Out of the mouths of babes

'Shoes are precious, aren't they?'

Overheard being uttered by a small child whilst I was out destroying my credit limit on Saturday. It made me feel all warm inside.

njordskjy

The joys of checking proofs where almost everyone has a Scandavian name and the author has made his revisions in a hurry so I have to translate his handwriting and there are difficult letters such as j next to letters I'm not used to, like, say, d. I cannot guarantee this book will be error-free. In fact, it won't be. But I won't be able to see them because they're in a different language. Won't be as bad as the cover we had to redo (not my error, so hilarious, really) that had Terroism written on it.

But my cold has mostly gone - leaving me with a dodgy nose that generously keeps producing nasal waste at a decent pace and a semi-phlegmy-ish voice if I don't talk for ages, which often means that I answer my work phone with a splutter. It's not husky good - it's husky bad.

Whine of the day. Adult acne. Not fair. When will it go away? Ranty rant rant. Might be time to kick up a fuss and have a tantrum, complete with arms a'flailing and legs a'kicking.

Heavy breathing

As punishment for being so beautiful when everyone else is only average, and also possibly because I gave scathing and disgusted glares to the man sitting next to me on the Tube who kept sniffing in a revolting and vomit-inducing way, I have a cold. In an effort to stop it in its nasty phlegmy tracks I drank a great deal of 1 million per cent vitamin C-ridden juice whilst at work yesterday, but to no avail. I could tell things were not progressing well when I didn't want chocolate at lunch. So at 6pm, after destroying some trees with the help of the printer, I sailed off for home, determined to eat at least ten lemons. Unlike icky Tube man, I had a tissue so I did not upset the delicate sensibilities of my travelling companions. However, I think I may have started singing along to the ipod, and not everyone appreciates my voice, so perhaps I did irk a few people. But who doesn't like Bananarama?

I did indeed ingest some lemons, as well as some red wine, and then a lemon, ginger, honey and vodka drink, which I figured would make me sleep, at the very least. I have fond memories of my dad giving me something similar as a child - probably to stop me whining that I couldn't sleep because I felt ill - 'This'll sort you out, small child'. And I always did fall asleep - probably because I was drunk. He's a good man.

So today, instead of being at work, I have spent the day in bed, wishing we had a telly so I could watch utter nonsense - although, given that we have the internet, I've managed to fit quite a lot of bollocks-watching in. I have also done heaps of work, as in nerd-like fashion, I brought work home with me. It has to be done and it is so horrible that I've been putting it off for ages, despite the fact that I am way behind schedule on it. I have been blaming the author instead. But, I can see the end! Only 100 heavily marked-up pages about the Ottoman Empire to go.

The best part about today was brushing my teeth this morning. Nothing feels/tastes better after a night of heavy breathing when one's nose is blocked and one's throat is being troublesome. Well, lemonade would have been good, but we didn't have any and I'm too poorly to leave the house.

Dark Ghana Chocolate Saturday vs my Jeans.

Forgot to mention that Prague does a great line in public loos. Not quite as good as La Paz, but quite a bit cleaner.

The weekend has been the kind that involves wearing no bra, only pyjamas, and eating leftovers, watching extremely bad vampire films and being a bit of a nerd doing proofreading that I have hired myself to do at work. Freelancing for the company is all good, even if we don't pay that well.

Drank too much on Thursday night with James, Dan and so on, and decided when I got to work on Friday morning that, actually, I'd be better off at home so I grabbed a pile of proofs that I'd been avoiding because they were difficult and had a day on the couch in my PJs, getting a remarkable amount done, despite the hangover, probably because I didn't have commissioning editors wandering past asking ridiculous questions about their books. Got the horrible proofs out of the way, which means I can now spend this week concentrating on the other pile of awful proofs that make me want to cry they are so complicated and covered in red pen. Woe is Pen.

One of the extremely young commissioning editors, who stopped asking me if I wanted to get a pint once he discovered that I was, gasp, 30, sent me the spiel he wrote for some educational thingy, on how to become an editor. It has spelling mistakes in it. I am waiting for the opportune moment to point this out.

