leaving on wednesday 8th...jings. didnt think it would come around so quickly. what a bummer!
keep in touch if you want..it aint compulsory. but hell, its fun. meeting mandy in
buenos aries on 26th june, you know, as you do! get JEALOUS YALL!
fuck! 3 weeks to go and so much time with the horribles, if only to be punting down the amazon spotting sloths (how many of them exist at work but not with fur), but 3 weeks what can happen?
And another thing, how pale do I look and how tanned does george look? Me, the pinky burnt dongle, her the bronzed george. C`est bla vie! Enjoy bods, many ramblings to come, possibly all drunken.
and young and lovely...well 1 out of 4! anyway..what a blast i had in rio. did the usual nonsence
that i had done before, sugar loaf, corcovado etc, but this time i did get the tram over
the old aquaduct to santa teresa, which was a little like a rollercoaster without the safety
barriers, and unknown hands zipping in and out of your pockets. it was fab. also went out
to lapa on friday night, an experience not unlike edinburgh on hogmanay. it was buzzing
with a capital B, and we ended up in a samba club that had been a ball room with huge
sweeping staircases and a 20 piece band. i danced with a guy who man could do the bossa
nova with a drink in his hand (fiddle-de-dink), until i was walking off and just knocked it out
of his hand after 10 mins of dancing! after this embarrassment, chris, our guide, who
had only that morning warned us about getting to drunk when out for the night, got so
pissed that he got into an altercation, and i looked round to see him on the ground having
fisticuffs with another guy. after this he promptly threw up into the gutter. we got home at
4.30, and martine decided she has lost her shoes, but couldnt remember where, and asked
me if she had still had them on when we left the club! all in all a fab night, and one that i will
never forget, especially as i went to copacabana beach the next morning and fell asleep..
woke up at 12.45...our flight here to bonito was at 1.45...and would you believe it, jammy
or what..i made it in time though i had to be escorted through the gate and over the tarmac.
what larks. it has been the best time..and i wish you were all here to experience it.
rio, what a place. bonito in comparison is a one horse town..its in the middle of nowhere
and only has one road 2 blocks wide before it runs into dirt roads. men wear straw hats and
the pick up is the transport of choice. today instead of going on a forest walk i spent most of
the day lying in a hammock, and had a very pleasant lunch in town. i also painted my toe nails..
all 9 of them, and drank a couple of beers..it was marvellous after the hussle and bustle
though i do miss those mens hands in my pockets! anyway thats it for now. trying
to upload a photo..not being too successful. have fun. luv
miss g, in brasil, with the digital camera. xx
yes, we went on a jungle walk, and swam in a waterfall, then ended up walking through
the jungle in cozzies as it was getting dark, and every mozzie in the area was going out for
dinner. we were also wearing diving shoes, so you can imagine how attractive we looked.
apart from that i have spent most of my time lying in a hammock and generally chilling out
after the excesses of rio. tomorrow we are off to a working ranch in the middle of nowhere
in the panatal..so i will not be able to write again untill i get to manaus in the amazon. i had
written a huge paragraph that had taken me about 20 mins when chris, our intrepid guide
pulled the esb plug out of the back of his modem, causing all the computers to go down...
that is chris for you...we have been slagging him to death as he is always late, cant find
his way to the beach at copacabana so we have to tell him, and we always have to wait for
him everywhere we go...its hilarious, as are some of the other 6 people on the trip but
thats for another day as i have a date with a cold beer soon.
just wondering if anyone wants me to bring anything back..such as the world famous haviana
flip flops which are cheap as chips compared with any other country. let me know.
well thats it for now..having a brilliant time;;its such a laugh i cant tell you..well not now
anyway.
hope you like the photos.
hope you are ok on your own rose, wish you were here.
see you soon mand.
thanks for mail eli..glad to hear that your flat is good.
gareth is there any spirit you want me to bring.
carol thanks for the mail..keep in touch
i love you all from the bottom of my heart.
well, i was wrong about not having the internet...but cant upload photos
which is a pity, as after swimwear in the jungle, we had to walk for 10 mins
through fields of sheep in life jackets, to get to a river, and you would not
believe what you have to wear for a night safari here, but it includes goggles
as there are more insects than any other place i have ever been in my life.
i will send photos when i can....what a laugh we have had! we have also been
eaten alive, walking sets of dominoes, had to get a guy to come and kill
a poisonous snake that was climbing up the door of one of our rooms,
seen giant anteaters, toucans, alligators, capybara (the worlds biggest
rodent), macaws, armadillos...you name it. today we spent 3 hours riding
horses with brazilian cowboys...it was brilliant despite the fact that my
horse was a bully, both with me, and the other horses. as i write this there
are at least 35 mozzies round me, what larks! i have also fallen down an armadillo
hole, swum in a pool with toucans in the trees round me and fallen asleep in a hammock.
its just brilliant here..what a trip. tomorrow we go to campo grande for some time until
our 5am flight to the amazon, via brasilia, which we will be able to have some time to
see on the way back. looking forward to that, and everything else. there is a fiesta in
a bahian town near salvador that we are going to..if it goes according to everything
else that has happened it will be a blast.
take care all of you, and ill be in touch soon. mand i might have to ask you to bring out
some more deet as i have already got through a whole bottle, and am still covered in
bites...still no snake bites luckily!
bye.
well, im back in brasilia, on my way to salvador. what a wierd place it is, kinda like milton
keynes on acid..it may have been cutting edge to build a city in the shape of an aeroplane
and fill it full of concrete symbolic structures in the 60s, but now it looks dated, and a little
anal. still..there you go. so that amazon..you know it takes an hour to cross it at manaus, a
city where it never goes below 90, and 80%humidity. we stayed in a wooden hut 3 hours up
river without electricity. you may be surprised to hear that there werenot that many mozzies
there..though, i still slept with a hammock mozzie net...thats brazil for you. imagine my
horror when i woke up covered in bites all down the back of my legs....over 30 in fact.
the hammock was crawling with fleas. how we did laugh! i had a brilliant time though,
despite this and the fact that i now have over 100 bites, including one on my hand that
is making it hard to type this. oh, us jungle explorers, we take it all in our stride. ive seen
bird eating spiders, a sloth swimming, baby alligators up very close, you name it.
its been such a laugh, our guide may as well be on a backpacking trip himself...
off to salvador in an hour. hopefully will write there..and do photos...no usb here.
take care all;
love
miss G in the airport with the fat hand.xx
yes, it has been pouring and im sweating inside rainwear. salvador is wonderful, but has a real
edge that rio doesnt have...ie, people eye you up all the time incase you have something they can steal..and you get hassledby nut sellersetc all the time in bars..still its fab here..a little like
havana but without the safety. yes i have had churrascaria..in fact even in the caratao in rio,
but i ate less meat, i can tell you..ive also had rice and beans almost every day, so its been
a bit windy round here. sorry i havent met a man called jesus, rose, but i have managed to
find that cd you wantedby bueno cockoso. god that made me chuckle. you will all be glad to
hear that my huge babys hand with dimples at the knuckle has shrunk almost to normal, though
i got another 3 bites last night, which i suspect may be fleas...
went to a caiporia show last night..you should have seen the guys..phowarr!!! talk about
fit, and bendy..my eyes were watering. we are supposed to be going to the festival tonight
but if it keeps raining we may not bother and just drink loads of caiparinas on the streets here
on tables that are at 45degrees due to the amazing hills here. then there are those cobbles..
and, rose they also have cannon balls in the road just like havana..the girls of course
still wear the worlds highest and most ridiclous shoes.
have just remembered that i have run out of money on my phone..so no more texts..sorry.
rose will you give my love to bill..im so glad that he had a good holiday. i feel that i have
been away for months..going somewhere else now to see if i can do photos..
write more later.
love to all
g.
here i am 3 miles from paraguy and 7 from argentina at foz do iguassu. this morning i had
the thrill of a lifetime and went in the front seat of seethrough helecopter over the falls..
it was better than some sex i have had, but of course i wont mention any names.
i must also mention that we went to to festivals of st john in one day...got on brazillian tv,
dancing..went back to salvador at midnight and went to the second instalment..it totally
poured with rain and every one just kept on dancing..it was one of the most halcyon nights
of my life..soaked through, dancing samba with a caiparina in my hand, and, this is really
true, the guys were almost fighting to dance with me. this may have been because i was
wearing a tiny vest which was soaked through..but it had the brazilian flag on it..so maybe
they are just patriotic.
the falls here are awesome..i got soaked again..but hell, who cares.
just to answer a few queries...the sloth looked like it was dead..thats how fast it was
swimming. we were wearing goggles in the jeep in the amazon because there are so many
bugs there that they get in your eyes, your hair, up your nose..you get the picture.
gareth i managed to get you one of those cds..but not bueno cockisimo. my hand has gone
down, but my foot is now the size of an elephants. i have done 10 flights so far, and tomorrow
fly to buenos aries. mand..so looking forward to seeing you..the camera is so brilliant i could
marry it and have its babies. so is this blog..thanks for all the messages, i love it.
will write again in ba..crossing into argentina tomorrow to see the other side of the falls..
that is if i dont decide to stay here and become a helecopter pilot...
mand...desperately need shower gel..left in edinburgh. do you fancy a tango lesson?
there are about 14 people on the next leg..only 6 here, it will be a bit strange, but it will
be fabulous to meet up. cant wait. by the way i have a really good tan in case you dont
recognise me.
see you babe, enjoy the silver sausage..at least you dont have to eat a tam sandwich..but
that is another story..
take care all..
read you in argentina.
love...
miss G with the can of beer in the frontier town.
Got as far as Madrid, 2 legs down, one to go, will be crawling by the end. George you will know I have arrived when you meet someone vaguely familiar but who seems to honk like a tarts boudoir! A girl has to do something to while away those tedious airport hours. Anyway, surprisingly the 2 moronic chair bashing children have made it to Madrid alive so I won`t be carted off by the polis for murder, but it was a close call. Bloody children, should be sent to an island until they are 18 or at least can behave.
Anyway, off now to visit the delights of Madrid airport.
Ciao peeps
Mado xx
p.s. I do have 35 photos of airplanes and clouds but sadly no usb port to upload so you cannot share.....
so here we are in ba..mandy made it even with the screaming kids and did not get
arrested for murder. the first night i was here on my own, i went for a tango lesson..cannot
tell you how difficult it is..man leads woman has to follow and work out where he is going to put his feet by the change in his body weight on his legs...very subtle, so obviously i found it very hard. then i went to a milango..a sort of tango tea dance where there were people dancing who looked so old that they might in fact die at any moment..still they could manage without standing on each others feet. amazing. but tango is not for me..its too slow, involves an accordion which i hate, and you just dont get to shake your booty. still i have bought a pair of tango shoes just in case which are so high im scared.
today we have been shopping..it is just brilliant here, and so cheap i could weep. where is a song in there somewhere....
tomorrow we are off to salta, and then a 12..yes 12!...hour bus journey into chile over the mountains where we will probably be very ill with altitude sickness if we dont plunge to our deaths over the massive precipice. plus its on local transport and the bus has no loo..what larks. how we will laugh. so thats it folks..off to the bar now...the restaurant we ate in last night had the worlds largest steaks, and the worlds most fabulous argentinian wine list..it was the size of a short novel..gareth you would have been in heaven. (mand: some of us didn´t enjoy a huge steak but chomped our way through a McChicken sandwich due to being too tired, then went back and spent a lovely evening in the company of a 69yr old physics/astronomy lecturer who I am sharing with until tomorrow. But I shan´t get too sulky about it!)
so see you all in another south american country. we may not be able to write for a while as we
are staying in the middle of nowhere in the desert where it can be -25 at night. but thanks to c+a
we both have the most fetching fleece trousers..bet you just cant wait for the photos! mandys are
vibrant pink!
love you all
geco and mado. xxx
yes, we have arrived in llama country..salta in north west argentina..home of giant steaks
indian looking people and cumbia. tomorrow we climb into chile on that hugely long bus tripon an unpaved road with the highest pass at over 4000 meters. what larks. seemingly there is a loo on the bus but i dont know how nice it will be after a few hours. still lunch is included!
today we went roung a couple of wineries in cafayete..which argentinians pronounce as cafajete
for those pedants among you..no names mentioned. and mandy got to stroke a baby llama
till her hands stunk. whatever floats your boat i say.
the canyons are really spectacular, and the sunset was from the age of the giant dragonfly, and the cakes are brilliant especially for breakfast..the germans would love it.
will write soon from yet another country..what jetsetters we are.
love to all.
miss g in the cybercafe with the bag of shopping.
Mandy: just so you get a better feel for our 12 hour trip we can expect any or all of the following: projectile womiting, squits, headache from hell, gaspng like you are 90 years old and smoked woodbines for 70 of them, tiredness such that you cannot get out of bed, weird and wacky dreams (do them already) and being unable to sleep. So you can imagine our desire to think positively and hope that we suffer from none of teh above and that the coach doesn´t nose dive off some mountainside. I would be so pissed off it it did because I would then miss Peru and that is just not acceptable.
Baby llama was ever so adorable but I now stink even after washing ones mitts, like the gouchos, horses, and those maddening parrots who refuse to come anywhere near for their photo session. I´ll get one of the little buggers before I come home if it kills me.
Anyway, tatty bye for the now from Mand.
xx
p.s. It is now safe to travel to Bolivia care of teh foreign office so no woriies on us being hijacked, stunned or having tear gas thrown at us. Some may say that is a shame...
at night its freezing here..below zero, and yet during the day its boiling hot. we made it over the
mountains from argentina 2 hours early, and the trip was totally spectacular. none of us has suffered too badly with altitude sickness, although we are all a bit spacey, and feel like we are on
a boat, but there is mate de coco..coca tea to combat that..it tastes a bit like chinese green tea.
the stars here are really fab, and of course you can see the southern cross very clearly something
none of you can see, so there. we really are well into the land of the poncho now..all the shops
have said garment and peruvian hats etc. there are also a lot of wanker hippy types here in
san pedro de atacama..dreadlocks, hundreds of wristlets, lots of bare feet, its that kind of place.
thank god we are here in the winter..the summer must be a nightmare of love fests and tree
hugging. anyway, we have had such a brilliant time, the scenery is just beautiful..and we are
becoming taller as we go..the men here are so totty we are giants. have to say that the food has
been so brilliant i cant quite belive it, though that could change as we head north into bolivia on our jeep trip..there will be no lecky so we will not be in touch again till we get to potosi..the
highest city in the world in 3 days..write then.
miss g, with the hot sun at altitude and her slightly short of breath friend mand.
xx
yes, after years of thinking they were called llamas..they are really called yamas, unless you happen to be in argentina where they are called jamas! the things you learn..like that if you are staying in what looks like an antartic research station at nearly 5000mts, or 15000feet for those imperialists amongst you, with no running water, no heating and lecky for lights for only 2 hours a night, it will be a tad on the chilly side..ie -10 or so..thank god for fleece trousers.
we are not in la paz yet..getting a night bus tonight..still in potosi, which is the highest city in
the world. it took us 3 days crossing the andes to get here..passing into bolivia where the border was a hut in the middle of nowhere..unlike chile where we all got all our bags searched..not for drugs or guns as you might have thought..no suree! the chileans were concerned that we might be smuggling fruit!!! god forbid. anyway..most of us have suffered from some form of altitude sickness...but not me you will be pleased to hear, especially as i might have had to stop smoking cigarettes or drinking..and that would be a step to far. mandy has had really bad headaches..and it was lucky that she got here when she did as i put my back out and she has had to be a pack mule carrying all our luggage..what a luckster! still the scenery coming here is just so spectacular from geysers, smoking volcanos, a salt pan which is 12000 square kms and will make you snowblind if you dont wear sunglasses, islands of cactus, scarey roads. the bus here from uyumi..the armpit of bolivia, where the best thing in town is a train cemetery, and all the lecky was down so we couldnt use the internet...was hours late as the driver had forgotten to fill the radiator with water..funnily enough the engine kept overheating as we were driving over mountains at the time..
we all have coughs and runny noses due to the dust..3 days on a jeep in the dustiest place in the world. and yes, gareth..atacama and clouds is an oxymoron..we saw clouds yesterday for the first time in days...though there is ice everywhere in the desert so it does obviously rain sometimes but not at this time of year.
hope you all enjoyed the g8 thang, the only news we have heard is that jacko got off with it, and london has got the olympics..thats enough for me. we dont want your news..you need ours..its obvious.
anyway all will write again in la paz. then its off to peru..all these borders and currencies are getting a bit confusing, we have jumped from 5 argie to the pound to 15 bolivianos with 7 chilean inbetween..sometimes i cant even remember what country im in..and then i see an old woman in a bowler hat, pleated skirt and plaited hair with a blanket tied round her and i remember..were not in kansas anymore toto!
love to all..keep in touch.
miss g,in yama country, with miss d.
Mand: baby yamas (cute), baby donkeys (even cuter), baby pigs (cute and cuddly but possibly a bit smelly), baby cactus (bit prickly but cute none the less), babies (still cute but a bit aromatic and grubby). Ciao xx
rose, do you really think that i would have forgotten that you are even closer to 40 than yesterday..hey lady, ive got your present here in my very overstuffed bag..actually its 2 presents , one for each almost 20 years. hope you have a good day..birthday on a friday is always good.
as to la paz..its like totally paztastic. it was dark when we arrived this morning at 6am..and the dawn came up while we were sitting in a traffic jam..but it is pink tinged and covers all the mountains almost up to the top, rather like a huge bowl. then there are the bowler hatted women who are everywhere with the worlds largest loads wrapped in blankets on their backs..no wonder they are almost bent double by middle age and have fat ankles and wrinkled tights with those really uncomfortable shoes. true! i swear. they also wear about 15 layers of clothes including about 5 petticoats, a shiny pleated stirt and a pinny, over the wrinkled brown tights and bad sandals. the city is a real mix because of this..half of it is cobbled streets full of markets on the worlds steepest roads, and the other half is glass bank and office buildings full of laquered, after shave stinking, mobile toting wide boys. then there are the buildings peppered with bullet holes, but that is another story..its really warm here, though like everywhere this high, it is the highest capital in the world you know, it gets really cold in the shade and the temperature plummets at night. though not last night on our bus..the most comfortable bus ive ever been on..the seats reclined right back and there were foot rests which came up to form a bed, albeit at 30 degrees..superb. though i think the other passangers might not agree..after recovering from my back thang i now have the worlds most runny nose and bad cough..so was snoring like a fog horn. poor mand..still i have made it up to her by humouring her desire to go shopping today, totally against my wishes, but i bought some things just so she wouldnt notice that i was bored!
talking of which..the shopping is brilliant here, even cheaper that chips..and its the best place in the world for buying that dried llama foetus, or armadillo that you have been craving. i kid you not. so there you are paz in a nutshell..snowcovered mountains with houses almost right up to the top..talk about breathless. its almost like i smoke a pack of fags a day!
well see you all soon..i know its hard to believe but i miss you..nah! just kiddling!
off to peru tomorrow, will write from there when i can.
love
miss g, with the bag too big, in la paz with the dongle.
dont ever get and amex travellers cheque card, thats all i can say. anyway..cusco is wonderful
have seen more ruins that one could shake a bowler hat at...actually bowlers for women are
dying out..fedoras or straw are the order of the day. the days are sunny and boiling, the nights are freezing and starry. went white water rafting today..2 people fell out of the boat but not us.
cos we are blessed, was at the front, loads of water in the face and god it was hard work.
still may have to go to macchu picchu tomorrow cos there is a train strike on thurs so there we are.
this internet closes in 5 mins, so this is short.
just wanted you all to know that we are fine and dandy, despite amex.
and rose, that call to you and bill cost me one pound 20! peru, what a place.
hope everyone is well.
love,
miss g, in cusco, with the very short mail.
yes, we have both done it from atlantic to pacific, albeit from different starting points. the domestic airport in buenos aires is right on the atlantic, and here in lima we are only a death taxi ride away from the pacific. god knows why i worry about flying sometimes when taxi drivers in lima have such a death wish..the only place ive seen worse is in cairo, but that is another story. so this is the end of the blog..boo! i know i havent written much recently, but, honestly, we have just been so busy..what with trips on titikaka on reed boats, staying in the middle of nowhere and of course...weve been to machpicchu, weve been to machupicchu..na na ne na na.
this has to be repeated in a childhood chant for it to be proper. it was so wonderful i cant even tell you..the train journey there..the bus practically up the side of a mountain..the biting things in the grass that savaged all of us, despite the fact that none of us saw them, and dont know what they were. still, its nice for me to have everyone else suffering and not just my legs blowing up to the size of an elephant. if you want to be pedantic rose, its machupicchu, and is pronounced mack-chew pick-chew. so there. another interesting fact is that we stayed in a hotel 15 steps from the rail tracks, and at 5.50 when the train came in it was, in fact, in our bedroom.
here are some more useless facts about south america.
the reed boats on titikaka have empty plastic bottles stuffed inside them.
in argentina if a car has a half full bottle of water on the roof, it means the car is for sale.
in peru if a house has a stick with a red plastic bag outside it means it sells hootch.
argentina has no indigenous spirit..peru and chile have pisco, and bolivia has singani.
the most expensive dish on a menu in peru is gineau pig, which comes whole, head and all.
there are 4 kinds of cameloids here, not just yamas..alpacas, vicuña, and guanaco..alpacas are much softer than llamas, and vicuñas have the finest hair in the world..except for silk.
if you stay up to 3am drinking pisco sours in lima, you might just have a hangover the next day, and will be unable to get in a death taxi without holding on to the arm of your friend.
if you are reading this blog on a monday, we will be in the silver sausage in the sky.
looking forward to seeing you all.
hope you have all enjoyed having me.
ive had me fun...
love
miss g, in lima, with the tear in her eye. xxx
yes,we are home in case you hadnt heard, didnt get mugged, raped, shot or forced to become catholics. had the time of wor lives.
here are some more things about south america that you just need to know before you die.
there are 2000 kinds of potato in peru.
the word embarazo means embarrased in portugese, and in spanish it means pregnant...red in the face, you will be.
argentina is south americas joke...the people are considered brash, loud, arrogant, ignorant, and have the worst taste..sound like anyone you know?
pieces of eight, the mantra of long john silvers parrot, were silver coins minted in potosi in bolivia..the mine kept spain in coins for about 300 years.
brazilia has the worst record of road deaths in brazil, as there is no systems for pedestrians.
to bless a new house in peru, one buries a dried llama foetus in the foundations...these can be bought in any market..honest.
one will be told that puno, on the side of titikaka, in peru, is only there for tourism..in fact, the main industry is smuggling across the border from bolivia..where things are half the price..you can get anything you want.
if you stay in aguas caliente..you are in hot water..
machupicchu is splitting apart at a rate of 1cm per year.
over night buses in argentina and bolivia show the most violent films known..one had a man being run over by a tank in gory detail in the first 5 mins...the other had a whole roomful of people being cut in half in the same space of time..presumably to distract one from the terrible roads, and the fact that we could all die at any moment.
it is illegal to take cheese, honey or teabags into chile!
no one really knows what the fuck machupicchu is doing there, who built it, why, why they left, or anythinig else about it really.
if one wants to die, get in a taxi in lima.
children in peru learn to march from the age of 3...marching school every saturday before church.
ya dancer..how they must relish it.
people meet in the street outside banks in peru..
we had a totally brilliant time..machupicchu was the last place i had to go before i died, and the only place mandy ever wanted to go.
what more can i girl do. lucksters or what!
so long, fairwell, aufweidesein, goodbye..
this is the end, beautiful friend.
love
miss g and miss m, back home in blighty, with the big glass of celebratory wine in our hands...
thanks for having us. xxxx
ill be last on this blog..ha!
ive ordered a cd of the whole thang, as, of course, i havent ever read anything i wrote except while composing the razor-sharp witticisms and amazing insights. cant deny i enjoyed the whole experience..was it as good for you? perhaps we should smoke a post-blog cigarette and swop phone numbers before i send you packing. ive `ad me fun!
meet me at the back of the blue bus...
yes, ive finally entered the modern age and got a laptop! so i will be changing my email address
but havent quite mastered the knack of how to get into webmail yet. god, pathetic or what..still
that typing course i did at 16 is at last being used properly..even if i did learn on manual typewriters which were just, like, so totally terrible for your nails. that was in the days that we only used our thumbs for the space bar, and not for sending hilarious text messages..i cant tell you
how antediluvian i feel when i work with 20 year old guys who cannot conceive of a world without
playstations and digital cameras, let alone electric typewriters.
anyway..if anyone reads this..ill be in touch later with that new address.
love, etc
g.
so here we are in mopti, just been cqmping in the dogon country for 2 nights and on our way north on qa pinasse tomorrow up the niger to timbuktu;
sorry qabout the spelling, but this is not a querty keyboard;
mali is amazing, its totally safe, the people are the friendliest ive ever seen, and the things we have seen, i just cant tell you.
its the most colourful place ive ever been, and the market at djenne,,,,jenny to you was just fab as wqs the mud mosque.
we are having a totally majical time, and i think that mali may be one of my fave countries already; i will go now as i have to pack yet again for our camping by the river on the boat trrip;;;in 2 days we will be in timbuktu,,perhaps the internet will be available there, this is the first i have found that has a connection;
take care all,
love you all;
and by the way, it was 50° here yesterday!
see you
the sand encrusted, havent washed for 2 days, and eaten all over by mozzies person you call...
georgi. xxxxx
so, here i am in the hottest, most isolated city ive ever been in. its so hot my camera has gone bonkers, and from noon till 3 all you do is lie around in the shade. i cant even remember what it feels like to be cool, let alone cold...but, boy, what a time weve had. mali is just so wonderful, varied, hot, colourful, frendly, did i mention hot, safe, hot, dusty and hot. we have climbed down the escarpment in the dogon country with its mud villages and ancienttowns carved into the cliffs that the tellem people had to climb up to with ropes. we have travelled 300 miles down the niger river on a pinasse and camped under the amazing stars to reach here. we have heard the calll to prayer from the minaret of the biggest mud building in the world. and mandy and i have had the worlds sweetest tea in a temporary hut with tuareg men who are only in timbuktu for a few days to but food for eid, the end of ramadan, which is next week. what a wonderful, amazing time we have had here...timbuktu is just as you would imagine, but hotter...oh, did i mention the heat...its 50° c here every day, it hasnt once gone under 28 even at 5am which you may be surprised to learn i have got up at many times. we have constellations of mozzie bites on out bums from bush toilets, i have even got used to beer as hot as tea, and i went to bed at 9.30pm last night...imagine! If you ever could imagine a completely unspoiled culture, where there are amazing things to see, but no tourists and its really safe because they havent learned that crime pays, and people are still amazed to see their photo on a digital camera screen, and everyone says bonjour without wanting anything, and you can buy dinner for 2pounds, beer for 75 p and fags are 60p a pack its here. its just so wonderful, it brings tears to my eyes. i have had the time of my life...and its not over yet. better go now, at 4 im off on camels into the sahara. hope you are all well, miss you.
OH, and did i mention that its HOT!!
god created havana for rose and i! its cheap, you can smoke everywhere, its beautiful yet crumbling( a little like us), people regard beer as a soft drink, you can get a lock in at a bar, its warm all the time and there are such cute guys.
people carry large improbable objects around the streets..it only used to be men that did this, but increasingly women are getting into it too.
everyone is obsessed with sugar..especially in cake form, but ice cream is mandatory on saturday, cocktails are full of it, and there is permanently a queue outside the chocolate shop on mercrederes.
there are a million hazards in the streets from traffic stopping canon balls (the scourge of the unobservant tourist), to huge holes that you might see anyone working on once in 2 weeks if you are lucky.
never order meat..you will not be able to swallow, however much you chew!
security guards (of which there are lots) get given free sandwiches and tucola(cubas coke equivalent) at sandwich roll call on mercrederes street every day. you can buy these at 3am on your way home at any building for 2.50 cucs.
if you get lost on the streets at 5.30am just look for a policeman. he will drive you home in his police lada and its much cheaper than a taxi.
you can barely go a day without hearing hotel california done in salsa style..but at least its not jammin by bob marley.
if you fall on the rocks an split your knee open, just pour rum over it and go to that club till 3am and dance all night anyway. whats the worst that can happen?
there are beer vending machines on the streets.
if you are a policeman and have a spare moment where you just dont know what to do with your hands, you put one on your hip and one on your baton. if you are any other man you do what can only be described as a hand wank..slap your fist sideways into your other palm. you will see this movement done at least 1000 times a day.
men carry huge iced cakes around the streets, though this year they have discovered the cake box.
cuban guys are so cute that you will never remember who is who, and trying to recall a name is just impossible.
women swish about the streets in the worlds tiniest clothes whether they are gigantically fat or really skinny, but big is better. curves are the order of the day, even if you are on the baloon side of curvaceous..no one would be interested in victoria beckham!
it is just heaven..i suggest you go there as soon as possible.
does exactly what it says on the tin. if you ever read this.
woah, we`re going to lat-via
woah, back to baltic,
woah, we`re going to have a party,
woah, by a cold european sea!
its warmer that scotland in september...you can still sit outside and have dinner of an evening..though they take the tables away on the 1st october.
it has the worlds most extreme shoes..spike heeled, suede or even satin thigh boots with loads of fuss on them including appliqued roses in red leather. walking-in-high-heels-over-cobbles classes are compulsory for girls from age 10!
they love stairs, and you can find yourself climbing 5 flights to your apartment at least twice a day.
staring at food in supermarkets is better than going to the zoo. there are whole aisles of pieces of fish in various formats...pickled, dried, in sauce, stuffed, canned, in jars, in tubs or loose by the kilo. you can even buy whole, large fish wrapped in clingfilm. the alcohol is even more interesting..2 whole asiles of vodka from about £1.50 a bottle, and a whole section of eastern european wines of which all, white or red, is so sweet it will rot your teeth. then of course there is black balzams..the unique latvian drink which is like campari mixed with cough medecine..and you can buy it in alcopop form mixed with blackcurrant, cherry or coke for a mere 59p per can! obviously i bought lots! and i think i must mention that cigarettes are less that £1 a pack...good old latvia!
its not as cheap as those huge groups of ugly cockenese lads on stag nights are led to believe..cheaper that edinburgh, but where isnt, but there are many things you can do in riga for under £5. get trams all over the city for 30p flat rate for any journey. get a train to the baltic seaside for £1.25 return and still have money left over for an ice cream on the way home, or a beer and a pint of kvass if you are us. visit one of the hundreds of churches, if you can ever find them open. drink a latvian measure of vodka or black balzams in a bar..now that is 150 ml..for those of you who dont know your drinks measures..equivalent to 3 miniatures, and all for £1.50! go round the meat market where you can see every part of the inside of a pig for sale, including snouts, ears, tongues and those offal bits id rather not think about! buy a litre carton of red wine, a loaf of bread, some cheese and ham and have a picnic in one of the many mosquito infested parks..all for less than £5. alternatively go to a chemist and buy some antihistamines for those delightful mozzie bites you already have on your eyes, which make you look like you have just gone 5 rounds with mike tyson, and force you to look like a poser wearing shades on cloudy days..that will set you back a mere £3.99!!! what a bargainatious destination!
lastly..dont think for one minute that you will have any ability to work out anything in latvian, whether it be a road sign, and advert, or a foodstuff. it is a complete mystery, and has totally nothing in common with any other language you might know. even buying a carton of milk or some butter can be a minefield as there is not a single word on the label you can work out!! that french, spanish or latin you learned at school will just not help you in the least. perhaps if you know lithuanian or eest, (which i presume is estonian..who knows), you can get by, but what are the chances of that?
i thought i might change my font too..since ive changed the colour and that. what do you think? have just thought that its maybe inapprorpriate for me to write all that political stuff on your blog..let me know. have also thought that i got iris murdoch and doris lessing mixed up..silly really as iris died years ago and had dementia in later life to the point that she couldnt even believe that she had written a book. doris, on the other hand is very much alive, as her comments proove! anyway, get in touch when you get a chance..i know we dont need both blogs, but i might put something on it i dont want others to read..cant imagine what, but you never know. cu.
and, im not talking that waist doughnut either! its silver, linked at the bottom of the face, embossed facial features and with turquoise inlays in the forehead under the feather headress. hope this is visible here as it took me about 25 photos to get it without the shadow of the camera obscuring it. david bailey never had it so hard!
glad you are having such a great time...thanks so much for calling. i really appreciate it so much. you are the best friends a girl could have...especially if you manage to bag one of these babies..but, obviously no matter if you dont. enjoy macchu picchu..like you wouldnt...
lady, ive put you on subscribe...will you let me know if this gets through ok?
hope you are not too stressed out about green card..but how can you not be. just hope it all works out.
thinking about you..in my shop full of dirty old clothes and skanky tat.
lurve...
lush. xx
yes, here it is..the world premier. what do you think of it? i actually wanted it to be darker blue..but tattoo guy said you wouldnt see all the detail, and decided he was right. i am delighted with it, its so what i wanted and i wasnt sure if all the curly bits would be too fine. well, weh hey, im happy. its saturday night, i have a cuba libre in my hand and all is fine and dandy with the world!
b&k..hope you are both feeling better now you are down to ground level...by the txts i guess you are. looking forward to photos. loved the long message, whatever possessed you to go down that mine??? chicas locas!
eli...will probably call you tonight so this will be irrelevant..but thanks so much for `rome`...my historical fascination period, cute guys naked, violence, lots of sex and strong women...with the tragedy that you just know is coming. i love it. have watched 5 episodes already and i only got it on thursday! hope things are happening with green card..will talk to you about it...like that will help!
enjoy....
love and all that.. xx
glad that you are enjoying the thrillers..do you remember any of them from those saturdays when that poisonous grandmother we used to have babysat for us and let us stay up to watch them? luckily im now an adult and can sit up till 2am watching rome when ever i want..though as i was glued to the screen, i got through it all in 2 nights! oh woe is me now! god i love that...incedentaly can i just say that i live at 8/3...not at 1, which was on the amazon address label.
anyway, lady, so glad to hear that you will be able to go to work on the 2nd jan. dont mean that you will be leaping out of bed in paroxyms of joy, but it must be a real weight off your mind, and im relieved for you. work might be shit, but it does allow a girl to have the house she wants, not to mention booze, fags and dvds. (did you get the other one i sent you?) have also seen something stoopid for your birthday which is in such bad taste i just know you will love it. what larks!
off to bed now...take care of that picket fence, and remember to switch off that train set when you go to bed, as its probably a health and safety accident waiting to happen. here in charitee we are so obsessed with h&s i cant even tell you...im supposed to do a ladder check once a month and have weekly fire drill practice. in a tiny little shop we have to sign in every day, and in the case of fire we must leave all our possessions, but retrieve the signing in book so that we can account for all staff. given that at the very most there are only ever 4 people, it seems a tad unlikely i could misplace one of them, but you never know.
anyway, girl, take care...will speak to you before christmas which is only a week away..crivens!
good night...xxx
happy new year one and all..ie, the 2 people who will read this. ive put some videos on of the fireworks, and rose will probably kill me cos she made me swear that i wouldnt put them on utube...and i havnt..yet! have fun all..enjoy!
was gonna put this on in yellow, but i couldnt even read it..so its pink! anyway, dont know about anyone else, but im just so pissed off that its january and its all over.(sorry about the above football quote, which in case anyone doesnt remember is what the commentator said when england won the world cup in 1966..sad that i know that really). luckily for me im not working tomorrow..its my day off, but i have all that crap stuff to do like paying the council tax, my visa bill, and probably some killing and destruction on my new playstation 3 which i know some of you are very jealous of..though given that said people are travelling for 7 months in south america, i think its me who should be jealous.
anyway..eli, i sent you an invite onto youtube, and one for myspace, on which rose is one of my friends called astrid, and her photo is a pair of cookie shoes. they will probably go into your spam so you will have to look them out. glad to hear that the visa thing has worked out, though its a real pain you have to keep having it reviewed every 6 months. hope you are ok lady, you know that you can phone anytime if you want to. hope its not too painful having to take down all those picket fence bows..the people down the stairs from me have a life size snowman, santa, flashing lights along their fence, and 4 other lit up things of various sizes in their garden to take down. i dont envy them. i will always remember how anna was always in such a bad mood on jan 6th when she had to take it all down...i have a tiny metal tree, a wooden angel and a bouncy metal snowman..it will take me hours to put them all away, and actually the snowman has been there for a year already so i will probably leave them all. lazy..me?
b+k, will book cuba tomorrow...promise. will txt when its done..enjoy the glacier.
thats it. im off to bed. take care all.
derek, ive put you onto subscribe..enjoy!
eli, hope you are ok. keep in touch lady.
and whatever you do, dont make a three hour phone call to chile..it will cost you more than a weekend in budapest! sheesht!
did i wake up this morning in a suite in a 4 star hotel overlooking the danube and castle hill? did i fuck! woke up in my own, newly pimped up bedroom! yesterday just everything went wrong..weather, accident on the m8, glasgow rush hour, broken windscreen wiper, no parking spaces..we missed our flight by 10 mins! fuck, fuck and triple fuck! so instead of pics of me with a glass of unicum in a baroque bar...you have my new bedroom and toilet seat! some trade huh?
still. eli and binni and kim, you so cheered me up in my darkest hour...and i didnt get to bed till 8am, though actually i did sleep in the pod for about 3 hours. thanks all. who needs to go to budapest when i have friends like you?
well, apparently it can..as i have just had my boiler condemned! this means i have no central heating and no hot water...what larks. everyone keeps telling me to just switch it back on, but i cant as the engineer turned the whole system off at the meter and put a huge `danger` tag on the boiler. this really has been the worst fucking january since records began. im going to the dentist next week, and will probably be told that i need £1000 of root canal work, and then my windows will probably blow in as we are having some of the worlds worst weather...which of course is perfect timing to be without heating. ah, its all happy happy joy joy here...and february is just about to come up..my least favourite month of the year..which is even worse this year as it has an extra day! roll on the summer! thats what i say. pah!
yes, goodbye old boiler. hello pulled up floors and 2 day mayhem. when i was told my boiler was condemned i just so didnt realise that it would involve total hijacking of my flat, taking up the floorboards or running annoying electric wires all over the shop...but it does! see health and fucking safety! however, by this time next week i should be putting the pieces back together again, with (gasp) hot water and (imagine) heating that actually stays on for more than 30 mins, or 5 if its windy. in the meantime i have had 1 shower in 2 weeks, and im surprised that my kettle hasnt been condemned itself as i have boiled it at least 10 times a day. luckily for me the weather has been on the clement side..and i even saw crocus today...signs of life, and it is even light now when i get on the bus, how good is that?
eli, happy birthday..jeez we are all getting so old! hope you have a good day...friday birthday is always good! present to follow, but couldnt get into my broadband for a week as they had changed the password without telling me. i cant tell you what a pisser that was, so i couldnt send you what i wanted when i wanted..how we do come to rely on technology. cant deny i was actually in tears on saturday night when i couldnt connect..so i put on playstation and had a good session of slaughter and smashing to compensate. how it did cheer me up!
b&k, you are obviously out of text range so lets hope you find an internet place soon. see you like so soon.
thats it, im off to the arms or morpheus..love to all. keep in touch.
due to the disruption in my flat i`ll be out of contact for some time. all you hundreds of people who read this will no doubt not know what to do with yourselves..so i recommend some mindless slaughter on playstation, or perhaps watching all the nudity, violence and mindless sex in rome 2. or just sit being mindless..thats what i`ll be doing. that and dreaming of hot showers!
well, it was bound to happen, given that he is 81 and all, but retiring? blimey! binni and kim, dont you worry..things are not going to change in 5 weeks, the streets will not be swamped with ugly, obese yanks..and the food will not suddenly have become cordon bleu. i expect there will still be power cuts and little or no hot water, men carrying large improbable objects around , cake panic on mothers day, gigantic holes in the streets, skimpy lycra galore, and smoking will still be legal everywhere, except in banks, though even that is open to discussion! still arent you glad that you didnt put off going till next year, when bush will be gone and the new president may have a more open minded attitude. travel companies are already predicting that since the other carribean islands are americas playground, and if the embargo is stopped all those ugly, obese yanks may decide to go to cuba, it will be good news for europeans, as all the other islands will offer great deals as they will be desperate! cant say that sounds like particularly good news to me.. i dont want americans in cuba..there are many brilliant things about havana, but the fact the miniscule amount of americans that go there are really sound or they wouldnt even be there is one of them. i mean all those canadians are bad enough, but luckily they are only there for the day, on a trip from varadero or from a gigantic cruise liner.
anyway all this aside, i think its a very exciting time to go..lets face it anyone our age or younger cant even remember the time before fidel..will they be delighted, will they be scared or will they just be apathetic about the whole thing like everyone else in the world is about their own politics? we`ll see. stroll on!
see that kratos..ay caramba he is limber..and yet i just so cant seem to get him over the last revolving log with huge blades sticking out. mm..will probably have to play this for yet another 5 hours..as otherwise i will have to go way back to the save point and do most of this again. have now been traversing these logs for 4 days..and boy, is it tiring..you have to keep him running on top of the log..too fast and he dies, to slow and he dies, hit the blade he dies..sheesht! there is a thing in quantum physics called the red queen theory, because you have to keep running as fast as you can to stay in the same place..this never made sense to me before..but is sure as hell does now! someone take me to havana..quick! where binni and kim (luck fucks) are already..god i hate them! eli, i hope you are ok..you know that you can always call if things are crap, even if you just want to rant and rave..or get annoyed with someone..im your girl! oh, dang the red is finished. and so am i.
welcome to my new kitchen floor...pretty exciting huh? bet you thought that a new toilet seat just couldnt be beaten for thrills! well, how wrong you were. have to say that bill helped me do it, and just how that man has survived to his age i have no idea..i just can bare to watch him with a stanley knife in his hand. but we both survived with both eyes..que milagro! every time he picks up a hammer i run for cover..i feel like daphne broon standing on a chair when she sees a moose! and the moose doesnt even have a knife nor can it break your whole kitchen..but i know someone who can..yikes!
well...eli..that news that is possibly even more exciting than a new floor, or possibly even a toilet seat. and so soon..,ay caramba lady..cant wait to see you! flying abroad for conferences..well, just so wouldnt happen in charity,,unless you happen to be on a fact finding mission about poverty in the third world, and so just have to stay in 5*! anyway, babe..it will be fun..though as you know rose and i will be cubanised when we return..thats almost like radicalised but involves more lycra and cleavege! not to mention rum!
so thats it...have to go for me denner at me da`s now. hopefully he wont be cutting food with a stanley knife...
yes, only a week and i cant bloody wait to be away from this place, the weather, work and the rest. and eli, you must be pretty excited too, despite the fact that you will not suddenly start wearing tiny lycra tops, strutting around the streets, or return home brown as shit! i have to admit that at this precise moment i just cant possibly imagine being hot..and i just cant wait to bask in the sunshine. stroll on! unnecessary flight? is there any such thing at this time of year if its going to the sun?
anyway..looking forward to seeing you, babe, although i will be back at work on the friday and on the saturday too..though im sure we can arrange to have a small sherry or two over the weekend. take care...and see you soon.
the thing about cubanisation, eli, is that it sneaks up on a girl. i cant really explain, but just when you thought that you were a sad old bitch who had lost her looks and got that horror movie of your 40s running...`the thickening! here`s podgy!` ...you start strutting, wearing lycra, and expecting people to look at you. and you can pull! imagine! you would so look good in lycra..and perhaps a pair of denim shorts..the thing about cubanisation is that it makes you feel good about yourself...not walking at 100 miles an hour looking at nothing and nothing looking at you like we do every day. its affirming and if only this could last into my normal life...but people even make eye contact. i just know you would love it..the men are so, so cute..and avaliable..its a middle aged womans dream! however..i know you cant do that..so i dont want to go on about it..well, actually i do, but i wont.
and another thing...edinburgh is not grey...a girl only has to go to aberdeen to realise that. the weather is grey...cant deny..but the city is..mm..well i would call it ochre. when i lived in aberdeen and came back here..i couldnt believe how yellow and orange it was ...it seemed so bright compared to granite..well, most things do..but you know what i mean. the old town is grey...its true, but the rest should be in the mediterranean..and if only it was perhaps i wouldnt want to leave so much! however...went out and had i fabulous meal last night...venison in dark chocolate sauce..total heaven..so there are some good things about living here...sometimes i forget! when you are here you must come down to porty so see my rag and bone shop..who knows you might even want to buy something. i use the term `buy`loosely. 100% discount for family. but if you are looking for anything..shoes, tops, jeans, a pointless fondu set still in its box from 1973, i will put it aside. there will be no scones or pews..just a lot of hopeless bonkers old people, depressives, and people with learning difficulties! and that foot spa thang that you just so wanted! what larks!
well, must go now and have some pointless smashing and slaughter on playstation. take care babe, and just remember while you are on that silver sausage in the sky that our flight to havana takes 11 hours....11 HOURS!!! the horror, the horror! hey..so green...if only i had found this colour before....
eli, your visit is the only thing that makes me not want the plane to crash on the way home....i prayed for crashing the last time, but the gods werent listening...why is that?
could there be no gods...?
we are flying to havana tomorrow, you know, as you do! wey hey..that is all that i have to say! apart from wey hey! wey fucking hey actually!
i just cant really tell you what a fab time we have had here. our house down in santa maria on the beach was so beautiful, and was about 10 times bigger than my flat, with tiled floors, huge rooms, and best of all a massive fridge for all that rum, cheese and beer we needed. it has been brillinat in havana too, although our hotel is one of these really old colonial buildings and sometimes only has water at certain times of the day...so i have not washed today..what a skankmaester i am. we have become famous here as binni fell over a canon ball into the gutter and there is no one in town who is going to let her forget it...every bar we go into they slag her---oh, havana what a place. there are still men carrying cakes around the streets, and smoking is allowed everywhere..the guys are so cute..and the biggest news is that i have broken my hymen again after more years than i care to remember. still the music outside has just started, and i havent had a mojito for at least 15 mins so i better go.
derek...thanks for your message, glad your got in eventually.
eli..looking forward to seeing you, hope you are ok.
gareth...so wish we could have fride eggs together at the inglaterra...but i suppose ill just have to make do with rose.
have fun all
thanks for listening.
so here we still are in havana heaven, trying to do everything in tens just like ms lee taught us. have to say that our hotel is rubbish, and we were going to move, but paying here is somewhat more expensive than on the net...so we are stuck in a room that was decorated by 1970s russians responsible for prison camps. still, its not like we spend that much time there..unless we want reception to do anything for us..then we could be there for hours!
anyway, bandk..what a great time we had..and you will no doubt not be surprised to hear that we have mojitos in our hands as we write this...which make typing a bit difficult..but you know how good i am at multi-tasking!
ps.hello from rose. hope ur both fine!
and gareth its cubanised..cubanate is a form of cheese here! glad to hear you have become a demi-god, i always knew you had it in you!
ps. rose says hope your not fine. i`m kiddding, just kidding!
eli, you will be in blighty soon..hope the journey is ok, and give my love to billy, who of course has never ever seen the delights of this blog, poor man!
ps. rose says we are looking forward to seeing you.
well, so long suckers, we are back to the bar now!
havanaaaaa!! so good they put 3 a`s in it!
yes, we are now in 5 star heaven..we have 2 tvs, 2 balconys, 5 doors, and even better..rocking chairs! how we did rock! sex, drugs and sausage rolls! anyway..its still heaven here despite the storms that seem to happen every night..quite dramatic from a rocking chair! and gareth we have just returned from la dichosa..still the best bar in the world..fabulous band and everyone dancing..its better than drugs. not that i would know of course! being in 5 star..we havent really done anything..but bandk you will be glad to hear that we are still keeping up with rock of love..its down to daisy and amber..who will win, im on the edge of my rocker! we have also watched cash cab, flava flav and celebrity boot camp...wish you were here to experience such a rich and rewarding experience!
the waiter has just brought me a beer and an ashtray...what luxury! oh, havana, its just the best! wish you were all here every one!
anyway, better go now as i could only get an internet card for 30 mins, and i dont want you to miss out on the hilarious and witty repartee of this blog. there has just been the loudest peal of thunder...rose is hiding under a bed!
see you all far too soon...pah!
love
lushandrose.xxx
just had a call from a tuareg guy i almost married..(yeah right)..in mali. and he is coming to uk next month and wants to come and visit. talk about the past coming back to haunt a girl..is it not bad enough that i have a bad reputation as an old slapper in havana? jeezuz..who would have thought..though its interesting that oussa..thats my future husbands name..didnt ask me for money this time...thats a first...i think he must really love me, and want me to have his babies..though obviously im older than his mother..as hes only about 23..and he probably doesnt know that its just to late for me to procreate..nullipapa and proud. anyway...tried to upload more photos...but it aint having it and i have a dinner date...with bill..so better go.
love you every one! xx
1. start walking really slowly, if you dont swagger you already mark yourself out as a stoopid tourist who is trying to get somewhere far to fast. things move really slowly here..brush with one hand, chat to your mates while you are working, never hurry to serve the foreign dames that are literally dying on a daquiri and above all relax and go with the flow. the only time it is legal to do anything fast in havana is on a saturday, when you have to drive like a maniac to your friends house in order to get to the beach with 25 people, 2 dogs, the entire contents of your kitchen, including the pans, 5 different sizes of ball, and, most importantly, at least 2 bottles of havana club!
