"If this is living, how come I never feel alive?"

Barring unforseen emergencies, I am no longer a vagrant and should be moving, hmm, as many of my worldly possessions as I need for a month (and can carry) into a lovely little flat in Kennington. The place with the piano fell through and the Auberge Espagnole place was nice, but a bit far away from my comfort zone (friends, places I know, train to Wokingham)... maybe in future... But the place I'm meant to be moving into is very pretty and in a superb location, so yay for that. Am terrified I'm jinxing it now!!

This week has been more sedate than last, in a good way and a bad way. I went to intermediate/advanced yoga on Tuesday, and it was inspiring to see people doing fabulouly bendy things, but a wee bit intermediate for me to keep up with. I also ache... I've never ached after yoga before... And there were men doing yoga... duly added to my list of 'things you see in London that you don't see in Wokingham'.

Yesterday I went and played at beekeeping. Due to an administrative cock-up (whose, we aren't sure) Sarah wasn't on the list and very disappointingly couldn't go, so I was on my own... but that notwithstanding bees are VERY COOL. I want some (but not imminently... a) I wouldn't be very good at looking after them yet, and b) it would probably alarm my new housemates if I turned up with a beehive). I won't bore you with boring bee facts, of which I know many, but it was amazing seeing the hive. Just the sheer quantity of bees!! They're fascinating creatures! We also tasted lots of different kinds of honey... Like with wine, I could kind of taste that they were all different, but was unable to describe how...

My new flat is near the bee place.

And today was promised to be stressful but was actually kind of okay. I'd asked Nik to send me a dictaphone which I Really Really Needed for the work event I was going to, but, typically, the postman delivered it while I was in the shower, so I had to trek to Brixton to pick it up today. This involved borrowing Liv's driving licence, in case they wouldn't accept my proof of ID as it wasn't my house, and getting there obscenely early so that if it all went tits-up I'd have time to leg it to work (or to Liv's work) and borrow a dictaphone. This meant I had an enormous hiatus between picking it up and the actual start of the meeting, so I took a bus into central London and did a bit of shopping. Bought a cafetiere for Liv and Sarah as a thank-you present in the wonderful Algerian coffee house which I'd never have discovered if it hadn't been for Thomas, and also some henna. I let the man in Lush talk me into buying the 'rouge' rather than the 'marron'. I sputtered something like, 'Doesn't it say "For shiny, bright, orange-red hair"?' to which he replied, 'Yes, but your hair is so dark it'll probably just go a little bit redder. The 'marron' won't really show up on you at all.'

Hmmmm. Watch this space, people.

And the meeting was fine, and very short.

My friend's hen party is this weekend, which promises to be fun, if a lot less demure than Mairi's... Tomorrow night is a sleepover, which is a fantastic idea, and for Saturday I have to somehow concoct a St Trinian's themed fancy dress outfit. Suggestions? There will also be cocktails, badges and probably penis-shaped tat. (I am sort of anxious about it... I don't know any of her other friends and what if I betray my snobbish distaste for fancy dres and penis-shaped things?)

But in the meantime I have a work-related day trip to Swansea, which involves getting up at some ungodly hour tomorrow morning. Groan.

Vagrancy, with added hummus

'Replace Wokingham with London as my weather home page.'

Oh, BBC, you have no idea how happy you made me.

I have, not as spontaneously as it appears, actually done what I've been threatening to do since late 2007 and buggered off to London. Been staying with Livvy and Sarah for a week, which has been a) great fun and b) really useful, because the enormous sense of obligation I feel has forced me to do things like wash up after myself and the fact that I'm sleeping in their sitting room has forced me to get out of bed, neither of which I was doing particularly efficiently or with any regularity in Wokingham. Am now hoping the people at one of the flats I looked at over the weekend will allow me to rent a room for a month while I find somewhere long-term. One of them has a piano and one of them would essentially involve living in L'auberge espagnole, which would be equally exciting and I can't choose.

I've drunk lots of coffee, which feels very urban, and eaten mainly hummus and olives. I shall go and buy some vegetables this afternoon, because hummus and olives, while delicious, do not constitute a particularly balanced diet. I'm forcing myself to take buses so I can learn my way around better than if I'm on the tube, seeing lots of my friends and generally starting to feel like a Whole Person again, which is a distinct improvement on the previous few weeks. Have many exciting plans for the immediate future, including (but not limited to) a yoga and massage weekend in Wiltshire and henna-ing my hair. (Hair also needs cutting. Gaah.)

Unfortunateness

"bed available for girl to share with other girl in prime location"

From gumtree.

Who'd'a thunk?

Well, my 17-year-old self would never have believed this, but you know what?

It's even less fun trying to explain what 'The Anthropology of Food' is than it was trying to explain what 'Linguistics' was.

No, really.

--------------------

I really need inspiration for dinner. It should involve broad beans, but not pasta, and be quick. This cider is REALLY STRONG. REALLY REALLY STRONG. I feel it would be unwise to wield knives after much more of it.

