socks - it's sandals forever. Which does mean, unfortunately, that my awful toes must be bared. I've tried to brighten them up/disguise them with nail polish, only there's always one nail that never goes according to plan. I was, actually, feeling a bit better about my icky toes recently. Usually when someone spies them for the first time, as a Pen toe virgin, the comment goes something along the lines of:

'Look. At. Your. Revolting/Scary/Incredibly Unattractive. Really. Long. Toes.'
'Thanks.'

I have been known to mutter something that rhymes with 'luck off' at this point. But in Sydney, Nic's flatmate Dave uttered the words, 'Wow. You have long toes.' I was waiting for the inevitable 'And they are so revolting, how can you live with yourself' comment but it never came. I think it made my year. Admittedly, Dave was hungover and sleep deprived and might not have even been seeing straight but the point is that for the first time in years I felt okay about my toes. Even the one with the possibly rotten nail. Which I have covered in polish and plan to ignore. I was so chuffed with Dave that I let him try on my pink suit as a reward. I wasn't quite so pleased when this resulted in him looking better in it than me. Stupid men and their skinny little girly hips. Try pushing a baby through those.

My 27-hour flight/stopover/flight was non-stop fun. The passenger next to me did not enjoy his trip quite so much as I had to wake him up several times so that me and my bladder of unhelpfulness could traipse to the bathroom. Also, I caught him eyeing up my music selection in the in-house entertainment selection - going by his facial expression he is not a fan of Prince. Or Dolly Parton. Philistine.
On the second leg I got an actual knife to eat with. A steely knife. I looked for a beast to stab but none were forthcoming.

And then customs and ages on the tube and then home and I just threw everything in my pack in the washing machine - books like water, surely - and then fell into bed and had utterly stupid dreams of the kind where you think you're awake and cannot sleep even though you are asleep and when you do wake you're even more exhausted than when you got into bed in the first place.

And then work. I like my job so this wasn't as bad as it could have been and only one book is truly screwed up and it's not my fault although I'm pretty sure I could have prevented the all-out rotten situation that has developed had I only been here. It's the sort of situation that has me wanting to rant about the office with pencils in my nose and ears shrieking 'Amateurs!' whilst tearing up 600-page manuscripts with my bare hands. But this will pass.
I also got to have a five-minute phone conversation with an author of one of my books, only when he introduced himself I had no idea who he was or what he'd written and consequently had to spend the whole five minutes faking it. We both seemed quite pleased with ourselves at the end of it so I must have faked it well.

My workmates were not nearly grateful enough for their Pineapple Lumps/Whittaker's/marshmellow easter eggs/Tim-Tams/Cherry Ripes - in fact, the Pineapple Lumps were universally loathed. I even caught one workmate taking a bite of one and then throwing the other half away when she thought I wasn't looking. The fact that I don't actually like them much myself is, of course, beside the point. Why is the concept of faux-pineapple (4.5% fruit juice, even) and chocolate so hard to accept? It was as though I'd produced a bag of faeces. Chocolate covered faeces.

All the tea in China and where I put it

I think I almost reached my capacity for tea this week - I didn't think it could be done, but, well, we can never predict these things. Once again, I found myself admiring bathroom decor, this time at Fi's new house. I also got to spend most of an evening in James and Teena's bathroom at their new house. These are all nice places and I thoroughly recommend them.

My five days in Christchurch were plum lovely and will need repeating at some point - especially Thursday powersuit luncheon. It was discovered that where size matters - shoulder pads - my pink suit of loveliness was lacking but that Sara's shoulder pads could have doubled as pillows. And there was much seeing of people and places - points to Pete for taking me to Taylor's Mistake so I could see the greenery and sea and feel dreadfully homesick (can you feel homesick if you're actually at home?) and to Fi and George and Gary for their hospitality and general superness - although I did find myself becoming increasingly jealous of their house. I want a house. All the cool kids seem to have one.

I drank far too much on my final night (when will I learn? I thought 30 came with instructions on maturity?) and I can't say that I enjoy flying on a hangover - so will be avoiding doing that again this weekend. However, Jess'n'Debs are in town and they are evil so I can't make any promises.