2. start taking at least 3 sugars in everything you drink at least 2 weeks before you go to acclimatize. that way your teeth wont hurt so much.
3. take up smoking. even people who say they dont smoke in havana smoke. you may as well join in..cigarettes are $1.20 us a pack, the price is set by the government..so you can buy them in any bar for the same price. the only way to avoid the risk of passive smoking here, where you can smoke everywhere, is to smoke yourself...enjoy!
4. dont worry about those excess pounds you want to shed to get into that bikini..its all to easy to lose them here..as there will be almost nothing you want to eat. i would suggest a chewing course before you go if you want to tackle the meat, and unless you are very fond of uncooked, sausage meat hamburgers in bright yellow bread, or 1970s iced cake..then you will be stuck with pizza and fried eggs. that is unless you have a whole larder of snacks in your luggage...ha!
5. wear lycra. its the ultimate fabric..light, bright, holds a girl up in all the ways that matter, and its self cleaning too! just a rinse under the tap, if there is water in the hotel, and bobs your uncle! a pair of denim shorts would also help you to blend in. all the better if they have zippy pockets so your money doesnt fall out every time you have to go to the loo...which wont be a lot as you will be so dehydrated due to...
6. rum! its probably best to start drinking a bottle a day for at least a week before you go just to get used to things. beer counts as a soft drink in havava, hence it being in vending machines on the street..if you feel that your mojito isnt strong enough dont be afraid to ask your barperson to put more in. they wont be offended..honestly, how could anyone drink a cocktail without at least half a bottle in it? just doesnt bear thinking about!
7. affect a tsst tsst. in europe this would be considered rude, but in havana it is the only way to get the attention of the waiter who is busy talking to his mates, dreaming of the tan he will get at the beach (the only place where its possible to tan in cuba), or just standing slapping his hands together in true havana waiter style. it is the only way he will come and serve you that mojito without enough rum in it...trust me!
8. be prepared to dance anytime..anywhere..with anyone. if there is music, there is dancing...especially in la dichosa.
9. expect to get a reputation. whether its falling over a canon ball, or for being an old slapper, everyone talks to everyone, and nothing you do will be missed. and dont be surprised if a guy asks you to pay him for sex either..your reputation has probably proceeded you..and its nothing personal. its just that you are an old trollope who has had too many mojitos..
10. meet up with binni and kim..thats what i recommend! what fun we had...
wish i was still there...
its grim up north!
so, here are some photos of the book i bought for you at the airport, but, oh, so selfishly decided to keep for myself! pretty good huh? well, it is for me anyway!
have to say that the weather here has been totally fab, and i have even had time, on holiday monday to lie outside and top up my tan, such as is left of it! sure makes a change from slaving away over a hot pen full of dead peoples clothes and owl collections. bells and thimbles seem to be another popular thing to have millions of while you are waiting for the reaper to come visit..though apparently they are little use against that scythe! and another thing it is important to keep until your deathbed is a set of glass grapefruit/prawncocktail/ice cream dishes that have been put back into their slowly disintegrating box since 1973! oh, such discoveries, such treasures, such a lot of trips to the bin! if i ever start collecting owls or spoons, cut crystal or those annoying little china baskets of flowers, which are always chipped, please just shoot me! i know you might find this a bit rich coming from a girl who has more ethnic tat in her house than your average craft museum..but i dont have to just buy something because its a frog, and i dont have that one, whether i like it or not! im far too catholic in my tastes for that! let me tell you!
and thats all im telling you for now as im off to bed.
buenos noches!
dont know about you but id go for the one in the balaclava..dangerous she is! even if that balaclava is far too big and she wouldnt be able to storm an embassy worth shit because she couldnt see...dont trust her...look into those eyes..iris of evil. whereas kratos is a puppy..ok, he has killed thousands of people, including his own family..but that is ok because god..or at least a god, told him to do it! oops..sorry too topical!
havent been here for ages because ive been in hades with kratos..if only it was as easy as leaping over those spinning poles with blades cutting you up! and i have eczema all over the soles of my feet..oh, the agony and the ectasy! i also still have it on my stomach from belts i wore on the plane going to cuba..and now have to pull my trousers up 500 times a day as i just cant have that base metal against my skin,...the things a girl has to put up with!
doh! and double doh!
yes, and it only has 1.3 million people...not including the 50 0000 tourists coming off cruise ships who appear to be spanish or italian mainly! these are the people who follow umbrellas or kinda table tennis bats with numbers of their tour on them in an old town so small you can walk round it in about 30 mins. and who marvel at the waitresses in the bars dressed in medieval clothes despite the fact that everyone in europe has the same medieval history and costumes. however..if you want half a pig brought to you with saurkraut, roasted potatoes, pickles, and sweet turnip, not to mention mustard so hot it makes you hyperventilate by fooling you with its brown colour...or a plate to share that involves 12 sausages of various kinds...then estonia is your boy! you can also go to incredibly tacky russian bars full of women with drawn on eyebrows dripping with bling, and men who look like putin in a shiny track suit with bad shoes and dripping with luxury car keys. but dont be fooled...drinking out in tallinn is expensive...much better to walk around town with tins fizzy cider or gin drinks, or perhaps that 10 pack of 50cl vodkas...i made the mistake of picking a fizzy grapefruit drink in a 2lt bottle from the assortment of soft drinks. imagine my surprise when it turned out to be 5.6% alcohol...as janie says..result! how we did laugh!
to go off at a tangent..if anyone has seen the tarkovsky film `stalker`..it was filmed right next to where we stayed, though they have now built a hotel on the site of the room where you would be given your hearts desire. however as we walked through that area at dawn on our way to the helsinki ferry we kept expecting to fall in puddles with alsatians roaming round us...it didnt happen. huge puddles but no dogs..such is life...
interesting facts about getting the ferry from estonia to helsinki.
1. you dont need your passport. nor are there customs. so i suggest starting a drug smuggling ring.
2. there are smoking rooms, despite the fact you can just go up on deck.
3. it has a duty free shop so large it would put many an airport to shame. and that is the place to buy your salted liquorice, black balsam, drinks that taste of salted liquorice, chocolate with liquorice pieces, and 10 packs of 50cl vodka. they like a bit of vodka..and liquorice.
4. helsinki is so expensive you will be lucky to find a bottle of wine in a bar for under €25! we had 2 plates of pasta and a bottle of wine for lunch...it came to €50!! thats £40...or $70us! needless to say most people just sit and drink on the street..carrying a case of beer in each hand..or that famous 10 pack of 50cl vodkas.
5. there are saunas in bars next to the toilets. saunas in finland are not brothels..they are really saunas..and they are mixed...and nude!
6. there is a whole, very plush and expensive street where the pavements are heated in the winter.
7. most restaurants are self-service! hence the fact that there is very little tipping in finland.
8. the ferry, which leaves helsinki at 9.30pm, has a karaoke in the bar...featuring such fabulous finnish, or are they estonian, folk songs as `andre`, `ara alusta`, and `suitsetamine voib tappa`. actually the latter is the warning from the cigarette packet lying next to me..but who is to know? these are sung usually by ageing men, and couples get up and waltz to them. needless to say, by this time...ie 11pm..at night everyone is steaming. though not as much as the man i saw in the ladies toilet in the ferry terminal when we got back to tallinn...i thought he was dead...but no. just comatose in the ladies...you know..as you are!
9. they love a big bike, long hair, beards, leather and heavy metal..but strangely the men all appear to have very small feet.
10. you can buy bear meat but it costs €85 a kilo..and who would know how to cook it!
11. the weather is brilliant..warm enough to sit outside of an evening eating that pasta and drinking that wine that costs €50, and it doesnt get dark until the ferry leaves.
12. the ferry is swedish built..perhaps it comes as self-assembly..but imagine the alun key you would need!
13. i really enjoyed it, a real adventure...but i wouldnt want to live there. edinburgh is as far north as i ever want to live..trust me..i used to live in inverness!
thats female genital mutilation to you and me...i just looked up the `female circumcision` web site..you know..as you do, and apart from other things, just perhaps, they suggest, it could be a form of female sexual control..ya think!
kim and i were talking about this tonight, its origins, which neither of us knew..and according to the website it existed in pharonic egypt, as far back as 2nd C BC...but when islam conquered the area it stopped...mmm...
yeah right..if you look at a map of africa where female circumcision is practiced its in a swathe right across the middle, though more common in the east...by that i mean standard practice...its interesting that it only really exists in the areas that are black and muslim...and i have to say that islam, far from stamping it out, seems to have carried it right over to west africa..where it cant have been pharonic practice.
its also a point to note that the egytians supposedly did it only to slave women.
what conclusions are we to draw from this..mmm?
its your call....
am i alone in loving the end of bst..thats british summer time for those of you lucky enough not to live here. its actually light when i get up..daylight..remember that! getting up in the dark just feels so wrong..and i cant tell you how much people in the south of england moan about the clocks going back...yet another thing foisted upon them by those of us unlucky enough to live north of the border..as if gordon brown and alaistair darling werent enough! there was an article in the paper by a guy who suffers from seasonal adjust disorder (kinda like rsi but to do with the winter instead of using a mouse..how have these people persuaded doctors that these things are real?), going on about how awful it is when the clocks go back..he gets so ill..and all to benefit a handful of scottish hill farmers (his words not mine). one of the many times i felt like emailing the paper (though of course i never do) to point out that, in fact, if anyone does suffer from SAD, then the clocks going back is a therapy..that its caused, in part, by getting up when it is dark, lack of vitamin d, and the cure is a lamp that creates sunrise in the safety of your own bedroom. safety..yes, so that all those kids who dont get driven to school in a 4x4 dont have to walk in the dark..and not that anyone here needs to be told this, but like that will stop my tirade..most of the world, outside the tropics has daylight saving, even egypt! jeez, those scottish hill farmers certainly have a lot of clout!
well, im glad i got that off my chest! so let me rant on some more on a different topic...the recession. can i tell you the ways in which it is affecting my life..yes, please, i hear you cry! well, there has been a lot of press about the fact that donations to charity shops are dwindling..so suddenly we are inundated with them...and its all total rubbish, literally! i have been donated, in the past week: an entire bag of filthy, stinking, brown mens socks; 1000 broken childrens toys; a collection of every copy of `bike` magazine back to 1994; bags and bags of babygrows with vomit down the front; a dildo; entire drawers of kitchen and teen tat just upturned into black bags; complete wardrobes of dead peoples clothes still on hangers with skanky things in the pockets; bags of 50 year old slippers; librarys of readers digest classics in hardback that have never been, and probably never will be, read; a used toilet brush that was dripping wet; and a babys arm holding an apple! what do you want from life?! (and i would like to point out here the colon: semi colon; and comma use above..not to mention the tubes analogy).
before i finish this epic..let me tell you that there is here the only photo ever of janie and i, before we fell out over bebo, i climbed 200 flights of stairs on the step machine in the gym on wednesday, and i read middlesex, conversations at curlew creek, my life as a fake, soldiers of salamis, black dogs, the end of mr y, and am just about to start q and a which co-incidentally has just been made into a film by danny boyle of trainspotting fame.
all the news here is about why is obama not winning with a landslide...europe just so totally wants him..we cant understand why america has any doubts..
im out.
thought id better do this in the democratic colour though its alien to my politics, of course, as here its the other way round..keep the red flag flying here..well, we are trying despite what blair did to the labour party. but that is for another day! can you fucking believe it? i remember watching the series `24` with bill a few years ago, in which a black man gets elected as pres, and bill and i spoke about how unlikely that was, and how it would never happen in out lifetimes! i actually woke up at 4 am and thought of getting up to check the internet..its probably the only time i regretted my non-tv watching lifestyle...but of course i rolled over and went back to sleep..till 8 am when kim called me to tell me the news. its an amazing world we live in, is it not, when friends in australia call me in the uk to give me the news about the us election. hoorah for technology! and hoorah for obama..lets just hope the poor guy can live up to half of what everyone expects of him. he will probably age 10 years in a matter of months, and have to sleep in a flak jacket, and lets hope the date is not ominous, as its the day we celebrate the foiling of the gunpowder plot with fireworks which i can hear exploding all around outside. not that it was our parliament they were trying to blow up, so god knows why we care north of the border, but any excuse for some gunpowder..though treason and plot always seemed far more exciting to me. especially plot, i love a bit of plot. but i digress, as ever.
this is from the independent today..`call it the demise of cynicism or the end of apathy. the country that pretends to be the standard-bearer of the democratic process and presumes, indeed, to export the excercise of democracy to the other countries around the world- to iraq, to south africa- was living up to its own standards`. thats what its all about.
hoorah for america!
well..ive woken up as mozart yet again...suppose you have to have seen `amadeus` aka ` carry on mozart` to know what i mean, but look at that hair..jeez, am i taking this obama thang too far?
so today class..i want to talk about belonging! what does that mean to you..and this is relevant in the light of obama being elected. discuss! its just that kim is teaching a class (she is an english teacher, for those of you who dont know), and we spoke about it a lot last night. derek i remember being with you in leiden in holland when you went to see the exhibition about the mayflower..i didnt go, and when we went into a church later someone said to you `what is it with you americans, that you care so much about this where you came from stuff`, (i paraphrase), but there is the rub! as europeans we know where we are from, and if anything try to lose anything that makes us typical..let me tell you, you especially do this if you are unlucky enough to be british. but what is it about europeans that want to travel all over the world..taking their little ugly world view with them..and then the people that grow up in that diaspora are belongingly-challenged? europeans are uniquely evangelical..we have to take our way of thinking to the rest of the world..our religion, our housing styles, our crime, our diseases, our whole view of the universe..but one of the reasons that europeans move anywhere is because they hate living in europe, and then, what happens to those who grow up with this, for want of a better word, `mediterranean` view of the world while they live in an island as far away as you could possibly get from the med while the whole reason for them being there is that their parents or grandparents couldnt stand living in europe? and then instead of reading books that might have any connection, for example `goulds book of fish` or `the conversations at curlew creek` they end up reading `the joy luck club`..about chinese women living in america..how do you expect them to connect. as we discussed..teenagers rarely connect with anything, except other teenagers! as e m forster said in howards end `just connect`..and actually as an edwardian gay man, he did seem to..but how do you get teenagers to do that? give them a lot of black clothes, sit them in a darkened room and play the verve?
and to go off at a tangent about belonging...brazil...portugal has adopted 1000 uses of words that are brazilian ..but they are now THE OFFICIAL uses..cant see that happening in spain or here...brazil is possibly the most multi-cultural country on the planet...they have something like 40 choices of ethnicity on any form...and cuba is the other...but who is running the country...pure bred europeans..thats who. and they own everything that matters too...europe, its shite! we are to blame for most of the terrible things in the world...but what can i say...im european...i belong..and yet, like most europeans i want to go and live somewhere else...that is our dichotomy!
yes not content with being on tv in the 80s and meeting princess diana..bill has struck out for fame yet again..this time in that bastion of journalistic excellence..the edinburgh evening news! on top of this he also had other journalists round at the house doing a more indepth interview which they mail to more high-brow papers in the hope that they will take up the story. bill is hot news! after a lifetime inspiring snot-nosed kids, he is now reaching out to those geriatric couch potatoes who cost the nhs so much money! what a guy! makes a girl proud!
HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND GOD BLESS US EVERY ONE !
right, thats the religious content out of the way, now lets get on with the eating and drinking! if there is one thing i love about christmas, its the eating and drinking, and watching crap films while eating and drinking, and did mention the food and liqueurs that you never eat and drink at any other time of the year! stroll on! i have to say that, working in a charity that makes around 60% of its research budget from christmas cards, i usually keep silent about my own, alternative habits..but if i do ever tell customers that 1. i dont send cards, 2. i dont own a christmas decoration, let alone put up a tree, and 3. i have no need to do christmas shopping as we dont really do gifts...they look at me with such horror and jealousy that i actually found myself telling someone that i was jewish to explain my christmas lifestyle! luckily they werent jewish so they didnt start their sentence with `but...` and we didnt have to get into a long discussion about `why is that...already`! luckily eli, you put up enough decorations for both of us, so i dont have to!
i hope you all love this photo of this darling madonna and child clock that, as you can see, was just too hard to resist when i came into the shop..still in its box. you just cant really get the full effect..but it has running lights round the couple which flash on and off...who thinks up these things? probably the same people who design the millions of christmas cards that get sent every year, and then go to land fill in january!
bah humbug...bring on the food and drink...and binni and kim arriving on boxing day so we can spend hours playing playstation..and the new year street party for which i have tickets for the first time in my life..and the couple of days in krakow for which we paid less than most people spend on sending those damn christmas cards to their 123 friends on the list! oh...i cant wait...just those 3 pesky days at work to go....have fun everyone...you know you want to...
well, here it is, merry christmas, everybodys having fun! look to the future now, its only just begun. yes...the immortal words of slade..! just as meaningless now as they were back in 1975.
however, i hope everyone does have fun, after that pesky work is out of the way. i close up at 4pm tomorrow and dont go back to work till monday..4 days off what luxury. then i have work mon and tues..am off hogmanay for the first time ever in my adult life, ...pre-arranged my skiving off saturday 3rd, and then am on hols for 2 weeks to live it up with binni and kim who are flying on christmas day to go to the street party, have a cheapie couple of days in poland, and play playstation in rotation..one playing, one drinking, one asleep! cant bloody wait!
enjoy! happy happy joy joy!
joy, oh joy! it was freezing, it snowed, we ate lard, we stayed in a brilliant apartment just off the main square, we shopped at the 24 hour shop where you could get booze in the middle of the night, we ate potatoes and lots of pig, we went into the tiny church on the square which i have never seen open before, we drank hot wine in bar dym..which means smoke in polish...so we did that too! we strolled under the christmas lights, which were all still up, we went to birkenau in the snow, we ate, we drank, we drank more, we spoke, we laughed, we photographed lots of food, we smoked more, we talked more, we laughed more, we flew home. what more could we want...
oh, january, dontcha just love it! still its almost over, and, would you believe, it was light yesterday when i left the house to go to work at 8.15 am! thank the lord! now we have obama, eli is arriving in a couple of weeks, and perhaps i will see derek in the summer, so maybe i wont throw myself under the 15A bus tomorrow morning after all! but with all this clean living..no drinking during the week, gym on wednesday after a whole month of sloth, up at 7.20am as they have changed the bus times, baked beans and instant mash as my staple diet, going to bed really early as an alternative to putting on the heating , hours and hours of selling tat to the obese and the crazy, and no exotic holiday to look forward to, i find myself wondering what is the point of it all. why do we all bother? mmm...im pondering.
still, its burns night, and im off up to bills for haggis, neeps and tatties...so there are still some things worth getting out of bed for...if only there were more....
but it has been in london, and its amazing that they havent declared a national state of emergency the way they have been going on about it! on monday, here, it snowed all day..and yet, amazingly, i was able to get to and from work without any real hassle. several cities in britain have run out of salt to grit the roads..and, i ask you, are we an island surrounded by salt, or what? as if its not bad enough that we are in the worst financial crisis since who knows when..now its in all the papers that the country has lost £1bn because of the white stuff! schools closed, sandwiches not bought, papers still on the shelves in newsagents, even the tube in london..um yes, the underground, didnt run on monday! but i bet those greedy bankers still got their bonuses!
however..for eli, who will be on a plane flying here as i speak (virtually), the weather here will be blessedly warm, as its -22 in ny state. yikes! and all the snow has gone, thank the lord.
binni and kim..you would have loved it on monday..it was huge flakes, although, as rose said...snowflakes that land on your nose and eyelashes might be some of julie andrews favourite things, but they are not mine! strangely, julie never mentions glasses of red in the comfort of your own living room whilst rompered, with pizza and a great film on surround sound. but then again, what does a former nun, who makes clothes out of curtains, doesnt notice the rise of the nazis, thinks a spoonful of sugar is the answer and marries her unfeeling, cold boss with all those damn kids know about life?
answers on a postcard please.
yes, as you see..we did get the white stuff big time! it is hardly gigantic bush fires in which over 100 people have died, nor flooding which has left half the state underwater, and im on holiday..all these things have made me so much less moany about snow, and our climate in general. today is a beautiful sunny, crisp day and all the snow has gone...in a while im off to get my hair cut, and then meet eli and have a glass of red or two..actually she doesnt drink red..but then binni&kim dont do white. i have no such prejudice....i drink everything!
also have to report our day at the national library yesterday, where rose works. we got to see a bit of the john murray archive...,he was the publisher that did origin of the species, as well as byron, shelly, well you name it..and we actually got to hold and read letters from darwin, dickens, mary shelly,...bloody magic. and, no, i did not slip one of them into my pocket and put it on ebay, however i was sorely tempted! we also saw a whole lot of byrons original poems, in his appaling handwriting...which strangely got worse as you went down the page. many of them had red stains on them too, and you cant help wondering how pissed was he when he wrote these literary masterpieces (of course i hate byron and all that romantic tosh), and how the hell was anyone able to transcribe them for publication...there was also a letter from his doctor telling him to cut down on the port..perhaps to just limit himself to a couple of glasses of white wine with his dinner! nowadays he would be sent to rehab..perhaps there is something to be said for victorian medicine after all!
yes, there is life here at last..in fact there are crocuses..or is that croci..too, but my down stairs neighbour doesnt have any in her garden, so i couldnt photograph them out of my kitchen window as i could with these snowdrops! its always so brilliant when you see your first snowdrop of the year...like there is hope for the end of winter. i know for those of you who live in different latitudes this doesnt really compute...but i suppose its like the northern lights, rainbows, eclipses or even fire...it doesnt matter that you know the scientific explanation for why they happen, or that you know that they will always appear in the same conditions, there is something intrinsically human about wonder of these things that ties us to ancient people who made up stories about the stars. (perhaps because, unlike us, they could see them).
anyway, enough philosophy, how are you eli. have to say that it has been really quiet since you left, and i even had to go to bed at 1am last night...ON A SATURDAY!! probably shouldnt have bothered as my neighbour came crashing in at 3am and was shouting at his girlfriend even before he got into the stair. (should point out that she wasnt with him, she was in bed across the hall). they had a huge fight...its a bit hazy cos i was half asleep..but a remarkable thing happened. he ended up out in the stair, and she was inside with the snib on, thats a first! she is usually the one crying in through the letter box when he has thrown her out into the stair! then eventually when she got up and unsnibbed the door, they couldnt get it open, and he accused her of tampering with the hinges..dont know what happened after that..but its all quiet now. perhaps she is stuck inside and will die of starvation, and he is walking the streets as a homeless person..well, we can hope!
moving swiftly along to `tale of two sisters`...here is my considered opinion. there are only 2 people in the house..the dad and the bonkers daughter. she has multiple personalities, and because she believes them to be real, they kinda become real..well ghosts anyway. if you watch it again, its quite obvious that the dad has no idea what is really going on, even about that slight hint of incest that comes up. the real mum and the su yean both die in the cupboard, and su mi cant live with the guilt that she just walked away because of her hatred of the stepmum. a simple case of psychological meets paranormal..probably easier to digest in korea where im sure they dont find ghosts so hard to believe in. though obviously belief has not stopped rose and i from having an arguement about whether ghosts exist or not. god forbid we should ever argue about something real and important! like perhaps whether or not some guy was wearing half boots....but that is another story.
and i final note...im reading `lanark`. eventually. its mad, and brilliant..and the cover is his interpretation of leviathan..if youre not scottish, youve probably never heard of it..but it is a bit of a cult here. it reminds me of the third policeman..its not really similar..but something about the dreamlike tone and the idea of hell makes me think of that. anyway...thats it im done..thank the lord you say...
so there i was, playing lara croft riding a motorbike through a mayan temple in the mexican jungle at 6am, you know, as you do, when i noticed a flurry of flying shapes passing my windows...and who would have thought it..it was snow. SNOW!! in march! imagine! jings, crivens and help ma boab! but dont panic..its all away now, which is good as i have to get a bus at 8.02am tomorrow morning in order to have the pleasure of a working day in portobello selling tat to the obese and deranged. happy happy joy joy! have to say that disappointingly lara had to leave her bike underground in the main chamber of the temple as she couldnt get it through the rock falls...though she did run over a couple of giant spiders on the way..what a girl she is! never a scratch, never a bruise, never a gashed knee..but then she has never watched a sunset on coral rocks drinking rum while wearing flip-flops in havana before dancing all night in a club and being driven home by the cops i`ll bet. she always seems like the kind of upper class tottie that would be in bed by 10.30 so she could keep that downy skin and lustrous hair...well, unless there is a mayan temple to drive a motorbike through, an endangered species to kill (15 tigers, 4 pumas, 100 giant spiders and a host of giant lizards so far), or some ancient site to destroy. all in an archaeologists days work.
so as you can tell, i have not much to report...its all rubbish here..doom and gloom, yet another banking scandal, the scottish parliament saying they are going to tax alcohol according to the amount of units in a bottle, ive been bitten all over by fleas...an occupational hazard..and hillary clinton said at a conference of the eu that, of course, american democracy was much older than any of those we have in europe. supposedly because she was tired! its good that our world leaders have such knowledge and insight. how could we carry on without them. perhaps we should ask the population of guneau bissau...
and i dont! funnily enough none of these photos of famous places in the world is here...and im wondering, apart from the castle, what you could possibly photograph in scotland to use in a competition like this? you could really throw people with that world famous parliament building, the falkirk wheel, george square in glasgow or perhaps the granite skyline of aberdeen. ha! lets face it, the only famous things here are ancient...maes howe, skara brae, the ring of brodgar, castles,..you name it we do the past so well. the most famous thing about scotland is that the majority of the people leave, or want to, the largest diaspora in the world...5million here...50million around the world of scottish descent. now theres something to brag about!
but enough moaning about being scottish...will it never end....(um...no!)
here is a list of the contents of a donated bag from a tiny, delapidated old woman with walking sticks and a blue hat that she had probably been wearing since 1946!
1. a tiny childs hardback book.
2. a half used bottle of fabric conditioner.
3. a diary, unused, for 2008.
4. a really trendy pair of sunglasses, new and unused, in a box that had also contained a watch, but it had been taken out.
5. one of these books about enlightenment that you buy from hare krishnas or the goranga people on the street. well, i dont, but you would be surprised how many do!
6. a full, new, recent packet of 20 mayfair cigarettes.
and on the subject of the bizzarre..i just had a rogue period. i know most women do this annoying bleeding stuff..but i dont. i havent done it since 1999 due to the worlds best invention in birth control. ive been bonkers for a week, bursting into tears, flying off the handle, mood swings, so, so pissed off, etc etc..and then it transpires that its all down to hormones. i just cant believe that most women go through this every month! if you take a week of pmt, and then your actual period it takes up almost half of your bloody life, no pun intended! i feel like a man who has just had to go through this for the first time and just cant fucking believe it. a man who would obviously become a scientist and invent a method of supression, who, if he was scottish would, of course, have to leave and go to america to become a scientist in the first place, but would probably never lose his accent, marry a native american and lecture about alcohol addiction, which of course he would have had first had knowledge from his abusive drunken father, on the reservation. he would have fond, but distant memories of his robust, domineering but ugly mother, through whom he had learned the down-trodden nature of the female in society, and because of whom, and his 3 ugly, ginger, robust, domineering sisters, all of whom were married to abusive, drunken men, and had ugly, ginger children, he would have a genuine, though frankly bemused, desire to prevent other women continuing the same cycle. but, in the end, he was the only one who broke the cycle, as he escaped, married a doe eyed algonquin, had beautiful, bi-lingual dark haired children, as, despite his commitment to birth control, he still believed it was up to the woman! while back in scotland, the ugly, ginger, robust, domineering, drunken, abusive circle continued.....
because god knows, i cant! is it that we are all getting so old that, quite obviously, the best times of our lives are behind us! (say it aint so, joe, please say it aint so), or is it that the world around us if getting so madly fucked up that it makes us bonkers too.? im reading a book just now...really about the `glorious revolution` that put william of orange on the throne, and all the political machinations going on around that time..and god were there a lot...but it starts in 1655..and you know that so many people believed that the world was going to end in 1666 because of the book of revelations, and the number of the beast...and there was all this religious hoohaa going on, so for a lot of people the world did end...on the end of a spike, a pyre, a rack, or just being shot on the street. as well as this, promissery notes had just started, which seemed safer as you didnt need to carry gold and silver around, and also the stock market was in its infancy in amsterdam...funnily enough all the things that are happening today, happened then. its funny that its so long ago, one might think that we had come so far forward that it would all seem so infantile..but not a bit of it. nothing has changed. its still about the rich ripping off everyone else, you know that rembrant..ok a bit later, but he, and so many people in holland lost everything over a tulip failure. and a matter of weeks ago i watched `little dorrit` by dickens on the tv, and mr merkel, the madoff of the time took everyones money because he was so rich and so dependable, and yet lost the whole lot. my advice is never trust a rich cunt, but i dont have any savings so what do i know? i know to live for now, one just never knows what is round the corner. jeez, we could all wake up and discover that we were no longer striplings, but sad old tarts for whom the best times of their lives are over.
its here, its now, its here, its now!
yes, here i am as a cute, rosy cheeked babe in arms...who would have thought then that i would turn into the horrendous old tart i currently am! oh, such promise and hope dashed away over 40 years of carousing around the world, doing every single thing i ever wanted to do! i could say, such opportunities missed..but that would be a lie..i have never missed an opportunity..and currently, short of a sky dive, which im still considering, ive done every one of the things i ever dreamed of. that is despite not having my teeth encased in platinum and diamonds...mm...does anyone really think that this is attractive...apart from the men concerned who have dished out a million dollars for this smile! the sad thing about afrikaan-amerikaan gangsta culture is that it just seems all too schemey to us! i use the term `us` loosely of course...as, for the thousands of people who read this regularly there may be some who admire gigantic bling and a new pair of pumas for every day of your life, huge walk in showers big enough for 15, and a gold-plated baseball court in your house!
sorry i had a hiatus there which included eating a whole cucumber and some smoked ham....but back to the thick of things....
now im going to talk about the act of succession, which parliament is going to review..well, soon. and obviously this involves you, binni and kim, as the queen is the elected monarch of your country, i believe. they are going to change it so that a royal is allowed to marry a catholic! and perhaps so that the first born is allowed to succeed despite their sex! imagine! and this is where it comes back to `quicksilver` the book im reading...as the present act was in 1701...after the coup by william of orange and mary, against her father james 2nd (or 7th). the so called `glorious revolution`...and one of the great cruxes of british history, as it made us for once and all into a protestant country after years of shilly-shallying with the civil war, the commonwealth, the beheading of the king, and the restoration. it united our parliaments in 1707 and created the united kingdom that you know and love today. well, what is the point of this rant, you ask yourself...and here is the rub! the protestant countries allowed ordinary people to become exceptional...i suppose it was the start of the middle class..you didnt have to be noble, as you did in france, to rub shoulders with the king..or even to rub them with other nobles. isaac newton, a case in point. but, and this is where the platinum gnashers come in, it was the start of the modern world....anyone who had a mind, or money, or something unusual could become famous, rich and, if he or she was very lucky, titled. it was no longer about birth, but about money. it was also the start of the slave trade..on which liverpool and bristol were founded..and the start of selling markets short, underhand dealing and the corruption that has ruined the world as we speak! it was a time when you could live or die over the price of pepper!
just like now really...though now we are living, or dying, over the price of bailing out our banks...i rest my case m`lud!
last weekend, on which i was lucky enough to be off on saturday, it was so warm that rose and i sat outside to have lunch. this week it has been so cold, and haary, that i regreted taking that scarf out of my bag, more fool me! its so funny, as its such a scottish thing that, almost everywhere you go, everyone tells you that the reason that the weather is so bad now is that we are being punished for it being so good over last weekend! in scotland, if for some amazing and unbelievable reason you ever get anything good, you can just bet that god will take something from you in return...god forbid (literally) that anything should be really, intrinsically good. i think you should all know that it is just a temptation..and if you like it, it will be taken away, or at least, you will be made miserable for the rest of your life because of the terrible weather.
and, god knows, you will be if you ever, for some strange, deranged reason, decide to live here. perhaps you should watch `babettes feast`. whatever you do, dont ever have sensual pleasure..it seems that god frowns on that the most.
but to digress...i could go on, and on, about today working in leith...edinburghs ghetto, full of the scariest people, buchers shops with kidneys and tripe in the windows, old bitchy women in headscarves, obese children who are so badly behaved, and men who stink so bad it makes your eyes water! im sorry to be so middle class..but when ever i work there im just so desperate to get back on the bus to the city centre...to my own world...and yet we live in the same city....jings! and yet again i have been bitten all over my back, ankles and now on my arms by fleas....happy happy joy joy! no death....happy happy death death!
talking of death...not that i think of it at all, ever, at all...i read this book `being dead` by jim crace which is just about a couple being in the wrong place an dying and then being dead...thats all they are..dead. its the best book i have ever read about death... but i started two other books that i suggest you ditch..one was `bel canto` by a woman called patchet or something like that.,it won the orange prize...but it was so badly written..and you just knew that gen and roxane were going to end up together...yuk! and the other is `the flanders panel` a bit like the girl with the pearl earring meets the da vinci code...total baloney. hey, ive read the shakespeare secret, the dante club, the hirtorian, even laborynth by kate mosse..which possiby has the most ludicrous purple sex descriptions..even worse than `seven brides for seven bastards`...my brothers latest.....but book that have stopped me in my track lately...well, quicksilver, the kazar dictionary, black dogs, and of course lanark. and just when i wrote something about the dutch tulip crisis, when everyone, including rembrandt lost so much money, it was such a huge thing...when i was working in the ghetto, i noticed i book called `tullip fever` and hey, its about that very thing...tulips..they came from turkey...you know that dont you...holland just imported them during the the 18th century because they thought they could make a fortune out of them...and they did..well untill the market failed..and they all lost everything...sound familiar....haW!
having read the, i think, amazing statistics that the the uk in the last week 308, 760 people visited the NHS direct website, and 52, 928 used that websites `cold and flu self-assessment tool`, i just thought i would come up with my own assessment for swine flu, you know, like, just in case..so here it is....
ASK DR GEORGE IF YOU HAVE SWINE FLU.
1. do you feel in any way ill?
2. do you actually have any of the symptoms?
3. think carefully...have you, in fact, in any way felt anything slightly similar to flu recently, remembering that it is a debilitating virus and its so unlikely that you could be suffering from it if you have to tick boxes on a web site just to find out if you have it or not.
4. have you been in contact with any of the 300 people (from a population of 100 million) in mexico that have been diagnosed with it?
5. have you played football recently with one of the 10 people in britain that have been diagnosed, though none of them are actually all that ill, or have been hospitalised..but just in case?
6. have you been wallowing with pigs recently?
7. are you just wishing that you could be a suspected case, so that you, and all your friends could just stay at home all day smoking cigarettes, drinking wine, watching all those films you never had time to watch while being on full pay?
8. what do you think of when you hear the word `pandemic`?
a. bubonic plague with half the worlds population in a situation similar to dantes inferno.
b. something akin to the situation with malaria, typhoid, cholera, dengue fever, yellow fever, jiggers, bilhazria, hepatitis etc etc...they are things that only affect the third world, the poor and all those malnourished children with flies crawling round their eyes. they die, we dont.
c. about 3000 people around the world getting it with a small chance of death.
9. and finally, if you, like most of us, have, in fact already had flu...my question is...did you die...
(10. for the germans amongst us..is it true that influenza is worse than swine flu? what do you think rose?)