Not economics

I was (and still am, just not today) going to share with you some of my thoughts on, 'What I have learned recently about economics.' Not a lot, but I'm proud of it. However, this is my life atm (aside from the moping, and stress, and crying):

Today - get up 6.3o, go to London, yawn through meeting on energy stats, furiously make notes, come home, drink pot of coffee, type furiously, eat Chinese take-away, type furiously, reassure freelancer, small glass of wine to counteract coffee, small sleep.
Tomorrow - get up 5.30, go to computer, track down and shoot freelancer if he hasn't emailed me his transcript, proof-read, coffee, proof-read, breakfast, proof-read, coffee, reheat take-away for lunch, collapse into bed.

So yeah, a happy combination of extreme tiredness and need for accuracy and, hence, intoxicants.

In the meantime, an article which I first reacted to by rolling my eyes and saying, 'God, yeah it's soooo tough being young, rich and clever, isn't it?' but by the end I was thinking, 'Ohmigod, I've never achieved anything, why did I give up the violin, why haven't I taken singing lessons, I've never read Said's Orientalism, there is so much stuff I need to do, everyone expects me to do this stuff, I have to do it well!'

Which kinda proves the point.

I have a FUCKING FIRST FROM OXFORD! And know SHITLOADS MORE ABOUT ECONOMICS than I did six weeks ago! Someone please SLAP ME!

Linky

Ack....

Right now, because the weather's kind of gloomy, and I have no energy, and I am unable to summon the inclination to get up and find some shoes, and I just want to stay at my desk and drink tea and not have to go outside and see people, I am totally, pointlessly procrastinating about getting my arse down to Boots to get some St John's Wort, which I'm going to take in the hope that this will help give me the energy and inclination to do something other than procrastinating at my desk and feeling gloomy, without me needing to take The Scary Drugs.

I'm noticing a flaw in this plan somewhere.

"The fact that he's a giant purple hippopotamus should have tipped you off."

"Well, you know, I'm tempted - if for no other reason than to keep 'Bulldog' from further alienating the Asian-American community. I just want to make sure that I don't compromise my principles."

I love Frasier so much it hurts.

Awesomeness

http://www.savagechickens.com/2009/06/coffee-is-my-muse.html

*chortle*

Hey! They're learning for free!

It is rare that living in the modern world makes me feel full of joy, but I picked up my copy of Oxford Today magazine when I was staying with my parents. From my limited perusal, Oxford Today appears to be a magazine for people who have proved they can routinely read ten books a week and are now content with a thrice-yearly magazine. (The adverts which fell out of it were: 15% off Homebase stuff, a discounted subscription to The Economist, a flyer for the Ramblers, another for an investment trust and a plea from Amnesty International to help them stop rape as a weapon of war. Make of that what you will.) Anyway, in amongst all the articles was, ohmigod, a pointer towards this. Podcasts! Clever podcasts! Free clever podcasts! Many, many, many free clever podcasts! I think I am going to have to go on the trans-Siberian express in order to listen to them all.

So much free knowledge. The internet is wonderful.

Incidentally, I have started reading The Group by Mary McCarthy, a sex-and-anxiety-filled novel about eight Vassar graduates in the 1930s - quite apart from the pertinence of reading about lots of intelligent and angsty women, beginning their adult lives in a time of economic recession, I have also learned a LOT about pre-Pill contraception, both technically and sociologically. Fascinating.

"God! I must pack and take a train"

I am not unaware of the indignity of wailing into the internet about how my parents are so mean and don't understand me, so I shall skip over that, despite it occupying much of my headspace this week...

Had to go to London yesterday, and I can officially declare that there is nowhere in the whole of Canary Wharf to buy a copy of 'Country Smallholding' magazine. Also, that the first time I've actually been chatted up on the Tube, I was reading a radical feminist text. Go figure.

Unearthed some bees on my allotment and sent an email to the council saying, 'I have bees... get rid of them... but please don't kill them... we need bees, and they're in trouble.' Apparently they're digger bees rather than honey bees, and they're going to be taken away and released in some woodland. Yay!

Also, I have to get yet more time off work, despite possibly being over my limit since I'm leaving halfway through my 'year', to go to a wedding in July. However, both my friends who are getting married within a week of each other in July have very considerately conferred with each other and arranged to hold their hen dos on different weekends. Which was most thoughtful of them. ;-)

Off to Northumberland later this afternoon to spend the weekend hopefully not sniping at my parents. I have:

• a big pile of exciting books
• gorgeous yarn, needles and pattern
• a week's worth of Farming Today podcasts (note to self: get antidepressants)
• potatoes boiling for salad for dinner.

=)

Computer woes

Please, geriatric laptop, I know you're suffering. But if you could just bring yourself to open Outlook attachments, that would be really peachy. I kinda need them for work.

Also, if emails I delete could please stay deleted? Also helpful.

This thing is so not going to last me through my MA. Curses.

Help!

Can I really commit to spend the rest of my life with someone who talks about having a baby as 'an opportunity cost'?