Friday night was James L's leaving and as my hangover had cleared up I trotted off to quaff shandies with quite a large group of people, loitering in a little cobblestone street, letting Mike and Kruse tell Katie she likes perverts, discussing youporn and the remarkable things you can do with a vibrator and a go cart if you only have the gumption to try. And then it was 8.30pm, which was declared the leaving hour for those I live with and, after a round of shots to farewell James, who had already left (Mike's spectacularly bad timing), we started off for the tube, Kruse taking a champagne bucket, glass and bottle, which is probably stealing, although he had paid for the bottle, so ... We got as far as around the corner before Skye and my bladders had a chorus of 'Full, full', so we ducked into another pub and Skye insisted that we have another round of shots because we used the toilets. Made it to Stratford, having watched Kruse commit a crime by drinking on the tube, and decided it was dumplings for all. Skye and I sort of lost Kruse and Mike at this point - they claim they were being hassled by youths wanting Mike's tie, but, like, whatever. I ordered the Chinese (basically a million dumplings) and then she and I decided we may as well have a pint in the mean time at the pub where we got chatted up this one time and possibly we were hoping the same would happen again. No such luck. We failed to do very well at drinking the pints, as we were too busy talking, so by the time 15 minutes dumpling cooking time had passed we decided to do a Kruse and just walk out with our drinks. Our stolen pint/wine glass collection is coming along nicely. Sadly, having just implied that this is what Kruse does all the time, most of them were taken by me.

And then we went home and ate so many dumplings and then I had to lie on the floor and just loll for a bit, listening to the sweet sound of James Woods and the fat Baldwin kill some vampires.

Saturday involved some Bloody Mary drinking for breakfast and then some nerding out by me and some making of garlic soup and roast lamb and then some eating far too much and wondering why my jeans don't fit so well sometimes as I made chocolate sauce for dessert.

This week's points of doom go out to Angela for sending Kruse a tuckbox from home, which I have eaten a great deal of (caring is sharing), and Ruthie, who sent quite a lot of the same to Skye, Mike and I. Even if she didn't sent Dark Caramel, like I requested, but Dark Ghana instead. And accompanied the stash with a note that reads: 'Share them out in whatever way you think is fair, or share them out in a completely unfair way and then harbour secret grudges against each other - whatever works'.

Prague: Czech it out

For reasons I can no longer remember, I decided not to buy the t-shirt with the above slogan on the weekend. I now regret this a great deal - how better could I let people know that I have been to Prague?

So, yeah, Prague. Stag party central. Oddly, not the reason I was there. But I did wind up in a photo with a groom-to-be who was wearing only a Borat-style mankini. Will no doubt be plastered all over Facebook any day now.

Why was I there? My love of cheese, beer and pork-related products? My fluent Czech needing a workout?

Caro got older and six of us went to Prague to mourn the loss of her twenties. We went clubbing - haven't been clubbing in ages. I know now which city in Europe buys the most wonderbras. And has the most metrosexual bunch of men I've ever seen. We lasted at the club for at least 90 minutes. And then we'd had enough. Because we are old and we were tired.

We did touristy things like go see stuff. Like a castle. A church where they've had to dig up several thousand graves and so they've made the bones into decorations and a bit of a money-spinner. We drank beer. Ate a lot of sausage and cheese. Slept some. Went to Tesco to see if it was any different from the English Tesco. Caro got some great knickers. Got not enough sleep and caught an early flight back to London so I could go to work like a nerd.

Actually, getting to work at 10.30am and having to go to a meeting at 11am, which took place in a cafe on Southbank, where we did little work and much chatting, followed by lunch with Kruse, meant that I didn't have to do much in the way of thinking or working, which was probably for the best, really.

Tried to play boozy Twister with Dan and a visiting James T last week. Not the best game I've ever played. And Dan made me run for the tube, shouting Marine insults at me the whole way.

Work is frantic again, there is paper all over my desk and we're out of chocolates. It's time for some sort of mission.

Side note: the best way to make a two-hour plane trip more interesting is to sit next to Katie. We talked non-stop and worked out how to save our souls/planet/sanity in only two hours. I thoroughly recommend her.

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.