(i keep writing `wine flu`...an erratum id be prepared to suffer....)
thought not....
thank you for asking dr george.
have a nice day.
now you see this siva here..let me tell you, you have no idea what is going on. it is so complicated..but here goes...the two hands at the back have the drum of creation and the flame of destruction...the two forefront hands..the left one with the palm forward means `fear not` while the right, turned down, means the elephant..your guide to and through the spiritual world. he stands on a dwarf, signifing conquering ignorance..and the uplifted leg points to the elephant hand...dont worry you will be quided. (though not if you are a dwarf, obviously...but no one ever said hinduism was pc.) his heel stamps the rythym, but his head and face is unmoving, serene, amongst all this clatter of destruction and creation...this is why quantum physicians love siva...if they could imagine god..it would be this..but theres more..he wears both a male and a female earring...(didnt know you had a choice, but there you are) , in his hair he has a skull, (death) a moon (birth), a comb..the symbol of the ganges...and the datura..a hallucengonic plant. but above all he sybolises aum. you know aum...mane pade aum...the jewel is in the lotus...aum..it is the verbal equalivant of 4 states of consciousness...a..waking consciouness, u..dream consciouness, m...dreamless sleep..and the the other...the silent, the sacred syllable, the unmanifest transendant...on the other hand fuck all this complicated sacred shit...shit happens.
taoism...shit happens
zen...what is the sound of shit happening
hinduism..this shit keeps happening over and over again
buddhism...shit happens, but it isnt really real
islam...shit happens, but its the will of allah
protestantism..shit happens but its because we are not staunch enough
catholicism...shit happens but its because we sin
christian fundimentalism...shit happens because it says so in the bible
judaism....shit always happens to us, already, why is that?
agnosticism...we dont know shit
athiesm..no shit
rastafrianism..lets smoke this shit while our women are in the kitchen cooking chicken.
and if anyone is interested..along with jeez, horus, buddha, ganesh and st frances..the ring master with the whip, in my mind is god..the man doing the handstand is the deluded people who do what they think he tells them, and the mice are the ones who commissioned the computer in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. that is the explanation for my religious grotto above the fire. i just so knew you were curious...
now, trivia...as im sure everyone is aware means 3 roads..and refers to the kind of tittle-tattle that one heard at a crossing..interestingly, and i suppose, obviously, the romans just hadnt invented the crossing of 4 roads..and thus never had the chance to sell their souls to the devil at the crossroads...or was it because they hadnt, in fact, invented the devil, the poor dears, and had no idea how big a part satan plays in the world. whatever. here is some of aforesaid trivia....
sharks are immune to all known diseases, including swine flu, can grow a new set of teeth in a week, and are so competative that some species the babies fight in the womb, until only the victor is left alive to be born.
lobsters can grow new eyes.
iguanas and squid commit suicide..the latter by eating their own tentacles.
the queen can drive without having to pass a test.
before 1800 there was no such thing as shoes made seperately for left and right feet.
one out of five bits of garbage in the world is generated in the usa.
samarin, a swedish remedy for upset stomachs, ran an ad that was a series of 3 pictures...a man looking sick, a man drinking a glass of semarin, and a man smiling. the company ran the ad in arabic newspapers. they read right to left.
in britain, 18 people a year suffer serious burns by trying on a jumper with a fag in their mouth.
only humans and horses have hymens, though only christians can re-grow them.
mosquitos have 47 teeth.
the penis of a whale is called a dork.
there is no human society where children dont play hide and seek.
yes, the european elections pending. of course, as they are on the 4th of june, i will, sadly, not be able to vote, as i will be across the pond...but look at these elections fliers...doesnt it make you want to vote for these oh-so-appealing parties.
i think i should point out the howling errors, as not having them falling in through your letter box you will not be able to examine them in the detail that you would certainly give them if you were here. one is the the bnp flier has a picture of a spitfire..appealing to that war-time zenaphobia that was allowed while we were fighting the hun. trouble is that it actuallly has polish insignia...what would churchill think of that. the other is, and you cant actually know this by looking, but it has been in the papers...the photo of the 3 true, honest working men, under the header `british jobs for british workers` , are ,in fact, not british at all, but american, from oregon. the bnp have justified it by contending that most british people dont actually want to be photographed for a bnp flier, as they are afraid that their neighbours, work colleagues etc will find out that they are, fundimentally, facists! hows that for advertising!
the other really funny thing is that the ukip flier lists the 4 amazing candidates standing in scotland...they are all men of course, ukip has never had a woman, and one of them is peter neilson, scotlands best known horse whisperer. as opposed to all those other house-hold name horse whisperers here.
no wonder they want to go to brussels, where they will not be under scrutiny for expenses ranging from mortgages on houses they sold a year ago, dog food, trouser presses, pipes under their tennis courts, thousands of pounds worth of gardening work, or cleaning their moats...because as we all know it is impossible for an mp to conduct constituancy business with a dirty moat!
guess you have also heard that they are going to sack the speaker of the commons, an event which hasnt taken place for 300 years. how we did laugh!
so, here it is, the meat market arch...in all its glory. and after living surrounded by a building site for the last 8 years it is almost all finished, hallelulah! god i will miss my room shaking due to pile drivers, and men with luminous yellow jackets pissing in the lane. if only the rest of my life was so almost complete. i have an interview for another job, one i dont want, but it pays way more money..but of course it is a date when i will not be here..so i have to wait to hear for another..and i bet it will also be when im away. its a job i could do with my arms tied behind my back, but it took them 3 weeks to get back to me, and i had decided that i was so worthless that i couldnt even get an interview for a position i actually did 30 years ago, and would have to spend the rest of my life working in charity with the sad, the ugly and the deranged for so little money i will have to live hand to mouth till i die. still..if im very lucky the plane will crash on the way home..god forbid it should be on the way there when i have actually saved up enough to pay for the fight outta this hellhole to have fun...but the way things are going, i wouldnt want to be getting on a plane i was on right now.....
this is as far as ive got for my 9.25 flight on sunday...ticket, money, mp3, book, and yes, strangely a glass of wine and cigarettes. lets think of the essentials, why dont we..and yes i would have put my camera in there if i didnt need it to take the photo. me, leaving everything to the last moment...nah! who would have thougt it? thats just, so totally, not me....
see that new york, its so good they named it twice! honestly, folks, i cant tell you how busy, cool, hectic, loud, friendly, big and hassle free it is..and did i mention its LOUD! no wonder americans talk so loudly..its not to be heard above their clothes, its to be heard above the traffic, and all the other loud americans! our hotel, on times square was so fantastic, but it was also the one thing that nyc isnt...quiet...so that when we walked out we were thrown into a maelstrom of sights, sounds, more people than you could even imagine in one place at a time, the spinning billboards, the colours, total information, traffic and human overload...its a little too much for a girl to take in...but hell, i managed.
we walked from times square, on 47th street all the way down to battery park...then all the way up, through central park to the guggenheim on 86th, we went on the ferry to ellis island, on the subway, where we almost lost bill who got stuck on the other side of the turnstyles cos he didnt swipe the card fast enough, (we tried, honestly we tried, but he managed to persuade someone to let him through!), and got out of a death defying taxi onto 5th avenue where funnily enough there were lots of hassids, and as soon as we got out of the cab, got hassled to sell all those diamonds we had, purely by chance, in our pockets! you know, as you have! we also went to 5! galleries, saw the words most fabulous collection of modern art..dya know, you can just, so, totally, get sick of picasso, dali, marc chagal, cezanne, kandinsky, gaugin, bacon, miro, and, of course, frida! nah! just kidding! we saw the 'bodies' exhibition..a thing that taught me more about where your organs are than years of biology at school, and featured a room of disembodied veins and arteries calcified in tanks which were one of the most beautiful things ive ever seen..they looked like coral! stunning! it rained, it was hot, we walked, we talked, we drank, we ate pizza, we watched bad tv, we got blisters all over out feet, we went to a british store and bought pork pies! , we did more in 3 days than i have done in 3 years...and still had time for a cigarette outside afterwards! and then we got the amazing executive bus back here to ithaca...to elis amazing house, and you would have thought that we would just have chilled out...but you would be WRONG! instead, given that eli had to go to work on a saturday(!) we went into cornell and saw cuneiform tablets, the voting maching from the 'hanging chad' fiasco which proved to me, as eli says, that the election was a fraud, and i finally saw that tiffany window that appears in a justin cartright novel! i have also, you will be reassured to hear, managed to stay up all night talking shite..god forbid a girl whould change her habits, even if there isnt a playstation in the room..watched an episode of the new series of the tudors, and seen a brilliant, tongue-in-cheek british horror movie called botched.
god, ive been busy..its just been so brilliant...hope you are all fine and dandy....cos god knows, i am!
yes, a girl just gets used to being on holiday, and then realises that it is almost time for her to go home...its so not fair. but as olga used to say..life isnt fair!
i have done almost completely next to nothing today, i lay in the sun, slept a bit, ate, slept more...kinda like being in cat heaven really, though with more closed doors, as as we all know, there are no closed doors in cat heaven! and probably more fish! however its been brilliant being here....and i will be a very unhappy girl indeed to go back to blighty. still, perhaps the plane will nose dive into the atlantic, as i hear they are doing these days!
thanks mr g for checking my flat, and mazeltov on the car...i hope it has central locking! b&k i do honesly have a postcard from the guggenheim for you, its just that i havent got round to getting a stamp for it yet, or indeed writing it....but i promise i will try. and rose, i hope you are ok, and looking forward to seeing you all too soon..do you want to meet for lunch on saturday? let me know.
love to all, from the land of the brave and the home of the free! xxx
yes, after arriving in ithaca...an airport with no bar(!!!), and being told my flight to newark was actually leaving at the same time as my connection back to edinburgh, being put on a british airways one to heathrow, yuk, i was prepared for catastrophe, especially as we had to circle newark for 45 mins, and didnt land till 8.20, by which time i had missed the heathrow flight as well! but, i went to the continental desk (which bill, in case you have the same is on the right around gate 87, not far from where you come up the stairs from gate 99 where you come in), and was served by an inscrutable hispanic american middle aged woman who was completely unperturbed by the whole thing! she asked my why i was flying to heathrow, when there was a later flight to edinburgh, and i told her that the guy at the check in had told me there were no seats..her nonchalant reply...'maam, i will find you a seat on that flight'. then there was the question of my bag, which was obviously also going on the annoying detour via london, she told me she couldnt guarantee it would make the change to my new arrangement, but they would do their best, and asked me to draw a picture of it for the baggage handlers! all done...edinburgh here i come. but obviously at arrival i had no real hope of it turning up, especially as it wasnt on the first load round the carousel, and thought i might be reunited with it in a couple of days, if ever..and it was unlocked too, as you have to allow us customs to rifle through your dirty laundry. but, lo and behold..it made it!! jammy or what..then i walked outside, had a cigarette, and the 35 bus turned up, just as i finished smoking, and took me to the stop right outside my flat for a mere £1.20! ya fucking dancer!
so all in all, not the nightmare journey i was expecting, and all thanks to a unflappable customer services woman...i told her that i could kiss her, but she said it wasnt necessary! especially in these difficult times of swine flu!
so, here i am, back home, drinking a glass of wine, at what is for me still 8am...but its lunch time in edinburgh..travel, doncha just love it!
have to also say that yesterday i went on a tour of the vault at cornell, and saw, amongst other amazing things, the original of the 13th amendment, the one that abolished slavery signed by abe, some original leg manacles, beautiful illuminated manuscripts, and propaganda lampoons from the french revolution. what a very lucky girl i am!
eli, thanks for everything, it was just brilliant. and i know its a cliche..but i do miss you already! enjoy the rest of your time with bill....im so fucking jealous, wish i was there poodling around ithaca..i even miss pitch and jolly...nah! kidding!
well..what can i say! my world has got bigger! yes, i got a big, huge, fantastic telly..and can i just say that its not the thickness that matters in tv terms..it is the size! ya dancer! but in order to get it to work, as it runs off a hdmi cable, which i didnt have, bill and i had to go shopping at 10.45pm to the all night tesco! (living in a city..doncha just love it! ) (and when i say, bill and i had to go shopping, what i mean is, i called him in distress, and he came out in the car and drove me there...well, it was either that or call gareth, and he would have been drinking wine, the selfish git..so i chose the sensible option! women, eh, what are they like!) which just goes to show you where i get this late night living thing! then we came back here and did a bit of prince of persia..no wonder i ended up eating dinner at 1am! now, im with the dalai lama when he says a person should want what they have, not what they dont have. god, i want what i have! sorry to get all gushy..but i just had the best holiday..thanks to eli, and now ive come back to playstation heaven..honestly, how lucky can one girl get! pinhead is nodding!
so tearing myself away from my new toy, which is hard..but i have managed to get onto my old toy...this laptop here, eli called me at 3am on thursday morning to tell me that people were dancing in the street in ithaca cos jackson had died. WHAT A LIGHTWEIGHT! ok, its not as bad as jim morrison dying in a bath, like marat, at the age of 27...but really! rose always said he would die young..and what a career move! suddenly instead of being broke and freeloading off everyone who ever knew him (says the girl who has only been to amerika on holiday because of the kindless of her family..god, i am turning into charlotte bartlet!) his stock has hit the jackpot! the jackson pot! and up until recently, i dont think there was much in there! his debts are worthy of a small african country. and supposedly he spent tons of money on fine wine, who would have thought it! somehow its hard to imagine michael drunk, but according to the press he was pissed, or out of his head on opiates most of the time...perhaps thats why he felt it appropriate to molest all those 10 year old boys...but lets not get into that or we might get taken to court...#
so..this week, for the first time in my life, i have been both a job interviewer, and an interviewee! have to say, while i dont really want to go back to bakery, greggs, who interviewed me, pay their managers £5000 more a year than i earn at the moment...who can blame me for wanting that?even if i do have wear a brown suit and a hair net! and the polish girl who we offered the job to, i hope she took it ,is called dobramilwa...she has that bizarre polish letter in her name that is an L with a line through it, that is pronounced as a w, which makes me think that lodz is actually pronounced wodz! as mike would say..who wodz have thought it! but that is another story..
can i just tell you a thing i recently found out...i believe i can! in the bible, the arabs are called the ismaelis..because abraham married another wife as sarah couldnt give him a son....and he had ishmael by that second wife. he was his heir. and then, lo and behold, sarah begat isaac, thereby disinheriting ishmael..who at least didnt have to go through the 'your dads about to kill you because god told him to' thang! but the jews are descended, according to lore, from isaac, while the arabs are descended from ishmael...therefore they are not the chosen people! imagine their disappointment!
on that note...im outta here...
yes, as if having a 1080p tv, with gold plated hdmi cable and a ps3 blu-ray remote werent enough..eli and i have decided that we need skype, and webcams...and just when i thought i was the only person over 40 who could use predictive text on my mobile, now i need to know how to co-ordinate pouring a bottle of wine into my glass while talking into a camera, reaching into the fridge without anyone noticing, and sneaking off to the toilet while still on the phone. dang..the things a gal has to get her head round. however, we have decided it would be fun, well, more that fun actually.
so what do you think...are we cutting edge, modern-thinking-but pushing-50, gadget queens, with just a hint of zietgeist...or just sad old dames, whose idea of a good time on a saturday is to talk to ones sister on a screen instead of having a real life?
answers by skype only please...which excludes binni and kim, who have yet to get broadband.....pleezuh! get with the beat daddy-o! i just cant dig that dial-up! still, i just bet they will be hip to this in iceland....and, unfortunately, i was wrong about the northern lights...the best time to see them is, of course, when its dark all the time...ie, not now. dont mean they dont happen..its just that you cant see them, cos its too light. dang! sorry to talk shite...but you know me...its a life habit.
so what do you think about my new tv arrangement...? not that i care as it is, quite obviously, the way it has to stay right now. god forbid i should ever listen to anyonelses opinion, when i have so many of my own...just too many to go around! its embarassing just how many opinions a girl can have..........
bloody magic! do you remember when you used to watch space 1999 as a kid, and talking on video phones seemed just, so, totally futuristic, and something that would never happen in ones lifetime. well, it has, and its as good as getting a text from easter island (which incidentally has also happened to me). luckily for us the wearing of silver suits, and living in moon base alpha have not appeared with quite the same rapidity!
i had a second interview this week, for a job i dont really want, except for the £5000 a year more than i earn right now...it was a psychological test...what larks. actually i really enjoyed filling in those boxes...but i looked tests up on the net and there were questions like...
which is more like you
a. i would like to be a pop star
b. i would like to be a world renouned writer
c. i would like to work on a assembly line making computer components.
which is more important to you...justice or mercy?
and one they asked me in the test
a. i like to get guidelines and praise from my line manager.
or
b. i like to socialise with my workmates by going out to a club at the weekend.
um...actually neither..but i chose b....just to show what a team player i am, and that i dont really give a shit about line managers.
trouble is the profile results were so like me it was scarey...im not a born leader, but its something ive learned how to do, i find it very difficult to understand how others dont have my analytical processes, and so cant just go from A to B because i havent told them that they have to go via C and D to get to B. that i see the big picture..and can plan for the future, but dont really pay enough attention to detail. that above all i love change and flexibility, and again, dont understand why others dont.
all, in all...i loved that interview..it was just so interesting....and i have to say, not to blow my own trumpet here or anything, but if they dont give me the job, they are just mad! but hell...right now there is a lot of madness about!
and on another note..i went out for dinner with 4 men last week...ok, 2 of them were a couple, one was my father, and the other was some old trout i used to date...but whos to know, except me! it was really great to see marty and derek, even if it did remind me that derek and i have been friends for almost 30 years...scareee! not that you would know it by looking at them..d&m never seem to change..they even still have all their hair and teeth! and you will be happy to know that they werent wearing big american shorts, with their socks pulled half way up their legs, although i think that was for my benefit as they knew, in my subtle and unobtrusive way, that i would have slagged them to death! they are currently touring the highlands...though they picked a hell of a week weatherwise..it has been like monsoon here, with huge thunderstorms and torrential rain...binni and kim are in iceland, and rose has just returned from a weekend of merrymaking in amsterdam! and im stuck here sorting through dead peoples soiled underwear...there is no justice...(though having thought long and hard, i would pick mercy, as justice is relative..for example a lot of people think that the death penalty is just..where as mercy is a universal! in short, it is the classic question of whether you think with your head or your heart. and ive just decided that one of my perfect jobs would be making up questions to be answered in psychological tests. imagine the fun!)
so..another fun-filled saturday night over...despite it being at least 5 hours longer than any other night in my life, it does seem to fly by. after skyping with eli (and i still cant believe its all free!) i played prince of persia, doing a bit that i did with binni and kim where prince drives a chariot round the streets of babylon and tries not to crash into the numerous obstacles in his path..then he has to fight The Twins...have to say, could get him round the streets...but so couldnt kill those bastards, actually barely managed to graze them! where is binni when you need her. think i have been spoiled by playing god of war with the sword of olympus in my hand. however i can just see eyes glazing over with all this playstation talk, so i wont go on. that would be uncharacteristic with my psychological profile..ha!
im off up to bills for fish pie, and, boy, does bill make a good fish pie! its funny when i tell people at work that i go round to bills for dinner on sundays, as they are always under the misapprension that it is me that makes the meal for my aging and infirm father. HA i say! perhaps it is another part of my psychological profile to appear as the dutiful, caring daughter, while secretly in truth im just a selfish free-loader who cant wait to get my hands on his money! now, im sure i could think up an either-or question for that ideal job of mine that would divine other people the same. how about...
a. i like to spend time caring for, and taking interest in the more senior members of my family by visiting them on a regular basis.
b. i like my dinner to be on the table when i get there, need to use the washing machine on a weekly basis, without ever paying for soap powder, think of the car as a taxi service, expect to be taken to the gym every week, and cant wait to get my hands on his money.
there...that will sort out the men from the boys....
yes, and while every one else the western world is either taking a pay cut, being made redundant or licking their wounds from the collapse of their finances...some of us have just got a new job that pays almost half again what they are being paid right now!
HALLELULAH! its amazing to me that one can be paid so much for selling sausage rolls to workmen..but there it is, and ive got it! im so happy i cant tell you...columbia here i come..well next year, and eli will probably be seeing more of me, and even binni and kim might expect a visit, as i will have more money than i have ever earned in my long and varied life! and while i will be starting at 8am...ok im not a morning person, its in nicolson st, so in fact i will only have to leave the house 20 mins earlier than i currently do, and will save £40 a month on bus fares! ya fucking dancer! and above all I WILL NEVER HAVE TO WORK WITH VOLUNTEERS AGAIN!!! im so happy...i dont even mind wearing a brown suit, and perhaps a hairnet, hell, for £6000 more a year id go in naked! im sure that would boost sales of steak bakes...then again maybe not!
anyway, the other news is that one of my volunteers has swine flu...i took a prescription and a couple of books round to her today...100,000 people have been infected in the uk within the last 4 days...do we just spend too much time with each other, or is it that people here cough and splutter all over you, or that we are all very unhealthy and live in dickensian conditions...drinking gin in windowless rooms with pustulated co-drinkers coughing and spluttering all over you? nah..thats not the british way! ha!
so have to go now, my dennner awaits...have a drink for me all of you who read this! god knows i deserve it for fooling those bakery people. ha and double ha!
and how do you like this clock...cool or what..not that i need another....hell, i dont even wear a watch!
just a thought! i tried to upload it onto facebook, but it wasnt having any of it.
just when i was planning a normal thursday night...i got forced to drink wine, go to a comedy show, then take a taxi to a pub for a quick couple of vodkas, and then back here for coffee, sandwiches and chat till..well too late. for some reason then called eli, and didnt go to bed till 4.30..got up again at 7.20, off to work, got home and went straight to bed..slept for 13 hours...and now here i am at it all over again.
thank you to the oirish...and judy of course...we had a great night..and its the first time in years ive been to anything at the festival...you know how anyone who lives here never goes to see anything as they just cant stand all the tourists..in fact we hardly even ever go into to town, let alone hang out in the pub..so thanks all round...and those sandwiches were the best...the comedy was rubbish...but when you work in a charity shop nothing is as funny as real life, let me tell you. i was working in the ghetto today...thats leith to those not familiar with my hood, and there were people fighting over the tombola, and 'returning' things they had just taken off the rail, i found 12 hangers in the changing room, (to those uninitiated souls amongst you, that means the clothing from them had been stolen), and so many hideous fat people with hideous fat children that it almost makes you think that indra gandhi was right to forcibly sterilise! all fun and games! still, next week is my last week in charity..
and not a moment too soon!
thought i should do this in the new colour of my life! dont know about you, but those of us brought up in the age of brown as a concept for life...brown walls, brown couches, brown clothes, hell, we even had brown toilets, its not the most alluring hue for day-wear! nor is wearing a hairnet, no jewellery, no make-up, short nails, and having to wash your hands like a surgeon 35 times a day....but i will cope! one thing im having a problem coping with right now is the idea of starting work at 7.15am! and i have to do my training in wester hailes! just when i thought leith was the ghetto! for those of you not familiar with the socio-economics of edinburgh, i should point out that the smugly middle-class centre is ringed with what parisians would call arrondisments..in england they are estates..and here they are called 'schemes'. im not sure what the scheme was in the minds of the people who created them...but they are huge, ugly, concreted areas of burned-out cars, shops with no windows that have everything, including the staff, behind plastic screens, weasel-faced men drinking special brew at 8am, and, above all, ugly, grey pebble-dashed council blocks! the mall that im working in has a post office inside, for gods sake! (again, if you are not british, you probably dont realise that the post office is the place the weasel faced guy with the special brew collects his dole money once a week...its the only reason its there...no one in wester hailes sends letters..the most they have ever written in their lives is a text message which includes the word 'l8r')! so there we have it...im in the ghetto, wearing brown and mustard and a hairnet, selling pink jammies, sausage rolls and egg mayonnaise (which i suspect is really salad cream..another british delicacy from the 70s, though it at least has the self-respect not to be brown, instead its a dirty beige!)
what bloody larks, i can hardly contain myself waiting for writing more tomorrow, my first day! actually, though im being true to form, and already slagging it off, at least i dont have to sort bags of dead peoples pants, touch disgusting kitchen wear, work with volunteers or try to sell christmas cards in august! nor do i have to cross town on the bus, which is taking 25 mins longer than normal due to the gigantic numbers of people here for the festival. instead, im going the other way..out to the ghetto...
its kinda mad to say this..but im actually quite excited...unlike my ancient volunteers, i love change...hate routine, and the devil you dont know always seems better to me.
i'll let you know....
and on a final note, as i must go to bed, i watched 'family guy' tonight, you know the cartoon...the creator was going around asking average americans what they thought of it, and one of the questions he asked them was 'if jesus was alive today, do you think that he would like the show?' if anyone in britain came up and asked you that question, you would probably call an ambulance, as they would need psychiatric help...then again, in edinburgh, you would just think it was a show at the fringe, and wrangle for free tickets.
mmm...having a bit of a problem uploading photos..every time i plug in my camera it creates a power surge in the usb port...any ideas anyone of what one does in this situation? obviously, as a person who sells buns and cake for a living, i have no understanding of how to use this computer i have had for 5 years! so, sadly, you will not be able to view the full beauty of me in brown and mustard...or is that custard...with a hairnet and a baseball cap! alternatively, you could just get on a bus...one of those wierd ones you never get on, that goes west of princes street...like the 3, 33 or even the 25..they leave smug-central and go through gorgie to the ghetto! you could get off in front of the glory that is westside plaza (!) enter the beautious mall..walk past the gigantic queue of smack-heads collecting their dole money at the post office, or their methadone at the chemist...up the escalator and just join the biggest queue in the mall...the one that forms at 8.30am for delicious, nutricious bakery products...and see that woman in the blue polythene apron over her sylish uniform, the one who is rushing around, but quite obviously has no idea what she is doing over by the take-away bench, pretending she knows what bread, and what spread goes on that chicken and stuffing ball sandwich you have just ordered and intend to eat, despite it being made by an amateur..that woman is me! you might have to look hard to recognise me....no jewellery, hair contained under a net and a cap, no make-up, and wearing a colour that i would never wear under any other curcumstances..yes its me..but i dont have time to chat to you, despite you coming all this way out to hellville, because i have to make up 350 sandwiches in 3 hours! thats chicken new orleans, chicken mango, blt, chicken and bacon, tuna chunch, ham and tomato, ploughmans, chicken club, chicken pesto, chicken tikka, tuna softie, ham salad, egg mayo, egg and bacon, beef and tomato, cheese savoury, prawn mayo, cheese and ham, mexican chicken, chicken chargrill, tuna and cucumber, cheese and tomato..and i still have to have time to check all the temperatures of the retarders..(ok, you might call them fridges), probe 5 products (ooo baby!!!) to check that they are above 85 degrees, or under 5, put on soup, check its over 85 degrees, check in the delivery, rotate the stock, use differerent scoops, spatulas, forks and knives for different food products, wash my hand in between 556 times, and still have time to talk to my work colleagues! so...you might be lucky and catch me on one of my breaks..out by the fire exit, at the top of the stairs....so we could discuss how fast one can change out of uniform (we are not allowed to wear it outside the food production area..like you would want to!) into your own clothes so you can drink a coffee and have a smoke in the shortest time! because we serve 1000 customers a day..can you fucking believe it!
what i cant believe is i bloody love it. it makes me feel alive in a way i havent felt since christmas eve in 2005...oddbins..how we did love it , and i realise now just how much working in cancer reasearch cowed me, and how bored i was..i find that the most stressful thing, being bored....its deathly! dont ever do it!
kim, hope it all goes ok tomorrow...hope you can deal with the solitude binni, and by the way you aint the oldest person who reads this...despite the fact that he never leaves a message..i believe that honour goes to gareth! and eli..i so dont think you are a wuss! trust me, im a doctor!
my life selling pies has just got harder....just put in a huge entry...without photos, as despite my best efforts recalibrating my computer battery, the camera is still creating a surge in the usb.....poor dear....but then it was just wiped...gone, nada, niente, zilch, zero..lost it all, and it was so hilarious too...how you would have laughed, had you been able to read it, and who could blame you...it was the best, funniest, most erudite, yet quirky diary entry ever...
so you are stuck with this....no doubt after reading my last entry about making sandwiches, you can hardly contain your excitement to hear about my latest bakery endeavour, and who can blame you, but let me tell you, the proof of a pie, unlike pudding, is not in the making...its in the baking! and i should know as ive been doing it all week! carrying trays of 24 gristle-filled pies bubbling with grease from head height has always been a dream of mine! and thats not even to mention the steak bakes, chicken bakes, sausage bean and cheese, cheese and onion, bridies, (they involve onion, in case you wondered), pizza baguettes(now there is fusion), fajita lattice..(which is called lattisse in wester hailes, though they have no problem with fajita), and lets not forget your favourite and mine..the sausage roll! and dont get me started..sausage rolls...what a misdenomer....where is the sausage??? but they are only 58p and we sell over 2000 a day! and what is even more rewarding is the ovens blaring 450 degrees, the alarms going off every time you walk away to do something else, the sweat dripping off your head under your hair net, and just the sheer human value in the whole thing! ah! bakery! its the staff of life!
and to digress, hugely...lets leave bakery and the ghetto behind.....as i do every day...gareth and i tried to think of the stupidest names for amerikan towns...our best efforts so far......godless, texas (elevation 1 foot, population 3)..and lampoon, illinois. and talking of illinois...im reading a book right now called 'chigaco' which strangely is about egyptians going to america to study histiology, (thats the study of tissues...who knew?)...and the first sentence is 'many do not know that 'CHICAGO' is not an english word'. who would have guessed? could the 'o' ending be a clue. lets face it...how many english words end in o apart from who?
god im going to start havering about words now..so im outta here.....before i use wuss!
WELL, JUST WHEN I HAD SPENT ALL WEEK SERVING THE GREY-SKINNED, WEASLE-FACED, THIER OBESE WIVES WITH SCORED OUT NAMES TATTOOED ON THEIR CHESTS, AND THEIR TANTRUM-PRONE, GINGER BROOD, NOT TO MENTION GETTING LESSONS IN HOW TO CLEAN OUT A COUNTER AND MOP A FLOOR, YOU CAN IMAGINE THAT I WAS SOMEWHAT DISHEARTENED, IN MY BROWN AND MUSTARD, HAIRNET,BASEBALL CAP AND ALL! THIS IS NOT TO MENTION THAT IM BEING TRAINED BY A 23 YEAR OLD BOSSY-BOOTS WHO CALLS ME 'DOLL', AND WHOSE FAVOURITE SAYING IS 'DINNAE DAE THAT DOLL'...SO..IMAGINE MY TREPIDATION WHEN OPENING MY FIRST PAY SLIP..WAS IT ALL WORTH IT, WOULD I JUST PACK IT IN THERE AND THEN, COULD I STAND ANOTHER MINUTE IN THE MALL FROM HELL, WOULD I BE ABLE TO SEE MY LIFE STRETCHING OUT IN FRONT OF ME CONTAINING NOTHING BUT 6AM RISES AND LOADING CHOCOLATE ECLAIRS ONTO BEIGE, PLASTIC TRAYS THAT SMELL OF CHLORINE, HAVING TO PUT ON LATEX GLOVES TO MOVE DONUTS AROUND THAT YOU THREW ONTO TRAYS ONLY A MATTER OF HOURS AGO WITH YOUR BARE, GERM-RIDDEN MITTS, COULD I REALLY SEE HALLOWEEN AS THE MOST EXCITING SALES OPPORTUNITY FOR SELLING CUP-CAKES WITH PLASTIC SPIDERS STUCK TO THE ORANGE ICING, NOT TO MENTION GETTING EXCITED ABOUT THE BEEF AND HORSERADISH OVAL BITE. WELL...THE ANSWER IS... MY PAY SLIP (WHICH IS FOR 5 WEEKS...SO A BIT OVER THE ORDINARY) IS ALMOST DOUBLE WHAT I EARNED IN CANCER RESEARCH!!! A MERE £90 LESS! OUTSIDE OF MY DAYS IN ODDBINS WHEN WE EARNED PROPER CHRISTMAS BONUS, IT IS THE BIGGEST AMOUNT I HAVE EVER BEEN PAID FOR A MONTHS WORK! IM SORRY TO BE SO GRASPING...BUT DESPITE ALL OF THE ABOVE..IT MAKES ME FEEL BRILLIANT AND GIVES ME A SELF-WORTH..AND ADDED TO THIS, ITS A PUBLIC HOLIDAY ON MONDAY HERE..AND I DONT HAVE TO WORK...I GET PAID FOR IT THOUGH, OFF ON TUESDAY...SO I HAVE 3 DAYS OFF AND DONT GO BACK TO THE GHETTO TILL WEDNESDAY! HENCE..THE DIARY TITLE...
so after all that ya dancer shit...let me just say, the whole point of the ameirkan town name game was to make up something stupider than anything that exists..but i realise now that that is, quite obviously, not possible. and on the wuss conversation...yes, eli, paraguay was just a whim...and possibly ridiculous...but rio, barcelona and rome...not really strange territory. pinhead is nodding, and he knows a thing or two about strange territory, and particularly about flesh and suffering...but that is another story! and he always nods....no is not in his vocabulary! so let those arthritic hands come through my computer...i will counter them with my dried-out old pie- carrying hands that luxuriate in l'occatane hand cream these days...and let me, right now remember that it is not saturday yet, and i have to get up at 6 am tomorrow......DAMMIT!
its sunday...i dont go back to work till wednesday...YFD! and before i forget...can i just say that i know that this photo looks like that coloured holy family is stuck on the front of the tomb...but actually that is the sun lighting up the stained glass that is at the back of that mausoleum....spooky or what! its the only cemetary ive ever seen that they lie the coffins in shelves in these palaces of the dead..so you can look in through the windows and see 3 generations all placed together, oldest lowest down...do you think its so you can gape over how much they spent on the coffins? the cheapest funeral in the uk now costs £2800..but for a mere £10000 you can have a 10 minute firework display that contains the ashes of your loved one...or you could get their ashes made into a diamond for around the same price. not that it bothers me, as i will be dead, but if anyone wants to do any, or indeed all, of the above with my stinking remains, go ahead. or just stick me in a black plastic bag and put me out for the bin men. ..whatever! i suppose it slightly dissappoints me that no one i know will be buried and have a stone...not because i think that that matters to a dead person...but because i love graveyards. and i could go on and on about this...but thats not what i wanted to talk about...ive started digressing before even starting...thats a first, even for me!
so its this...i went out for dinner last night..well, not just me, gareth was the instigator..and can i tell you what was so good. well, the food was brilliant, and the wine, and the dessert..and that tiny zingy coffee after one of the worlds best cooked steaks, and the baked potato chips, and the chocolate pie...and of course the conversation....yes, all these things were great. but the best thing, and thanks to gareth i did this...is that i actually went out with my own clothes on, jewellery, make up, hair done etc. all of the things i used to take for granted, but now, i have to cover up with brown crymplene trousers, and a shapeless mustard polo shirt! happy happy, joy joy!
ITS GARETHS BIRTHDAY...WHICH ULITIMATELY PROVES THAT HE IS THE OLDEST PERSON HERE! AND WE ARE GETTING THE TRAIN TO SOUTH QUEENSFERRY TOMORROW TO HAVE LUNCH...QUITE AN ADVENTURE IT SEEMS, THOUGH I USED TO GET THAT TRAIN EVERY DAY WHEN I WORKED IN DUNFIE, AND IT DID NOT SEEM THAT EXCITING ...HOW THINGS CHANGE! THOUGH IT WAS ALWAYS EXCITING WHEN THE WHOLE OF THE FORTH WAS JUST FOG AND MIST...LIKE GOING INTO A TUNNEL OF WHITENESS....NOT EVEN SIMILAR, BUT BINNI AND KIM HAVE THE WHOLE SKY TURNING RED RECENTLY, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS, THE SAND STORM IN SYDNEY...AMAZING...THERE WERE PEOPLE IT THE PAPER SAYING THAT IT SEEMED LIKE THE APOCALYPSE...WHAT ABOUT THE ESCHATON, THATS WHAT I SAY...THE UNIVERSE SEEKS CLOSURE......AND NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON! AND I TYPED IT THE ALPACALYPSE...MMM, THE CAMELIDS IDEA OF THE ESHCATON...NOT ENOUGH FODDER, OK, I CAN LAST WITHOUT WATER FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, AND THEN THERE IS NONE, EVER..NOT EVEN GLITTERING IN HYPERSPACE.....BETTER JUST LIE DOWN AND GIVE UP.
A MAN I WORK WITH SAID TO ME TODAY....'GOD YOU ARE SO QUIET, ARE YOU ALWAYS LIKE THIS?' I SAID ' IF ANY OF MY FRIENDS COULD HEAR YOU SAYING THIS, THEY WOULD JUST LAUGH'. AND YES, I CAN STILL TALK THE HIND LEGS OFF A DONKEY, BUT I ALSO ESPOUSE SILENCE...I LOVE COMING HOME AND NOT HAVING TO TALK TO ANYONE.....I LOVE THOSE DAYS OFF I HAVE THAT I DONT HAVE TO SPEAK TO A SOUL....FOR A WHOLE 36 HOURS....ITS HEAVEN. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A BIT OF A HERMIT...BUT WORKING IN THE PROJECTS, WELL, WHAT CAN I SAY TO THESE PEOPLE, WHOSE LIVES DO NOT REALLY HAVE A SINGLE COMMON THREAD. NOTHING. SO THATS WHAT I SAY. I SPEND MY DAYS SPEAKING, BUT SAYING NOTHING. I GIVE NOTHING AWAY...I ACTUALLY THINK I MIGHT HAVE BECOME WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE.....MYSTERIOUS....WELL, TO THEM, NOT TO YOU, OBVIOUSLY....ANYONE READING THIS, YOU JUST KNOW HOW UNMYSTERIOUS I AM! HA!
yes, yet another piece of electronics to lie around my computer, to join the webcam, headset, mp3 charger, camera battery charger and the broadband paraphenalia, i now have a usb reader..its like overcooked spaghetti under there. however, it does mean that you can see the real beauty of my uniform..although you might notice a distinct lack of me in it. maybe later. still at least thats the photo problem worked out, and all for a mere £5 from amazon, so thanks for that suggestion binni.
its actually way past my bedtime, being a heady 10.40pm, but im on a course tomorrow and so (and this is a line i never believed i would ever say), i have a lie in till 7.30am! 2 months ago, this would never have been in my vocabulary, but when one gets up at 6am every day, 7.30 is sheer luxury! im normally in this glorious outfit by then piling fragile cream cakes onto beige plastic trays as fast as is humanly possible while still retaining their original shape and texture. believe me, its the mine-field of the dairy world! despite feeling like a bull in a china shop, however, im still, curiously enjoying it. which is just as well, as its cold here, its dark when i arrive at work now, ive had to resort to seeping with a downie after months just with a blanket, and tonight i had to put on the heating, and the fire. someone remind me why i live here....
HELL, DONT YOU LOVE THAT ARCH....JEEZ, ITS COOL WHEN ITS LIT UP. EVEN AT 6.39 AM WHEN I LEAVE THE BUILDING I CANT HELP BUT THINK, AS MUCH AS I CAN AT THAT TIME..THAT IS JUST SO COOL! ITS GROOVY I GUESS. Maybe ive been listening to too much propelerheads! but i would so not want to suck rancid tuna salad out of my own ass...so maybe not!
IM GOING TO A HUMANIST WEDDING TOMORROW./ TODAY. LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT...SO TIRED THAT IM LOSING THE ABILIITY TO TYPE...yikes.......
there are only 5 countries in the world that have humanist weddings as a legally binding contract. scotland is one..(the others, gareth and i guessed are norway, sweden, denmark, and holland..but we may be wrong...answers on a postcard pleeze). i spoke to the asian doorman (asian in a british sense..ie muslim), and he couldnt understand why people would be getting married if there was no god involved. aint that a strange concept. the only reason that you would pledge your troth to another person is because god has told you to! duh! ( and i cant believe that i just wrote a sentence that included the clause 'pledge your troth'!) whatever! it was such a lovely day...tracy and matthew had to read out their reasons for why they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together...(tracy; i love matthew because he saves bees..matthew; i love tracy because she is cool..and yet hot!) and the vows that they had to pledge included ' i accept this person completely for who they are, i will be their cheerleader, and i will take care of them'. what more could you possibly pledge..it was really moving...cant deny i got a bit teary, it was definately the sweetest ceremony ive ever been to. and then there was free wine..and great wine too...and food that included venison mole. gareth had 3 helpings. and then there was dancing..yfd! and i met some really cool people...my only complaint would be that there were too many children...you know how i hate them...hey, one does not have to be gay to have an alternative lifestyle...one only has to be a single nullipara aged 47 named george.
SO, SEE THESE CLOCKS HERE..THEY ARE SECONDS APART..AND ON MY COMPUTER TOO..ONE SECOND ITS 2AM, AND HELL, BEFORE A GIRL HAS TIME TO TAKE THAT IN, ITS BACK TO 1AM...GOD, IF ONLY THAT HAPPENED EVERY WEEKEND! SO, YES INDEEDY THE CLOCKS WENT BACK HERE..ITS OFFICIALLY WINTER...AND FOR ME..IM PLUNGED INTO DARKNESS..ITS BEEN DARK WHEN I GOT UP FOR WEEKS, BUT NOW IT WILL ALSO BE DARK WHEN I LEAVE TO GO HOME. AS I WORK IN THE WORLDS MOST GODFORSAKEN SHOPPING CENTRE..THAT MEANS UNLESS I GO OUTSIDE DURING MY BREAKS, I WILL NEVER SEE DAYLIGHT...THANK GOD FOR SMOKING! AND FOR VITAMIN D, WHICH I HAVE STARTED TAKING IN HEAPS...YOU KNOW THAT THEY THINK THAT MS IS SOMETHING TO DO WITH VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY..GOD, WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT!
SO. ONE MIGHT ALSO WONDER, WHY THE PIRATE OUTFIT..WELL, LET ME TELL YOU..WHEN ONE WORKS IN BAKERY, HALLOWEEN IS THE BUSIEST WEEKEND OF THE YEAR, AND WE ALL HAVE TO DRESS UP! NORMALLY, I WOULDNT GIVE FANCY DRESS A THOUGHT..WELL, APART FROM FUCK OFF.. BUT GIVE ME A PROPER WAGE, PERHAPS MORE THAN I HAVE EVER EARNED AND I MIGHT ENTERTAIN THE THOUGHT! AND LETS JUST FORGET ABOUT THE FACT THAT I THOUGHT I HAD SWITCHED OFF ALL THE RETARDERS,BY MISTAKE, (THATS FRIDGES TO YOU), AND ALL THE STUFF HAD BEEN RUINED, WITH WATER ALL OVER THE FLOOR. AT THIS POINT WE WOULD JUST HAVE TO DISCUSS HEALTH AND SAFETY...OK, LUCKILY I DIDNT...BUT I DID DO A RISK ASSESSMENT OF THE SHOP WHICH INCLUDED 26 POINTS, AND ALSO DID A SWOT...DOES ANYONE ELSE DO THIS OR IS IT JUST RETAIL..
TO JUMP OFF AT A COMPLETE TANGENT...IM READING THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE BY SALMAN RUSHDIE AND I BELIEVE ITS HIS BEST BOOK SINCE THE SATANIC VERSES...WHICH I LOVED...WHEN HE IS GOOD, THERE IS NO ONE WHO EVEN COMES CLOSE..HENCE MIDNIGHTS CHILDREN. AND YET HE HAS ALSO WRITTEN SO MUCH DROSS..THE GROUND BENEATH HER FEET, I REST MY CASE!
IM OUT NOW...WRITERS BLOCK..OR IS IT THAT IM TOO DRUNK TO TYPE PROPERLY....MMMMM.....
I FORGOT TO RENEW MY BLOG...CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! IMAGINE YOUR LIFE WITHOUT IT...YOU JUST WOULDNT KNOW WHAT TO DO WOULD YOU! ALL THOSE HOURS OF BOREDOM, WHEN YOU COULD BE READING MY HILARIOUS REPARTEE, AND GAZING WITH JEALOUS EYES AT MY BREATHTAKING ABILITY AS A PHOTOGRAPHER...GO ON ADMIT IT, YOU WOULD SO TOTALLY MISS IT. THANK GOD GARETH SPOTTED THE 'GO ON, PAY US ANOTHER £15 TO RENEW', OR WE WOULD ALL BE SITTING HERE LIKE JOHNNY-NAE-MATES TWIDDLING OUR THUMBS. I JUST DONT THINK THE INTERNET WOULD BE QUITE THE SAME WITHOUT IT.
and i just wrote a 2 hour addenda to this..and its wiped the whole thing...dang.....and quadruple dang! might just go to bed in disgust! and its only 4.30am...early!
so its now sunday..the shortest day of the week...how is it that monday always comes round so quickly when it takes so long to get to saturday night, and then that is over in a flash, and its back to monday..and getting up at 6am every day. still, you will all be happy to hear that i did manage to stay up for 24 hours on saturday, as i got up at 5.30 am to go in to work early so i could bag spooky rings, creepy cup cakes and witch cakes for halloween..not to mention dressing up as a pirate..hell, you have the photos here. it is also raining like a monsoon here..and its so dark that i have had to have the lights on since i got up at 1.30pm. the entry that got lost was all about the people i see every morning in my new routine...the guy waiting for the 34, the blonde woman who gets the 35 at the next stop, the guy carrying 3 starbucks coffees that if i see before the western approach road i have to start walking fast as fuck. the guy with the too-short-trousers who gets the bus before me..so if he is still there as i turn the corner onto dalry road, i know its ok and i havent missed my bus. when i used to work in portobello and got the first bus on a saturday, at the luxurious time of 8.30, it was like the whole world was dead..the day of the triffids...but haymarket has an early microcosm all of its own..there are loads of people around at 6am..getting the airport bus, getting trains, buses, going home from a night on the town, newsagents are open, you can see the first flights going out of the airport, hell, the barbers on grove street is open at 6.30 in case you want an early haircut before most people are even awake. unlike at other times of the day it is just the same people every day..and you end up saying hello to them, just for that reason. you may think that im relishing this early morning utopia of friendliness and cooperation...but youd be WRONG! ITS SHITE I TELLS YA! and getting to dress up as a pirate doesnt compensate, even if my outfit was the best, and i just found it all in my wardrobe, much to the amazement of my 23 uear old colleagues, who just dont have that life-time of clothing in different sizes in their bedroom!
gareth has just arrived..gotta go.
binni and kim just got home...hope they are ok.
see you all soon...
so, i only have 5 days left working in the ghetto...and i agree with you bandk, it might look like a school..the difference is that a school is a utility...its compulsory, and the architecture doesnt matter..this is a shopping mall! its about leisure, and its meant to attract you so you want to go there and spend your money..and part of this building used to be a hotel! A HOTEL! who, and i cannot stress this enough..WHO would ever stay here? funnily enough it closed within a year...but, hell, not the greggs shop which rarely has less than 10 people queuing outside. and almost the same in nicolson street where i start a week on monday, but went to work there on thursday, and among the things that were good about it was being able to see outside....after 3 months working in a mall, it felt amazing to see the sun come up, and actually just to see daylight!
for some really strange reason, i bought a bottle of vodka tonight, instead of wine, cant remember the last time i drank spirits...but it doesnt taste good, and ive already just thought of going to bed....but luckily i havent, or you wouldnt have the benefit of my sparkling wit and repartee! and you would all just miss that so much..go on, admit it.
so ive finished with training, and thank the lord, because i was getting so sick of getting told what to do. hey, you run shops for 25 years, you go back to training, people telling you what to do all the time, before you know it, your institutionalised! at first you hate these walls..then you accept em, before you know it, you come to depend on em. but luckily i dont have to depend on morgan freeman, nor tim robbins to get me out of shawshank....ive done it all on my own. and i hate to blow my own trumpet...but i survived 3 months in the ghetto....god! god, jeesus , mary and jose...i made it! im overcome by my own achievement....and, trust me, this doesnt happen to me that often! because if there was ever an underachiever, its me. bart simpson aint got a single thang on me.....to me achievement, success, any of these things is just about being happy...thats what i strive for, its all that matters. but on the other hand i have to be in charge.....i have to be me and not what someone else demands....somewhat of a dichotmy
and i just went out, you know as you do to get cigarettes at 2.46 am, and there is a motorbike wrapped around the crossing...i would be very surprised if the rider has survived this one...there are polis everywhere, like that is gonna help....talk about the stable door why dont you! probably a good time to burgle or rape, or whatever...cos every copper in edinburgh is standing on lothian road overseeing a crashed motorbike ....
not only did i just have the week sent by the devil to test me..i also just spent 3 hours telling you all about it..saved it...and its just gone, disappeared into hyperspace.....its my personal burning of the library of alexandria! im so deflated im speachless.....
what can i say...after 2 of the most hellish working weeks imaginable..new job stress, 4 people phoning in sick, one handing in her notice, one about to be let go for unauthorised absence, making stoopid, basic mistakes that i shouldnt have made, having to get up at 5.30am, and really wondering if i can really do this for the rest of my working life (12 years and counting)....i just had the best BEST saturday night.
went down to portobello with gareth, to tracy and matthews for dinner...ok, i know what you are thinking...get more middle class! hell, we had palo cortado sherry and pistachio nuts (unsalted) to start! risotto with lemon peel twists, beef bourgignon, ian mellis cheese and argentinian pinot noir! then matthew brought out his collection of marc and cacasa! gareth was in heaven. so, yes, we are smugly middle class..but conventional we aint! hell, we even kept tracy up till 1am..way after her bedtime...it was bloody brilliant...good company, fantastic food, and we didnt even have to do the dishes! then a quick and exciting taxi journey through holyrood park, past the parliament, down the cowgate and onto lothian road to get cigarettes later, called binni and kim and they even answered! and then skyped eli till 8am! and then i actually went to the heaven of my bed..which i dont always do on a saturday night/sunday morning. so here we have it...the perfect night! all my favourites wrapped into a few fragile hours! have woken up at 3pm on such a high, cant even tell you! hell, i might even be able to have a smile on my face when i arrive at work tomorrow morning at 6.30am!
so thank you to everyone involved.....its made me able to face the week coming, which as usual, comes far too soon! sunday..shortest day of the week!