Am now at Nic's house in Sydney where his flatmate is murdering Knocking on Heaven's Door on the guitar - the fascination first time guitarists have with this song is awful. Right up there with chopsticks and the Entertainer for pianists. There might be a nasty incident with scissors and guitar strings, soon.

Nic's house overlooks the sea and I fell asleep to the sound of waves, which was all nice but I still had awful dreams about runaway wheelchairs. Wheelchairs in my dreams can hit very high speeds and always head for steep flights of stairs. They are, however, not as frustrating as the invisible helicopter dream I have where I always get caught in powerlines.
Nic, for reasons that I cannot explain, warned me not to sleep in the garden. Apparently when he did he woke up with ticks. As you do.

Three more days of holiday - then 27 hours of nastiness on a plane and then work! Fun! Can't wait! Maybe some more exclamation marks are needed here to make me sound more convincing . . . or perhaps not.

My personal war with exclamation marks continues.

But for now I will have another cup of tea (am glutton for punishment) and sit on the balcony in the sun and will not think about what the weather in London is like. Thursday's boozy suggestion of moving to Spain with Sara and Nic looks positively enchanting at this point.

You can't beat Wellington on a good day

It's true. You just can't. You can, however, have the best first view of Wellington (rounding that final corner on the motorway, coming into the harbour) utterly destroyed for you by a ranting bus driver intent on telling his victims/passengers exactly why the lights at Waikanae are to blame for the constant traffic jams on State Highway 1. If only Helen Clark would drive to Auckland - it'd get fixed quick smart, etc.

But I digress. I love Wellington. It is the most beautiful city in the world - it was only with a great deal of self control that I managed to not stroke the pavement/houses/sea/Fin clothing shop with a loving hand. Instead I lavished affection on the smaller sister and gave out hugs to people I know there. And there was much catching up and meeting of people's new special friends (I go away for six months and everyone gets lucky - was it me that prevented this from happening before - was I the blight?). Gen's flat had drinks so I whipped out the gin and made sausage rolls like some sort of adult and proceeded to talk nonsense until 4am with old chums and woke up at 9am to go shopping - with no hangover. Possibly I was still mildly intoxicated - but I prefer to think that I have managed to tame the booze.

And then there were new clothes and the elation that goes with that, which carried me all through waiting for the airbus and the plane to Christchurch and the baggage carousel and falling into Fi's arms, whereupon she said all the right things, such as 'I like your ring, and your shoes, and your jacket', proving once again that we are friends for all the right reasons.

So now Christchurch until Thursday. So far I've been sleeping a great deal, and have managed to seduce Fi's cat into sleeping on my bed, instead of hers - worst night's sleep ever. Cat needs a lot of affection and enjoys kneading one's body with her claws.

I finally got my new credit card and it looks hungry for action so I'd better buy a few more things - just to make sure it works as it should. And I got all my money (overdraft) back from the bank after the bad people stole it in Bulgaria so it's shaping up to be a top week.

On the looking for toilets when desperate front - Fi demonstrated that the law library is pretty good, as is George's mum's house - but only when you can get a park outside it, otherwise the service station round the corner is quite acceptable.

Only one sour note about Wellington - I seem to have fleas. I'm not criticising - just making a note. It could have been a really rampant mosquito, actually. Probably was. I'd prefer it to be that. Yes, that's what it was. Not fleas at all. Ignore that first bit.

Hypothetical question for the week - should one have to go to the baby shower of someone that one cannot stand but is sort of related to? And before my family starts wondering which family member is eating for two - this is not about me for once - just a situation that seems to have arisen for someone else. Should you have to go especially if the mum to be is going to be passively aggressive to one as well? Because you can't slap pregnant women. I was thinking, after watching Good Morning today, where they had a doctor demonstrating a very phallic aid for helping with pelvic muscles after having babies, that perhaps one of these would be a good gift. Given with a saccharine sweet smile and some sort of very pink card. Does this thought make me a bad person? The actual thought made me feel warm all over - but that's not really the point, I suppose.