*gulp*

Stuff wot I've done

Have just received a leaflet about swine flu from the government. I wonder if their advice to 'set up a network of "flu friends"', taken out of context, could be counter-productive.

I have also been reading many interesting books which I splurged on last week on the (middlingly spurious) basis that they were course-related, i.e. not set texts but the sorts of things that would turn me into a well-read person. On the plus side I have learnt an awful lot of exciting things about beer and class and urbanisation in the Victorian era. On the other hand, my dreams of having a smallholding have been more or less crushed. Boo. I wanted pigs and an orchard.

I went to a farm in Devon to learn how to make wine and ate lots and lots of yummy things. I also went to a fab, myth-busting talk about the Special Period in Cuba - yes, they were all growing organic vegetales and yes this probably kept people alive, but most agriculture still used pesticides and was very intensive.

Once I've written up these minutes for work, I've finished helping oil companies sack people for the forseeable future. Huzzah.

The allotment is also shaping up and soon I am going to plant some peas out in it. Yay! Peas! Nik has been heroic doing Heavy Lifting and Ferrying of Things to the Tip on the allotment while I am floored by a mysterious fatigue. I don't know if it's physical or psychological, but I had 11 hours' sleep on Friday night and woke up feeling like a normal person again. I then slept badly on Sunday and now feel like a rubbish person again. Boo. This has been going on, on and off, since February and is probably Not Healthy. Unfortunately my doctor is on holiday and I can't get an appointment until 2nd June. Boo.

Anyway. Lunch.

I wonder....

I wonder if.... if Nik and I eat the rest of the cannelloni that I made yesterday for my dinner... does that mean that technically I cooked and he has to do the washing up?

Blah, I said I was going to write a proper post, but I spent all today wandering around Reading trying to find a thing that would connect my computer to, well, some electricity so that I could actually, well, work and stuff. And I'm tired. And I'm going to eat cannelloni (when Nik gets back) and drink more shiraz (hey, we need three more screw-top bottles to put our home-made wine into, so technically this is a public service) and read my new book ('Surviving and Thriving on the Land - how to use your time and energy to run a successful smallholding', since you ask) and cuddle my fiancé (you know about him, he doesn't need parentheses).

Said fiancé has been away since Tuesday morning. In the intervening time, my dalliance with Charlie Brooker has kept me more than occupied.

Historical flu precautions

On last night's Case Notes, they looked at some coverage of the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. Not only did the newspaper report encourage people to keep reasonably calm and not worry too much, in sharp contrast to today, the following "practical precautions by a medical correspondent" were offered:

• Keep a stout heart. Don't expect to fall sick.
• Eat as well as possible. Drink half a bottle of light wine or a glass of port at dinner.
• Take a hot bath each evening on returning from work.
• Smoke in moderation.
• If there is any tendency to sore throat, consult a doctor at once.

How times change....

Mild-to-moderate angst

Aargh, I'm doing that thing again, where it would have been perfectly possible for me to complete all the things I am supposed to do before going out but, because I am anxious about the social situation in question, I procrastinate so I can then say, 'Oh, I haven't finished my work... can't go out/come camping... sorry...'

I don't want to give in to my conniving subconscious by allowing myself to ring and cancel, especially as I probably would regret it, but on the other hand I do need to do my work. And, because I wish to spite the Sleazy Bastard by writing watertight minutes that record the hearing accurately but yet make it clear I think both he and his behaviour are/were despicable, I also want to do it well.

Argh.

Also, I've rashly committed/been hustled by circumstances into committing to get married on 10th April next year. I am very fond of this time of year, and so this decision was bolstered by a glorious gardening-filled day on Monday, but now it is grim and pissing it down and I'm tempted to totally screw Nik's family's plans up and ask my parents to un-book the church by defaulting to the summer. Someone remind me this could equally happen in July and it's not the end of the world if it rains anyway.

Ire

RRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The world is crap, misogynistic, and crap.

I have drunk 3/4 of a bottle of rosé and overused the word ire.

That is all.

Scratch the whining, week got better

Okay, aside from the tea thing and the still-having-no-money thing, my week has actually dramatically improved. Not only has one of my deadlines been extended, but, thanks to a felicitous and somewhat unlikely combination of incompetent bankers and violent protesters, both the meetings I was supposed to attend tomorrow have been cancelled. Hurrah. So not only do I have to work like stink today to get my other work done today, I also don't have to get up at stupid o'clock tomorrow.

Why I hate this week

• I have to get up stupidly early 4 days this week for work and am absolutely knackered
  
• I have, in fact, to do a stupid amount of work full stop, most of which is grim and depressing
  
• HMRC have actually taken all of last month's pay away from me so I have no money, even though I wasn't the one who cocked up (although I can still have fun on the joint account!)
  
• Nik bought fizzy strawberry laces and ate them all before I got home
• tea prices are going up (linky)

Please send gin!

Hmmmm

Dear Facebook,

Using 'unlike' as a verb has really given this descriptive linguist pause for thought.

Yours sincerely,

Fighting-my-inner-grammarian (Berks.)