DANG!
kim and i have birthdays that, here, are a day apart, but when she called me on friday night, when i had just returned, bedraggled and smelling of baking pasties, from work..it was already her birthday..because ITS ALWAYS TOMORROW IN AUSTRALIA!
this is an interesting philosophical concept for me...except for today, a sunday, as if i was on sydney time i would be at the cusp of waking up for work on monday, and how gash would that be. i know that you will probably not get how funny this was, as you have not just smoked some of the worlds strongest weed, but when rose, simon and i were in amsterdam, we spoke about the different days that are regarded as the sabbath by different religions....friday for muslims being the one in question..and simon asked the pertinent metaphysical question...'if friday is sunday, what day would saturday be?' the answer of course, is monday..the day it is already in australia...yes, you guessed it...TOMORROW! and when i fly to sydney, i leave on the 3rd, but dont get there till the 5th...can you guess why....yes, something of a theme here...its because ITS ALWAYS TOMORROW IN AUSTRALIA! i lose 11 hours of my, increasingly, precious life by just getting on a thai airways flight. when one thinks of the power difference, between, say, new york and san francisco..based purely on the fact of time, those hard working east coasters are already grafting in wall street when the, indolent, tree-hugging californians are still luxuriating in deep sleep in bed, you cant help but wonder...how come australia doesnt just take over the w orld? hey they could do it before any of the rest of us was even awake, and have it done and dusted by lunchtime, when we would still be in the arms of morpheus! they could even have had all the maps changed, so australia was in the middle, before we europeans had even had our first coffee of the day..and those lazy amerikans, at best 5 hours behind here, wouldnt even have got into the shower! compared to australians, we europeans are, just, so yesterday!
anyway...enough about the fact that ITS ALWAYS TOMORROW IN AUSTRALIA! and back to today, or is it yesterday, im confused, as i often am on a sunday! but im not confused about my £100 amazon voucher! ya fucking dancer! thanks to the people of tomorrow, i can go shopping! and amazon is my boy! the fantastic thing is that you can just bank them..so come march, when you dont have any money, but so need cheering up, you can find that you still have £20 to spend that you had forgotten all about....how good is that! you can afford that cheesy horror film to fill the long dark nights...and talking of that, forgive me jumping off at a tangent, can i just say, now, having to get up at 5.30am, so much of my life is in darkness! to top that we have had freezing fog for 3 days..and the forecast is for snow!!! god i hate the winter! im just thinking all the time that i hope that the weather doesnt prevent me flying to the land of tomorrow! its always a bit of a thing if you are leaving the frozen north in the winter..that the gods of the weather will try to keep you from leaving..or is that just too scottish! the idea that you will be punished by the gods for even trying to leave this hell, to somewhere more clement....not that in fact, australia is clement..it has its own weather gods, and they have decided on roasting for the foreseeable future. perhaps our gods will take that into consideration! i fucking hope so!
can i just say that as i write this, im listening to pounding trance from 'infected mushroom' god i love it...as my neighbours can no doubt attest! poor dears!
tomorrow is the equinox..our shortest day of the year...and it just cant come fast enough as far as im concerned...fuck, my whole life is darkness....i had a lie in till a luxurious 8.30am on friday...a whole 3 hours later than i normally get up...and, guess what, it was still dark when i rose from the haven of my deliciously warm, and wonderfully comfortable bed! i dont think i can stress enough that it doesnt get light here till 9.30am..and then gets dark again around 3.30pm! i mean 6 hours of daylight..and its not like the sun ever really rises above the horizon..if it even comes out at all to lighten the snow, or hail filled sky we have had recently! (snow...we have snow! fuckittyfuck!) thing is, it amazes me every year, how dark it is...no wonder ancient man made up all these legends, and god stories...at this time of year, it really must have been like the dark would never end, it still feels like that, and i know for sure that the spring will come, eventually! so, good news everyone..the equinox tomorrow..and, of course, it always being tomorrow in australia and all, its also binnis birthday...so, here is the ponderous question for today....was she born on the longest day, or the shortest day? being a woman of some paradox...not only on the equnox, but also the cusp of sagittarius and capricorn...freedom-loving, promiscuous, dont-give-a-shit v hard-headed work ethic leadership...im sure binni will be able to tell us...as there is one thing you can alway count on from binni....an opinion! naturally, not being like that myself, i cant really comment. i will just agree with what everyone else thinks.
yessir...its official, we have a white christmas! i cannot really convey the joy i felt walking over the meadows in a blizzard at 6.05am,when i texted kim in autralia to tell her, as she is one of these strange buggas who loves is, probably because it has never snowed in sydney..anyway, i couldnt see my phone, as, however much i brushed it off, it kept covering up with the darned white stuff! i did get the honour of being the first person to walk through the ankle-deep virgin white blanket, but it probably would have been more special if i had actually been able to raise my head without my eyes filling up with it, so that i could see enough to appreciate it. still there it is...white christmas..work over, dont have to get up at 5.30am for 3 days, and get to eat and drink like a pig...what more could i want? nothing really.
hope you all also get what you want. have fun y'all.
just thought i might point out, that at this point next week, i will be rejoicing in almost 3 weeks off work and flying to the land of the future....ya dancer.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND GOD BLESS US, EVERY ONE!
when i typed in 'welcome' to the title of this page..there was a drop down menu of things i had written before....welcome 2007, 2008, and 2009! GOD, WHAT A DULLARD! but my whole philosophy, is that a new year is a good thing. leave all the old shite behind, move on, and dont dwell on the past. to me, its the most optimistic time of the year....its all new, anything is possible. that is why it is welcome.
obviously, as people who know me, or you wouldnt be reading this, you realise that im a cynical old bitch...but please allow me my optimistic fantasy..at least for one day! and i dont like to rub it in, but i, of all people, do have reasons to be optimistic..as the day after tomorrow im flying to the land of the future, and unlike the rest of you, i dont go back to work till the 19th! well, not counting kim, of course, who is on her summer holidays....summer...do you remember summer...im just not sure that i do...but, hell, its coming sooner than i could have imagined, along with great food, wine, company, and carrying more books in my luggage than the average person has read in their lives!
and...yes australia did not have the blue moon....but as you see from these photos, its just the same old moon...not blue at all...just here fell in the same month as another full moon...obviously that didnt happen in sydney..because it entered a new day, year and decade a good 10 hours before anywhere else that counts.
you may find this hard to believe, god knows i do..but i am all ready to go more than 12 hours before my flight! as someone who usually packs about 30 mins before the taxi is booked to take me to the airport...i actually feel a bit at a loose end being prepared so early. however, as my luggage contains almost the entire central library of scotland, and little else, it wasnt exactly complicated. i realise that binni and kim are totally sick of me slagging them about the books...cant really blame them..but i just think its so funny. for those of you who dont know this, there is no amazon.aus...and books are really expensive, so i have become a literature mule..hauling around 20 volumes to the other side of the world. amazingly my bag only weighs 17kilos..but i did have to take out those 5 beautiful illustrated copies of the secret garden, jungle book etc and pack them in my hand luggage.
so enough about books already....god has it been snowing here or what, as i think you can see from these photos. its becoming a bit tedious, i can tell you! roll on tuesday! not only jumping forward into tomorrow...but also turning the heat up around 30 degrees. bring it on....
bandk...cant wait, just cant bloody wait. wey hey!
its 9.30am on thursday here, on the other side of the world. for anyone reading this its only wednesday night, or even the afternoon for some. but that is not the biggest change, believe you me! the most brilliant thing about the land of tomorrow, is that its also the land of the opposite season...and im sure you will not be surprised to learn, but at the same time cannot possibly imagine..i have a tan already! ya fucking dancer!
the most fantastic thing about being here, however, is not the weather..though for anyone who managed to leave blighty on sunday for the sun-soaked west, and is missing the terrible weather in britian, that would be compensation enough...but it is the fact that, though binni and kim and i have not seen each other for a year, its like i have always been here, and we were together last week drinking, eating and fighting over the playstation control! i know that no one else does playstation, but we are already about a quarter of the way through batman arkam asylum...that i brought with me..and we have laughed more, and had more fun playing that game in the last two days than i have had playing for the last year on my own! and that is not even to mention the luxury of being in a house groaning with wine and food, having wonderful meals made for me by binni, and being able to sit here, writing this at 9.45 wearing only a strappy dress! perhaps there is a god after all! life is good in the land of tomorrow, believe me! im so happy,.i could cry!
THEY ARE HARD TASK-MAESTERS, THAT BINNIANDKIM, AND I HAD TO PASS OUT ON THE COUCH LAST NIGHT, AND COULD HARDLY STAY AWAKE FOR ME DENNER, AS THEY HAVE FORCED ME TO STAY UP EATING, DRINKING, TALKING AND PLAYING PS3 WAY PAST MY BEDTIME EVERY NIGHT SINCE I GOT HERE! ON TOP OF THAT, FOR A GIRL FROM THE FROZEN NORTH, WHO HASNT SEEN THE SUN FOR ABOUT 6 MONTHS, ALL THAT LYING ABOUT IN THE GARDEN ON LOUNGERS HAVING A BREAK FROM BATMAN, IS JUST EXHAUSTING! HOWEVER, WE DID MAKE IT TO BED BEFORE 1AM LAST NIGHT, AND I HAVE WOKEN TODAY, SATURDAY, (THOUGH, OBVIOUSLY, ITS STILL FRIDAY NIGHT FOR ALL OF YOU LOT), FEELING REFRESHED, IF A LITTLE ITCHY, AS I HAVE BEEN BITTEN ALL OVER..BUGGA!
BEING HERE AT THE RETREAT, IS A LITTLE LIKE BEING IN A COCOON OF LUXURY AND PLEASURE...WE ONLY READ THE NEWS ON THE NET, HAVENT WATCHED TELLY, THE HOUSE IS GROANING WITH FANTASTIC FOOD AND DRINK WHICH BINNI JUST WHIPS UP AT REGULAR INTERVALS INTO GORDON BLUE MEALS (WEVE HAD SPICY MEATBALLS, THAI CHICKEN CURRY, ROAST BEEF WITH ROASTED PUMPKIN AND SWEET POTATO, CIABATTA WITH BRIE SUNDRIED TOMATOES AND OLIVES..OH, YOU NAME IT) YOU NEVER NEED TO WEAR SHOES, OR, INDEED, WEAR ANYTHING BUT ROMPERS, AND MY BEDROOM, WHICH IS ALSO THE DRINKS STORE, HAS MORE BOTTLES IN IT THAN YOUR AVERAGE SMALL INDEPENDENT WINE MERCHANT. TO SAY IM IN HEAVEN IS PUTTING IT MILDLY! HAPPY HAPPY. JOY JOY! YOU WILL ALSO BE HAPPY TO HEAR THAT, DESPITE A FEW SET-BACKS, WE ARE GETTING ON REALLY WELL WITH BATMAN....THAT IS WHEN I CAN GET HIM TO STOP SPRAYING EXPLOSIVE GEL ON THE FLOOR, INSTEAD OF THE WALL, HE WILL DO A SILENT TAKEDOWN, WITHOUT BEING SEEN, THEREBY ALLERTING ALL 6 ARMED THUGS IN THE ROOM, AND WE CAN REMEMBER TO SWOOSH HIS CAPE AT SAID THUGS BEFORE PUNCHING THE SHIT OUT OF THEM. SUCH FUN....CANT TELL YA!
GLAD TO HEAR THAT THE WINTER IS CONTINUING WITHOUT ME...
TAKE CARE ALL..WERE OFF THE BIG TOWN TOMORROW...THATS INTO SYDNEY FOR THOSE OF YOU NOT CONVERSANT WITH OAKDALESE!
FUN, FUN, FUN....
Well, what can I say..yes, eli, I do miss skyping you, but in fact had to crash before 10pm last night combination of booze, food, the excitement of beating the joker in batman arkam asylum, and, I know you will just not believe this, especially at the moment..but its just so bloody hot here. I do not think it would be possible to be in two more extreme places within a couple of weeks Britain experiencing the worst cold weather for a generation, and here on the other side of the world the opposite..lifethreatening heatwave that has had people evacuated from their homes because of the threat of bush-fires! It was 43 degrees in oakdale today not that it was that bad for us, as we were off galavanting at bondi beach at 8am, before the heat set in..and it was already so busy. I know its hard for you all to accept, but its the school summer holidays here! Then cruising round the haba (thats harbour for those of you who dont posses subtitles for the non-australian), a giant plate of chips and a couple of beers opposite the opera house, and then a swift shifty round the market, then back here to oakdale for cocktails before dinner. Fucking magic! I even got those aboriginal art pieces that I had wanted, in the first place we looked. Ya dancer!
And I dont ever want anyone, ever again to tell me that I have too much stuff. If you imagine my flat, with an extra bedroom, and a spare room, inhabited by 2 people like me, who have also travelled .well, you get the picture. Binni and kims is even more like a natural history museum and actually they have more things than many village museum ive seen amazing house, amazing time. We have just had such a laugh.
Im having too much fun, I realised it last night
Love to all hope you are surviving rose, and gareth in all that snow give my love to bill, and let him know we finished batman, and are now about to start uncharted 2.
Eli, good news on the job thang..and why is it you dont want to go to dohahaha!
Take care all see you soon if I manage to get back due to the weather god that would be awful if I didnt
just realised that i should have had the photos to go with that statement, but havent uploaded them yet..and this here is a apple mac....i have to have binni to show me how to use it, in between cooking burgers, onions, ham, pineapple and sausages on the barby! doh!
its 8.05am here, ive been up all night..who woulda thought...but i wish you were all here to hear the sounds of the birds...sometimes i forget im not in kansas anymore toto..well, until i go outside and its 27 degrees at 8.05am.
i think i need to point out, as i dont think i have gushed enough, about how much i enjoyed, nae, even loved sydney. i know the last time i was here it just seemed so underwhelming, but this time, i actually thought it was a really cool place..if you will allow me to use that expression....bondi beach, contrary to my expectation was really beautiful....in a huge cove, with pounding surf, and what seemed like, but might not have been, art deco buildings, painted terra cotta and pink. and,yes, there were beautiful people..but not as many as one might think, it was just really relaxed and...well...hedonistic...
and the harbour is really spectacular...ok its not rio, nor cape town...but sitting having a not-overpriced beer overlooking the bridge and the opera house (which i think i have finally worked out...am i alone in not really understanding where the front is?) on a sunny day with mates is really magic! amazing as it may seem...when we drove into the city, and you could see the bridge and the harbour from the motorway in, it was almost as exciting as seeing manhattan from new jersey...its the thing about the big city...i cant help it...im just city through and through!
and now binni and kim are in bed, as we have been up playing uncharted on playstation all night! i know none of you do this....or even really get it, i know its idiotic and pointless....but we have just had such fun..and have laughed so much while doing these games....ive had such a great time,i dont even know what to say.
britain is just so yesterday.....im happy as larry in tomorrow!
YES, SADLY ITS GOT TO THAT DEPRESSING PART OF ANY HOLIDAY WHEN ONE REALISES THAT THERE ARE ONLY A COUPLE DAYS OF HEDONISTIC FRIVOLITY LEFT,AND THEN ALL THE REALITIES OF LIFE HIT YOU ONCE AGAIN..LIKE THE THOUGHT OF HAVING TO WEAR SOCKS, LET ALONE SHOES OR BOOTS. WILL YOU, ONCE AGAIN, BE ABLE TO CONNECT YOUR BRAIN TO WALKING-THROUGH-SNOW MODE, WHEN HERE THE ONLY PURPOSE OF FOOTWEAR IS TO PROTECT YOUR TOOTSIES FROM THE BURNING HEAT OF THE PAVEMENT. WILL I BE ABLE TO APPLY MAKEUP ON A DAILY BASIS AFTER SO LONG AU NATURAL? WILL I MANAGE TO ENJOY SMASH AND BEANS AS MUCH AFTER ALL THE CULINARY DELIGHTS IVE HAD COOKED BY BINNIS FAIR HAND? WILL I EVER GET THROUGH A PLAYSTATION GAME WITHOUT SOMEONE ELSE TO HAND THE CONTROL TO WHEN I HAVE BEEN KILLED 26 TIMES IN A ROW AND NEED ANOTHER GLASS OF WINE? AH, HOLIDAYS....BITTER-SWEET I TELLS YA!
HOWEVER....LAST NIGHT I DID GET TO ENJOY THE PLEASURES OF A BROWN OUT...A DEMI-BLACKOUT WHEN THE POWER GOES OFF, BUT NOT ALL THE WAY...FUNNILY ENOUGH I HAD FALLEN ASLEEP ON THE COUCH, AND COULDNT UNDERSTAND WHY THERE WERE PEOPLE SHINING TORCHES INTO MY FACE! I ALSO HAVE ANOTHER COUPLE OF BEAUTIFUL MOZZIE BITES, JUST WHEN MY FEET HAD RETURNED TO BOTH BEING THE SAME SIZE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A WEEK...SO YOU CANT SAY I HAVENT DONE MY BIT FOR THE ECOLOGY OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE! IVE DONATED MORE BLOOD THAN I EVER DO AT HOME, IN RETURN FOR HAVING A TAN! HA!
ANYWAY...WE ARE ALMOST FINISHED UNCHARTED, YOU WILL BE OVERCOME WITH EXCITEMENT TO HEAR..ONLY 2 CHAPTERS TO GO! AND STILL HAVE A HEAP OF WINE AND FOOD TO CONSUME...SO I BETTER GO, AS I THINK IT MIGHT BE COCKTAIL HOUR...ACTUALLY, AT BINNI AND KIMS, ANY TIME IS COCKTAIL HOUR...YA DANCER!
yes, joy oh joy...another 2 hours in an airport. still at least this one has smoking rooms. the sheer pleasure of a 11 hour flight to london is flooding over me!
just wish i was home.
or back at binni and kims....its closer.
yeah, so i made it...the 9 hour flight, the 12 hour flight and the 50 min flight....half the way across the bloody earth. i slept an enormous amount, i ate 4 meals, i drank as much as i could get, i watched 3 films, read my book while dozing, realising that the things you conjured up in that 2 min doze so did not happen in the book, i totally lost track of any time concept, and i fell asleep standing up at the gate in bangkok and almost killed the woman sitting on the floor next to me. her husband/travelling companion said 'cant you wait till youre on the plane!'. well apparently not.
well, those 4 riders of the apocalypse might have let me travel unscathed to the other side of the world during the worst weather in a generation, but they were at work here in my absence..pestilence especially. according to the plumber who, very kindly charged me £112 for a mere 40 mins work which involved pulling my bathroom to bits, my toilet pipe has become totally disengaged in the middle and, to put it literally, all my shite is just flushing down into the flat below! lucky them! upshot is, i have to get my bath removed, and the rest...and in the mean time, im forced to become a refugee and go and live up at bills, as i cant really live without a toilet. what bloody larks!
oh, long gone already the heady, happy days of sleeping on a sunbed, cocktail hour at 11am, playstation till..well, whenever, and brilliant banter over some bloody delicious dinner. on top of this, i have just not been able to stop sleeping since i got home, despite sleeping for a good 7 hours on the plane from bangkok...saturday spent 6 hours in bed during the day..though did manage to stay up till 5am skypeing..sunday got up at 11am, stayed up till 1pm..back to bed for 3hours, and then crashed out a bills after dinner. monday got up at 7am..back to bed at 11 till 1pm, up till 3, back to bed till 7pm, then up till 9.30..and, yes, you guessed it back to my pit. strangely awake at 3.30am this morning but could it have been because the neighbours were having a savage dog fight in the stair, including bouncing off my front door, screaming, barking, growling, shouting, door-slamming, scuffling, oh fuck, you name it! so funnily enough felt totally fine, and even got up early at 5am for work...but did have the knowledge that i finished at 10am to keep me going. and im off tomorrow..so dont really start back properly till thursday...but it was ok. i dont feel like killing myself, not yet anyway. give it a couple of weeks....
thats all my news..thanks for listening.
FUCKFUCKFUCK....WHAT CAN I SAY ABOUT TRYING TO GET AN INSURANCE COMPANY TO COVER A MEAGRE £1000 REPAIR TO AN ESSENTIAL PART OF YOUR HOUSE. SO FAR I HAVE BEEN TOLD JUST TO GO AHEAD WITH THE WORK, THEN THAT I NEED TO GET AS ASSESSOR TO LOOK AT IT, THEN THAT THEY WANTED TO USE THEIR OWN CONTRACTORS, AND THEN TODAY, THAT I WASNT COVERED AT ALL, AS THERE IS NO VISIBLE DAMAGE TO MY PROPPETY (SIC). SO YET AGAIN...AT LEAST 20 PHONE CALLS LATER..I CALLED THE INSURANCE COMPANY YET AGAIN, AND THEY ASSURED ME THAT I WAS COVERED..AND SO AFTER A WEEK, IM BACK AT THE BEGINNING WAITING TO HEAR FROM THE MANAGEMENT COMPANY....WHO HAVE JUST CALLED, AND POOR SANJIT, WHO I PUT THE PHONE DOWN ON THE LAST TIME I SPOKE TO HIM, WAS ACTUALLY REALLY NICE. SO NOW ITS WAITING FOR CONTRACTORS TO CALL....JEEZ! SO MUCH FOR THAT ONE-CALL-INSURANCE-SORTING-EVERYTHING-OUT SHITE! SO JUST HAD ANOTHER CALL, FUCK, ITS ALL HAPPENING HERE..AND NOW I JUST HAVE TO WAIT FOR A PLUMBER TO CALL TO ARRANGE SORTING IT. THOUGH THEY DO KEEP STRESSING THAT I WILL HAVE TO PAY FOR THE REPAIR MYSELF, AS PIPEWORK IS NOT COVERED. WHAT A GODDAMMED PALAVER!
SORRY, I REALISE THAT THIS IS ALL BALONEY, AND IM REALLY TRYING NOT TO LET IT GET TO ME.
JUST WROTE A HUGE ADDENDA TO THIS, AND ITS GONE INTO HYPERSPACE....FUCK.
CANT DO IT AGAIN...IM LYING ON MY STOMACH, AND ITS GONNA TAKE ME AGES TO GET UP....PAH!
HELL, YEAH! after 4 weeks, and a heap of worry and thinking that i would have to use my holiday fund, such as it is, as a distress purchase, the insurance is paying! halle-fucking-lullah! not only am i getting my toilet fixed, im getting the whole bog stripped down to the lathes...re-plastered, re-tiled, new floor, new paint., you name it. what a weight off my mind..i was so sure that they were gonna say no. cant deny, that i feel a bit smug, as i was told that i had no claim, and had i just taken that and thought that it was up to me, well then..ok, it would be done by now, but i woulda had to pay! sometimes tenacity is the way to go! have to say that i think that insurance companies take as long as possible on purpose so you just give up...jeez, musta called them at least 20 times. but....and its a big but, as i still have to actually get the work done, which will probably take at least another 2 weeks, and i will probably be pulling my hair out even more...but, i will get a new bathroom eventually and in the sense of the principle that they should pay, because i pay them £35 a month, and sometimes wonder why i bother, i feel vindicated! so there you are. justice has triumphed!
i know that no one is really that interested in my bathroom...and, believe me, until now neither was i, but this has been such a big hassle for me, and above all, its broken my routine. ive had to get up at 5.15 and walk an unfamiliar route, which at that time in the morning is just not part of the programme! ive even had to speak to people when i get home from work! imagine! i just, so, do not do that! and, i do not in the least mean to be a regan, or a gonerill, (though lear probably deserved it for giving them such bad names...no wonder cordelia was the nice one!) but bill has been so nice to me, while i have been so undeserving, nae even annoying and bad-tempered, while he is making me meals, coffee, doing my washing and giving me the rub of comfort!
however i have pre-ordered him bioshock 2, god of war 3, and (thanks binni for encouraging me to get that), a new game called dantes inferno..just rated 5star in the independent...what a great daughter i am! ha! i put them on his card, as i have all his details. now, that is love!
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? ELI HAS TODAY JOINED THAT EXCLUSIVE CLUB, OF WHICH I BELIEVE SOME OF THE OTHERS OF YOU READING THIS ARE ALSO MEMBERS! THAT IS...THE 50S CLUB! OBVIOUSLY IT WILL BE YEARS BEFORE SOME OF US ARE ELIGIBLE TO JOIN!
SO, HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD TIME, GIRL, AMONGST ALL THAT SNOW..AND I ALSO HOPE YOU GET BACK HOME OK, AS I HEAR 20 INCHES FELL IN WASHINGTON IN ONE DAY! SEE THERE ARE SOME PLACES WITH A WORSE CLIMATE THAN SCOTLAND..ALTHOUGH AS I WALKED TO WORK AT 5.50AM IN TORRENTIAL RAIN SO HEAVY I REALISED THAT I WAS CREATING PUDDLES IN THE OFFICE WHEN I GOT TO WORK, AND HAD TO WRING OUT MY JEANS, IT DOESNT FEEL LIKE IT!
OH, WHAT JOYS!
FINALLY, AFTER A MERE MONTH WITHOUT A TOILET, THE PLUMBERS ETC ARE COMING TOMORROW TO DO MY BATHROOM. ITS SUPPOSED TO TAKE A WEEK, FINGERS CROSSED, SO HOPEFULLY THIS TIME NEXT WEEK I WILL ALMOST BE ABLE TO LIVE HERE AGAIN, AFTER SPENDING LESS THAN THAT LIVING HERE PROPERLY THIS YEAR! DONT WANT TO GO ON ABOUT THIS...ITS DRIVEN ME MAD, AND I WILL CERTAINLY BE CHANGING INSURANCE COMPANIES ONCE ITS DONE...I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW TOTALLY UNHELPFUL THEY HAVE BEEN...I JUST CANT WAIT TO LIVE HERE AGAIN...PERMANENTLY. SO THATS THAT.
ON A HAPPIER NOTE, BILL AND I FINISHED DANTES INFERNO...BLOODY MAGIC IT IS, AND AT THE END YOU CAN SAVE AND PLAY THE WHOLE GAME OVER AGAIN WITH ALL THE MAGIC AND THINGS YOU HAVE EARNED DURING YOUR FIRST VISIT TO HELL! EVEN MORE BLOODY MAGIC! I KNOW FOR NON-GAMERS THIS MIGHT SEEM POINTLESS AND BORING, BUT HONESTLY ITS EVEN BETTER THAN THE FIRST TIME, KILLING 25 ENEMIES AT ONCE IS JUST A SIGHT TO BEHOLD, AND SUCH FUN! ANYWAY....WE FOUGHT SATAN AND WON! HA! STICK THAT IN YOUR PIPE!
so here is the question.....
my toilet has been done in a day! they fixed the pipe without having to remove all the fixtures. so now i can live here again (hallelulah!) but without the new, pimped bathroom i was expecting (dang!). should i be extatic to be home..(i am) or disappointed that i didnt get the insurance to pay for a whole new pimping (i also am)! mmm..its a hard one! should i be delighted or dissatisfied. ( and does dis-satisfied have one ess or two?..kim...you are the teacher..tell me)! and...and here is another biggie...given that my bathroom is totally cleared of all those millions of toiletries a girl needs to look even semi-human at almost 50, should i just pimp it myself now that its empty...when its such i tiny space, and i know i could do it in a day..but it has already cost me £400 of distress purchase, so should i bother and just pile everything back in. i mean..i had even picked out a new colour..and could imagine having it..it was called 'dazzle'..should i just go ahead, cut my losses and paint it all, or be the sloth that comes naturally and plump for what i have already. being the person that i am..it will probably be a few days before i decide...so answers on my message board within 3 days please. and...here is another one...will i get any, or, in fact all, of the £100 excess i had to pay for my insurance claim before the work could even start, given that now the company has only to pay for the hardboard for the floor, and the wooden slats down the side of the bath...i had to pay for the repair myself...my insurance doesnt cover pipes...just why am i with them..dont even get me started on that one! talk about unhelpful...and this is another thing...now that they did it in a day, i feel a little foolish for imposing on bill for a month when i could just have done what happened anyway..ie, paid for it myself. its a time..and possibly the only one, when i wish i had a partner as you could talk through these things...honestly, people sometimes its hard having to decide things as a single gal....
and now thats done so to something completely different...dantes inferno! ive been through limbo, lust, gluttony, wrath and hipocracy...so what happened to greed, envy, pride and, my personal favourite..sloth? and can i just point out here what a good word i think sloth is...old english from slow...if anyone cares. anyway..yes..dante...what a wanker he is, unlike kratos in god of war, who is a joy to play as he is so unaltruistic, dante is a crusader knight who has done loads of bad things in the name of god...so he doesnt see them as sins as the pope absolved all the crusaders whatever atrocities they had committed..it didnt count as it was against the infidel, and they dont have souls as we all know! actually i dont belive in souls...but that is another story....here we have the last battle against satan..who i have to say is hung like a horse..though when i had sex with him in a dream he had thorns down his penis which didnt feature..funny that.
i seem to be starting to haver...so im outta here...
eli hope its not too painful packing up and moving...god i feel for you girl.
bandk...if you want any games sent from here, thereby avoiding paying $150..order away..im happy to send them on. nae bother.
my advice on decorating is dont even start!
what you thought was white turns out to be dirty brown, what you thought was clean turns out to have dust on it so thick you could use it as underlay. its a minefield! just when you finish one room, and stand back to admire, therey getting paint all down your rear end..you can bet that the skirting in the next room looks shabby next to that new calico gloss that you found in your cupboard at 3 am and had to break open with a screw driver as it had become hermetically sealed. so before you know it you have just had to do the hall as well..not to mention the bedroom doorsurround, the living room skirting..and god, now those window look so brown...jeez!
DONT EVEN START!
i had such fun doing this, i cant tell you. and i still have another big blank space next to the front door...mmmm....what to do with it...cant decide yet...but i will. there is something to be said for decorating...it makes you choose what you want...and in a life full of having to do what you dont want (especially get outta bed at 5.30am!) without question because you have to, choice is a pleasant change.
and talking of choice...my peely-wally moaning-faced whining-voiced assistant manager has asked for a transfer to another branch because she hates working with me so much. am i downhearted, or personally insulted by this move... you must be joking! im delighted! a huge moon-faced, not to mention pregnant-and-i-have-to-ask-her-about-it-all-the-time-despite-being-not-in-the-least-interested weight has been lifted off my shoulders. i wish her the best (though given that she is dropping a sprog in 6 weeks, there is no best involved)...but i so dont want to see her again ever in my life. she is having a leaving party/baby shower in 3 weeks. will i be going....HA!
i have my windows open for the first time in 6 months...ok, its windy, and i will have to shut them soon, but i cant tell you what a great feeling it is. and its light when i go to work..at 5.50am! there are crocus and daffies everywhere as i walk to work...jeez..THE SPRING..DONCHA JUST LURVE IT! i realise i say this every year...but i just cant stress enough the impact of life returning to the northern world. especially after such a hard winter..which i dont want to remind everyone but i missed the worst weeks because i was in the summer, on the other side of the world, playing batman, eating like henry VIII, drinking cuba libres at midday, going to bondai beach, and generally having the time of my life in a house with more ethnic tat than my own..and thats really saying something!
BUT HELL, ITS SPRING, ITS LIGHT, THERE ARE SMELLS, THERE ARE FLOWERS, AND BEFORE WE KNOW IT, THE LEAVES WILL BE BACK ON THE TREES! BST STARTS NEXT WEEK...THATS THE CLOCKS GOING FORWARD FOR THOSE WHO DONT LIVE IN THE UK..AND WHO CAN BLAME YOU! WHICH MEANS IT WILL BE LIGHT WHEN I GET UP...GOD, HEAVEN!
and talking of work, i went to the yearly dinner dance last night. what larks! i have to point out that the theme, god forbid that one could have a dinner dance without a theme, was holiday/beach. i dont think i have ever been in a room with more ugly, obese, unstylish women, wearing plastic scallop bras, doing out-of-beat movements to the timewarp and ymca in my whole life on earth! it was terrific, but there was free wine, so i felt that i had to stay to the end...of course, being me i ended up sitting with and talking to people from a shop that wasnt my own....bad form one might think, but from my shop there was only an alcoholic, a 17 year old saturday boy, a pakistani 20 year old girl who whose dad came and picked her up at 11pm , and my moon-faced, pregnant assistant manager who has moved to another branch because she cant work with me...oh, how the banter did flow over the, actually, quite good, though im not sure that anyone noticed as they just shovelled, food!
and then i walked home, to the safety and comfort, and a phone call from eli cos her skype is not working, in shorts and flipflops, to my middle-class flat worth 4 times what i paid for it! sometimes it is so good to be me, i could cry!
i know a lot of the millions reading this do not get playstation, but, let me tell you, you are missing out! after the day from hell, serving 1000 workmen, junkies, old deaf deranged women, the bitch from hell and her brood of ginger screaming brats and the students who look at you like you are mad when you tell them that you dont take cards for one sausage roll costing 58p (or in fact for anything, we are a cash only enterprise), and 2 of the staff have called in sick, and one is on holiday...i cannot tell you the peace and catharsis of coming home to smashing, mayhem, killing and literallly (well virtual-literal, its the most violent game ive ever had the pleasure to do), beating people, especially the gods, if they count as people, to a pulp
kratos is not a nice guy. there is no altruism there, he is not, unlike most of the characters you play, flawed, but trying to put things right. he is just a total cunt, who will stop at nothing: and i mean nothing; the sun has gone out; everyone is dying or under the sea, all the plants have died; he kills everyone in his wake, etc; to get his revenge on zeus. and he has caused all this, but he doesnt care....good on him..oh, to be that care free, never mind that handy with the nemesis whip! and, luckily for him, he has already murdered his entire family, so its not like he has anything to lose.
anyway,,,,i could go on and on about flying up the chain of justice, what fun it is, and yet at the same time so fucking difficult, you can tink and toggle with both sticks...what luxury, or what disaster that is, but, naturally i wont even mention it. so here is the rest of my life in a nutshell....
1. ive complained about one of my neighbours, the one with the hellish nippy dog, because, after not being let into the stair by his girlfriend despite standing outside shouting at the window for 45 minutes, he kicked in the entrance door. they are going to be evicted...but the rental company are quite obviously not going to pay to repair the door, as no one actually witnessed it. we all heard it, it was at 3am, and we were all in bed...but no one can, in fact say that it was really him what done it. the fact that i fell asleep while all this was happening says something, either for my ability to take part in the sleep olympics, due to exhaustion, or just because ive got so used to the little shit waking me up in the middle of the night having dog fights in the stair that i no longer notice...dont know which.
2. greggs have recieved a complaint about the management of my shop, supposedly from a customer, but liz, my sales manager, said that it is, pretty obviously, from a member of staff, wonder who that could be???
3. on tuesday im going out with a guy who used to be one of my customers all those years ago when i was manager of morningside oddbins. it has to be tuesday as its the only night, apart from saturday, of course, that i can stay up past 10pm.
YES, IN THE WEEK THAT OUR BELEAGUERED PRIME MINISTER ASKED THE QUEEN TO DISSOLVE PARLIAMENT (WHAT A WASTE OF TIME FOR BOTH OF THEM...HE HAS TO GO AND REQUEST IT..BUT ITS NOT LIKE SHE CAN STAMP HER FOOT AND SAY NO!), THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN FAR MORE INTERESTED IN THE NEWS THAT LENNIE HENRY AND DAWN FRENCH ARE SPLITTING UP, THE POLISH PRESIDENT HAS BEEN KILLED IN A PLANE CRASH, IN PAKISTAN YOU CAN, APPARENTLY, GET BOTH MARRIED AND DIVORCED OVER THE TELEPHONE, TO SOMEONE YOU HAVE NEVER EVEN MET, AND THAT RICKY MARTIN IS GAY! SHURLEY SHOME MISHTAKE MISH MONEYPENNY!
I, OF COURSE, HAVE BEEN TOO BUSY GETTING UP IN THE DARK AND GOING TO BED WHILE IT IS STILL LIGHT, BAKING PIES, DREAMING OF COUNTING EASTER EGG CAKES AND DEALING WITH FOOD SAFETY ISSUES TO HAVE NOTICED ANY OF THE ABOVE...AND MAINLY CONCENTRATING ON TEARING THE HEADS OFF THE ARMY OF HADES, AND SMASHING POSEIDON INTO JAM, DESPITE THE FACT THAT HE IS THE SIZE OF AN APARTMENT BLOCK. IF YOU LOOK CLOSELY IN THE FOREGROUND YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO SPOT THE MINESCULE KRATOS..AND TAKING PHOTOS WHILE A TITAN IS ATTACKING YOU IS NOT EASY, LET ME TELL YOU. I REALISE THAT WOMEN CAN MULTI-TASK, BUT THERE ARE LIMITS. HAVING DONE THE GAME TWICE IN SPARTAN MODE, THE SECOND TIME IN A MERE 8 HOURS 46 MINUTES, IM NOW DOING IT AS A GOD..THIS SOUNDS VERY IMPRESSIVE BUT ACTUALLY SPARTAN IN EASY-PEASY, AND GOD IS JUST NORMAL. THERE ARE 2 LEVELS ABOVE THIS...BUT ITS JUST EXHAUSTING BUTCHERING THAT MANY GORGONS, MINOTAURS, CYCLOPSES AND THE REST. OH, THE JOYS OF GAMING. I KNOW MOST PEOPLE PROBABLY ARE THINKING AT THIS POINT,OH, THE TEDIUM OF GAMING..BUT A GIRL NEED SOMETHING TO DO WITH HER HANDS OF A DARK EVENING, AND KNITTING JUST AINT MY BAG. THEN THERE IS THE FACT THAT I HARDLY EVER EVEN SEE DARKNESS OF AN EVENING, AS IM IN BED WHEN HELIOS GOES OFF IN HIS CHARIOT TO THE UNDERWORLD..ACTUALLY I STAMPED HIM TO A PULP, RIPPED HIS HEAD OFF WITH MY BARE HANDS, AND AM CURRENTLY USING IT AS A TORCH, BUT THAT IS ANOTHER STORY!
I have today picked blue, not because im putting my X in david camerons box, you understand, but it is the colour of my new work uniform. and compared to shapeless brown and mustard, navy trousers and a blue striped shirt is the greggs equivalent of a chanel suit. photos will follow. also this week, stop press, the electoral debate live on tv...supposedly 15 million brits were tuned in avidly watching so that they could make up their minds who to vote for. and the winner of said debate is someone no one outside the uk will ever have heard of, as he is the leader of the liberal democrats...a party that are the political equivalent of the church of england...wishy washy, well-meaning sandal-wearers, who read the guardian. as someone who grew up in an incrediably political age..the cold war, thatcher, kruschev, then andropov (remember him)..then gorbachov..reagan etc..its just beyond my ken that young people do not even know what the political parties stand for. or that there are people who would ever, ever just vote what their mum votes! god forbid!
but then this is also the week that the whole of europe came to a standstill due to eyjafjallajokull! well, not the whole of europe...just here, poland, ireland, france, switzerland, denmark, norway, holland, sweden, austria, belgium, slovakia, germany, hungary, all 3 baltic states and the czech republic. this phenomenon has been exacerbated by the funeral of the polish president, as all the heads of these countries, and presumably all the others who have non-ash airspace all have to travel to poland which has no flights going in and out, all have to get there by car. scotland has been closed since wednesday, and i thank my lucky stars that im not jetting off anywhere till next month..though actually the last eruption of said volcano, in something like 1820 caused ash clouds for over 2 years. what larks.
do you think that the earth is trying to shake us off? try harder...thats my advice.
beautiful...i bet that is what you are thinking about my new uniform. you just so want to wrap your body in its polyester lusciousness doncha? go on...you can tell me, i wont let it go any further...no one else need ever know.
to jump off at a complete tangent....this...'the spread of secondary, and latterly, of tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought'. this is one of richard dawkins explanations for the upsurge in creationism against evolution. while i think he is actually verging on madness, (just look at the eyes), and i would not want to have him round for an evening, i like his writing (thanks bandk)..he is bonkers, pedantic and obsessional...and yet it all seems really amusing, and i think he knows he is ridiculous. so, quite obviously, if gareth was a biologist he would be richard dawkins. or would richard dawkins be gareth if he was a driver for the nhs delivering nappies for adults? for the answer to that and other philosophical questions...tune in later.
more of a thought for tomorrow, in fact, but here it is...
'While it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives'. John Stuart Mill.
what is also true is that i have tried to upload photos of the three party leaders..and the uploader keeps getting stuck and going to 'server not responding' every time it has to deal with david camerons big, shiny, tory face. obviously nick clegg, leader of the liberal democrats uploads every time without anyone noticing, or caring, and gordon browns big, dour, one-eyed head also will do it, despite calling some old bigot a bigot.
in light of my political persuasion, its important to write in red..though one of the women at work told me that she didnt know which colour represented which party! WHAT THE FUCK IS IT WITH THESE PEOPLE! as someone who was a student in the early 80s, during what was such a political period, it amazes me that people really think that politics has nothing to do with them. eli and mike and i were talking on skype about the riots in britain in the mid 80s in brixton, and then in toxteth in liverpool, and how now , you just cant imagine that happening because young people are so apathetic, and dont feel that they can change anything. not that we were advocating roit and mayhem, you understand, but these days, you just dont see the young being so imaginative or courageous, though, god knows, many people are more desperate now than they were then. of course, one of the reasons it couldnt happen now is that we are the most photographed people on earth, there are more cctv cameras in britain than in any other country and the police would react quick and hard were there to be anarchy anywhere, especially in the light of 'the war against terror' which means the police can shoot an innocent, unarmed brazilian man 8 times in the back on a tube train and the belated inquiry found they did not act illegally, though they did use undue force. no kidding!
anyway..so, a hung parliament...i think some people are so ignorant of the electoral system that they expected gordon brown to be leaving number 10 imediately, but funnily enough he is still the prime minister for the time being..which may be some time. who knows what double-dealings are going on amongst the men (ok, there are some women, but we all know its mainly men) so desperate to get power that they will sell our country down the swanee.
might here just put in a quote from the paper..its about the borough of hammersmith and fulham in london which elected a tory council in 2006. its a very mixed area with hugely deprived housing estates cheek by jowl with dockland style condo rich...presumably there are more of the latter or the tories wouldnt have got in. anyway..one of the funny things is that the council closed the public park and running track and turned it into a polo course..im not making this up, honest.
'the council told the people that if they took away services there would be volunteers, if the state withered away, people would start to provide the services for each other. but its just a rebranding trick. they know that shutting down public services sounds cruel, and calling for volunteerism sounds kind-but the effect is the same. its as if marie antionette called in max clifford [hes the no 1 pr guru] and he told her to stop saying 'let them eat cake' and start saying 'let them form a workers co-operative to distribute cake on a voluntary basis'.
these are the people the majority of the population [ie, the english] have chosen as fit to rule our country. but luckily they still dont have enough mps.
interesting times.
so, there you have it..elect one party, get one free. what is known in the retail trade as a bogof! though as is usual, you dont really want or need the second one, and though you take it, you really know it will just end up in land-fill with that half full bag of washed lettuce and the trifle your boyfriend brought round as a treat of a saturday night that just sits in your fridge until it goes out of date. actually, i dont buy bagged lettuce, nor do i have a boyfriend who brings trifle, or in fact, any boyfriend..so now might be the time to haver on about something else.
eli, that is just scarey about your chimney fire..i remember when that happened in viewforth, which also had the chimney going up the middle of the house, the noise and the smell are things which i will never forget. im glad to hear that you got through it unscathed, and hope there wasnt too much mess to clear up. bloody houses..its just one thing after another..maybe the rest of europe is right after all and we should all rent...i know that there is no investment like it, but when i think of all the money ive had to fork out on this place..not least the £7000 for the roof..oh, dont even get me started! anyway..i'll speak to you about it on saturday
and..the good news is,. dependent on the action of the ash cloud, im off to bordeaux on wednesday to drink wine, eat delicious food, stay in carcasonne, and of course, drive over the highest cable bridge in the world...cant wait. all the excitement has worn me out...im off for a nap now.
later...
and its no fault of the government! dang!
TOO MUCH TALKING SOME MAY SAY..BUT IM NOT ONE OF THEM..COS I CANT TALK RIGHT NOW! IMAGINE..ME..WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO TALK! DOESNT REALLY BEAR THINKING ABOUT...YET THATS ALL I CAN DO RIGHT NOW.
and let me tell you what im thinking about, in order of importance..
1. will i get to france next week, or will i be grounded by that damn volcano.....
2. should i book the east indies sea trek trip that i know i really want to go on, but am just confused by the possibilities...is it what i really, really want to do....
3. will binni and kim ever get to play god of war..and will i ever get through it in normal....
4. are the people i work with unsual, or is it just that most people in the world are so stupid, childish, moronic, uninterested, uninformed, unanalytical, unintellectual, unattractive, liars, cheats, snitches [or clipes as us scottishers would say], bigotted, zenophobic, unartistic, wankers that if it wasnt for the people who read this blog i would feel like a total weirdo...
5. should i go all the way to the kitchen..you know how far that is from my laptop..and get another glass of wine...
6. how am i gonna manage at work tomorrow with no voice..
7. is it true that the phrases 'i think that..' 'to the best of my knowledge..' and 'as far as i know..' are peculiar to english..and do other languages have the phrase [my favourtive pedantry] 'i think you'll find...'
8. will the millau bridge live up to its reputation, that is, if we do, in fact manage to get to france at all, and why do i get so excited about bridges....
9. why, oh why do i have to get up at 5.15 am tomorrow, and is it really worth it just so i can swan off round the world, and buy anything.
10. yes....
1. the first rule of french roads is to drive as fast as is humanly possible at all times, irrespective of conditions, other traffic, vespas, pedestrians, trams, tiny yappy dogs and the narrowness of the streets in relation to the above, and being partially sighted.
2. under no circumstances think that your car will just not fit down the worlds narrowest city streets, with railings on one side, and a line of 4x4s on the other..it will, and at speed too. ignore the cars with scraped paint down both sides, that is just a sign of bad driving, not driving too fast on too-too narrow streets. you can, and will make it, trust me...
3. learn how to drive a roundabout the wrong way. for those of you from roundabout-un-initiated countries, this is a vital skill, as you will be crossing at least 20 of them in every town, and sometimes even on the main roads. if you are in scotland, just drive through dundee at 4.30am and practice entering the right lane, and going round counter-clockwise.
5. seeing road signs can be a problem for the partially sighted, but dont worry, this is not an issue in france, as they just dont bother with them. not for the french those useful signs telling you what road number you are on, how far it is to a list of destinations, whether you are driving onto the A25 north or south, or, in fact, which exit you want off the myriad of roundabouts...no, here you drive by intuition alone. signs are for the lazy and weak. and if you do bother with them at all, its important to put them in places which are only visible to the traffic on the other side of the road, or after the wrong turning you have just taken as some kind of french schaudenfreude.
6. dont, for one minute, think that there will be a sign in millau for getting onto the bridge. like everyone else you will be driving aimlessly round roundabouts for 2 hours, and will still take the wrong A25 exit, ending up south of the bridge. god forbid that the french would have put in a sign for the hordes of bridge tourists telling them how to actually find the way onto it. that would be just what you would be expecting them to do....
7. never expect, in the unlikely event that you can find the hotel, and get parked after driving round a teeny-tiny street one-way system for hours, that the hotel reception, or indeed the hotel, will be open. most french hotels close the reception for 2 hours at lunch time and at 8pm for the night. if you havent called to get the code for the front door, and the key safe, you will be sleeping in the car.
8. in the unlikely event that you have got all of the above correct...managed to drive round the teeny tiny one way system, got parked, checked in, got the key and unloaded your bags,had a shower and are ready to stroll out for a night of food and drink....think again. by the time all this happens..everything in town will be closed..though the waiters will let you sit there for at least 20 mins before they come and tell you. but then again you might just find, after you have given up all hope of ever having dinner again, that there is a small restaurant tucked away, that not only is still open, but provides its own cabaret in the form of a table full of old french guys drinking pastis, and people are still arriving for dinner at 11.30pm. ya dancer!
9. in a place with so many rivers, never have as a passenger someone who is allergic to mosquito bites as they will probably just get one one their hand which turns it into a blown up rubber glove with a giant blood blister on the thumb, which aches so badly that one might think it was going to burst at any moment. (never get off the boat...and never open the bloody windows!).
10. despite, and even because of all of the above, still have a good time..drive on some of the most perfect surfaces in the world, (though you have to pay almost 30euros for the pleasure), eat duck at least once a day, have the worlds best caesar salad, and the perfect chocolate mousse, dont prang the car, kill the mosquito-challenged passenger, lose ones passport, or not get into the hotel. and the bridge....god the bridge...the highlight..totally spectacular, surreally beautiful and well worth all the rest.
bloody magic!
'SLEEPING IS NO MEAN ART, FOR ITS SAKE ONE MUST STAY AWAKE ALL DAY' friedrich nietzsche.
for some reason, i wouldnt have thought that nietzche was a great sleeper. i have no justification for this statement, other than my idea him as a philosopher, hunched over screeds of scribbled notes by lamplight in the middle of the night, probing the deeper recesses of the human psyche. compounded by the fact that he never collated, let alone published any of his works, adds to my idea of him as a tortured insomniac, finally succumbing to mental ilness, thereby giving the opportunity for his hitler-loving sister to arrange his works any way she liked, leaving him tainted with a swastika patterned brush while being detained indefinately, drooling in a loony-bin.
she, obviously, did not lose any sleep over his demise, nor, in fact over her own nazi sympathies, as, after the war she and her husband hot-footed it over the atlantic to attempt to create a perfect germano-aryan colony in paraguy. you know, as you do!
I, while only being a philosopher in my own smug, middle class talking-a-load-of-shite kind of way, am in no way an insomniac..rather the opposite, though to my knowledge there is no opposite for insomnia...being a 'good sleeper' doesnt really convey the overwhelming desire, nay, need, for unconsciousness for so much of ones life. of the 36 hours between 9.30pm on sunday, and 9.30 on tuesday morning, i was asleep for 30 of them. this is compounded by the fact of summertime in the far northern hemisphere...its is light from 4am till 10pm...but does that stop me, as you might think it would...not a bit of it. light, dark, at work on my desk, on the floor, on the couch, on the bus going to a course after only having to get up at 7am, instead of 5.15, on the pod, on the toilet, with the playstation control in my hand...i feel i am living the classic 70's martini ad, desperately trying to make a crap drink seem glamorous with an immortal slogan, (though, sadly, in my case, without the giant yachts, palm trees, and leisure to go all the way to the caribbean to drink what you could buy in the shops here for £4.99! ) though cant deny, i am going all the way to the indian ocean so that i can sleep for a week on a tiny island, without worrying about waking up with nothing. that and not having to talk to anyone. or at least, not having to talk inanities with people with as much insight into life, the universe and everything as a goldfish. suddenly i am struck by the vision of 2 of my staff, who are size 26, and 30 floating belly-up on the surface like fish who have eaten themselves to death. you remember eli, you had one that did that.
anyway...it being 10.15 and all, i have a date with my bed. god forbid i should spend more that 14 hours awake in any one day.
at first i thought i was living the life of a cat...now its becoming more like a sloth...and who knows, if i try really hard, perhaps i will get to the heady heights of the koala, and only be awake for 2 or 3 hours a day.
heres hoping...
FREEDOM SELDOM WEARS A TIE!
this is on a poster on the wall of the edinburgh university library which i see every day when im walking to work...and i always think..well, yeah, but it doesnt wear a greggs uniform or have to get up at 5.15am either! i also expect it seldom wears a burka. in fact freedom probably goes around naked. like im about to do, as im off to bed now...was gonna rant a whole heap of shite...but i find im just too tired. its the story of my life.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
mmm..what do you think of my new hall wall...i am undecided. when i first just did the moon, i thought of just painting over it...and now, 2 months later having put on so many dots i have rsi, and never want to stipple again, it will just have to stay, as i cant be bothered either re-painting a big part of the hall, or re-doing another mural. you know when you are doing something like this, or maybe you dont..but just try to imagine...and you look at it for so long that you cant tell whether its what you want anymore. oh, the creative process can be a hard task-master!
swiftly moving on the world cup..but only for a moment, i can assure you, yes, it was a shame that paraguy got knocked out, but uruguay are still in, though probably not for much longer. im betting on a germany-holland final, well only figuatively of course, given that i went to las vegas and didnt even play a slot machine, let alone a card game. its not that i consider gambling immoral, you understand, its just that i know i would lose, and may as well throw my money to the wind than bet on outcomes. then there is the fact that im such a bad liar, and so much of card table gambling is about playing the other players and giving nothing away. not really my bag, given that i wear my heart on my sleeve, and cant keep my fucking mouth shut. so there you have it...my forecast for the world cup final..will i be watching it, of course not, i'll be slaving over hot ovens baking pies for the men who are. i think i should point out at this time also that holland have, in fact, never won the world cup..so i would like them to win, but actually dont give a flying fuck. im just glad its almost over so i dont have to discuss it with work men buying a bridie, a bacon roll, a steak bake, a coffee and a fudge donut all just for their breakfast. before you know it they will be back for another bag of stodge large enough to feed a nuclear family at lunchtime. such are the patterns of my day.
i not sure i have anything more interesting to tell...i have spent an inordinately large time recently watching horror movies, to fill in a time of frustration with kratos, who is just apparently totally unable to kill 7 huge cyclopses who throw giant spiked balls at him in a tiny area on the top of a moving block. they keep ganging up on him, backing him into the corner and pulverising him. given that they are 3 times his size he doesnt really stand much of a chance..but there must be a way, if only he could work it out for himself with very little input, or work from me, but he is selfish that way..if i dont make him move, he just stands there and gets smashed to bits, and just wont listen when i tell him to get out of the way. theres just no reasoning with him!
as a piece of totally useless information..did you know that the president of nigeria is called goodluck johnson. presumably he has indeed had good luck, as he is the president, though as i first name i dont think you can beat wrestling with god! something i have never done, even in a dream..though as you know i have had sex with satan...mick jagger and napoleon, though not at the same time. i have also eaten seagull pie..which was when i was a small boy in a gothic boarding school..it was a punishment from a sadist teacher, and the pie had the webbed feet sticking out the top..something of a nighmare truth be told. ive never been able to look at seagulls in the same way again, even when they are, as i saw walking to work just the other day, pecking the eyes out of a dead squirrel. a truely glorious sight at 6am..or any time, i imagine.
so thats it...im off to cook me denner.
love to you all.
yahoo is my home page, as i have my email there, and when i joined the all-soul of the internet the other day, as well as 'trending' top 10, of which 'the open' was no 1..there was a whole webpage dedicated to 'are you ready to become a parent?'. as, of course, i always take advice for life-changing decisions from vacous websites, as im sure you do too, i could not resist the opportunity to check my readiness for procreation. so here it is..paraphrased in my own inimitable style with just a hint of sarcasm...yeh right.
1. you have travelled all around the world, and been to all of the places you need to see before you die. (presumably as once you have said sprog, you will never be able to go anywhere ever again, though you will have to pay for them to go on a gap year between school and uni which will probably involve staying in a seedy guest house in goa or thailand where they will pay no attention to the beauties of the landscape, but will smoke a lot of dope with like minded back-packers from australia while discussing the last seedy guest house they stayed in, and the other back-packers they met.).
2. you recently have cut down on alcohol/coffee/smoking. (ok, 2 outa three...nary a drop of alcohol touches my lips during working weeks..mainly as i have to get up in the middle of the night and cook bacon for undeserving workmen..and i only drink one coffee a day...i wont even mention that its a quadruple espresso that i have at 7.20 with a cigarette just before i open the shop!)
3. you have thought of getting a kitten. (as you all know, i did share my space with a feline for around 15 years..and every so often i do think of getting another...but then decide that i dont even want a house plant, why would i get a kitten.)
4. you dream of babies. ( well, actually i did dream that i was pregnant just a week or so ago...my waters broke, and it was really scarey..but luckily i only had a 2 minute labour, and the baby was so small that i could sit it in the palm of my hand...and i thought, you know i think this is going to be ok. i put it in a tiny cot on the mantle piece, and could carry it around in my bag...perfect).
5. you have picked out names for your would-be children. (everyone i have ever known has ideas for names they would have called kids..and yet they still end up with ben and jake, or chloe and emily. just for the record i would have liked a little pyrrhus or lysander...or a clytemnestra and an electra. kidding...im kidding).
6. you prefer staying in to going out. (duh...thats just getting older, having no money and wanting to smoke while playing around on the internet, listening to good music and not wanting to spend anymore time around the 900 people you serve at work every day. )
7. your spare room looks sad and lonely. (if i was in the lucky position of having a spare room, it would be so full of stuff that it would not have the space to look sad. )
8. you stop to look at other peoples babies. (sometimes i do..and i think YUK!)
so there you have it..if you can say yes to six or more of the above, you are, quite obviously, desperate to become a parent. funnily enough i doubt anyone, of the thousands that will read this, will be swayed in their opinons by yahoo...
im bored with this now..so something else...
i actually watched the world cup final last week..or at least up till 9pm when i had to go to bed, so missed spain winning..though i did hear men singing at around 4am last night 'somos los conqueros del mundo'..bless em. so derek, what was that with the orange men..desperation, religious ferver or just plain fouling that made them kick a man in the chest? i hope, fouling apart,that you have a brilliant time in brazil...oh, god, brazil...will be very interested to hear what you make of it. there was a thing in the paper here about an artist that had persuaded the people in the favelas to paint them with murals..you will definately see this, as its the one that runs along side of the cable car up to corcovado,. where you will obviously be going. i realise that rio is regarded as one of the world most dangerous cities...but i never saw it. my advice, such as it is, is dont carry anything in your pockets, wear a watch or fall asleep on copacabana beach and almost miss your flight. do get the tram up to santa teresa, have a chusoscaria and drink some cairpurinha! cant wait to hear about what you think of brasilia...not that im jealous or anything...oh god...brasil....
hard to believe, but true..the edinburgh festival is upon us already. the city is full of thesps and ac-tors, not to mention wannabe posh english students called rupert and india who are appearing in a hilarious review encapsulating the life of arthur negus in 15 minutes, and i just about have a heart attack at 10.30 due to the fireworks spewing into the night sky from the castle, where hundreds of excited americans get to sit in the rain and watch the tattoo. the city trebles in population! i dont think i emphasised that enough..so let me put it to you another way...THERE ARE AN EXTRA MILLION PEOPLE IN EDINBURGH, in a city not really big enough for the people, and their cars, who live here. and do edinburgh people relish in the comedic and theatrical oppuntunities, welcome the hordes of tourists and delight in the leisure possibilities of all the pubs being open till 3am...DO WE FUCK! being the miserable, po-faced calvinists that we are, we loathe it....so here are a few rules for edinburgers to survive the festival unscathed....
1. avoid going into town at all costs, and never, ever decide to cut down the high street as you will, literally, be unable to move. one of the eternal problems of the festival is that, not only do tourists walk at a snails pace, on the high street they will just stop dead right in front of you, as they have just caught sight of some delightful 10 year old ginger kilter playing the bag-pipes, or a 3 minute precis of the above mentioned hilarious review featuring rupert and india and their vacuous friends who they met in their media studies class. it can take a bus an extra 30 minutes to travel along princes street due to the volume of italian teenagers, with matching ruck-sacks who come in groups of 35, are unaware that anyone else in the world exists, stand and kiss each other in the aisle, and seem totally oblivious to the fact that anyone else on the public transport system may, in fact, want to get off at a stop before their one. its hell..believe me!
2. never, ever give anyone the benefit of believing you are interested in them, not even for a second. one of the dead give-aways of spotting that elusive creature, the person who actually lives here, is that they will never stop and gape at anything. whether it is a group of thai gender-reassessed nuns doing the egg-and-spoon race, a naked couple walking around on the meadows at 6am, or a tourist being hit in the face by a flaming torch being juggled by a dwarf on a unicycle, affect total indifference and walk on by. you may think at this juncture that im making these scenarios up, but not a bit of it, i have, honestly, seen every one of these things. the other thing to consider is that it would be an ideal time to murder someone, if you were that way inclined. on the high street, not only would no one notice for some time that you had stabbed someone to death, or be able to tell who, in the crowd of 500 000 people crammed into a space only big enough for 250, had wielded the murder weapon, they would probably just stop dead right in front of you and watch, waiting for the hilarious comedic twist to the body writhing on the street covered in blood. all in a days festival frolics.
3. never, ever, god forfend, give money to street performers. lets face it, most of them are living off their parents, dont even have jobs, therefore dont even pay tax, and do not, in any way contribute to the society of edinburgh. we pay council tax for the streets they play their drums, do their pathetic comedic reviews, juggle, pretend to be statues and sleep drunk on...dont even consider giving them money to justify their pathetic, non-calvinist existence..it will only encourage them to continue...
4. affect a scowl. there is nothing that says 'i live in scotland' quite like a torn face. treat every excited, happy foreigner with the distain they deserve! i find a quiet 'just fuck right off' also works a treat when portia is trying to hand you a leaflet for her one-woman show on a step-ladder in leith celebrating the inner workings of the mind of nelson mandela on robben island!
5. become a pick-pocket. in the immortal words of fagin, in the musical 'oliver' circa 1975 'you gotta pick a pocket or two'. but why stop there. the streets are full of american men, who, contrary to any kind of advice about safety abroad, just so carry their wallets in the back pockets of their jeans, or huge shorts with sneakers and white sports socks pulled up to mid-calf. they are the only people, apart from chinese students who come into a bakers at 7.45 am for a yum yum that costs 50p, that carry that elusive, and very unbritish thing, the £50 note! no edinburger would ever carry such items...god would probably strike you down for having the audacity to be so showy. and the lucky thing for you, as a pick pocket is that they will just stop dead in the street to watch the delightful 10 year old ginger kilter playing the bag-pipes or the hilarious comedic review of jasper and his 10 vacuous mates, who he met in his media studies class, doing the ring cycle, in which jasper has to sing the part of siegfreid but condensed into 15 minutes. or perhaps jasper will have to play every part in king lear, but he has only been told this 10 minutes ago..or is that some kind of nightmare....perhaps, this festival we will find out.
6. start jumping the queue. yes that stalwart of british existence that europeans so dont understand..and given that said frenchers or spanisher people neither speak the language, nor understand the money, and, being tourists, have all the leisure in the world, just pre-empt them for your sandwich at greggs of a lunchtime and jump in front. i think you will find that the equally miserable, xenophobic and thick-as-mince staff will be happy to assist you in your need to get in and out in a flash, given that you live here, only have 2 minutes to get your victuals and get back to the office, while making 3 calls on your mobile, listening to an mp3 player, giving the unecessary change and cursing the huge line of tourists who you have just jumped in front of.
and lastly...the best tshirt i have seen so far...
'to err is human, to arr is pirate!'
these are some of the myriad of shows appearing at the fringe this year..and they, honestly, are all real shows....you couldnt even make this up....
1. willIiam shatner karaoke.
in honour of the (frankly rubbish) actor who 'had the power to transform any song into the tragic story of a canadian everyman' audiences are invited to perform pop songs in the style of a dramatic monologue.
my rating 1/10. you can easily hear 'dramatic monologue' done better any saturday night of the year in the international bar, by an aged alcoholic who has lost everything, though luckily his dog has stood by him. though i would suggest not making eye contact, and swiftly making for the door if he comes and tries to sit at your table.
2. the scottish falsetto sock puppet theatre.
does exactly what it says on the tin..and how we did laugh. according to the blurb..'this year the earths funniest socks perform a period drama in two mintues and commentate on the world cup with vuvuzelas' in falsetto voices!
my rating 0/10. socks, falsetto and vuvuzelas....work of the devil..and probably just as funny.
3. sex idiot.
bryony kimmings based her show on her discovery that she had contracted chlamydia. there are songs, interpretative dance, nakedness, sparkly matador trousers and an invitation to members of the audience to snip off a lock of their pubic hair so that she might wear it as a moustache.
my rating 0/10. no wonder this show was conceived by someone called bryony. and, for that matter anyone who has locks of pubic hair should be in a freak show...oh, sorry, they are....
4. cirque de legume.
billed as 'the greatest vegetable circus on earth'...how many others are there, discuss. levetating radishes, hypnotic beetroots and an onion striptease all feature.
my rating 1/10. in view of the rapine of the soil, the daily humiliation that potatoes have to suffer in our kitchens, climate change and growing vegetarianism i find this show completely tasteless.
5. red hot chilli pipers.
playing rock songs on their bagpipes..everything from status quo to coldplay. a real 'jock and roll' experience.
my rating 0/10..all i can say is; who would pay to see this?
6. late night gimp fight.
audiences arriving for this 11pm show are greeted by five wriggling laundry bags on stage. from these emerge a five man sketch troupe who proceed to perform a set of racy to deviant sketches in bondage gear. some nudity.
my rating 0/10. but bring on the nudity....deviant-schmeviant!
7. comedy in the dark.
everynight a mixed bill of stand-ups take to the stage in pitch darkness. the idea is that its environmentally friendly as well as heightning the audiences receptivness.
my rating...strangely, 0/10. 'watching' a ventroliquist in the dark....i ask you!
8. fauly towers: the dining experience.
taking place in a real working restaurant on drummond street, this interactive piece invites audiences to enjoy/stomach a three-course meal served to them by the hapless manuel, while sybil and basil bickering in the background.
my rating..who would have thought 0/10. come into any greggs shop and get bickering, idiocy, people who despite living in this country for their whole lives can barely speak the language, hysteria, neurosis...fuck who needs the fringe when you have greggs!
here are some of my recent conversations...honestly, my life has become a fringe show.
1. me, on the phone to the royal bank..'hi, could i order some change please?'
rbs bank guy on the other end 'yes, you could, but i dont think you will be able to get it today, a chain of people have super-glued themselves onto our front door, and we cant open it.'
2. carole, my assistant manager, who has lived in edinburgh for 30 years, 'someone has just told me that there is a new town in edinburgh, where is it.'
me, to sharon who has lived here for her whole life, 'ha, sharon, carole doesnt know where the new town is, despite living here for 30 years..mad or what?'
sharon 'theres a new town in edinburgh?'
3. eileen, my sandwich maker. 'i was going to jump on degsys bones at the weekend, but i just found out that he got crabs from the last prostitute he went to' .
me, 'eileen, could you possibly not discuss this in the front shop, no one will ever buy a sandwich from us again.'
eileen 'well, its not a big deal!'
4. the funniest joke at the fringe..'ive just been on the holiday of i lifetime...i tell you, never again..!'
5. estuary english, drunk floppy haired customer at 7.40am, 'ive just been to the shop across the road, and they wouldnt serve me alcohol, so could i have a bacon roll..what am i going to tell the others?'
me, 'well, it used to be the case that you could buy alcohol at 8am, but this year they changed the licencing laws, and now it 10am.'
floppy-haired customer, '10am..what are we supposed to do till 10am..its inhuman!'
me, 'there are several pubs that open at 6am..i could tell you where they are'
floppy-hair, 'pub, pub, we cant possibly go to the pub, we are all drunk..'
me, 'that will be £1.39.'
6. posh wanker talking on his blackberry at 6am crossing the meadows..
'and i was wearing tweeds, can you imagine how hot it was, god, i just kept wishing id worn my kilt..'
7. ram, one of my assistants who is a hindu tamil from chennai (formerly known as madras) as i was shaking a piece of ham at him 'ham, what is that, is it fish?'
me, 'no ram, its pork, thats why im shaking it at you'
ram, 'then why is it called ham', before he walked away in disgust. he doesnt eat pork either..interesting....but funnily enough he is a bit scared to touch a steakbake..but then its not called cow, so maybe he doesnt know its sacred. (the anagram of scared).
and since on one else in the world i know does crytic crosswords..i have decided to illuminate you all with the brilliance of these things...im starting you with an easy one
8down..'the writer's upset with my award' (4)
the writer is 'me' ie,, the setter,..and its upset..so upside down..so its em....and then my...the award. doddle.
and as an addenda...i just went over to tesco, after writing this to buy cigarettes.. so here is
8. tesco assistant who must have been all of 20, 'so have you got id madam.
me, 'id, are you mad, im almost 50...'
tesco assistant, 'im sorry, i see that now.'
me, 'yes im sorry too, for being almost 50, but thanks for thinking that i might be under 18!'
tesco assistant, 'no problem'.
I WAS GOING TO DO THIS IN GREEN, AS TODAY IS EID..BUT ALL THE GREENS ARE TOO LIGHT, SO HERE WE HAVE THE ISLAMIC COLOUR OF DEATH INSTEAD. NO, NOT BURN-KORAN DAY..THAT IS TOMORROW. STILL HERE IN EDINBURGH OUR MUSLIM COMMUNITY WERE OUT IN FORCE IN THEIR FINERY, AND I CANT TELL YOU HOW HAPPY THEY LOOKED..WELL, I CAN, ACTUALLY, AND I WILL. I HAD ACTUALLY FORGOTTEN IT WAS OFFICIALLY THE END OF RAMADAN UNTILL AROUND 7.35AM WHEN A FANTASTICALLY DRESSED UP, SPARKLY SHALWAR KAMEEZED WOMAN CAME IN AND BOUGHT 6 BOXES OF CAKES. AS IM SURE YOU CAN IMAGINE, THIS IS NOT A TYPICAL SALE FOR US AT THAT TIME OF THE MORNING..FILTHY, HUNGOVER WORKMEN BUYING BACON ROLLS AND THE LARGEST COFFEES AVAILABLE IS MORE OUR STYLE 5 MINS AFTER WE OPEN. HOWEVER...IT WENT ON AND ON...DOTING PARENTS BUYING CREAM CAKES FOR THEIR SONS AND A DRY ROLL FOR THEIR DAUGHTERS (IM KIDDING, IM KIDDING)..AND NOT EVEN ONE QUESTION ABOUT WHETHER THE APPLE TURNOVERS CONTAINED PORK GELATINE. BEING ABLE TO EAT DURING DAYLIGHT IS HAPPY NEWS RIGHT?.
AND THEN ON THE OTHER HAND WE HAVE THE HOLY FATHER TOURISTS HERE ALREADY...POLISH PARENTS WITH THEIR DISABLED SON WHO, QUITE OBVIOUSLY, WILL BE RUNNING AROUND PLAYING FOOTBALL AFTER A DISTANT GLIMPSE OF A SCAREY OLD GERMAN IN AN ARMOUR PLATED CAR TRAVELLING ALONG A STREET IN A FOREIGN CITY CROWDED WITH HALF A MILLION OTHER HOPEFULS. THE WHOLE OF THE CITY CENTRE IS CLOSED FROM 4.30AM ON THURSDAY MORNING..AND I MEAN THE WHOLE...FROM HAYMARKET ALL THE WAY UP TO BRUNSTFIELD, PRINCES STREET, GEORGE ST, QUEENST, NORTH AND SOUTH BRIDGE, THE HIGH STREET, THE COWGATE, THE GRASSMARKET..ALL OF IT, SO THAT THEY CAN GET DOGS TO SNIFF THE ENTIRE CITY BEFORE HIS HOLINESS DEIGNS TO DRIVE ALONG OUR HUMBLE ROADS. WE HAVE BEEN TOLD, THAT WHILE IT IS UP TO US, IT MIGHT BE AN IDEA TO BE IN WORK EARLY TO GET SANDWICHES AND BACON ROLLS READY, AS ALL THOSE PEOPLE WILL NEED SUSTINANCE FOR SITTING THERE FOR AT LEAST 5 HOURS TO SEE THE OLD GEEZER FOR APPROXIMATELY 2 SECONDS. AND OF COURSE ALL THESE PEOPLE WILL PROBABLY BE STAKING THEIR PITCHES ON PRINCES STREET AROUND 4AM, AS THEY HAVE TO GET BUSED INTO THE CENTRE BEFORE THE WHOLE PLACE CLOSES DOWN. WHAT A PALAVER! SO THE UPSHOT IS THAT I MIGHT BE IN WORK AT 5.30AM, THOUGH IM NOT SURE WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITH MY STAFF, WHO, THOUGH I HAVE TOLD THEM THAT THEY MUST LEAVE HOME EARLIER THAN NORMAL, BECAUSE OF THE STREET CLOSURES, STILL DO NOT REALLY BELIEVE THAT ITS A BIG DEAL. I TELL YOU, IF I WASNT FLYING TO THE INDIAN OCEAN ON THE SUNDAY AFTER, I WOULD BE TIRED JUST THINKING ABOUT IT..AS IT IS, I DONT REALLY MIND, I WILL OPEN AT 6.30 IF ITS WORTH IT, EVEN IF I DO HAVE TO SERVE IRISH NUNS, WHO I HAVE RECENTLY, BIGOTEDLY, COME TO HATE.
AND TALKING OF HATE, WHY IS IT THAT SOME BONKERS PASTOR, WITH A CONGREGATION OF 50, IN SOME ONE-HORSE TOWN THAT NO ONE HAS HEARD OF IS EVEN GETTING ALL THIS PRESS...WHO IS HIS AGENT? GOD, VICTORIA BECKAM, JORDAN AND ANYONE WHO APPEARS ON REALITY TV SHOWS WOULD DIE FOR SUCH COVERAGE. OBVIOUSLY HE WANTS PEOPLE TO 'KNOW THE TRUTH'! DONT KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT NOTHING QUITE SAYS 'DISCOVER THE REAL STORY' TO ME, QUITE LIKE AN OLD-FASHIONED BOOK-BURNING! OF COURSE, WHAT WE SHOULD ALL DO INSTEAD IS BUY HIS OWN BOOK 'ISLAM IS DEVILS WORK'. UNLIKE BOOK-BURNING APPARENTLY!
AND ON A LIGHTER NOTE, IVE JUST HAD A CALL FROM GARETH WHO IS, AS WE SPEAK IN OSLO, WHERE A 125MM GLASS OF WINE (YES, I REALISE ITS HARD TO IMAGINE A DRINK THAT SMALL , ESPECIALLY FOR THOSE OF US WHOSE GLASSES RARELY HOLD LESS THAN 250CL!)..COSTS THE EQUIVALENT OF £7! SO WE ARE ACTUALLY SPEAKING OF SOMETHING THAT IS LESS THAN YOUR AVERAGE MOUTHFUL, AND ITS A WONDER THAT IT DOESNT EVAPORATE BEFORE YOU GET TO TASTE IT, AS JUST TASTE IS ALL YOU COULD DO. STRANGELY HE DIDNT MANAGE TO FIND THAT ELUSIVE FISH LIQUEUR...WHEN I WORKED IN ODDBINS WE SOLD CHERRY HEERING ( A DUTCH LIQUEUR FLAVOURED WITH , STRANGELY, CHERRIES). A NORWEGIAN CAME IN ONE DAY, SPIED IT ON THE SHELF, AND SAID (YOU'LL HAVE TO IMAGINE THE ACCENT)..'THAT THERE..IS THAT HERRING FLAVOURED?'...A QUESTION THAT ONLY A NORTHERN EUROPEAN COULD POSSIBLY HAVE ASKED..AND, IN TRUTH, HAD IT BEEN, I THINK HE WOULD HAVE BOUGHT IT!
AH..PEOPLE, DONCHA JUST LOVE EM?
well, i have printed my boarding pass, packed 6 books, 2 sarongs, 3 chargers, 3 swimming cozzies, a snorkle that i found in my wardrobe that i didnt even know i had, only one set of undies (for the plane home), a pair of flip flops, though i wont really need them, more 100% deet than you could shake at a mosquito, and a whole host of lycra like you wouldnt believe. i also have tickets, money, passport and credit card at the ready, and have charged my phone, my toothbrush, 3 camera batteries and my mp3. i have in my carry on bag my journal, a book of crosswords, a book of sudokus, 2 novels, a change of clothes for the tropics, 4 mini pork pies, a bag of minstrels and a tube of pringles. i have painted my nails, dyed my hair and put on my jewellry. i have checked the bus times out to the airport, and might go at 10.15..or maybe 10.40.
im ready to be marooned!
well, i think one can take the crowded house song 'always take the weather with you' a little too far...all the way to the indian ocean apparently! just when you thought that it would be impossible to go anywhere that it rained more than scotland in the summer...well, let me tell you, it is...and we are not talking that light shower that the weather box on this blog promises..we are talking torrential, pummelling huge rain in which you are soaked to your underwear (though its unlikely you would be wearing said garments, given that you spend your entire time in beachwear) in a second. and with such intensity of deluge, one would also think it couldnt possibly carry on for more than 30 minutes..but how wrong one would be...it can carry on all day, and indeed for the whole night as well...what larks! with this amount of precipitation, one might also think that it would be well nigh impossible to get a tan...but, again, contrary to all expectation, one can still get sunburn under purple clouds, and some of us can come back with probably the best all round tan that they have ever had in a week! its really hard to describe the maldives experience without actually reverting to childhood..as in fact that is what its like. you dont ever have to worry about anything..its so beautiful it makes you want to cry with joy, you never have to carry money, or in fact just about anything..food and drink are on tap, and are all free, you can leave anything lying anywhere on the island, and no one will touch it, there is no internet, there is no tv, there is no war, starvation or disease..the 4 riders of the apocalypse just do not visit..though i believe that the rain god spends several months there. the biggest decision a person has to make is what to drink. god, let me tell ya, its tough. you get to swim with turtles, and more fish than you have ever seen in your life, the fish dont scatter when you snorkle along, they swim right up to you, or just keep on doing whatever it is that fish do, and so you start to feel that you are one of them, and an ocean creature..that is until your snorkle fills up with water due to the chop, and you have to surface to blow it out. you realise that your mask is far too tight, and hurts your face, the plankton are nipping you, the current is really strong, and you have to swim against it, that you cant smoke under water, and the bar, and your next drink are at least 30 mins swim away. doh! such are the stresses of paradise!
i suggest you dont ever go there...its like so awful!
smarties! dont ever buy them in the maldives..they are more expensive than drugs..in fact you can buy 200 cigarettes for the same price as a medium sized bag! at male airport there is a shop groaning with chocolate..presumably because no one will ever buy a twix bar for $7, or a bag of smarties for $15! all the chocolate must have been lying there for years..the coco butter slowly rising to the top, giving that oh-so-appealing white bloom that is akin to chalk! yummee! so enough already about chocolate...
the other thing that i have to mention about biyadhoo is that, despite my decision to live as robinson crusoe, and not talk to anyone other than a barman friday for a week, i actually met some really interesting funny people, and, not like me at all, i was normally the last out of the bar of a night! and i didnt even have to pay for those drinks angie and i had after midnight curfew! kaye and al even offered to put me up in bristol when i thought i was gonna miss my connecting flight back to edinburgh because our flight was an hour late..how good is that. even emma, a tall blonde, posh solicitor from the estuary and i got on ok, and we are normally the kind of women who hate each other on sight! dee and dennis..had such a laugh..thanks. and then there was keith, with his mother jean, who told me that despite what everyone thought about hitler, he had some really good ideas.....um, dont think i can discuss that one! what larks!
yes, the scariest night of the year...the night in medieval times when the majority of the population used to go and sleep in monesteries, or in churches as they were so scared of witches and bogles....and now how do we spend it. dressing up as witches and ghosts and getting pissed out of our faces on the demon drink. or alternatively selling creepy cup cakes, monster mallow biscuits, spooky ring buns and chocolate bats to mutant, ginger obese customers whose social skills and command of their birth language goes as far as pointing and saying 'gees that'. you maybe surprised to hear that its the busiest week in the bakery calendar, with the result, that, despite the clocks going back tonight, im so knackered that its only 1am and im already thinking of bed. sad but true.
it has currently been raining torrentially on and off for 3 days. i could hear fireworks going off last night..but you couldnt help but wonder who the fuck was out watching them, since they would have been soaked in seconds. today at work some johnny foreigner was complaining about how wet they were..i told her that in scotland it didnt count as a downpour unless you were soaked to your underwear, and she just so wasnt really that wet. a small amount of saturation around the head and shoulders doesnt really count. jeans that dont dry out for the whole day. soggy knickers. shoes that are still damp day after day, and putting your hands into sodden pockets..oh, the joys! but its ok for me, as its over 30 degrees at work, so everything always dries....
but, and here is the rub, ive realised recently that i never really get to wear my own clothes. bear with me...i know it sounds weird...but its true. i wear them walking to work, and for around 30 mins during the day..so thats like 2 hours in 24 hours. on my day off i go to the gym..so probably for 5 hours i wear my clothes..and on a sunday..again i only put proper clothes on for around 4 hours to go to bills. so, in total, in a week i probably only wear my own gear for 20 hours. obviously i do wear clothing at home...but i wouldnt be seen dead outside my door in this shit...its rompers! i realise that i now earn more money than i ever have done in my life, and its allowing me to do the holidays that i have to have...but sometimes i wonder if its really worth it. have i lost my identity, or indeed my life now that i have to get up at 5.15am and never have a chance to wear anything other than an ugly uniform. nowadays i only put all my jewellery on on my day off...before this i wouldnt even have been see out without huge rings in my ears and an incan bracelet. now i can afford to fly to australia two years running, go to the maldives and have a week in france, paying up front for it all...but is it worth it? oh, the great philosophical questions of our lives...are months of purgatory, where you are not really yourself worth a few weeks of bliss, heaven and delight.
answers on a postcard from shangri la please...
sorry. was finished with my self-pitying entry..when saw this in a job advert that was emailed to me...and it pays the same as my job....i quote
'as a jack wills manager not only will you be managing your store, but a brand ambassador, and must be a lifelong shopper of jack wills and embrace the jack wills lifestyle. your should be fun loving, fast living with an interest in arts, culture, travel, music and festivals, meeting new people and making the most of each day'.
a tall order...how can you be a lifelong shopper of a concept brand that has only existed for a few years? and who the hell is jack wills anyway?
in light of the, oh so important, news this week that beyonce had had to question god as to why he had 'chosen' her to live a star lifestyle..i want to know how god chose me for greggs. i mean, was he just not paying attention that day, or was he (hark the scottish person) punishing me for some past indiscretions of which im unaware. or was it, in fact, a reward for having worked in charity for a pittance for 2 years. whatever, what is it about the rich and famous that they have to ponder on the greater, some might even call them vacuous, questions of life in public. if you felt you wanted to question gods judgement, which in the case of michael buble you might, would you let the world know? or might you, just for one moment, think that god probably has bigger things on his hands, like sending the 4 riders of a apocalypse to the world, to bother with such trivial matters as whether some black girl from some ugly small town in amerika becomes famous...oh, poor dears, those rich and famous people with too much time on their hands...my heart goes out to them!
and i think your heart should go out to me and my scottish bretheren...no, we have not got the plague, miners being blown up, a military junta keeping people under house arrest, cholera, suicide bombers, pirates, drought, famine, pestilence or war..what we do have is SNOW!!! fucking snow, in november! not that i would ever be someone to question god, mainly because you may as well ask a mosquitos opinion of the works of plato, but, why, oh why, did god decide on snow as a weather concept! i mean was he just busy that day or was it a punishment for past indiscretions of which we are unaware. somehow, i doubt we will ever know gods plan...if beyonce doesnt know then what hope is there for us lesser beings...
but let me tell you something that god, quite obviously, while he wouldnt get personally involved as he would be too busy wreaking death and disaster on the world, would hope that humantiy would invent, even if he was too busy that day or punishing someone for past indiscretions of which they were unaware...and that would be THE KINDLE! apart from hd flat screen tvs, playstation, digital cameras, mp3 players, laptops and vibrators its probably the most brilliant gadget that god has not been involved in inventing. its taken me a while to realise that you have to switch wireless off to preserve battery life, and that you have to reboot it after hours looking through lists of books, but its just so easy to use, and far too easy to lead you to purchase, and best of all, one can read in bed without that annoying having to turn the page thang, a simple click does it all. ya dancer!
but, being almost jewish and all, already, there has to be a but........so tell me...
see the books that people buy....the list, which involves 148 000 titles in the subcatagory section which one would think would cut out all the things you are not interested in...and ive only looked through 3000 of them so far...but can i tell you about what sells....
at least 50% of them are thrillers...there is a subcatagory for that, but it seems that people dont know what is just fiction and what is 'lets try and work out whodunnit while really identifying with the hard-bitten alcoholic, cancer suffering gum-shoe trying to work it out quicker than you'.
after the thrillers...another 25% are about a 21st century obsession that you will just not believe...and how would have really thought that you could write so many books about it...and that is VAMPIRES! i mean..duh!
then there are the either the story of a womans passion, or a mans destiny books..danielle steele, catherine cookson vs simon scarrow, colin igguiden (mm..cant remember how his name is spelt) etc
so we are left with the 5% that are things that i might actually be interested in...
as with everything in life..i always want the thing that no one else is even slighlty into. perhaps they could use me as some kind of market research lab rat...if i like it, dont even think of marketing it, no one will ever buy it. im the kiss of death for varieties of soup or sandwiches, shoes or underwear. you can just bet that if i buy it, it will be off the shelves in 2 weeks due to poor sales. its lucky that god chose me to work in a shop, with than kind of power im the ideal person!!
i was going to write this in white, for some reason it seemed appropriate, but the background screen is white, so while it may show up on my blog, i cant see what im writing. but i digress, already..yes, the weather! we have now been living in isolation for 4 days...there are no flights, no trains, the only buses are part-route within the city, the forth bridge was closed for the first time ever, all the schools, the universities, the leisure facilities are closed, all the public christmas events have been cancelled, there has been no mail, no rubbish collection (and in fact, its almost impossible to put anything in the bins anyway, as the lids wont open due to the 2 feet of snow weighing them down). the bank i use has run out of change, we have not had our cash picked up and currently have around £15000 in the safe. and worse of all, rose and i met for our usual 2 pints last night and the pub had run out of kronenbourg!! in the world of the sausage roll, while our vans have been running, albeit over an hour late so we couldnt open till 8.30, the store of flour has now run out, so shops are being rationed, with the result that we ran out of rolls and bread..which means no sandwiches or bacon butties, though try explaining that to the customers, who do not seem to think that the weather affects us..only them. and i cant tell you how many cakes we have sold this week, thought not creams..they have all vanished, much to the chagrin of miserable old bastard who, despite eating them every day, never smiles. just goes to show you that cream-cakes do not make you happy!
however, you will be relieved to hear that i have still seen joggers on the meadows at 6am, and cyclists..though its not really cycling..more wading through snow while sitting on a bike. the people down the stair from me are currently clearing their car with a spade, a broom and a kettle of boiling water. there are girls wearing woolen ugg boots with black plastic bin bags inside then parcel taped to their legs, and young men still walking about in tshirts. on the other hand there are so many wankers poodling around with ski poles and gaiters, and the romanian gypsy women are still in their usual spots, begging in a blizzard. life goes on, even in the white-war situation.
you know that feeling you get, when you first wake up on holiday, and you realise that there is no having to get up in the dark at 5.15am, there is no need to put on a hair net and a baseball cap for ages, and your hair may, even, go back to its natural state, there is no need for a passport and waiting in queues at airports for over 2 weeks, that you have just woken up in a really comfy bed instead of a plane seat which has cut off the circulation in your legs and made your ankles cease to exist, and that you can do whatever you like for 2 weeks, and spend time with people you actually like and have something in common with instead of your work colleagues...well i have that big time right now. i felt so happy waking up here at binni and kims that i could almost cry.
it takes a long time to get here...but its worth it, let me tells ya.
happy new year one and all..
JESUS, MARY AND GESEPPE, ITS RAINING HERE…SO MUCH SO THAT IT WOKE ME UP DURING THE NIGHT…..IMAGINE! I BLAME CROWDED HOUSE FOR SUGGESTING THAT YOU TAKE WEATHER WITH YOU, THOUGH AT LEAST ITS NOT THAT PESKY WHITE STUFF! AND IM SITTING WRITING THIS IN A LITTLE DRESS, WITH NO SHOES..NOT SOMETHING I COULD DO IN JANUARY IN EDINBURGH.
SO WEVE BEEN DOWN TO CAMBRA..(THAT’S CANBERRA FOR ANYONE NOT ANTIPODEAN OUT THERE), WENT TO PARLIAMENT, AND THE NATIONAL GALLERY WHICH HAD A BRILLIANT COLLECTION OF ABORIGINAL ART, AND TLTS LA GOLUE..THOUGH FUNNILY ENOUGH NOT IN THE SAME ROOM. WE ATE PIES, WE DRANK WINE, WE DROVE THOUGH RAIN, WE DRANK WINE, WE ALMOST RAN OVER A BLUE TONGUED LIZARD, WE SAW POSSUMS, WE PLAYED PLAYSTATION, WE DRANK WINE, YOU GET THE PICTURE.
WE HAD A STORM WITH THUNDER SO LOUD IT PRATICALLY GAVE ME A HEART ATTACK ON THE FIRST NIGHT…MY FLIGHT IN WAS DELAYED BECAUSE OF IT…AND OF COURSE, HALF OF QUEENSLAND IS UNDERWATER SO WE WILL NOT BE GOING UP TO THE NORTH COAST TO RELAX ON A SUNKISSED BEACH…INSTEAD WE WILL BE KILLING GIANT WORMS IN THE DESERT WHILE…YOU GUESSED IT, DRINKING WINE. WHAT A BUMMER! SO FAR WE HAVE ALSO PUT THE WORLD TO RIGHTS, SOLVED AUSTRALIAS IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS, ENDED ALL WARS, ADVANCED THE POSITION OF WOMEN AROUND THE WORLD, ENDED POVERTY (BONO SHOULD PAY!)…AND ALL THIS FROM THE COMFORT OF BINNI AND KIMS LIVING ROOM. I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY THE UN HAS NOT EMPLOYED US ALREADY! PERHAPS BECAUSE OF THE WEATHER! FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK WE WILL BE BUSY WITH OUR ARK PROJECT!
GARETH , THANKS FOR GUARDING MY HOUSE, AND LETTING ME REST MY MIND ABOUT MY BANK CARD..THOUGH, OBVIOUSLY, A FAT LOT OF GOOD IT DOES ME HERE IN TOMORROWLAND. I MIGHT WRITE A STRONGLY WORDED LETTER TO SANTANDER ON MY RETURN!
I HOPE EVERYONE ELSE IS FINE AND DANDY..IM HOPING, BECAUSE DUE TO THE PESKY WEATHER THE INTERNET KEEPS CUTTING IN AND OUT, SO IM DOING THIS AS A WORD DOCUMENT AND HAVE NOT SEEN MY MESSAGE BOARD.
DEE AND DEN…GOOD TO HEAR FROM YOU…HOPE YOUR HOLS WERE GOOD, AND I HAVE TO REPORT THAT THE KINDLE IS JUST TOTALLY MAGIC…ON LONG FLIGHTS ITS JUST SO BRILLIANT THAT ITS HARD TO BELIEVE I EVER LUGGED ALL THOSE BOOKS AROUND. IT’S THE BEST GADGET AND I SUGGEST YOU GET ONE. JUST DON’T LEAVE IT ON THE PLANE!
ROSE…HOPE THINGS ARE OK, GIVE MY LOVE TO BILL, AND CHECK OUT THE KIDS PLAYHOUSE PHOTO…HOW MUCH WOULD WE HAVE LOVED THAT!
SO HERE IN TOMORROW THINGS ARE WET….I MIGHT NOT COME BACK WITH A TAN, BUT LEECHES AND MOULD GROWING IN MY HAIR…BUT I DON’T HONESTLY CARE…ITS JUST FAB HERE, AND IM HAVING SUCH A GOOD TIME. I HAVE PRACTICALLY EVEN FORGOTTEN I SELL PORK PRODUCTS FOR A LIVING! YA DANCER!
well, it has finally stopped raining here..though that hasnt prevented half the country from being under water. 2000 streets in brisbane are flooded, 20000 homes are going to be in the next two days, and its the worst natural disaster in australias history. call me a weirdo, but there is something hideously addictive about being here through it all, i cant see film of cars being swept under bridges and piled up on top of each other often enough. 35 brisbane suburbs have been evacuated, and they have switched off all the electricity in the business district, which is right next to the river and therefore will be inundated when the river peaks tomorrow. it is just amazing how calm people are, and how well organised..they are flying in cash for atms, and bottled water etc as i write this...though this being australia, they have also had to advise against the wearing of thongs (flip flops to you and me, not knickers) in the flood water.
i have to point out at this juncture for those worriers amongst you that there is no danger of us being flooded here, even if the nepean river broke its banks, due to the great dividing range, but half of queensland is underwater, and it will also happen in north new south wales in the next couple of days..it really is quite unbelievable, as i smugly write this on dry land. thing about the rain here is that most australians live in bungalows with at least partial iron roofs so the noise of precipitation is thunderous in a way us tenement, slate roofed dwellers just are not used to.
anyway enough weather talk...despite all the rain, im having the time of my life, even if we are stuck on fighting a giant, bitch of a spider who just refuses to die, even with 3 of us trying to kill her over 2 days. such is playstation life.
and budgiesmugglers....now, go on, try and guess what they are. hint, they are an item of beachwear. obviously gareth will just google search, but that is cheating.
eli, let me know if you got the photos, it took so long even to get into yahoo to email you...jeez, us broadband users dont even know were born.
gareth, thanks for rescuing my router from looters. you are a star.
rose, glad to hear you have worse weather than here. groo indeed. glad you liked the road...have to say if you came across binni and kims house in that scenario, you would be thanking your lucky stars. it is the most well-provisioned, well-organised place i have ever had the pleasure to stay in. luckster...oh i think!
love to bill, and i hope he got his demons souls problem worked out.
im off now..its wine o'clock. hell, its always wine o'clock....
well, the sun has even come out here..but obviously i cant go out into it as i have to sit in a darkened room trying, for the third day running, to beat a spider bitch...god, the trials of life. you will be happy to hear that the flood in brisbane did not reach the expected height, though still 20000 homes and the entire business district are under water. and now they have had so much rain in victoria, that they think its going to happen there too. how lucky for me that i have friends in high places!
floods apart, things are so good here i could just not bother getting on that silver sausage to come back to blighty, and spend the whole rest of my life trying to kill that spider bitch..ah, if only bill were here!
on a differnt note..though there is 24 hour coverage here about flooding, there has also been so much about the shooting in arizona...its really interesting to see a different perspective on it that is not european. because i dont usually see tv news (except on a sunday, when, as we all know, news has the day off and nothing ever happens) i find it totally fascinating, and could just watch it all day..inbetween bouts with the spider bitch, of course, not to mention eating binnis fabulous food. it certainly beats a steak bake and a fudge donut i can tell you.
anyway, have to go now and, whod have thought, fight a spider bitch.
gareth, grapesmugglers? is that a south african term? it says a lot about comparative size!
rose, glad youre enjoying four meals...i just love that book. im almost finished the new david mitchell (on kindle, of course)..and while its no cloud atlas, im really enjoying it.
eli...what can i say...land of the free! pah! though at least they have recognised that freedom of speech does not mean sarah palin can reload and fire off. or does the firing off come first...i forget, not coming from a gun culture myself!
im going now to.....well you know the story..but there is joy in repetition.
im going home tomorrow! pants, feathers and shite! you will be glad to hear that the sun has come over the last couple of days, and our trip to bulli (pronounced bull-eye, not bully, so we didnt get sand kicked into our faces) was fab, if a tad windy. now im torn between a beach front bull-nosed verandha bungalow here, or just that beach house i was planning to buy in venice beach or santa cruz. god, life is tough in dreamland!
on a different note, you will all be delighted to hear that i finally killed that giant bitch spider!
although, to be honest, at least it didnt involve the worlds most tedious puzzles, they came later. god knows what the neighbours must think of us all squabbling over the best way to get a bomb
through a portal! pick up the bomb, pick up the bomb..now throw etc. oh, such drama we have seen.
eli im just thinking of you, despite the fact that it is sunday morning here in tomorrowland, as this is around the time at home, in yesterday, that i would be logging on to skype. it is a kinda mindblowing thought that you are 16 hours behind, as if 11 wasnt enough! the only thing im looking forward to going home for..apart from seeing all your beautiful, rosy-cheeked faces of course, is getting my broadband up and running on my new computer. god, what an exciting life i lead!
talking of which binni and kims dial up may cut out at any time, so im off now.
good to hear from you derek.
and gareth, i thought it was diamonds and shite!
It is over .. and the sun is finally out!!!!!
yesirree! after almost 2 months without the internet, i now have not only a beautiful new hewlet packard computer with a shiny big wide screen and built in camera, but also a new wireless router..ya fucking dancer! and binni, of course, as usual, you were right...it was a corrupted password. techinal support actually called me (imagine!) today to reset it...and it all worked! i dont think that the guy in mumbai has ever had anyone so excited to see google come up...he was laughing at me. and had i been working today, instead of lounging about the house, i never would have got the call! now all i have to do is learn how to use the bloody computer, not to mention windows 7. so i have no photos, no favourites, no nothing. what fun im going to have over the next few weeks. having used this beautiful new computer, even for a short time, and then gone back to my old laptop to see if i could get it to connect to the internet, i cant believe that i used that broken down old thing for so long..as the guy in the shop said to me when i bought this...it cant be that old, laptops dont last that long!
so that 35 hour journey to get back home was worth it after all. have to say after the most turbulent 9 hour flight from sydney to bangkok, during which i was so tense (ok, terrified) that my legs and shoulders still hurt, i then had the longest flight ive ever had from bkk....it took us 12hrs 35 mins to get to paris due to strong head winds...last year it took and hour shorter to get to london! and i had forgotten so quickly that we are people who live in the dark...obviously i have yet to make the discovery about how great it is to get up at 5.15am, but i have that to look forward to tomorrow!
so i better go now, the computer wants to shut down after updating, and i dont want to lose this. will probably be back later to gush!
and eli...we will be able to skype.....
when i was flying home, on the most stoopidly turbulent flight ive even been on (except the aeoroflot prop plane from samarkand to bukhara..but that is another story), plummeting around through storm clouds for 7 hours, i did think of putting on my mp3...but just at that moment they managed to bring round dinner..so didnt think of it again until thursday morning at 5.45am when i was walking to work. imagine my surprise when the same song kept playing over and over...it took me a couple of minutes to work out that in fact, despite arriving in australia with over 250 songs stored, i now had only one...one song.. the rest have just gone..disappeared, who knows where..and what was that song, you bubble over with interest to beg...well let me tell you...it was..is...'stormy weather' by billie holiday. oh those 4 horsemen, they sure as hell have a sense of humour!
so..never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple, never trust a man whose eyebrows meet...and never plug your mp3 into an apple mac when the 4 riders of the apocalypse are in the room. thats my advice!
in a recent survey of women the top three things they cant live without are
1. a mobile phone
2. a credit card.
3. a hair brush.
the other 7 of 10 are hairstraightners, a vibrator, a handbag, a car, high heels, lipstick, and at no. 10, (5 below a vibrator!), a man! now while i cant deny to owning a few of these cajiggers, (though, quite obviously not a hair brush), and in fact a credit card is just essential if you are travelling, especially in the us, where you cant even book a hotel room without one, i could easily live without the other 9. if i had to pick my top things, no 1. without any hesitation would be my friends. where the fuck would i be without you..well, a johnny-nae-mates apparently. no2 would be travel, and no3 probably the internet. then there would be music, books, films, playstation, wine, cheese and a toothbrush. my point, if indeed i have one, and am not just havering as usual, is that what is it about my life...and by association all our lives who read this ( as im sure there is not one person who tunes into this who would think that hairstraighteners would be life-threatening to do without), that makes us so different. i realise that sexuality can play a part in this difference..but its not really about that alone..all of us lead an alternative lifestyle that does not involve babies, reading crime fiction, dream leather couches, holidays to the same resort every year, dinner parties with the same small group of couples or thinking that your mobile is the single most important invention since the wheel. we are the only group of people that i know who read books for the joy of language, and the experience of other peoples lives..and ditto films. no one else i know enjoys food and wine like we do....its just something to shovel in not, one of the most heavenly, orgasmic experiences known to mankind. and here is my question...what is it about the normal lifestyle choice that is so great that it closes you off and makes you so crashingly dull and boring? not to mention a tory, and against immigration and multi-culturism. why do all you socialist principles have to go out the window just because you have had a baby? i wait with bated breath for your replies......
was that he could only see four! riders of the apocalypse i mean..ok, he also saw the whore of babylon breaking throught a rift in the earth...but that is no reason to think that he was nothing other than rational! my point is that he was wrong...not about babbling a load of drug-induced (or psychotic...which ever floats your boat) nonsence about the number of the beast, which some people in america (mostly) believe is a true revelation...in the same way that god created the world in 7 days, and that men co-existed with dinosaurs to conveinently wrap up the time problem....but i mean he was fundimentally wrong...there are 5 riders. and the latest of the brotherhood is
WEATHER!
i believe he may be the twin of drought...but weather is wreaking his havoc on humanity right now. fuck war and death...weather is the new apocalypse...is australia under his rule right now..oh, i think so! and here...fuck me dead...is this the longest winter since the beginning of time or what? perhaps we should start spring sacrifice again just to apppease him! obviously i should have realised when billie holliday went into a play list of one...but just like st john...i had to sit back and rationalise, think it through, and not let my crazy thoughts take over. but lets face it
STORMY WEATHER!
one of my sunday pleasures, apart from not having to get up in the dark at some ungodly hour and serve bacon rolls to people who can barely speak the language of the country they were born in, let alone comprehend the idea that any other kind of coffee exists other than a white with two sugars, is reading the paper. not the sunday paper, you understand. god forbid that not only would i have to un-romper, i might have to look in a mirror, stand up, leave the house, and then have to suffer the company of the above mentioned people in the queue in tesco. no....i mean the saturday independent, which having bought it at 6 am, i just have no time to read during the hell that is work. on sunday, for the few hours of daylight that winter allots us northerners, i sit on the floor and peruse the interesting weekend pagefillers, as, of course, no real news happens at the weekend. and such delights i have to relate to you non-paper readers...you must be on the edges of your collective chairs by now...
so, first.....raul castro has decided to lay off half a million workers in cuba. this may not seem amazing in todays financial climate in any other country...but in cuba, where 90% of the population are employed by the state...it amounts to 20% of the entire workforce. they will then have to apply for licences to try their hand at private enterprise, though i need hardly add that most cubans have been doing this for years illegally. one of the most interesting parts of this article, and something that i have never really thought of, is that there is no income tax in cuba...imagine! and it is somthing that raul (a youthful man of 80!) is considering introducing if the policy goes well. this was all intended to be rolled out before the end of april, but it seems that raul is hedging his bets due to what is happening to ageing dictators in the rest of the world...however cuba is different...due to its healthcare system, it is not a youth-heavy population, few have access to facebook and twitter, and, most importantly, cuba does not have corruption and huge inequalities of wealth, and there is no credit system. one cannot help but think that in the future when they have all our 'freedoms' there will be so many people who look back fondly on the time when there was free healthcare and education, subsidised housing, heating and electricity, no income tax, no credit, and everyone was employed by the government.
story no 2...monk, aged 23 goes to jail in bhutan for smoking. yes, you may not be aware of this, but bhutan banned smoking countrywide (though, lets face it, thats not huge) in 2005, and tightened the laws last year, requiring consumers to provide receipts for tobacco bought outside the country. the monk in question, sonam tshering carried in 48 packets of chewing tobacco he had bought in india without said receipts. 'in and eight page ruling handed down in thimpu, judges said that the monk was in breach of the Tobacco Control Act of Bhutan 2010 because he had not paid the duty. the ruling added 'ignorance of the law is no excuse..the law represents the popular will of the people'! ' the idea of gross national happiness was developed by jigme singye wangchuck in the 1970s as an alternative to gross domestic product, but bhutanese society has not been as fair as its image might suggest! who would have thought!
story 3...not sure if you are aware of this either, but the european court has just ruled that gender-specific car insurance is illegal...which means, in effect that women drivers under 25 will see their premiums rocket by 25%, despite the fact that its young men that cause all the accidents. male drivers under 21 are twice as likely to have an accident as women, but currently men only pay, on average 30% more. 'unisex rates will have to apply for motor insurance witht he likelihood of an increase in premiums for females which could typically be up to 25%,
eli has just skyped...more news later.
NOW, IM SORRY TO BRAG, FOR THOSE OF YOU NOT LUCKY ENOUGH TO LIVE ON THIS CONTINENT....BUT HOW FUCKING MAGIC IS EUROPE! YOU WAKE UP IN YOUR OWN BED, WHIZ TO THE AIRPORT IN 15 MINS, WHICH YOU ONLY HAVE TO BE AT 30 MINS BEFORE YOUR FLIGHT, YOU CAN PROCEED STRAIGHT TO THE GATE, AS YOU ONLY HAVE HAND LUGGAGE, AND HAVE ALREADY PRINTED OFF YOUR BORDING PASS ONLINE. YOU FLY FOR A MERE 2 HOURS, WHIZ IN ANOTHER TAXI TO THE CENTRE OF A FOREIGN CITY, AND ARE ENSCONCED IN A LOVELY BAR, OVERLOOKING THE RIVER, IN THE SUNSHINE, EATING THE BEST SAUSAGES YOUVE EVER HAD AND DRINKING BEER THAT IS HALF THE PRICE OF HOME BY 11AM! ITS JUST THE BEST!
GDANSK , CONTRARY TO WHAT ONE MIGHT THINK, IS A REALLY LOVELY LITTLE CITY. I SUPPOSE I IMAGINED IT TO BE VERY INDUSTRIAL, WITH HUGE, UGLY SOVIET-STYLE BLOCKS AND SCAREY BARS FULL OF SHIPBUILDERS WITH GIANT MOUSTACHES, EATING DUMPLINGS AND BREAD AND LARD. (ACTUALLY, IT PROBABLY DOES HAVE ALL THOSE THINGS IF YOU HANG AROUND THE DOCKS OR THE SUBURBS), BUT THE OLD TOWN IS REALLY THE MAIN PART OF THE CITY, AND ITS REALLY LOVELY IN A COLD, BALTIC KINDA WAY. ITS ALL PAINTED DUTCH STYLE HOUSES, RED COFFEE SHOPS, ELEGANT SQUARES AND HARDLY ANY TRAFFIC. (PEDESTRIANS STILL HAVE RIGHT OF WAY IN POLAND...AND CARS ACTUALLY STOP! IMAGINE!). IT HAS THE LARGEST BRICK-BUILT CHURCH IN EUROPE, FINISHED IN 1560, THE GREAT MILL, BUILT IN 1360 WHICH WAS THE LARGEST STRUCTURE OF ITS KIND IN EUROPE AT THAT TIME (ITS NOW A SHOPPING CENTRE!), AND MORE AMAZINGLY, BARS WHERE YOU CAN STILL SMOKE INSIDE! IT HAS ITS OWN LIQUEUR...GOLDWASSER. WHICH TASTES OF CINNAMON AND HAS REAL GOLD LEAF FLAKES FLOATING IN IT (A REAL TONIC WITH A COFFEE AT 10.30AM I CAN TELLS YA!). IT WAS PART OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE, AND IN THE 17TH CENTURY WAS ONE OF THE WEALTHIEST CITIES IN NORTHERN EUROPE...WHICH, NO DOUBT, WAS WHY 30,000 SCOTS LIVED THERE, AND THE CITY DEVELOPED A REPUTATION FOR SHREWDNESS AND IRASCIBILITY ASSOCIATED WITH THOSE DAMN SCOTTISH PEOPLE. IN FACT THE WORD THERE FOR A BUSINESS TRAVELLER IS STILL SZCOT., AND THERE ARE SCOTTISH RESTAURANTS...THOUGH WE WENT INTO ONE, IT WAS DEPRESSINGLY FULL OF TARTAN, BROWN-NESS, SCUMBAGS, AND WHEN ROSE ASKED FOR A MENU THE BARMAN SAID 'WE DONT REALLY SELL FOOD, WE SELL SOMETHING SORT LIKE IT, IM NOT SURE WHAT YOU CALL IT IN ENGLISH'. SO ACTUALLY THE BEST THEMED RESTAURANT EVER..IT WAS EXACTLY LIKE SCOTLAND!!
OK, I WILL GET OFF THE SUBJECT OF SCOTLAND NOW, OR I WILL TURN INTO BILL...ONE OF THE OTHER FEATURES OF GDANSK, WHICH I HAVE ONLY EVEN SEEN IN LITHUANIA BEFORE, IS THE BIG, SCAREY, WOODEN DOOR. ITS HARD TO EXPLAIN IF YOU HAVENT HAD TO CONFRONT IT..BUT THIS IS THE SCENARIO....YOU CAN SEE PEOPLE EATING WHAT LOOKS REALLY GOOD IN A BASEMENT RESTAURANT...ON STREET LEVEL THERE ARE 3 HUGE WOODEN DOORS, NONE OF WHICH HAVE ANY SIGNS ON THEM. WHICH DOOR DO YOU CHOOSE? ALTERNATIVELY, LIKE HERE, YOU CANT ALWAYS SEE INTO PUBS, YOU KNOW IT IS ONE, BUT YOURE NOT SURE WHAT IS BEHIND THE BIG SCAREY DOOR...IT COULD BE A RED COFFEE SHOP WITH COUCHES AND BEAUTIFUL LITTLE CAKES, OR IT COULD BE A PLACE WITH FISHING NETS ON THE WALLS, LARD ON THE TABLES AND SCUMBAGS DRINKING HALF PINTS OF VODKA AT 11 AM. THE OTHER THING IS THAT YOU CANT SEE OUT, SO YOU CAN SPEND 2 DAYS IN BRILLIANT SUNSHINE, TO THE POINT THAT YOU HAVE HAD TO BUY SUNGLASSES, AS, FUNNILY ENOUGH YOU DIDNT TAKE ANY ON YOUR TRIP TO THE BALTIC IN MARCH, GO INTO A BAR ON THE FIRST CLOUDY DAY, HAVE A FEW GOLDWASSERS, DECIDE TO LEAVE AND FIND THAT THERE IS A BLIZZARD GOING ON WHEN YOU OPEN THE DOOR! IN FUTURAMA THERE IS A 'TWILIGHT ZONE' SPOOF CALLED 'THE SCAREY DOOR'.....THE CATCHPHRASE IS 'YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU'LL FIND WHEN YOU OPEN..THE SCAREY DOOR..'. THATS NOT THE TWILIGHT ZONE...THATS GDANSK!
and not before time! i was going to do this all in spring green...but realise that you can barely read it...and i know that none of you would like to miss a single word of my, ever so important musings...so its sky blue instead.
i met rose for a pint on thursday, and she said....how is it that, after all these years of living through the rebirth of life in the north, that we dont notice the spring happening, and then one day, realise that there are leaves everywhere and the world has suddenly become green again. well, im here to tell you!
as you all know i walk over the meadows every day...it was almost light when i did this in march, but then we have the hell of bst (thats british summer time to you colonials, who i belive call it daylight saving) starting, and we are plunged back into darkness , with the added delight of the lights on said meadows going out at 6am, just when you are half way across. luckily, by this time in the year..ie, after 5 months of darkness, we can find our way as we have developed night vision..hell, by this time of the year we have practically become translucent with phosphoresent strips running up and down our bodies like those fish which live in the deep, dark ocean!
then, one day, one happy, happy day...it is almost light again. that day, you feel like prehistoric man without calendars or clocks, worshipping at the altar of the godess of fertility..because you suddenly see colour for the first time in months. yes its dark, but you can just make it out....yes,...hell its green and white..yes, its a snowdrop! halle..fucking..lulah! 3 days later there is yellow and purple covering the ground...crocus everywhere...the harbinger of spring. and there are the sprouts of the daffodills....
i know there are those amongst you that think that wordsworth was complete tosh, and that poems about daffodills are a pile of wank...but honestly, he was the first 19th century poet who just wrote about everyday things, that everyone could see and associate with, that spoke of the joy of life..and here is the rub..the secret of spring. the weekend before last we had two sunny days..and thats all it takes. on the monday all the daffies were out...by the saturday all the trees were budding...and the following monday when i took these photos there were leaves. LEAVES! for the first time since october trees were green. when i walked to work yesterday, at the heady late time of 6.20am it was light, and except for the older trees which always take longer, all the trees have leaves! the grass, which was a pond of water and mud after all the snow we had in the winter, is suddenly bright, brilliant green. within a week the whole place is a different season! there is light in the sky, there are birds singing, there is the colour green for the first time in 5 months..can i say the word green more!
everyone i know is waking up earlier and having extreme, memorable, colourful dreams, because colour (that would be green then) has just re-entered our lives for the first time in 5 months. things smell now...in the cold dead of winter, nothing smells, and as we all know, smell is the sense most linked to memory. in the winter we have no memory..we just exist..and for those of you who live in more temporate climes..well, you just have no idea. the spring happens in a week. it is an annual epiphany for us! for the first time in months we known that we are alive..and god it feels good!
but please, dont think for one moment that this temporary aboration will change my miserable thoughts...it might be spring...but we are still calvinist inside. it may be green outside, but its still black in my heart! HA!
i realise that you are all as knicker-wettingly excited as me about tomorrows fairy-tale nuptuals...so i thought i would increase your bated-breath even further with some fascinating royal wedding facts.
1. at 11am tomorrow prince william, 28, georgaphy graduate, water polo player, helicopter pilot and second in line to the 'english' throne will marry catherine middleton, 29, history of art graduate, former fashion buyer and millionaires daughter in westminster abbey. its 66 years to the day since adolph hitler married eva braun, in a bunker in berlin. we can only hope that a suicide pact is not on the cards!
2. there are 1900 guests, who have to arrive between 8.15 and 9.45am. one can only hope they have brought their own sandwiches and half bottles of gin. most of them are invited to the service only, and will have to make their own over-dressed way home through londons overcrowded streets afterwards. a select 600 will attend a 1000 canape lunch reception at buck house, and an even more select 300 get to go to an evening dinner hosted by prince charles. dont know about you, but i would rather spend the evening sorting my sock drawer!
3. it will take the bride 4 minutes to walk down the aisle, and the bells will, between them, peal 5000 times in the course of the morning.
4. the wedding will be marked across the uk by 5500 street parties, 298 of them in hertfordshire and 85 in richmond upon thames. there are none in scotland! the average person in britain will spend £29 on activities related to the wedding...in scotland that will probably be 60p on a greggs wedding cupcake, as we have no chocolate ones at present.
5. queen victoria has a lot to answer for...not only was she the first royal bride to marry in white with an enormous train (previously they wore blue), she also instituted the post-wedding wave from the balcony. that was following the marriage of her daughter victoria to the future german kaiser frederick III. their union resulted in kaiser wilhelm II, britains principal enemy in world war I.
6. of the 5 other queens called catherine married to british monarchs, 3 were married to henry VIII!.
7. bookmakers are offering odds of 25-1 against prince harry being too drunk to finish his speech. other wedding related bets that you are not too late to place are the queen wearing yellow (5-4 victor chandler), prince philip being caught sleeping during the service (8-1, william hill), the bride messing up the grooms name in her vows (20-1 ladbrokes), and william being left at the altar (100-1 william hill and ladbrokes).
8. there are 2 wedding cakes...a normal fruit one and another made of 1700 mcvities rich tea biscuits! if you think thats sounds greedy hark this. princess anne had one exactly the same size are her..thats 5ft 6, the nations favourite dead grandmother, the late queen mother's was nearly 9ft tall, and queen victoria (again) had several, one of which weighed more than 300 lbs! a slice of our present beloved (and for some of us elected) monarch's cake was found yesterday in a filing cabinet at the princess alice hospice in esher!
9. the bride and her family have booked an entire hotel for tonight. the goring (perhaps they do have a nazi connection after all..). the bride is staying in a 5 room suite costing £5000 to ordinary punters the attractions of which include a waterproof tv, and an original thomas crapper lavatory!.
10. around 60 alleged trouble-makers arrested during recent protests in london have bail conditions that ban them from entering london from 2 days ago till sunday. at least 6 have been arrested again this week. the whole area round westminster abbey has been cordoned by the cops, and they can refuse movement into this area to anyone they like. this is no fairy-tale!
but what is is that i had 2 days off this week, both of which have been glorious, and i spent a fab 4 hours today lying on the meadows in the sun reading my kindle. funny thing is that the weather here is set to be the same again here tomorrow, but they are expecting rain in london! ha, lets hope so!
bandk...so good to be back in touch...but get that phone sorted will ya! eli, speak on saturday after all the excitement is over.
and have fun on this historic day y'all. i can hardly wait to get up that 30mins later tomorrow at 5.45am and serve royal wedding cupcakes, and coronation chicken sandwiches to the hordes of revellers im expecting to be celebrating with us on fabulous royal occasion. long live the windsors, thats what i say. though perhaps they could live long somewhere else...like the fucking falklands!
osama is dead...obama says the world is safer...so why is it the the usa and the uk are doubling their security arrangements. and i alone in thinking that the killing of an unarmed man is not justice..not that it would have mattered if he was armed...it was an assassination...how ever many weapons you have you are no match for a squad of seals! this is not a thing to celebrate! i realise that america endorses the death penalty...and believes that justice has been served...but how many americans do not belive in this...and that this is not justice...its just retrebution..to be honest, anyone will do, as long as you can pin a badge on him. on the other hand, no one, bar his family who will not disown him, whatever he has done, can think he was a great human being...he was a man with no compassion, and no empathy...but sadly nor do many of the people who claim his death as a victory. this is not a victory..its a sad loss of human life with no purpose...i lose all hope for justice, real justice if this is what people think it is. we are all just totally fucked!
i should really be doing this in tartan....but strangely, get jealous do not have that as a text colour...but im sure you will have heard that thursday was a historic day for 'us'. its the first time ever (though its only been in existance since 1999..so not really a precedent) that we have a majority government in scotland, as our voting system was expressly created to prevent that from happening! but it has...and its the scottish national party! fuck me dead! there are still 37 labour msps, 15 tories, 5 lib-dems and 3 others...but 69 snps! and not a single libdem on the mainland!
the bizzarre thing is that im not in the least bit interested in scotland...ok, i live here, but i think its a shit hole, and i spend so much time fantasising about living somewhere else.....but i voted snp...lets face it, everyone did...this is a landslide in a country with proportional voting..and the polls said up until a month ago, labour were 15 points ahead! (sorry to digress briefly, but there is a monsoon going on outside...we had a huge storm last night...thunder in may! and lightening too...and its amazingly bucketing down...not quite the same deafening sound as on a flat tin roof...but the pressure is the same).
sorry to bore you all with out politics, but i find this fascinating...the labour party in scotland ran their campaign on the scots electing them because we dont agree with what is happening in westminster, and while that is undoubtedly true, they didnt realise how much people would vote for the 'scottish' parliament., because this is what affects us more, and this is not about the uk, or our joined government. and its really about the personality of alec salmond, our first minister...even the people at work who dont vote, and dont know a thing about politics (something that just astounds me) know him..most people i know couldnt even tell you the name of the leaders of the other parties. alec salmond is the only person we have ever had who even comes close to something like a statesman...even in westminster they know who he is, and he is the first person we have had running the country who, i believe has integrity, and doesnt look like a dodgy second hand car salesman. one of our ex-first ministers is in jail for fraud for fucks sake..how scottish is that! we've only had the bloody parliament for 12 years!
right, i bored with this now...scotland, fmd, how long can one talk about it. someone bring me another drink...
french rules ch1.
never, ever expect that you will be able to use a french keyboard...the q is in the a position, z for w, ; for m, semi colon is in lower case but full stop is a caps thang, and the @
sign is alt gr and 0! dont even try to find the signs for currency...so far on this keyboard i have no idea where they are..luckily for me i dont need that! woo hoo!
ch 2. never expect that you will be able to find your way back from strasbourg...one miight think it was only in the dordogne that road signs didnt exist....but one would be wrong! one can drive for 50 kms on a motorway without a single sign telling which direction one is travelling in! maybe right motorway, maybe wrong direction!
ch.3 dont for one moment think that the french are rude....they are not, in fact they are really friendly, and will 'bonjoir' you at the drop of un chapeau. its just that they have to have this unbelievably irritating keyboard that is laid out differently from the entire world, and is doing my head in!
ch4. strasbourg is really beautiful, i dont know why ryanair dont fly there!!!! i suggest you go with a friend you havent seen for years, have lunch, stroll around, see the cathedral and then just get back to the park and ride before it starts to rain....yfd!
listening to pumping trance (thanks to gareth), blowing up a storm outside, rose asleep on the couch, and above all...ITS SUNDAY! FUCKING DANCER!
i have no photos of france to put on here, as i uploaded them onto jo's computer, and got so bemused by the messages in french, that i erased the memory card, and didnt notice until i tried to upload here..dang..nothing in memory. well fuck me dead!
still, not to worry...at least im now typing on a qwerty keyboard! had such a great time seeing jo, not to mention crossing through 3 countries without even so much as a flash of my passport, that i was a little disappointed that the ash cloud didint come earlier so i could have got stuck in france...instead of which bill got stuck in scotland and didnt make it to amerikey till friday. still...there are some bad things about living in france...everything closes at lunchtime in joeuf..including food shops, and above the tabac! shit! now what else can i say that is bad about a place that one can buy a 3 lt box of wine for €8, has some of the best bread that ive ever eaten (and as you are all aware...bread and cakes are my life now that i work in greggs), and weather that is so much better than here, despite only being a couple of hundred miles away, that i have a tan! i did ask jo if i could just stay there and become her sixth child...but she told me that she already had one...dang! oh, well...back to reality then!
fuck me dead...its half way through the year already..and we are coming up for the longest day...(or the shortest, if you selfishly choose to live on the other side of the planet)...where, oh, where is my life going, as i plummet headlong into my fifth decade! i dont mean 'where is it going' in the sense that i expect it to have a destination...my only destination is obscurity and alcohol-fueled ramblings on this 'ere blog, punctuated by bliss-filled moments in tropical paradise..but well, actually..its more..where has all the time gone. life speeds up, and as most people reading this were born in whole previous decades to me, i dont suppose i need to tell you, but sometimes i feel that monday becomes saturday so quickly, and vice versa, that i barely have time to breathe inbetween. how the hell did it become june already, when it was only april last week! though whether that was monday or saturday, i couldnt say! its an incalculable pancake!
anyway...in this whirl of life here are a few of the, totally fascinating, things i have been up to....im sure you can hardly contain your excitement...
1. i have been eating as much unwashed salad as possible in the forlorn hope i might contract ecoli and get a considerable time off work. hell, id even pick grapes up off the floor and eat them, if it wasnt that people kept taking asda to court for slipping on them and winning £10,000! shit...my whole strategy is wrong...dont eat the salad..step on it! woooops...etc! at this precise moment...no one can say where the outbreak that is threatening the world, as avian flu and swine flu did before it, has come from..but its not cucumber..and while i feel sorry for the less than 20 people that have died, not to mention the less than 2000 people renally affected, who will probably never be able to drink a glass of this wine i have here...its hardly an epidemic in a world of billions.
2. i watched several films. most notably what is, possibly the most bleak film ive ever seen, and thats from someone who has watched 'requiem for a dream' more times than is humanly possible without becoming despondent about life. its called 'biutiful' and stars javier bordem as a man who not only can commune with the dead, has a bi-polar wife who is a prostitute in her spare time, and abuses their son, accidentally kills 24 illegal chinese workers with heaters giving off methane which he has bought to keep them warm in the cellar they are locked into to sleep every night, gets 25 african illegals deported by not being there at the right time, and is not there to go on holiday with his 12 year old daughter when she needs him, but is also dying of cancer! get more european! if you dare! i also watched 'black swan' about ballet..swan lake if you must know...which while not totally convincing, had its moments...particularly when she dances the black swan...great scene! and lost in translation..which should have been shorter, and not starred bill murray...
3. some assholes that have just moved into the building have already smashed in the bottom, stair, door. they had a barney in the stair at midnight, the ususal.. 'you say you love me, but your just a cunt' etc...honestly...i could write their cliched lines ive heard them so many times over the years of having the door smashed in by broken-hearted boyfriends in need anger management classes. does it make me angry, upset, worried or stressed...no, actually if anything, im just complacent. i just dont give a fuck! hell, at least i havent just accidentally killed 25 chinese people by trying to make them more comfortable, and am dying of cancer! see...bleak films are a good thing!
4. queenie, the asian elephant famed for her ability to water ski has died at the age of 59. al kordowski, director of zoological operations at the wild adventures theme park in valdosta, said she had suffered from declining quality of life and chronic health issues and had to be euthanised. she was also said to have been an adept harmonica player.
5. just when one thought there werent enough books about men never saying anything by australian writers....there is always per peterson...norwegian, solitary, male, living alone in a cabin by a river in northern norway. trond pours the coffee, lars looks at the table and the swirling drift of steam from his mug. 'what happens when the snow comes' says trond. 'there is a farmer with a tractor you could call'. 'but i dont have a telephone' 'ah, right'. they never make eye contact, never mind trond asking lars, possibly the only man that knows, what happened to tronds father, who dissappeared when trond was 15, as he was working for the norwegian resistance against the nazis and presumably had to run off to sweden, but like trond, we never find out as we just dont ask anything. see, men arent from mars, they are from the planet..'kinda want to know, but perhaps its best not to..i'll have to sit and think about it'. women are from 'need to know now..what happened, what colour was it, what was the hair like, did it hurt, oh you poor dear, now, now, want to know now, how, where, and above all why!'
6. my lighter has the 'child resistant' logo on it. its a scowling line-drawn babys face with lock next to it. if a child comes near me, should i hold it up, as a virgin would do with a crucifix, confronted with count dracula. i might try it! probably the average 6 year old would just get me taken to court for brandishing a harmful object in their direction as they 'know their rights'. in my day minors didnt have 'rights', only adults had those...its amazing that passage of time.
7. im doing a course in how to do crytic crosswords for jo, who i just went to see in france via germany and luxembourg without once showing my passport. i know bill can do these..and if he can, at almost 80,so can the rest of you. learn, why dont you. (bill...im sorry, but you have become 'almost 80' now! but then again, you are!)
8. have just noticed that i have misplaced peter from the scooby doo family i have leaning against my, rather flashy, not ruined by windowlene, 1080p tv. i hope i havent hoovered him up in error, but i think i would have noticed. thelma is also on her back, a position, as a mathematical nerd, im guessing, she doesnt adopt that often. you will be happy to hear that scooby and shaggy are fine and dandy, and even standing up without scooby snacks!
and a bigger question...will the weather actually be good enough to allow her to chose? so much for mid-summer...on the longest day it was raining so hard that i had to put the lights on when i got up for the first time for months...and in rained, and rained..for 2 days with hardly a break. it is interesting that on the other side of the world, in tomorrow-land, it is warmer than here, and its the middle of winter. so remind me again...why do we live here..?
however, as well as my impending drop out of the sky, which alternately fills me with terror or excitement, and sometimes both, there have been distractions from the weather..and here are some of them.
1. spartacus. and im not talking kirk dimple and a host of his mates shouting 'im spartacus' , 'no i am' etc. i mean the new(ish) tv series which has more blood, slow-mo sequences of blood and teeth flying about, men in little or no clothing cavorting on the sand with a host of barbaric weapons, breasts, penises, and swearing ('by jupiters cock' is a particular favourite of mine, but 'cunt of juno' is also effective) than your average night in the topkapi kebab shop opposite my flat after all the clubs have come out. sex, plotting and violence...3 of my favourites!
2. foreign horror movies. yes, there are those amongst you who just would not see the appeal of a film about possessed mirrors in a burnt out department store, creepy old french people trying to create martyrs out of healthy, pretty young girls flaying them alive, or killer hair extensions but i have watched all these things and loved every moment...well maybe not every one...the cutting of achilles tendons with wire cutters, and pulling hair out of ones eyes gives me the shivers...but, unlike any sensible person i just cant stop watching. call me ghoulish...
3. ive read some really brilliant books..obviously i cant tell you who they are by, nor what they are called, as one of the things about kindle is that you cant just look at the cover...and as when you switch it on it just goes to the page you were last reading, the authors name begins to drift off into the ether. i can tell you that presently im reading glister by john burnside..but only because i have a review of it cut out of the paper lying here beside me that spurred me to look it up on amazon. it is really fantastic...in the way that 'the road' is fantastic. its so bleak it actually makes you feel better about the fact that you have to get up and go to work in the rain..as things are just not that bad. are they?
4. it is almost time for me to cook dinner. as im sure you are all aware, my idea of cooking involves heating up soup in a pan, or toasting if im feeling really hungry...but i enjoy it nevertheless. especially as this evening it comes with 2 episodes of spartacus...fucking dancer.
did i fuck! just couldnt do it. just so could not hurl myself out of the plane at 150 miles and hour. sat for hours in the cafe contemplating whether i could do it or not...and realised i just couldnt! got there on time, did the safety briefing, paid, got weighed, watched the video, spent quite a lot of time wondering which one of the men i would be harnessed to, and then realised that the answer was...none of them! beacuse i just couldnt do it.
i realise that the question on the lips of all the hundreds of people who read this blog is 'golly, has george lost her nerve?' (i realise that 99% of you would never say the word 'golly', but i think you will find that there are some that would). but that aside..the answer is no! i was not defeated by my own fear, i was defeated by that most intrinsic of scottish misery...the weather. i was prevented from jumping out of plane (or being pushed, which ever came first) by cumulus nimbus! i curse those clouds, by jupiters cock, and have to ask...if i cant do it in june, then what are the chances of being able to jump on the next available sunday...which is the 28th of october! remind me again...why, in the name of junos cunt, do i live here...
today has been glorious here...well, as glorious as it gets in scotland..ie it has now clouded over, it being evening and all, at 10.30pm...but, despite the fact i had to spend the day inside a oppressively hot bakery, making up sandwiches and serving such annoying, demanding, ugly, fat, scottish tossers, not to mention an equally irritating smattering of americans, germans and italians...i believe that the weather might be on my side and i, maybe, just maybe, might get to do my skydive tomorrow. if we still had weather gods, instead of the jealous, egomainiacal, monothiestic bastard that a lot of people seem to consider christian....i might even consider praying to them, though, cant deny, its not really my style.
i think the last time i prayed was when marshall was in hospital in something like 1979...and some might think that my prayers were for him to survive, or a thing that mattered, like life...but not a bit of it. we would have had to go to the hospital to see him, and wouldnt have got back to edinburgh till late...and, and this is the rub, i had tickets to see AC/DC that night....i prayed he would get out so i could go to a gig. and he did, and i did.... who could belive in a god who just allowed someone to recover so someone else didnt have to go and see them. i rest my case as regads god...though even then in my praying, god didnt even feature. it was just more of a , to quote the smiths...'good times for a change, see, the luck ive had could make a good man turn bad, so please, please, please let me, let me, let me get what i want this time. havent had a dream in a long time, see the life ive had could make a good man bad, so please, please, please let me get what i want, lord knows it would be the first time.'
that was long before i realised that i could live every one of my dreams, and praying had nothing to do with it...it was money that allowed me to do it,. although i cant deny i love that dean martin quote....'they say money talks, but the only thing it ever said to me was goodbye'. cos im flying to australia tomorrow...sadly, im not, but you get the picture...
ok, ive been talking a lot of shite already...but its about to get worse....i have just eaten a huge amout of sugar, havers coming up. rose said on thursday that the bbc website had a thing about obesity in america, where supposedy one third of people are fat according to scientists, because they dont understand portion control.,hum....i have a woman working for me, she looks a bit like frankensteins monster...its all wrong together...huge head, doesnt go with 5,2 size body, but huge body, and skinny legs...anyway..she has been trying to lose weight, but after 2 weeks when she hadnt lost anymore than 6lbs, she went to the doctor as she decided that she had a thyroid problem,but not a bit of it....no thyroid trouble...god, who would have thought, she just eats too much! quelle surprise!
for us portion control is probably more about alchohol than food...these huge glasses i have take half a bottle each...that does not make me think that they hold the same as some sad little pub glass..hey i know what is big and what isnt, believe me! and yet on a similar theme...i, for some reason read the hair dye box i used tonight, and one of the things it said was....if you want natural looking hair, use the shade nearest to your natural colour.,,no kidding, who would have thought? not scarlet then!
and could someone else read 'glister' by john burnside so we could speak about it. its like 'the road'...but no one is on it yet..its too early. totally bleak and depressing, probably more than the road, as lots of people are hopelessly alive...now im reading margaret atwoods 'the flood' that is a prequel to 'oryx and crake' which i loved..but that is 3 armageddon novels in a row...and why is that....
now, you may never have heard of this...but its a competion for which writers are invited to compose the worst opening sentence to an imaginary novel...and this years winner, sue fondrie, a university of wisconsin professor submitted this...
'cheryl's mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell on to a growing pile of forgotten memories'
..but this has nothing on last years winner....by molly ringle.
'for the first month of ricardo and felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every rendezvous with a kiss - a lengthy, ravenous kiss, ricardo lapping at felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil'.
fucking classic!
right, thats got the humour out of the way, now i can get on with the 'why is everything so shite' moaning! so...is it just me, or is everything shite? why is it that the press is having a field-day castigating a norwegian man for going and shooting a whole lot of unaware holiday-makers when his entire purpose for doing so seems to have been to get the attention of said media, who, while they do not, apparently, encourage these things, cant conceal their excitement when they happen. were it not for the media creating 'celebrity' pointlessly, reality tv, and the idea postulated by andy warhol, would any of these things happen? and in the blue corner on the side of the media, we have one of the worlds most despiciable old men...rupe murdoch (82), his amazonian wife, wendi (44) who seems to be dab hand with a left hook, and his son 'just tattoo 'liar' on my forehead' james. rupert wants us to believe that signing cheques for £1million was something he just allowed his staff to do, and he didnt ask any questions about it, ( fuck me dead, we are in the wrong jobs), james 'really wants to answer that question' but first let him answer something irrelevant, which doesnt implicate him, or his family, and wendi, well, she just sits behind old murdoch, taking part in 'basic instinct' and physically attacking anyone who heckles, or throws pies.
and then...we have yet another royal wedding. yes, you may all be unaware, and who can blame you, but the whole city of edinburgh is being closed down next friday because that old parasite, the queen, is coming to see her grand-daughter, zara, marry some chinless wanker in st giles on the high street. supposedly they are expecting 2000 well-wishers to line the route...im expecting that 1997 of those will be foreign, and if they come into my shop en route, i will not be wishing them well...i will be spitting into their espresso and pan au chocolat, and hoping they get gastro-entiritis! the next american that asks for an americano coffee, and then for milk in that i will hit with the pies that may, or may not have animal shortening, or the cakes that dont have 'frosting'!
and finally...well, strangely its the weather...fuck me dead is it shite? i got soaked to my underwear yet again today...and i think the thing that is pissing me off the most about this...you know when gareth told me he had booked the skydive..i was so excited..couldnt wait...but little did i know thats what i would be doing for 5 weeks. now, its not exciting, its just endless dissappointment..i have started wondering if i really can be bothered at all. dont get me wrong..i realise that this is some stoopid rich idiot moaning about something totally ridiculous, like....oh, god, im so upset coz i cant just jump out of a plane when i wanted to. but this requires a lot of psyche..ive been so buzzy about doing it, and then i cant..and then again and again. im losing my psych-ness. actually im starting to get scared that they will say to me that i can do it...then where will i be.
shite..its all shite!
so, after 6 weeks of waiting, calling every sunday after curtailing my saturday night, two drives up to perthshire at the crack of dawn, and wondering if i really wanted to do it at all, i finally got to plummet , headfirst, out of a plane 12000 feet up, at 125 miles an hour! YA FUCKING DANCER!
have to say that skydiving is a lot like surfing, it involves hours and hours waiting about, in the company of total wankers, talking 'extreme-sport-hyperbole' in annoying accents, very small windows of opportunity, and then a tiny adrenalin-fuled rush when you actually get to do it, and then its all over! bill and i were at the airfield at 8.30 am (ironically, the day that i manage to do it is a day that neither rose nor gareth is able to be there), and we sat there for 4 hours waiting for my name to be called over the tannoy, while all around us people were kitting up, getting in planes in batches, jumping out and carrying parachutes back to be re-bagged and given to someone else. there are 15 minuite intervals between groups, and they had 3 in process when i went and got kitted up into a striking violet jumpsuit, harness and leather pilots cap and goggles (unfortunately not only were rose and gareth absent, so was my camera, as i forgot to take it, so you will not be able to see the full glamour of my outfit until i get the dvd through the post)! so i reckoned i had about an hour at least, and was standing chatting to bill, in this becoming outfit, when my tandem guy came and grabbed me, and forced me to run (well, if you could call it running, its not that easy with a harness between your legs!) and climb onto a plane, and then with another tandem couple, 2 camera men, and one other single jumper we were off, just like that, boy those cessnas get up quickly! have to say that i did not even feel nervous, crushed up on a mans knee, with 5 other people in a tiny, hot plane, and before i knew it i was sitting at the door, and then letting go of the plane, literally hanging out over perthshire before the tandem guy let go, and we were tumblling out into the sky. that first tumble is the single most exhilarating moment of my life..it feels so liberating, after being cooped up in the tiny space of the plane, and i suppose its a little like being in the very front car of a roller-coaster. i know that most of you reading this dont do coaster, but if you are in the very front seats, you end up hanging over the top of the first huge dip while the last car reaches the top..it only takes about 3 seconds, but its the reason that you go in the front car. this was the same, only without the car, or indeed the track!
i did free-fall for 40 seconds, though it seemed much less than that... i met another girl who said that she found it hard to remember to keep her legs up inbetween the instructors, i have to say that i found it the most natural, easy position, and didnt have to think about a thing...which is lucky, as i was screaming my head off!
then the parachute comes out, you are pulled upwards, and then suddenly its all quiet and peace and soaring about slowly. at this point we met some little white puffy clouds, and i got to walk on one! now thats not something you get to do everyday! and then we did some spinning, and swooping, and ducking and diving over the centre, which i cant deny, actually made me feel a little motion-sick, but i still wanted to do it...and then my legs were up and i was smoothly gliding along the grass on my butt , and it was all over! had i been allowed to, i would have gone back up again immediately..i absolutely loved it..but at £200 a pop, i dont think i'll be making a hobby of it. this was re-inforced by the fact that there were people doing, presumably, a parachuting course holiday...they were all pink-faced, downy-skinned students called rupert or india, probably doing media studies at uni, and they were camping at the airfield! imagine! apart from the exteme-sports-hyperbole all they spoke about was how many drinks they had had the night before, and who went to bed the latest! still, i may as well get used to these kind of conversations...the festival starts tomorrow! ive already had posh thesbians in asking if they can have any bread we havent sold during the day for nothing, as they need it for a fringe show. am sure i dont have to tell you my response to that request. as i seem to remember writing last year...nothing says ' i live in scotland' quite like a torn face!
so there it is! done and dusted! on a different note...eli, mike told me that you had been offered the job...cant wait to talk to you about it on saturday. so, so missed you last week.
binni and kim, thanks again for calling...speak properly soon.
rose...see you soon..
and gareth..do you fancy going for dinner at calistoga on saturday, now that i can relax and not have to worry about maybe falling out of a plane on the sunday.
later all.....
now, im honestly not becoming paranoid, agraphobic, nor birdist...but i have been targeted in a hate campaign by fucking seagulls! i know that many of you reading this, who have a strange fascination with the colder climes of the world, probably see herring gulls as noble, worthy members of our great world fauna, swooping effortlessly off cliffs and plashing about in the colder oceans of our wonderful planet in the search for fish. but let me tell you...they are not! they are urban raiders and looters...and something akin to the pigeon on the vermin ladder of species..only much bigger and more threatening! since the introduction of the communal wheely bin in edinburgh we have had much less problems with seagulls...but this year they are back with a vengance...and let me tell you some of that is directed at me!
sunday i left the flat..as i do, to go up to bills so that he can, lovingly, cook me denner, and have it on the table for my arrival. i was a little late...also usual, as eli and i had been talking on skype...and fuck me dead...once we get started we could go on for ever...actually our current record is 8 hours 45 minutes..thank the lord its free or i might have to remortgage my house. anyway....i was trying to get a taxi on fountainbridge when a gull swooped down towards me...almost hit me, and shat all over me as it flew past. and we are not talking small bird shit here...it covered half of my head and right down the left side of my jacket...and given that they eat stuff out of bins and ive seen them picking at vomit on the street, not to mention the horror of seeing one pecking the eyes out of a dead squirrel..im not kidding, it was not a small white possit...but a great brown smear! and to make it even worse, id just washed my hair.
well, as if that was not bad enough, on monday when i left for work at the god forsaken time of 5.45am...i was harassed it the street by yet another gull..or perhaps it was the same one, its hard to tell with species that look indentical..screaming at me, swooping and it would have also dive-bombed me with shite if i hadnt taken to my heels and ran like the wind! i mean....WHO NEEDS THIS SHITE ON A MONDAY MORNING..I HAD TO RUN FOR GODS SAKE! not something i normally do on the day, every week, you realise, with a bump, what it is you actually do for a living, and how little leisure you have inbetween working. i consistently feel on monday, not that i have deja vu, but, in fact, that i have never left the shop...its just one long horror movie of selling my labour, with the inferno of ovens, proovers, dish washers and the outflow of all the retarders for good measure.
on the other hand, last week i did get to do my dive, go out for dinner, and found a fiver on the street two days running...so perhaps the gull is a messenger from the almighty reminding me that life isnt really that great, and i shouldnt get too big for my boots...or is that just too scottish....
sorry to be really thick, but while i was wondering how to email this video to my thousands of clamouring fans...binni suggested that i take a few stills of the film from the tv with my camera to put on here. quite how i hadnt thought of that myself, i have no idea...call myself a manager.
anyway...here they are in all their glory.
i doubt colonel kurtz ever spent a weekend trying to go about his normal business in edinburgh during the festival, but if he had, i have no doubt that he would have gone off the rails long before marlon brando played him as a hideously obese sociopath, hidden in the shadows of some laotian temple, spouting hours of pseudo-philosophical havers about snails crawling along the blades of razors, and piles of tiny arms. apart from anything else it is probably possible to see both of those things, among a myriad of other total pretentious shite, as a fringe show, appearing at venue 1698..a lock-up in some dubious part of leith, venue 3467 a step-ladder on chuckie pend, or venue 666..cramond island, which you have to leave by a certain time or the causeway out gets covered by the sea!
call me idiotic, but on my early finish yesterday, i decided to take a short-cut down the high street to see simon in his shop, as i havent seen him for ages. this 'short-cut' included walking down the bridges where there were so many people it was, literally, impossible to move at the bus-stops without stepping off the pavement, thereby having a swift brush with a double-decker..and the reaper! it actually took me around 35 minutes for a walk that normally i can do in 20..but, if you thought there would be a breather once i rounded the corner onto tron square...think again. not only do you have to duck and dive around the, i would say at least 2000 tourists, you have to run the gauntlet of the 'leaflet touts', of which there is one at least every metre..sometimes on both sides. add to this the fact that there are those annoying human statues, street cabaret every 5 meters, people who are so slow moving that zombies would have no problem bringing them down..and, even worse, it was lashing with rain (surprise, surprise). so added to thousands of people, horizontal rain, human statues, street theatre, leaflet touts, and those fucking zombie-speed walkers we also have something that bugs me under any circumstance in a busy area and especially somewhere as windy as edinburgh.. that work of the devil..the UMBRELLA!
as tourists come in all sizes...from the tiny japanese in their incredibly bad clothes to the american giants with huge shorts and white socks pulled up to mid calf, those bloody umbrellas are at all heights..and i honestly cant remember a time when my eyes have been under more threat of being poked out. i got hit in the head at least 20 times by spokes..probably i should have affected a gait equally as slow as your average festival goer...ie around 30 steps a minute..but, as im sure you are aware, that is just not me!
so i abandoned all thought of going to simons...how stupid would that have been...doh! its a tiny shop, and would no doubt be filled with people and their wet umbrellas, so i just decided to cut down the playfair steps next to the rsa and the national gallery. fuck me dead..i usually slip down those steps in no time...but you couldnt move for people..and, you guessed it, their fucking umbrellas!
so eventually i got home, put on playstation and did a whole lot of killing...and not an umbrella in sight! pity!
i know those of you unlucky enough not to be living in edinburgh during the festival will be so pissed to miss all that avant guard comedy, not to mention the hilarious street theatre so beloved of tourists, and those indecently clever reviews done by pink, downy skinned english students called india and rupert who spent the entire time walking around with their 'fringe performer' pass hanging round their pretty little necks. so here are a few of the brilliant shows you are missing...and, like last year, these honestly are real shows..not just something i made up for your entertainment.
1. seven day drunk. bryony kimmings' latest show (you may remember last year she did a side-splitting review about being diagnosed with clymidia) is a pseudo-scientific look at the links between alcohol and creativity. devised in various stages of intoxication, kimmings performs sober, but recruits a female audience member to drink seven shots of vodka to replicate her 'creative process' on stage. my guess is you would need a whole bottle in order to be drunk enough to fork out £18 for this twaddle.
2. the boy with tape on his face. this is a 'charming' silent clown who mutely implores audience members out of their seats, charming them into dance routines, the pottery scene from 'ghost' and, in one sublime moment, a striptease. its impossible to say no to a man with tape over his mouth, apparently.
3. crunch. gary mcnair's one-man show is a 'five-step programme' offering 'relief from the terrors of the financial system', climaxing in an invitation to the audience to come up on stage and feed their own cash into a shredder. unbelievably people are queuing up to take part (it says here) . whether this 'vaccine against the disasters of the future, so that money and greed lose thier grip on you' works long term remains to be seen. but i imagine gary aint doing it for nothing!
4. you once said yes. a play/magical mystery tour for one, this encourages audiences to say yes to every opportunity that presents itself in a series of encounters round edinburgh's hidden spaces. you might be in a car on the way to an unspecified heist, singing along to beyonce with a homeless man in a graveyard or modelling clothes in a charity shop. the more you put into it, the more you get out. what fucking amazes me is what they are really expecting you to put in to it is around £20 of your hard earned cash for a ticket.
5. bring me the head of adam riches. the high-octane character comedian adam riches has created the must-see show of the fringe this year. in an hour of comedy that plays out like an insane, surreal game-show, riches persuades members of the audience to compete at swing-ball, act like daniel day-lewis, kiss strangers in 'a way they themselves would never wish to be kissed' or take part in mutant lizard skateboard races. how we did laugh!
6. audience. two years ago the belgian company ontroerend goed forced audiences to speed-date their actors. this years play is rather more sinster. a camera is trained on the audience while the actors give voice to the inner monologues of the person on film, which culminates in someone being picked to come up on stage and be subjected to a torrent of abuse. supposedly questioning what people will watch in the name of entertainment, it has been widely criticised for going too far..which in my book means that more people will go and see this tosh.
in the words of alice jones in the independents 'fringe journal'
'and so, in the past two weeks in edinburgh, ive signed up for a humiliating public piano lesson, taken part in a windswept singalong of 'the bonnie banks o loch lomond' from the top of a double decker bus and performed a cheryl cole-inspired dance routine. ive obediantly meditated when instructed, acted as assistant clown on the royal mile, and sung the chorus to a piece of performance poetry, playing a sub-par dido to luke wrights emeinem....there were also opportunities to share the intimate secrets of my love life, to slow dance with sketch troupe lady garden to 'lady in red' and act as towel girl to the comedian tim key who performs half of his show in the bath. why did i do all this? because, frankly, i didnt have a choice!'
she doesnt mention that she probably also paid around £300 for the privilidge of this ritual humiliation...but all i can say is, do as edinburgers do, walk as fast as you can looking straight ahead, never make eye contact, accept a leaflet or take that scowl off your face. a simple 'get the fuck out of my way' look works a treat. no one, but no one will ever persuade me to take part in a piece of 'performance poetry'! we all have a choice...and frankly mine is to go home and lock the door!
so her is 'the funniest joke' at the festival this year...(im sure that you remember that last year it was..'went on the holiday of a lifetime..i tell you.,..never again'. and how we did laugh!).
'i needed a password eight characters long, so i picked snow white and the seven dwarves'.
and if you are not splitting your sides about that one, as i know im not..here are some of the runners up..
'my friend died doing something that he loved....heroin!'
'i was playing chess with my friend and he said 'lets make this interesting'. so we stopped playing chess.'
'crime in multi-storey carparks. that is wrong on so many different levels'
'people say 'im taking it one day at a time'. you know what...so is everybody, thats how time works'
'drive-thru mcdonalds was more expensive than i thought....once you've hired the car'.
what more can i say...
the fireworks concert is on tonight..the last day of the edibnburgh festival...the city has taken a deep breath and returned to the deeply miserable, torn faced place it is, after a month of posturing as a happy-go-lucky, arty, international capital of the absurd. we can now stop pretending that we are the small, northern, xenophobic, dark, calvinist city which happens to be really beautiful, but lets face it, would be so much happier if it was on the mediterranean. when i walked to work on tuesday the 'ladyboys' encampment on the meadows was still there...when i went home, it had just gone...back to bangkok, apparently..all that was left was a huge patch of dead grass covered in spangles, to remind you that it had been there. scarily, after a week not getting up for work at 5am due to being ill, it is now dark when i leave the house of a morning...yikes. winter is just round the corner.....but in the meantime here is my life in a walnut.
1. it is now a mere 3 weeks till i meet up with binni and kim turkey. i know, apart form rose, no one knows the significance of istanbul...but it is one of the two places in the world that i have missed going to. we got the days wrong and missed a boat over the black sea from bulgaria...imagine! to say that im counting the days is an understatement...hell..im counting the hours....
2. bill, (77) registered his name on the scottish voters roll by text message!
3. we have a brand new range of doughnuts...including triple choc, coconut snowball, strawberry milkshake and jaffa cake. i realise its hard for you to understand much im supposed to care about these products....but i believe the word 'gush' might come into what head office believes i will do. im sorry but no one can get that enthusiastic about bakery...funnily enough, it was so much easier when i was selling something that i really loved, believed in, and gave my soul to..yes, alcohol!
4. the 'trams project' in edinburgh has got the go-ahead yet again despite the fact that it is now gonna cost the city (ie us, the tax payers) £3billion to take the line from the city centre to the airport. the trams were meant to be running already in march this year...but supposedly the infrastructure is only 18% in place..and the only tram lines actually existing, along princes street, have been damaged already and will have to be replaced despite the fact that not a single tram has ever run on them. if i ran my shop like this i would have been sacked months ago!
4.
and not the date which we still stubbornly refer to in the uk as september 11th! none of that here matey! no...instead..this!
barely had they taken away the huge bar, food stalls, speigel tent and giant inflatable 'colour space' from george square, so that there was nothing to even prove its previous presence except yellow patches in the grass, grease stains on the pavement and a faint whiff of rancid burgers, but the square was buzzing with people again. yes, monday was edinburgh university 'open day', and the start of freshers week. 4x4 loads of pink-faced, downy-skinned ruperts and indias were doing the rounds of the media studies department, followed by their walking wallets...i mean their parents. and no wonder the parents were looking white-faced, as this week edinburgh has officially become the most expensive uni in europe...£36000 for a 4 year degree, unless you are a scottish resident. and that is before daddy has had to shell out for that flat in stockbridge, a mini cooper, skiing holidays in val d'isere and the 'gap year' round the world back-packing trip taking in all the countries where one can meet other ruperts and indias and dope is cheap and plentiful. it is something of an issue as edinburgh (and in fact aberdeen too), charge tuition fees for students from other parts of the uk, (scottish students are exempt) yet none of the english, welsh or ulster unis do the same. we are accused of being 'racist', though i use 'we' in the loosest possible terms.
anyway...seeing all those callow, eager, spoilt kids made me think about my own uni days..and then i realised that derek and i met at uni 30 years ago!!! THIRTY YEARS AGO! fuck me dead! in a chinese civilization class in a small dark room in one of the georgian houses on buccleuch (its pronounce buh-cloo for some reason) street. god, the chinese department, how we did laugh. dr chinnery, who you could spend a whole lecture just chatting with, dr do, whose english was so indecypherable that no one could work out if he was talking about khang kai sheck or yang shi kai, and went home to hong kong one christmas and just never came back. and john scott..if you think of michael cain in educating rita..who, despite teaching chinese history didnt agree with the revolution, so wouldnt ever mention anything after 1911, and was sacked for comments he made to the chinese deligation when edinburgh got 'twinned' with xian. those were the days!
but 30 YEARS ago! you know that there is that thing with a new partner where, men especially it appears, want your life to have started when you met. but im sort of the opposite...i actually incorporate my mates into my life before i met them. sometimes i think binni and kim were on a holiday i went on before i even knew they existed. and gareth..god, was there ever i time i didnt know gareth..and, in fact ive only known him for around 22 years. and was there really a time before rose and i had been to havana. and what the fuck did i do on a saturday night before i skyped eli. and we have only been doing it for just over a year..but i have no idea what i did before. i just cannot imagine my life existed before i met all of you. (though, obviously, in the case of eli i didnt have one, and rose was born when i was 6).
safe to say, i wouldnt have the life i have now without y'all, and dont mean to sound like a sappy actor winning an oscar or anything, but who would i be without you. a johnny-nae-mates thats who. and no one wants to befriend a johnny-nae-mates!
i went to work today, as normal, and had, sadly, to don the blue polythene apron of concentration...ie, i had to make up sandwiches! what a head fuck after rose kept me up till midnight last night, when i had to get up at 5.15am. anyway...on my morning break at 10am...a mere 4 hours after i got to work, and had already made 180 tasty, nourishing takeaway items...i got a text from binni and kim. they were already at the airport, drinking a small sherry, i mean...dont you just hate these people who live in the future....they were on holiday, about to get on a plane to fly back into our time zone, while i was still at work, slapping egg mayonnaise onto oatmeal bread, and slicing baguettes wearing a protective blue glove. not only that, but they are already travelling, while i have yet to put even so much as a pair of shorts or a lycra top into my bag. however i did pay my council tax, get turkish lira and some euros, and an english £10 note for my visa, buy pork pies, and a video game, charge my toothbrush, put credit on my mobile phone, arrange a huge pile of chargers to take with me, change a pesky bank of scotland £50 note, which i have to say rbs refused to change, despite the fact that i had waited in a queue for 10 minutes, and its just a bank note...god knows what they would have done if it was bank of england, and find my way to the crossings on princes street which is closed, again, for 10 months due to the fucking tram works. all this while wearing my winter jacket, because it was really cold when i left home this morning, in glorious sunshine which left me dripping sweat. strangely i have also found the time to drink a few, small, glasses of wine...actually, as im sure you are all aware...i dont do small when it comes to glasses.
so i would like to say im ready to meet the people from tomorrow, who, as im writing this are flying to singapore...and probably have not even left australian airspace..but it would be a lie...perhaps it will be like one of my dreams..i arrive with my bag and open it and realise that i forgot to pack...right before i lose my shoes....oh the joy of travel!
boy, do we love turkey or what...have looked at 3 bedroom villas here for less than my flat in edinburgh. we are down here on the mediterranean coast, just above cyprus...and it is actually so fantastic that we are all talking about retiring here. we have rushed down here from istanbul, which is such a brilliant city, a mixture of seaside, port, beautiful islamic architecture and hussle-bussle, god i loved it...to the islamic heart of central turkey where we got woken up at 5.45am every morning by the call to prayer...actually that has been a bit of a theme...via cappadocia with the amazing rock formations, and 10th century cave churches. we have also, at some points along the way, been to a whirling dervish ceremony in a 12th century caravanserai, which was one of the most amazingly entrancing experiences, hired a boat to take only 6 of us out to see the sunset off the coast which could have taken about 30 people...and we haggled them down to 150lira....the equivalent of 50 quid for all 6 of us, with a free glass of wine thrown in. swum in the med, followed by a lunch on the beach during which there was torrential rain that totally ruined my aubergine and yoghurt salad...all while you are having a heatwave...how ironic. and been to hagia sophia, the blue mosque, seen 6 thousand year old clay figures, amazing tiles covering every wall, 10th century mosaics, you name it. it is so brilliant to see binni and kim, we have had such a laugh...we are sitting down at the back of the bus, and everyone else is jealous....they think that we are having a better time than they are...and do you know what...WE ARE!
who would have thought...just when i thought i had beaten the mosquito with 100% deet, which i have to assure you i have put on regularly, i got a bite under my hoodie 2 days ago which today turned into a medical emergency, and i had to rush to A & E. i actually think the girl from the hotel, who drove me into the next town at breakneck speed, thought i was gonna die in her car, probably quite likely given how fast she was driving, but, hey, i didnt. thing is overnight, not only had my whole arm swollen up horrendously, but i have a huge blood blister in the crook of my elbow, and i think they all thought i had blood poisoning. the guy in the first pharmacy we went into actually turned white when he looked at it, and i cant speak turkish, as i think you are all well aware...but it was quite obvious that he just said that he just couldnt do anything about it, and we should go to hospital. so, lost of turkish later, and total confusion as i didnt have my passport, i got swabbed, injected in the butt, given a prescription for anitbiotics and sent on my way. but everyone has been so sweet...our intrepid bus driver came over to see how i was, despite the fact that we cant speak a word of each others language, and the girl has come to see me 3 times since we got back...how nice is that. funnily enough, im now sitting in the bar overlooking a lake, some lycian rock carved tombs, and an efes beer...its hell! and you will all be relieved to hear, that the swelling has gone down a bit, and its not throbbing like hell. god these turks...bless em. i have also bought a new rug, a ceramic whirling dervish, eaten some of the most ridiculously healthy food ive had for years, swum in the med, drunk vodka with sour cherry juice, smoked cigarettes which only cost 1 pound 70, and drunk copious amounts of beer which has sent me, over and over to squat toilets.
despite my medical emergency, im having a ball...its so lovely here, the people are just so kind, and there is none of that north african hassle. i really have no idea why i havent been before. its just heaven!
just some photos...do writing later.
we were having dinner where it was warm enough to sit outside watching the world go by, followed by an couple of hours lounging on cushions smoking a nargile. then we repaired to the roof of our hotel, which had fabulous views of hagia sophia, the blue mosque, topkapi palace and the bosphorous bridge which lights up at night in quite spectacular fashion, where we inbibed one or two bottles of delicious turkish wine in the sultry istanbul weather until around 3.30 am.
this week i will probably be in bed by 9pm ready for yet another fulfilling day selling pasties to the pasty, halloween slime donuts to schoolboys for their breakfast and catching shoplifters sticking our sandwiches into their sleeves or their childs pram. pah i say!
i think its fair to say that turkey is one, if not thee most interesting, varied, forward-looking and (oxymoronically) historically steeped country i have ever visited. it really is a crossroads...everyone who is anyone in history has been through here and left their genes and their ruins...the hittites, the assryians, the phonecians, alexander the great, the romans, the byzantine empire, the arabs, the ottomans, you name it...its all here in this great melting pot of religion, culture, race, terrain, fauna and humanity. some turks are swarthy and hairy, some are blonde and blue eyed. some of them are panthiest muslims, the alevi and the mevledi, some are traditional sunni, some are christian and many are just not really that interested at all. there are cities, like konya where most women wear headscarves...and there are cities, like istanbul and the med and agean coasts where hardly anyone does. there are also amazing things about turkey that you just didnt know...it supplies 90% of europes tomatoes, and whole towns are swathed in polytunnel. it also grows a huge amount of cotton, and most of europes sports socks are produced here. the anatolian plateau grows most of europes aubergines and pomegranites. no fucking wonder they want to join the eu! think how much they would gain in not having to pay duties to export to europe.
and then there are the other things...there are very few beggars in turkey, there is very little litter, and every bush in the country side is not swathed in blue plastic bags as in egypt. it appears, as a tourist, that there is very little crime, you do not feel that you have to hold on to your belongings in markets, and of the very many hotels we stayed in on our 3000km journey only one even offered safes in the rooms. on my last day i was leaving at 3.30am so didnt bother to book a room...i left all my luggage lying in the hotel lobby. i didnt even occur to me that anyone would rifle it when i was out for the whole day, and funnily enough that didnt happen. and this in a city of 12 million, where the traffic is so bad you can walk to your destination faster than you can drive, where 2 million people can be in the club area on a saturday night and there is every vice known to mankind. istanbul really is a very exciting city and has a kind of buzz about it that i have only really felt before in new york city. its just such a wonderful city...and i recommend that every one of you go and see it, if you havent already done so.
and then there is a little town on the mediterranean coast called kas (its pronounced cash), binni and kim and i looked to property there...for the price of my tiny flat here in the dark, rainy north i could buy a 2 bedroom villa with a swimming pool close to the coast. or i could rent a villa for about £200 a month. its tempting.
i loved turkey.
and we all had such a good time. despite coming back home as ruins!
and all these photos are courtesy of binni and kim...as you know, i dont really take photos of myself. yuk!
yes, it seems i might be going back to turkey next year, as bill has decided to swim round the greek islands of the coast of kas...and i will just chill out during the day, maybe do some shopping, have a few drinks, and then we will meet up in the evening for dinner. sounds just fab to me. and i can think of worse places to do very little.
anyway....those whirling dervishes...derek, the website of the place i saw them is sarihan1249.com...as the caravanserai was built in 1249...and here im gonna quote from the blurb..'the fundimental condition of our existence is to revolve. there is no object, no being which does not, and the shared similarity among beings is the revolution of the electrons and protons in the atoms, which constitute the structure of the smallest particle to the stars far away in the sky. man carries on his life, his very existence by means of the revolution of the atoms, the circulation of his blood, by his coming from the earth and his return to it, and by his revolving with the earth itself. thus the semazen, or whirling dervish causes the mind to participate in the shared similarity and revolution of all other beings...the sema ceremony represents a mystical journey of mans spiritual ascent through love, deserting his ego, finding the truth and arriving at the 'perfect.' then he returns as a man who has reached maturity, and a greater perfection, so as to love and to be of service to the whole of creation, to all creatures without discrimination of belief, class or race...'.
pretty big stuff then...and i think that its interesting that mevlana celaleddin i rumi, while he never really whirled himself, lived from 1207 till 1273...correct me if im wrong, but wasnt that around the same time as christian groups such as the cathars and the bogomils were also developing pantheist ideas which resulted in their ultimate downfall due to declaration of heresy. the established church hates pantheism as it does not have a place in it. 'break a twig and you will find me, lift a stone and i will be there' is not the idea of god that the established clergy wants us to have. we cannot have a personal relationship with god...we have to have them to do it for us, hence the fight to have the bible, or the quran kept in a language that is not yours. oh....i could go and and on...but i wont...my time is limited, despite the extra hour in this day.
as i speak eli is travelling to north carolina to start her new job, bill is cooking haggis, and derek and marty, and binni and kim will be asleep in bed, albeit in different days...as you know its always tomorrow in australia, and yesterday in california. for me, i have just completed the busiest week of the bakery year...yes halloween is big news in greggs. tomorrow, i expect we will have our most profitable day of the year...i fucking hope so as the amount of creepy cupcakes, eyeball crispies, spooky ring buns and witch and lantern cakes i have in stock is truelly frightening. im dressing as a winsome witch...photos to follow..i know you cant hardly contain your excitement.....
hey...i know, lets go out and buy some gunpowder since we are over 18. it is a weird thang, is it not, that we are all obsessed with national security yet come the 5th nov, anyone old enough to vote can buy fireworks in the corner shop run by old women. but, hey, what do i know?
well..here are a few of the things i do know...
we have the radio on at work the whole time, and between 6.45 and 7am they have 'the early morning hard one'....this can be anything from 'what to 45% of kids aged 6 have in their bedroom in the uk?'...(a tv), 'what is the most visited tourist attraction in the world?' (i got this one right..but binni and kim...do you know?) 'what did no one in scotland have in 1840, but we all have now?'...(a postcode), or 'what one thing in the world does everyone do with their right hand' (salute)..but the question was one day this week..'what do 6 million people in the uk visit at least once every week' (for those of you who dont know our population...that is 10% of those who live here)! and the answer is not the doctor, the gym, a museum or a carpark....it is a GREGGS SHOP! isnt that amazing! so the greatest love of all is not according to whitney houston loving onself....it is the love of the sausage roll or the donut!
another thing i know, because of a yahoo survey..is that the worst things a woman can say to her partner are..'you are not ambitious enough', 'my parents wanted me to marry tristan, who i used to go out with', 'i was unfaithful to tristan who i used to go out with', and 'i dont like your mother'. (obviously the name tristan here is random...but, lets face it, only a wanker would be called tristan, as i believe i said to orhan in instanbul after we had met an amerikan guy called that very name). and up until this survey i thought the worst thing one could say to ones partner was 'oh, are we having sex already, sorry...let me put this book down...no hang on, i need to finish this paragraph'....
another thing i know is that the uk had its worst ever road accident yesterday..at 10am it was a 27 car pile-up, by 11.30 it was 31 cars, and by lunch time another 3 cars had got involved on the M5 burn-out in fog. actually i dont mean to be flippant about this...its an inferno, and those amongst you who can stomach these things should look up the footage...talk about hell..but the amazing thing is that so far only 7 people have died...though just like the cars involved that may increase. i dont mean that the amount of cars increased..its just that they couldnt count them properly due to the fire. or is it that the cops first on the scene dont know how to count...well...that is an early morning hard one...
and another thing..i have just finished reading a proper paper book...for the first time since i got my kindle, when it was broken, i had to resort to the old format....paperback. and i didnt suddenly find that e-readers were rubbish and i prefered the smell and feeling of a real book..like, duh, no .it was a real pain...i couldnt read lying in bed and, god forbid, i had to turn my own pages with both hands....dang! and it wouldnt just lie open at the place you stopped...i realise that for those of you who dont have kindles, you dont know...but when ever you decide to cease...the book just opens at the same place when you revisit...a little like a playstation game...but unlike that paperback that you sleep with/on. it was 'the master and margarita' by bulgarov which i read years ago...but kim brought it up in a conversation, and i thought i might revisit...i really loved it, more this time, but i still dont get it...i get the pontius pilate thang...but if anyone has any ideas let me know...i keep thinking its an allegory...but to what....dunno...perhaps i just dont know enough about russian life....
i am listening to 'b movie' by gill scott heron...and i know this was written in something like 1977..but its still so relevant...america has changed from a producer to a consumer...the arabs used to be in the third world, they have bought the second, and put a firm down-payment on the first, what america wants now is nostalgia, they want to go back as far as they can, even if its only as far as last week, not to face now or tomorrow but to face backwards...come with us back to those glorious days when heroes werent zeros, when the buck stopped somewhere, and you could still buy something with it. first one wants freedom, then the whole damn world wants freedom....fucking magic..and its all about ronald reagan...remember him...how little things have changed. this aint really a life aint really a life, aint nothing but a movie....
it is snowing here...so to take my mind off that fact...here is a paragraph from the book im reading...
at times like this what matters is not our words but our demeanor, not the magnitude or elegance or our grief but the degree to which we can express fellowship with those around us. i sometimes think that our love of cigarettes owes nothing to the nicotine, and everything to their ability to fill the meaningless void and offer an easy way of feeling as if we are doing something purposeful. my father, my brother and i each took a cigarette from the packet of maltepes offered to us by the elder son of the deceased, and once they were all lit with the same burning match that the teenager artfully offered us, there followed a strange moment when all three of us crossed our legs and set about puffing in unison, as if enacting a ritual of transcendental importance.
orhan pamuk...doncha just love him! i honestly thought that 'my name is red' was his best book...though i loved 'snow' (only in the novel sense you must understand) but 'the museum of innocence' is just so good that he has become one of my favourite writers ..alongside david mitchell, hari kunzru and john burnside.
but enough about them...
im so fed up, unhappy and sick because of the darkness here. i actually find this year worse than last despite the fact that we are not up to our knees in snow..i just hate the darkness...im not really scottish in that way..and as one persons freedom is anothers fear...it transpires that all of my staff think i am crazy because i walk over the meadows to work in the morning. binni and i have discussed the freedom aspect of walking where no one knows where, who and what your are...but the people i work with are too scared to do that. 2 people have been assaulted on the meadows in the last month...and all my staff have told me to 'be careful'...quite how you can i dont know. tasha who, despite being barred from 3 edinburgh pubs for fighting, and looking like frankensteins monster, gets her mother to walk her to the bus stop in the morning. i have pointed out to them that i live alone...walk alone, travel alone, deal with all the shite alone...but i dont think they get it. im so not scared..i just dont give a shit!
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME JUST NOW? IT IS A MID-LIFE CRISIS, A MID-WINTER CRISIS OR JUST A MID-WEEK CRISIS...I JUST CANT DECIDE! BUT WHATEVER IT IS, I SEEM TO HAVE PLUNGED INTO A MALAISE OF NEGATIVITY, HOPELESSNESS AND GRUMPINESS THAT I JUST CANT THROW OFF.
THIS HAS HARDLY BEEN HELPED BY OUR WEATHER...I KNOW I ALWAYS MOAN ON ABOUT IT...IT IS, AFTER ALL, COMPULSORY IF ONE IS BRITISH, OTHERWISE WE HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO SPEAK ABOUT...BUT AFTER LAST YEAR, WHEN WE WERE UP TO OUR KNEES IN SNOW AT THE END OF NOVEMBER, WE WERE LULLED INTO A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY THIS YEAR BY ONE OF THE MILDEST NOVEMBERS ON RECORD. (I REALISE THAT READING THIS ARE THOSE OF YOU WHO DO NOT LIVE IN A CLIMACTIC ZONE WHICH ENCOMPASSES THE TERM 'MILD' IN REGARDS TO WEATHER..SUFFICE TO SAY THAT IT DESCRIBES TEMPERATURES AND CONDIDITONS THAT ARE NOT LIFE-THREATENING: IE, YOU OBVIOUSLY CANT SIT OUT IN IT, BUT WILL REMAIN ALIVE IF OUT FOR A BRISK WALK, WITH HATS, SCARVES, 5 LAYERS OF CLOTHING..AND DO NOT HAVE TO STEP GINGERLY AS THERE IS NO BLACK ICE FOR YOU TO FALL AND BREAK YOUR HIP ON). THEN CAME DECEMBER...AND THE TEMPERATURE PLUMMETED 15 DEGREES..THE WIND GOT UP, WE GOT SNOW, THERE IS ICE EVERYWHERE AND TODAY WE HAVE A RED STORM ALERT..SUPPOSEDLY SO BAD THAT WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO GO OUTSIDE BETWEEN 3 AND 6PM. DONT KNOW ABOUT YOU...BUT AS THIS IS THE TIME THAT 90% OF PEOPLE, MYSELF INCLUDED, TRAVEL HOME FROM WORK..ID RISK THE STORM ANY TIME! CANT DENY THAT I HAVE, AT THIS MOMENT, POUNDING MUSIC ON SO THAT IT WILL DROWN OUT THE SOUNDS OF MY WINDOWS CRASHING ABOUT...THERE HAS BEEN HAIL SO LARGE AND PROLONGED THAT I THOUGHT THEY MIGHT COME IN (THE WINDOWS THAT IS...NOT THE HAILSTONES)...AND THEY MIGHT STILL YET..ITS ONLY 2.45 STILL TIME FOR ARMEGEDDON TO ARRIVE. HAVE TO SAY WHEN YOU LIVE IN ONE OF THE WINDIEST (IF NOT THEE WINDIEST) COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD, YOU JUST THINK..YEAH RIGHT..WHATS ANOTHER BIT OF WIND...BUT THEY DO SAY THAT THE SPEEDS ARE GOING TO GET UP TO 120 MILES AN HOUR! ALL I CAN THINK IS THAT IT SHOULD BE INTERESTING WALKING OVER THE MEADOWS TOMORROW MORNING...AVOIDING THE BRANCHES AND BINS..JUST AS WELL THEY CUT DOWN 2 DANGEROUS TREES LAST WEEK I SAY! LIVING HERE IS EXHAUSTING...THE WINTER IS SO TIRING...YOU END UP HURTING IN PLACES YOU NEVER HURT..LIKE THE FRONT OF YOUR SHINS FROM HAVING TO WALK ON ICE, AND THE INSIDE OF YOUR EARS FROM THE COLD, HAVING TO WALK BENT OVER, NOT BEING ABLE TO LOOK UP AS THE WIND HURLS RAIN OR SNOW INTO YOU EYES DOES YOUR SHOULDERS IN, AND THEN THERE IS THE LOW WINTER SUN WHICH MEANS THAT YOU FROWN THE WHOLE TIME AS YOU CANT SEE A DAMN THING IF YOU ARE WALKING TOWARDS IT. IT IS A PARTICULAR SORT OF HELL SIMILAR IN TEXTURE AND SUBSTANCE TO A NIGHTMARE! ONLY, SADLY, WHEN YOU WAKE UP ITS STILL THERE..AND THE DARKNESS...DONT GET ME STARTED ON THE DARKNESS...THE HORROR!
SO HERE IS MY RECIPE FOR THE PERFECT 50TH
1. FIRST PICK ONE OF THE MOST NORTHERLY, DEPRESSING, NEGATIVE COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD, PUT IT IN A BOWL AND LEAVE IT TO SIT FOR 49 YEARS.
2. WHISK IN SOME OF THE WORST WEATHER YOU CAN THINK OF, SPRINKLE IN SOME HAIL, SNOW, SLEET, BLACK ICE AND SLUSH..COVER AND PUT IN THE FRIDGE TO THAW.
3. FOLD IN 3 TABLESPOONS OF THE REALISATION THAT YOU SELL PASTRY PRODUCTS AND CAKES TO PEOPLE WHO CAN BARELY SPEAK THEIR OWN LANGUAGE, AND ARE CHALLENGED IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE..
4. ADD A POUND OF TIREDNESS AND STIR UNTIL THICK AND LARDY.
5. PUT IN A HOT OVEN...BUT ONLY FOR AROUND 4 WEEKS A YEAR.
6. ADD TOPPING OF A HANDFUL OF GOOD MATES, GOOD TIMES, GAMES, PUZZLES AND BOOKS AND SERVE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC STARTING AT 7.30AM EVERYDAY EXCEPT SUNDAY.
7. DONT BE SURPRISED IF YOU ONLY WANT THE TOPPING AND LEAVE THE REST MOULDERING IN THE BOWL.
well...i have begun my 60th decade in much the same way as ive begun the last 3....with a terrible hangover! but unlike the others, when i just got on with it, and went to work breathing fumes so alcoholic you could light them all over my customers in the various shops ive been in over the last 30 years....this decade i called in sick and spent the day in the arms of morpheus...only waking up at 3pm! i know that i have spoken to everyone who reads this...but im going to say it again..i had a great time, and it was just great to go out for a change, get steaming in the company of such great people, who i love dearly, and then get to speak to all of you...in your various time zones. i really am a very fortunate girl to have such great people to share this horrendous event with, even if they dont live in this hell-hole i call home.
binni and kim...its such a pisser that you cant skype as mike and eli and i did a conference call...and i got a ipad tour of her loft in raleigh..fucking magic it is too, and i got to see something i have not seen for several weeks...the sun shining in blue sky! eli was saying how wonderful it is in december not to have to don 15 layers of clothing and heavy boots to go outside..hallelulah to that. eli...you so made the right decision.
i suppose my recent troublesome negative demeanour stems from the fact that one reviews ones life when faced with a whole new decade...it makes you stop and think about what you are doing, and what you wish you were doing instead. my problem is that i used to move so much..always a new flat, a new city, a new shop with new people...now i dont have that, and you are all moving on, new houses, new jobs, no jobs, etc, and im just stuck in the same home, with the same job, and never doing anything different because its too dark for that. im well aware that happiness lies in your own hands, and that change is the same..i honestly dont sit at home thinking 'why cant my life change' or expecting anything to fall into my lap while im wearing black sitting on my own couch with a scowl. i know that it is not tragic that i work in greggs...hell, it has allowed me to travel to 5 countries since i started and above all...ive paid for all of them, and have no debt, except my mortgage. i cant tell you how fantastic that has made me feel..actually just being able to pay for flights and not put them on a credit card..tying myself to years of repayment at exorbitant interest. but, ive been in nicolson street for 2 years now, and that seems to be a bit of a cut off for me. in oddbins you would be expected to be thinking about moving around this time...i worked in cancer research for 2 years...it is that period of time that you have done all you can with what you have and you need a new challenge. but greggs doesnt have this need for flux, and i suppose im starting to think of something else. but, hell, its not exactly the time for that. trouble is that 2 years is also the time period where you are protected by every employment law going. when i was diagnosed with ms, the woman i saw from the citizens advice bureau said to me...whatever you do, dont change you job unless you think that you will be able to work for 2 years, as if you get ill in that time, they can just let you go with no long term health benefits. on the other hand...do i really want to have a life in which i have to get up at 5.15am everyday, have evenings that are only 3 hours long, and never be able to have my hair uncovered, or wear jewellery until i retire at 67? fuck...i just dont know...but i think that is enough soul-searching for one day! lets move on....
and to some other news
the wind speeds during the recent hellish weather we have had reached 165 miles per hour., and as we all saw wind turbines actually went on fire...though witness said that they were not rotating at the time!
a ring tailed lemur was found with hypothermia on tooting common in london on saturday.
the forth bridge will not need painted again for 20 years. guess that will put paid to the phrase 'its like painting the forth bridge'.
members of the republican party in the usa have decided that the new muppet movie is 'liberalising' american children...as it features a villan that is an oil baron! dont know about you but i would have thought that children should be liberal in thought...but supposedly its akin to being communist...mmm...now what is so wrong with that anyway one has to ask...and could members of the republican party even define 'socialism' .....no, thought not.
the arkansas supreme court has thrown our a murder conviction and says a new trial is needed because one of the jurors fell asleep, and another was sending tweets during the trial.
there is worrying news for lance corporal belleau wood, the official 'base mascot' of the recruit depot in san diego where members of the us marine corps undergo their basic training. like many of her peers l./cpl wood is a dog. and english bulldog to be precise, and now that gays and lesbians can serve openly in the armed forces, she'll be forced to cope with some unwanted sexual attention says americas family values lobby. tony perkins of the 'family research council' says 'in its rush to accommodate the left, congress may have opened the door to even more perversion'. what can i say!
im off now to be 50 somewhere else...
ok, it might be almost the birthday of jesus...but this past week has seen the deaths of vaclav havel, christopher hitchens and most bizarrely, given his divine status, the only well fed man in pyongyang..well apart from that porker of a son of his that is. so given that we are well into the time of birth, and life mythology...here are some about kim jong-il.
1. he could walk when he was 3 weeks old, and talked at 8 weeks, according to official records.
2. during his 3 years at kim il-sung university he wrote more that 1500 books and 6 operas which 'are better than any in the history of music' according to his authorised biography!
3. his tracksuits are a 'global phenomenon' according to a communist paper. this flair as a fashion icon he has bestowed to his porker of a son, whose haircut is reported to be all the rage in pyongyang...the catwalk capital of the world, apparently!
4. in 1978 he allegedly kidnapped south koreas most celebrated film director, shin sang-ok (great name!) and forced him to take payment to make 7 films. shin later said 'he liked james bond, rambo, friday the 13th and hong kong action movies. but he doesnt know what fiction is. he looks at these movies as if they were records of reality'. all this despite the 1500 books he wrote at university.
5. every grain of rice served to him was reportedly inspected of perfection according to his former sushi chef kenji fujimoto.
6. he hated flying...when travelling to moscow in 2001 he took his luxury train carriages all the way. he also , reportedly, had roast donkey and fresh lobsters flown to him every day.
7. there are no gay people in north korea, allegedly.
8. everyone loved the 'dear leader' it is reported.
allegedly, according to, reported by etc....just like the life of our lord jesus...do you think they could be the same person.....
so remarkable a figure was kim il-jong, according to kcna, north koreas official news agency, that 'even nature is heartbroken' by his death. the sky turned red, cracks appeared in frozen lakes, and even a manchurian crane bowed its head in grief. not surprising that nature should be so concerned about the 'dear leader' when his birth was fortold by a swallow, a star rose above the spot he was born on the sacred mountain of paekdu, a double rainbow appeared and spring broke out spontaneously!
so, no wonder then that women in puffa jackets are bursting into tears on the streets of pyongyang and pounding the pavement with their fists, im sure im not the only one here who can really empathise with their pain! after all, 35% of the population are mal-nourished while the dear leader was living it up on lobster, and vintage claret, which he took to after his doctors made him give up hennessey cognac. how we did laugh!
anyway...enough about divine leaders..oops, isnt that what christmas is supposed to be about...or is that a man in a red suit coming down your chimney to bring you the latest electronic gadget i forget. but for me its about none of these men...its all about food and drink..and the only men i care about are bill and gareth! bring it on!
have fun one and all...god bless us everyone!
Ah! the republic of maldives! how to describe heaven? how can i possibly explain, while sitting in a cold, dark northern realm, with the heating on, the wonders and freedoms of paradise. it doesnt seem possible that it exists, like some halcyon dream one night that appeared so real..and while we have 'nightmare', we have no word for the opposite. the english language is so good for describing the horrific, but when we try to relay the beautiful or the perfect it appears cliched and stoopid purple prose. however, being someone who is up to a challenge (some might even say, a challenge herself) im going to try!
when you get off that 11 hour flight at the airport, which, funnily enough, is the whole of a tiny little island, you exit and are whisked straight over a zebra crossing to the myriad of little boats right outside the arrivals hall. the journey across the indian ocean, which can be very choppy, can either be terrifying or exciting depending on your point of view..but that is the last time you will have to deal with any kind of difficulty for the remainder of your stay. when you arrive on the island beyond your wildest dreams, i would say it takes you around 5 hours to get institutonalised to paradise. it comes in stages....
1. you give up wearing shoes. (around 3 hours). when you first walk the marathon 5 minutes to the bar, virgin white and still a little stressed from the flight and the boat trip, you still have flip flops on. after 5 tropical cocktails, which are all free as you booked all inclusive, you take them off, and never put them back on till you leave.
2. your shoulders stop being next to your ears. (around the same time as you stop with the shoe wearing). you are just entering the maldive zone!
3. you start smiling, and dont even mind when the waiter shakes your hand and asks your name. (as soon as you arrive in the bar, next to the beautiful infinity pool over the lagoon).
4. you reflex to run a mile doesnt kick in when someone says hi to you. (second day). you even return the salutation, it might even feel natural, but that probably doesnt happen until the third day, when you start saying good morning to everyone like its something youve always done.
5. your life start to be run by the sun. (third day). you wake at dawn...and realise that its time for dinner when it goes down. and you have your own table in the only restaurant on the island, and your own waiter...so you dont have to worry that you wont get in, or will have to wait.
6. your biggest decisions are...should i go snorkeling, swim in the beautiful pool, lie on the beach, or, god forbid, have another cocktail.
7. you start to think. (second day). reflect even. what is important to me, and can i live without things. i decided no, running water and electricity were essential, but i probably could do without everything else, except the company of good friends. and food, and those cocktails, naturally!
8. when you go snorkeling you feel like you are one of the fish...or a piece of flotsam going with the tide, or god looking down on the world, and watching it all swirl beneath you. to be honest, watching the thousands of brilliantly coloured fish, some of which look black till your are in amongst them, and realise that they are purple, or blue, or orange depending on the sunlight filtering through the azure water, and have patterns and designs on them that graphic designers would die for, i could really understand why people believe that this cant all just happen by random and there has to be a god to create it all. why do the fish have all these patterns and colours if not for us to look at them in wonder? but strangely, while i have the maldive effect it has not led me to god, who would have thought?
9. you develop the 'i cant belive im allowed to do this' feeling. it amost seems to beautiful, too easy, too like heaven...bill sent me a text saying 'you are enjoying yourself too much...its just not scottish'! and its not...there is the rub..
10. you forget all about work, world troubles, war, hatred, and stress. you are wrapped in cotton wool, there is nothing to worry about, nothing bad could even happen. you get to swim with a hawksbill turtle who's shell is a meter long...it knows nothing of the troubles of the world, and you feel the same, you are reverting to nature.
THE MALDIVES ARE DANGEROUS...YOU COULD HAVE TOO GOOD A TIME AND DECIDE BUILDING SAND CASTLES WAS IMPORTANT, IF ONLY THE SAND WASNT TOO SOFT FOR THAT. DONT EVER GO THERE...THEY MIGHT LEAD YOU BACK TO CHILDHOOD DREAMS...AND WE CANT HAVE THAT!
IS IT JUST ME, OR IS EVERYTHING SHITE? FEBRUARY HUH? what a month of doom and gloom both literally and figuratively. AND IT HAS AN EXTRA DAY THIS YEAR! pure joy!
so...here are the shite things
1. my computer has gone pink in all areas that used to be white. skyping is a psychedelic experience, i cant look at my own photos properly..or anything come to that. and its only a year and a month old...god knows how much it will cost me to get it fixed as i think its the lcd, and it will have to be taken apart to mend. the ironic thing is that i got a letter from pcword, where i bought it, advising me to take out their insurance before 4 th jan and i just thought...ha! what can go wrong! and then a week later...bam. screen goes! that'll teach me i tells ya! i now look back with fondness to my old dell...9 years old and nothing ever went phut.
2. i had to close my shop at 2.30 on saturday as we have..after 2 years there without a trace, ...MICE! ironically the precision guy said to me that because they had removed a door while i was on holiday, and the strip on the bottom of the new fire exit wasnt on properly that there was a gap that mice could use to get in. then 2 days later....bam...we have mice running around in the shop. fucking happy happy joy joy! when i worked in oddbins all the shops had mice...but when one sells food, one just cant have the little blighters where the customers can see them....and while i closed at 2.30 i still didnt get out till almost 6 pm....45 mins late as i had so many extra things to do. fucking mice!
3. i have had water dripping into my bath from the flat above...and i didnt really think it was a big deal until last night, when the expelair on the ceiling was making a weird noise..so i got up and cleaned it and...bam...water started coming out of it. another joy. how can there be so many in the same month...well, because its february!
4. the weather..one gets back from paradise in the indian ocean and ...bam..its the coldest snap in human history. or does it just feel that way. ok here it has only been cold...like -3 not what they are having in poland and ukrane where it has been -35 and hundreds of old people have died. and i also notice that queensland has more flooding...there has been snow in florence and rome, and turkey has had the worst winter ever. more joy!
so thats the bad things...and being a ballanced chick..i will now mention the good things about february...
its almost march.
there are snowdrops and crocus and the daffies are sprouting. there is hope in the world.
i have finished god of war collection..what larks that was, and am now about to start batman arkam city. bam.....pow...cwor blimey!
im working my way throught my boxed set of 21 hammer horror movies which i bought in a sale down from £150 to £25. so far ive watched rasputin the mad monk, the revenge of she, the blood of the mummys tomb, the scars of dracula, the nanny, and dracula prince of darkness. they are all total shite...terrible dialogue, acting, effects, wigs, clothes and storyline...but i love them. you probably have to have seen these things as children to appreciate them. or do you just have to like rubbish camp. um..
there is an extra bank holiday this year due to the queens diamond jubilee. it hardly seems a minute since her golden one for me...but hell..it answers the question what have the winsors ever done for me. last year some pointless wedding...this year a jubilee...long live the king. or whoever...
after struggling through 'the museum of innocence' by orhan pamuk...god can that man go on or what...would give proust a run for his money, im reading three men in a boat by jerome k jerome...funny...you bet!
gareth is finally having the operation to remove his gall bladder on the 27th. thank god.
rose has a piece of heaven inside of her..and hopefully wont let it go.
biinni and kim have a new house...by the beach...
and i just have the same as ever...but its fine...see...february aint so bad after all...
and you may be older but you are still way younger than binni or kim or gareth who were all born in a previous decade! yikes! and i realise that february is a great month to be born..and be able to sit outside to have drinks...but it sure aint a good month for electrical stuff here in the frozen north.
now.. my pc screen is getting worse daily, and yesterday not only did one of my lamps just blow up....my ps3 just packed in during a hammer horror...which is now stuck inside it. its the scariest hammer ever...the one where your electrical equipment starts working against you, and you become afraid even to switch anything on in case it burns your house down...or, even worse burns up some of that hard earned moolah replacing it. perhaps im cursed by the mummy of tutelectroniaten
for those of you who do not own a playstation...im sure you think its just another part of electro-nonsence and no one needs one...but let me tells ya. not only can one play games its a blue-ray player...and for those 2 hours i have at liberty at home before i go to bed its everything to a girl who doesnt watch tv. hell i just bought that boxed set of 21 hammer horror movies....fuck me dead...so funnily enough, today i had to go out and buy another one. so i went to 'cash converters' which strangely was full of schemey bastards selling their mothers gold jewellery and monster trucks for kids. there was also a guy at the counter trying to sell several mobile phones, out of a bag which, quite obviously, contained everything he owned as it all fell out onto the floor. who would have thought...he didnt have the chargers for said phones...so they wouldnt buy them....oh...the people one meets in pawn shops these days...
so, here is the proof that it is just my computer lcd screen that is fucked...call me a smarty-pants but i decided, since i have just had to shell out for a new ps3, and a new lamp, the latter being considerably cheaper, lets me tells ya, to consult me tv spec to see if it was possible to link the two...and imagine my joy when i went to the asian cable shop, a mere 5 mins from work, and purchased a 15pin male to male rgb for a tiny £7.99..got it home, plugged it into both...and, fuck me dead, IT ACTUALLY WORKED WITH NO HASSLE! my only problem is that it wont go onto wide screen...any advice in this department would be gratefully received.
binni....the ps3 thing is nothing to do with power surges...a component inside the thing just went. i know this as bills did the same a few months ago...and infact if you look it up on the net, playstation is prone to this problem. even if i did have a power-surge, it couldnt be the laptop as it is switched off at the wall unless im using it, and when the ps3 went it wasnt even plugged in. i never leave it on standby, unless i pass out while im skypeing...and i try not to do that very often..its just so anti-social.
anyway....now that i have a new playstation, of course, i have lost all my saves...thank god i had just finished gow collection 2...and will have to start all my games from scratch. what a bummer! but at least i can now work my way through all those hammer horrors! hours and hours and hours of fun!
here are some of the headlines you may have missed due to busy schedules, illness or just not actually being in the least interested.
1. the origins of dawkins.
richard dawkins, who is due to dedate with the archbishop of canterbury, rowan willliams, on the origin and nature of human beings, has hit back at a 'surreal smear' in the sunday telegraph that he is descended from 'slave traders'. it is hardly fair to attack him for what his five-greats grandfather did, he has told the oxford mail. besides, as everyone knows, professor dawkins is descended from primordial slime that formed in the oceans more than 3 billion years ago - whereas dr williams is a direct descendant of adam.
2. activist jailed for teddy bear protest.
an opposition activist has been jailed for 10 days in belarus for organising a protest involving cuddly toys. the furry bears and rabbits were lined up on a pavement in central minsk holding tiny plackards which bore slogans such as 'where is the freedom of the press' and 'toys against lawlessness'. police arrived and swiftly removed them. under a recently enacted law, it is illegal for more than 3 people to gather in public without permission, and the protests were meant as a way to curcumvent this rule. the perpatrator, pavel vinogradov was jailed for his role in the demonstration. no one has been informed of the whereabouts of the toys, but 'the last dictator in europe' lukashenko, has assured western press that they were not harmed in the making of this news story.
3. power struggle over ultra-orthodox jews right to doge draft.
there are currently 60.000 exemptions a year for young religious men from compulsory military service in the israeli defense force. the supreme court has now declared the 'tal law' unconstitutional and its vies is that the ultra-orthodox should share more of the burdens imposed on the public at large. whether they will be allowed to keep their curls, and carry rifles on shabbat was not discussed. in a seperate conflict the chief rabbi of tel aviv yesterday expressed 'deep dissappointment and pain' at a vote by the municipality this week in favour of buses being allowed to run on the sabbath. the mayor, ron huldai argued that the absence of public transport impacts severly on poor families without cars. 'anyone who doesnt want to get on a bus, shouldnt get on one' he wrote bluntly on his facebook page. the rabbis reply was that 'this is a severe blow to the holiness of the shabbat, which is a remnant of creation, a reminder of the exodus from egypt, a day of rest, and a day of spiritual ascension'. guess he wouldnt be getting on the bus then.
4. university sells sculpture worth $1million for $150 by mistake.
the university of california, berkley sold a redwood relief carving by the 'light of the harlem renaissnnce' in the 30's, sargent johnson in the bric-a-brac section of its surplus store for $164.63 including tax. the piece is a 22ft long carving commissioned using taxpayers money to cover organ pipes at a school for the deaf and blind.
5. organ dontation to a stranger starts an amazing chain across 11 states.
it began witb an electrical contractor in california called rick ruzzamenti, who, after chatting to someone in his yoga class decided to donate a kidney to a stranger, and ended up four months and 60 operations later as the longest kidney transplant chain the the world - with 30 patients receiving a kidney form 30 living donors. it was made necessary because none of the patients in the chain was a good match for the loved one who had agreed to donate to them. so each donor agreed to give their kidney to a stranger on the understanding that their lovedone would receive a kidney form another donor. a similar feat would not be possible in the uk. british surgeons have decreed that transplant chains involving unrelated donors and recipients may only be established where all operations can be carried out on the same day. they fear that donors may drop our once their relative has received a kidney. no kidding!
6. daylight hits edinburgh.
some old tart (50) who works in a bakers reported yesterday that it was actually daylight when she finished her horrendously long shift, at 5.15. it was also reported that something resembling light appeared in the sky around 6.50am on saturday morning for the first time in 5 months. scientists reported that the sun did indeed start rising earlier due to the rotation of the earth, but could not confirm if this could result in blindness for those who spend so much time in darkenss, unused to such luxury. or indeed if those phosphorescent strips would dissappear after a week or so living in daylight.
7. man (57) finally gets operation.
doctors confirmed yesterday that an nhs patient was going to get an operation to remove that annoying gall bladder tomorrow after weeks of speculation. the man, who cannot be named for obvious reasons, said today, 'i just cant wait to eat some meat'. on his release he will be met by an army of fans...ok, 1 person who was today reported to be wholeheartedly looking forward to his recovery.
YOU WILL ALL BE PLEASED TO HEAR THAT GARETH IS ON THE MEND, AND AS I MET HIM TODAY FOR COFFEE, I CAN REPORT THAT THE REAPER HAS LEFT HIM ALONE FOR NOW. FOR A PERSON WHO IS FULL OF SOMEONELSES BLOOD, (OR HAS HE GROWN HIS OWN BY NOW,,,I HAVE NO IDEA HOW LONG IT TAKES FOR US TO FILL UP AGAIN), HE SEEMS VERY MUCH HIMSELF...BUT TIRING...NO, HANG ON HE WAS ALWAYS TIRING...HE JUST GETS TIRED NOW! (WHICH REMINDS ME GARETH, OF THAT PARTY WHERE I WAS TALKING A LOAD OF SHITE TO SOME GUY, AND LEFT TO GO TO THE TOILET, AND HE TURNED TO YOU AND SAID 'WHAT A TEDIOUS WOMAN'! YOU HAVE ALWAY ALLEGED THAT YOU SAID 'ACTUALLY SHES MY GIRLFRIEND'...BUT A SIMPLE 'YOUR NOT KIDDING' PROBABLY WOULD HAVE SUFFICED!) ANYWAY I DIGRESS...AND THATS SO NOT LIKE ME.
ANYWAY...MARCH, WORSE THAN FEBRUARY LET ME TELLS YA! BRING ON APRIL.
yes, today, class, the subject is light! this is because yesterday when i walked to work it was the first day since i can remember that it was light.
now, can anyone tell me when we last saw light at 6am......
yes thats right...6 months ago..and can anyone tell me why in two weeks it will be back to being dark. mmm...daylight saving.
now think hard, can anyone tell me why light is a good thing....yes, thats it...its a good thing because living in darkness is a terrible, depressing, vitamin-d-draining, making-you-want-to-kill-yourself thing. and lets not even mention the electricity bills.
so there we have it class....dark=bad, light=good. simples!
yes, scotland..you've gotta just love it!
last week it was 20 degrees and there were more people sitting, playing football, having barbeques, running, cycling, and generally having a good time on the meadows than i have ever seen. monday evening when i walked home from work, it was like visiting a music festival site..there were huge groups of 15 or 20 people sitting round throw-away barbies, the air was thick with the smell of roasting sausages and burgers, and the bins were full to overflowing with bottles and cans. there were girls sunbathing in bikinis, and people walking around without shoes! most importantly, people were happy..rose and i met on the meadows and drank a bottle of wine in the sun wearing clothes we havent put on since the maldives. it was halcyon!
it lasted 5 days!
this week it is 1 degree and yesterday we had snow! SNOW! IN APRIL! we also had unbelievable hail, and sleet that was horizontal. i was so drenched walking to work that i had to hang my waterproof skateboarding jacket on the back of the oven to dry, and was glad to get to work, for the warmth...thats a first!
on top of the weather, you will not believe the staff illness ive had recently. my bake off girl has just come back from meeting her boyfriend in dubai, collapsed, and has been diagnosed with dvt, which has become and embolism! kim, who is 7 months pregnant also collapsed in pain at work, and i had to call an ambulance..im sorry but i thought she was gonna drop the kid in the toilet..she is having felopian spasms (the things you learn), and delicate little pauline was hugged by her brother on her birthday and he cracked her ribs!!on top of this, i have had 2 staff sleep in for more than an hour...so once i had to wait outside as i didnt have keys, and the other time i was in work on my own till 7.15am. it take 3 people to get the shop ready in the morning..one to bake, one to set up and one to make sandwiches. at a push you can do it with 2, and leave the take-away till later...but one person cant do it all!
what fucking larks! i can barely contain my excitement about the rest of the year!
yes. its easter saturday, the darkest day in the christian calendar, our lord is dead! judas will have got his silver, altars will be swathed in black, there will be tears in the eyes of pious old women, and its all doom and gloom in christendom!
but, dont you worry your little heads, as tomorrow, he will rise again! the stone will have rolled away, he will be up and about...and be getting busy distributing chocolate eggs and giant bunny biscuits to all good boys and girls! i expect he might also be carrying some hot cross buns as well, as, no doubt he is well aware that many people are diabetic and unable to eat god-given chocolate. our lord would know these things! if he can divert his angels from whatever divine function they normally serve to reserve parking spaces for american shoppers, i expect he also could also see his way to helping out the sweetly-challenged in his human kingdom. what a guy! if i was even remotely religious he would get my vote. and perhaps i look like i should be as i was handed a leaflet about easter services at the destiny church by a woman who made a bee-line for me at a busy crossroads. it is entitled 'ALIVE! AN INVITATION TO CONSIDER THE EVENT THAT CHANGED THE WORLD'! perhaps she thought i needed to consider this as i had 'cross' written all over my face...sorry just a little easter pun!
and now...something completely different....pandas!
what i want to know is...how come pandas even still exist on this earth. dont know if you are all aware that edinburgh was given a pair of pandas by, funnily enough, the chinese! they were originally meant to be going to germany, but they pissed the government off with some feeble human rights issues...so we got them, as we are a country without morals, and will take anyones hand-me-down animals. anyway...pandas...how do they exist? they live alone in huge bamboo forests. the males, despite their size, have incredibly small penises and they fall out a lot, seem to have no idea about to put them, and it lasts about 3 seconds. (i will refrain from jokes about scottish men here). the females are terrible parents and often drop or roll onto their babies, killing them, which they dont even seem to care about. and, something i have just learnt...when a female ovulates once a year, there are only 36 hours in which she can get pregnant. a day and a half once a year...does that seem like good odds for a species that lives alone in huge forests? and talking of living alone...according to one of the keepers, they are so shy and retiring that they dont really like being filmed, and she thinks they couldnt perform because they were too stressed by all the cameras. hum...how does a panda hate being filmed? this raises all kinds of things in my mind...and i could put all kinds of stoopid reasons on here why pandas hate being filmed, but all i can say is...how do pandas know what filming is? discuss!
so now im sick of pandas...lets move on. to swans.
where i go to the gym there is a pond outside, and there are a pair of swans on it. for the first time ever since i started going the male has not been able to drive away all the, now grown-up cygnets from last year, and the mother swan is already on another nest having this years clutch. the male will not even let the two remaining cygnets get in the water...but he wont get out and fight them on the bank either. so its a battle of wills...or who is gonna starve first.
gareth called me at that moment...then i had some dinner, and fell asleep in my chair....woke up at 2am and went to bed. such is the excitement of my life these days. couldnt even stay awake to slaughter demons on playstation. still, it being easter and all, im off tomorrow. the lord has rejoined the living and has arranged a bank holiday to celebrate the fact.
and now im going to share this paragraph with you from the book im reading...its the summer of drowning by john burnside, who is in fact a poet who writes novels as well. one of his themes is sinister, dark things happening which are never explained, and this novel is set on an island above the arctic circle in norway during the summer when it never gets dark, and everyone goes a little mad. a twenty year old girl and her artist mother live there..and let me tell you nothing much happens there and the novel only has about 5 characters in it...but its just brilliant, and there is much about liv, the 20year old narrator which reminds me of myself. that is why i like this so much....
'back then i didnt care about happiness. it seemed unreal to me - unreal and irrelevant, like romance, or success or the god you see in old paintings - but that was because i didnt know what happiness was. now that i am happy, the sheer fact of it surprises me every day, because its so much darker and less finished than what i was led to expect - and i think that was what mother wanted to tell me, all the while i was growing up. happiness is a secret: its quiet and personal and beyond telling. it cant be told and, no matter what they say, it cant really be shared either. when you see two people together who are happy, you know that they each brought that happiness with them - they didnt find it together, because happiness, like peace, or the holy spirit, is something you can only find when you are alone'.
thats it.
call me bonkers...but sunrise is the strangest thing i have seen for 8 months! it is now light when i leave the house, and i just cant get used to it, and keep thinking that i have slept in stupidly late, because it cant possibly be light at 5.45! BUT IT IS! imagine my relief...i am now running towards the light...especially as the path i take over the meadows runs west/east. in a week where eli has told me that since moving to north carolina, though she never believed me before, that sunshine makes a person happy...and that she has not had to wear a coat, a scarf, gloves, boots, hat and at least 2 layers under the coat she hasnt had to wear..and how liberating thats is, snce she moved there in november....i still cant imagine a life that i can go out in the morning without a jacket, sensible shoes and perhaps a hat, just incase. no wonder everyone here carries a bag..it has all that clothing one might need during the day...which can go from brilliant sunshine to hail, to tropical rain, even to snow, at the blink of an eye!
so yes, srange spring happenings...there is an old, tiny man who lives on the meadows...i, imaginatively call him 'the red dwarf' as he wears a red anorak, which he always has pulled up tight to his face...so not a bit like 'dont look now' ! he sleeps most nights on the benches on the meadows in the summer...but where does he go in the winter....i just have no idea. he cant sleep outside...he would die.
sorry i cant finish this message...i have to go and sleep...its my life jsut now...i get so tired, i cant do things
when i told people at work that i was painting my wall with a colour called 'taxi' i think that they thought that i had dedided to live my life as a vampire, or was reverting to being 15...ie, taxis here are black! but they sure arent in new york city...as you can see from this photo. i just love my yellow wall...i wanted it to look a bit mexican...you know how they love a block of a bright colour...and i think it does.i painted it on thursday...and everyday since ive woken up forgetting that i have a sunburst wall in my living room...not to mention a pop art toilet seat....and,. strangely it makes me feel happy.
though not quite the happy, happy, joy, joy i experienced when i got a letter from the bank on thursday...it was a good day, let me tell you.
i dont know if anyone outside of the uk knows about this...but the banks used to force you to take out insurance on your credit cards and loans, which would pay it for you (but only, in reality, in your dreams) if you were made redundant or got too ill to work. anyway...the government decided last year that it was illegal, and we were all missold ppi (payment protection insurance) as it didnt really cover you for anything, and, in fact, it your house would be re-possessed before these bastards ever coughed up with the money. blah, blah, blah. so there are tons of companies calling you trying to get you to let them help you claim...and charging you 40% for their time...i dont think so! banks have already written this off...so i just called the bank of scoitland...not really expecting very much...and not getting it either, the guy i spoke to was amazingly unhelpful. so, to cut i long story short, didnt really think much about it...until thursday. when i received a cheque in settlement.
£3043!
YA FUCKING DANCER!
well, as i sit here, waiting yet again for the latest coat of paint to dry, i thought i would just put some old shite on here. have to say that not only is the guy down the stair from me the only person left in the world who owns and album that has, not only 'hi ho silver lining' by jeff beck, but also 'whiter shade of pale' by procul harum , he is also the only person left on the planet who can sing along at the top of his voice, and still, after all these decades, not know all the words! trouble is i cant even drown him out..as im painting the stereo cubby-hole, and it is all lying in pieces on the floor. but at least, for the first time in at least 15 years it is clean.
i dont know why i decided to re-decorate, is it the time of year, the fact that the weather is still shite, and i need something brighter, or the fact that most of you have moved recently and im just jealous as hell. it is not just that moving to a new city, state, country or even just up the road, seems appealing right now, its also that where ever you move to, it does not have 15 years of your accumulated skank! dust bunnies does not even begin to describe what was behind all my bookshelves. however...its done. its clean, its bright...i love it. and as i live on my own, no one else's opinion really matters about colours. probably just as well
the paint is dry now...better get it done before it gets dark, and i have drunk too much wine.
was gonna do this in pink, but, sadly you wouldnt be able to read it, and i know how dissappointed you would be! anyway...for about the 4th year running, here are some pictures of my walk to work. was trying to wait for a gorgeous sunny, blue-sky sort of morning...but, hell, that hasnt happened for weeks now...not since we had the worlds shortest summer back in march, and blossom is kinda ephemeral! already most of it is messing up the grass, like confetti, and the leaves are coming out, so it had to be today or id miss it, and again, i know how disappointed you would be! i cannot really express how much i enjoy my walk to work...it is, in fact, the happiest time in my whole day, especially now that for these few precious months, its light, with that 'the whole world is new and fresh, and im the only one up to see it' kinda thang! i have even stopped listening to my mp3...its strange, as i do it every year, but it doesnt seem conscious, i just dont put it on one day, and then it wont even occur to me till its dark again. this morning through the euphoria of pink blossom, i heard something that i can only think was a woodpecker...to be honest, there is nothing else it could have been as i didnt see a single other person on the meadows this morning after the drunken party of americans who had, quite obviously, been up all night carousing in maymess, let alone a man with a hammer up a tree. it is just total bliss walking at dawn...and it just goes to proove that there are good things about everything, even having to get up in the middle of the night. last monday on my walk there was a crate, like an airlift crate, just lying there, and as i got up to it, i was amazed, but delighted, to discover that it was full of red bull! was it sent from heaven...i think so, but, as im scottish, and in order to break the 'isnt life wonderful thing' this monday i saw a seagull, of which there are lots and lots on the meadows pecking at something. when i got nearer i realised that it was pulling out, with that razor-sharp beak which is around the height of my knee-cap, the innards of a pigeon!! it was mildly less hellraiser than the morning i saw a similar gull, hell, perhaps they are related who would know, pecking out the eyes of a dead squrrell! just goes to show that god, in is infinite wisdom, did not create a paradise that is the same for all his creatures. to be honest, since i got bullied, nay even persecuted by gulls last year, i have never been that comfortable in their presence, i rest my case! people always say that pigeons are rats with wings, actually they are mice with wings, though i think mice are smarter...they dont walk under cars, have learned to be un-nocturnal, and never eat anything that is just lying out. now, seagulls....they are the rats! though im not sure that they make such good pets, as ive never known anyone who had a seagull living with them, though i did once read a book called 'death and the penguin' about a man who kept a penguin in the bath of a hotel. although, perhaps, that was a allegory, and actually not even related to what im talking about. who knows?
and what am i talking about...fuck me dead, went to the bog, and have lost the thread, so will digress...like normal. have just finished a book called 'sleeper in the sands' by tom holland...a gothic novel about howard carter finding tutankhamens tomb, ankhnaten and sorcery based on the winding stories of the arabian nights. eli, i know you know about ankhnaten...but perhaps the other 2 people who read this dont, so i will give you a low-down. tutankhamen was originally called tutankhaten, and was either the son, or the nephew of ankhnaten, the heretic pharaoh who moved the capital from thebes, and gave up polytheism in favour of worship of one god...the sun. as you can imagine, this was quite a big deal. and after he died, his name was erased...they say completely, but as we know about him 3000 years later, my guess is someone forgot to do it all. as im sure you all know...i decided to become an archeologist in 1971 when tuts funerary effects came to the uk, and one of the greatest moments of my travelling life was seeing tuts mask and the millions of other things in the egyptian museum. i have a feeling inside myself about tutankhamens tomb...when they ask howard carter what he could see..and he says 'wonderful things', and cant say anymore...it is just a seminal moment. i wanted to be howard carter! even more that i wanted to be margot fontein! i gave up dancing at the age of 11 for archaeology..probably for the best, given that i wasnt very good, didnt have the right body (tits too big, too prone to eating and drinking too much, and could never, never get my knees on the floor when sitting with my soles together...if you cant do this, you will never be a dancer). but yes, the tutankhamen stuff...has anyone else seen it...it looks like its new. its 3000 years old, but no one has ever worn the jewelery, ridden on the chariots, sat on the throne, or even touched the things. it is truely,smazingly pristine. howard carter was self-taught...he worked with petrie, but he made his own thang...and jeezuz, was that the find not only of his century, but of ours. no one else is ever gonna find this. im so jealous.
since i was 11 i have wanted to be howard carter!
though..lets face it, if i was a man, i would not be called howard!
it seems that when i joked that we had the worlds shortest summer in ,march i wasnt kidding...the weather has been totally hellish in every way possible, yesterday...the 15th of may! it hailed and snowed, and many people had to scrape their cars this morning as there was an overnight frost. for the preceeding weeks it has rained, and rained, and there have been gales, and it has rained...it was lucky that i took those photos of the blossom when i did as it is now all gone...blown away, pounded to the pavement with torrential rain back to pink-petal-paradise or wherever blossom-soul goes when it becomes winter again in may! trouble is that this is usually the best time of the year...and while everyone is pretending that things are gonna get better, im not convinced.
and then there is eli. siitting in a vest at midnight in carolina while im still bundled up in winter fleeces and with 3 layers on, telling me that i was right all along, constant sunny weather makes you a happier person! not having to own 11 pairs of different weather shoes, scarves, gloves, hats, wind-cheating coats and thermals even in may is beneficial. whod a thought! leaving the house in the morning with only one layer on knowing that that is all you will need in the whole day just seems like heaven to me, and its no wonder that the only people who want to travel to the cooler regions of the world, are the ones who live in places where you can do this. (derek, binni and kim...fucking antartica, i dont think so for me, ever). am i jealous of people who live in more clement climates...oh, fuck me, no! scotland is a fabulous place to live...its almost totally dark for 8 months of the year, when you leave the haven of your home its almost impossible to stand vertically as the hurricane-force wind and horizontal rain lash you in the face, the people are so white, due to the lack of sunlight that they are almost luminous, and given that its dark so much of the time, no one cares how they look, lets not even mention the gingers! on top of this we have sectarian..ie, religious, bigotry so strongly integrated into our society that it even affects football, that most pointless of social cares, racism, sexism, homophobia, fear of any food that involves garlic or anything healthy, like greens, fear of praising anything, but especially yourself or your children, as this will get you struck down by god, and lets not forget the old favourites...alcoholism and drug addiction! hell, scotland, its a heaven on earth...im amazed that immigrants are not queuing at our borders right now trying to get the tartan passport to shangri-la!
so, enough scotland-praise. now for something horrible! bill has been in court this week for the trial of the weasel-faced youngster who murdered his down-stairs neighbour. its all been a bit weird, as the defendant has refused to speak...to anyone, including his defense, so they have had to resort to some strange legal thang, where the prosecution lawyer has to become a friend of the court and represent both sides of the arguement. im not even sure how you could do this...but presumably lawyers have no morals, and so can jump to either side. anyways...bill had a very stressful day giving evidence, setting the scene, as that is all he can do. and im so glad he doesnt have to go back for the whole thing, especially as it seems that the defendant not only broke the gas meter and left a burning candle, but also put a metal container of lighter fluid into the microwave...! luckily he didnt notice that it wasnt switched on at the wall! perhaps bill will enter a 'final destination' movie...how many ways can you cheat death.....a lot apparently!
and im gonna jump back to my previous blog entry..as i finished the book about ankh-en-aten and tutenkhamen and all that. i suppose i thought he would come up with something i didnt know...but there is nothing new, nor will there ever be, about ankhnaten. his records were erased...and to be honest, tutenkankhamen...well he was the last of the line, and i think that most people were glad to see them go. but he was a minor pharaoh, died at 19, and if thats what he had in his tomb, what the fuck must the others have had, that all got robbed years before. one thinks of ramses 2...lived till 80 had 500 children conquered the known world...fuck me dead, imagine those wonderful things that have been lost in the mists of time. howard carters main annoyance when finding the tomb was that there were no papyri...he thought there would be, and it would all become illuminated...but it didnt. we dont, and we never will. this is ancient history...i studied it, we dont know, we never will...make up your own mind about what happened, its as relevant as anything else! just like what happened when roger was murdered...we will never know.....
ok...this morning there was such a thick haar that not only were the meadows akin to bodmin moor, i was soaked by the time i got to work, despite the fact that it wasnt actually raining, and it was cold. by lunchtime, when i managed to escape from work, having gone to a fucking meeting on my day off, and had to work my early finish due to kevin calling in sick, it had burned off, and its now so gloriously sunny that its 29 degrees in my flat. fucking dancer! anyway...so its the summer, so it must be time for the olympic torch to make a tour of the uk! honestly, what a pile of gash! its arriving in edinburgh on the 13th june, and comes with its own entourage, which will disrupt the entire city centre when people are trying to get to work...what larks! thank the lord that its not passing my shop, as on all the route the greggs have to be open, in case it fancies a bacon roll, and lothian road has to open at 6.30am...which means that they will have to be in at 5.30! fuck me dead, the olympic torch is even worse than the pope who at least had the decency to only disrupt princes street, though he would be hard pressed to do that now, given that it has been a war-zone for months due to the tram works! if there are even trams going along princes street in my lifetime, i will be gobsmacked...but not so the olympic torch...because we all have a burning (no pun intended) to see that symbol of world-togetherness and love! why they dont just postpone the games for just now, given the catastrophic state of the worlds finances, which you cant help but consider as bankers, governments, and sometimes whole countries acting like an 18 year old who has just been given a credit card by her parents while travelling on a round the world ticket in her gap year from studying media studies! ie...what the fuck were they thinking?
so...on top of my uncontained excitement about the torch touring our city, we also have that other unbelievably humungously euphoric british back-slapping event...the diamond fucking jubilee! we are getting union flag bunting (imagine my delight) but tesco already has it up...there is a picture of her maj, a flag that says 'i love corgis', one that says 'yes maam' and one that says QEII which i always thought was in fact an ocean going vessel rather than a parasite that we all, even binni and kim, have to pay our hard earned moolah for, who grimaces rather that smiles and ;ooks like she has a poker up her royal anus! lets not even mention edward II!
we were asked at work if we wanted to have a jubilee celebration day, which kevin, strangely declined, and then was a bit scared that i would say that i was so pissed off with him for turning down the celebration of the century. ha! but we are getting red, white and blue cupcakes...which you can have made up into a platter for your, obviously sucessful, this being scotland and all, jubilee street party, of which im sure there will be on every nook and cranny of the city. NOT! but we do get, for the first time ever, a monday and tuesday as public holidays...when i say 'we' i, quite obviously, do not mean greggs employees...we are open both days..but thanks the the munificance of our delightful monarch, do not open until 9am..instead of 7.30, god bless the queen! what a dame! if only she could look like she was enjoying herself for one moment, i would respect her more...nah! probably not! send them all to the falkland islands...thats what i say!
at this moment, i cant leave the country..nor will i be able to do so for at least 2 weeks! my battered, travel-worn thread-bear passport is winging its way to the ukpa, and im bereft! i hate being without a passport, and this one and i have been through so much together! it has 100% deet spilt on it which has broken the lamination of my photo, so i got stopped by an officious lesbian at sydney and was made to sit in a holding room until a guy came out, sighed and just waved me through. when arriving in turkey the visa woman just looked at me like i was a no-lander because i have no british crest on the front due to carrying it in my back pocket so often. 'so which currency are you paying in' she challenged...sterling i replied...'so this is a british passport, is it' she retorted with just a hint of sarcasm! damn right..no one needs a crest..and as with everything, its whats inside that counts!
i still have the old hardback black british passport somewhere, from before we joined the eu and got the red cover, small ones. i used to hate those black ones...everyone in the passport queue could spot the brits because of them..or was it because they were the least stylish, wearing sandals and socks, hankies on their heads, or just gingers with those freckles!
ive just had something to eat..now have to go and lie down...sorry!
60 seems a little excessive!
but one thing i bet you didnt know is that on the silver jubilee of our glorious monarch, a daughter was born to a mr and mrs lee somewhere in england, and, i kid you not, they called her jubi! how proud she must be to celebrate her 35th birthday on tuesday! or, perhaps she has changed her name to india, and is currently recovering in an ashram in varanasi, thinking about doing a mature students degree in media studies, with her current boyfriend zack (ne ashley).
anyway...the old parasite and how we are all meant to be celebratihg 60 years of her benign reign...here are the things we all didnt know about her but were dying to find out....
1. 'even at the age of one, she had what i call royal manners' one of her first nannies, nanny wilkins, once revealed.
2. there was never any question of the young lizbet and baba (as that gin soaked, drug smuggling, mustique-goer, princess margaret was known), not being brought up as part of a normal family. most evenings they would be brought down from the nursery to play with their mother for a few minutes before they went to bed.
3. lizbet was given her first pony, snowball, when she was 4.
4. always interested in animals, lizbet shot ther first stag when she was 12, and was described by one of the ghillies as being 'a fine shot for a wee bairn'.
5. although she married into the house of schleswig-holstein-sonderburg-glucksburg, and being of the same descent, the queen has never learnt to speak german.
6. her favourite country to visit has alway been australia, perhaps because she is so fond of the lamington...sponge dipped in chocolate and rolled in desiccated coconut. the australians, her most loyal subjects return the compliment, and in a recent poll of significant world figures, she was rated between kylie minogue and shane warne.
7. she had a particular dislike of the beatle, john lennon, describing him as 'vulgar' when they met after a royal variety show. she was 'delighted and relieved' when he returned his obe in 1969.
8. a palace insider has revealed that, of her children, only anne has turned out as expected. according to the queen, charles has always wanted to be cleverer than he, in fact, is, and her greatest regret as a mother was allowing the duke of edinburgh to bully sweet, gentle, hopeless edward to join the marines. still she must have been so proud when he gave it up to become theatrical.
right, im bored with her maj now, even if she has given us an extra bank holiday this year....now for something else related...swans....which you who live abroad may not know...but all are owned by the monarch in the uk...and on one else is allowed to eat them. i kid you not! i blame henry VIII.
the gym i go to overlooks a pond which has ducks, coots and one pair of swans. first there was the drama of 2 of the cygnets from last year still hanging around till march, when the cobb was already on another nest, breeding this years crop. the pen was going mad, trying to fight them, and wouldnt even let them in the water...then, even more hilarious was the people trying to run in a huge inflatable ball on the pond. i dont know if you have ever seen this...but its one of these things people do down hills in the country...probably because there is nothing else to do, and it beats knitting, or playing scrabble for the 15th time. anyway...as bill said its just not possible to do it on water...as there is no friction, and the ball doesnt roll, it just stays inert, while the person inside it just falls over again and again. the first girl who tried it wasnt even tied on...and the ball just started drifting down the pond...you guessed it, right towards the swans nest....the male was again going crazy...and imagine our amusement when we saw the girl inside...lying on her back trying to call someone on the bank on her mobile phone to come and rescue her from the aggressive swan. how we did laugh when they had to send a canoe out for her., sitting smugly on our stationary bikes going nowhere very quickly.
yes, you will all be excited, thrilled and wetting your panties with sheer heart-pounding exhiliration when i tell you that the olympic torch has finally arrived in edinburgh!
it crossed the forth bridge in roller-blades around 5pm, thereby causing total traffic chaos, as the bridge was closed for 30 minutes to all those who were merely trying to get home after a hard day at the office. it then wound its way into the city, closing roads and diverting bus routes at the busiest time of the day, what an honour for us plebian edinburgers to have our journey home increased by 40 minutes by such a tremendous symbol of togetherness and human spirit! how gratified the managers and staff of greggs shops along the torch's route must feel, to be able to stay open till 7pm tonight, and to have to be in work at 5am tomorrow to open for 6, in case it gets a bit peckish! oh, how i wish it was passing my shop..no doubt i will wake up at 4.15 and cry with jealousy when i think of those lucky enough to be getting up to feed the torch!
but, alas, i will have to stay in bed, with morpheus as my only comfort!
it is now ensconced in the castle...i know this as the constant buzz of helecopters which has been going on for 2 hours has finally stopped, and you will be pleased to hear that it is being thrown a party, and given a concert in its honour with a plethora of young british musicians you will never have heard of unless you listen to crappy comercial edinburgh radio stations all day..and who does that?
so there you have it...olympic fever comes to edinburgh.
as for me, im so excited i may have to watch some more of twin peaks, or 24 on my newest internet obsession...netflix! it beats watching a fucking torch anyday!
TORCH-SCMORCH!
call me tragic, god knows i deserve it, but im in love with my playstation.
just when i thought things couldnt get better than netflix, which is like having an entire dvd store in your own livingroom, except you dont have to watch the ones that are shite because you have paid for them, skim through scene selection as, like kindle, it just starts them again from where you left off, stand in a queue with screaming kids, or return them by 10pm the following day, i have downloaded a free app for vidzone! now, i know that there are those who only watch music videos when forced to by some drunken idiot at 4am, with no regard for their preference, but i love em, and not only are there a million of them, you can put them into a playlist! happy happy joy joy!
and, fuck me dead, as if that wasnt enough, i have downloaded photos into photogallery, and music into the music store, so that you can play it while watching a slideshow. i realise that you can do this on a computer...but my humble laptop doesnt have a 37inch screen and dolby 5.i...but my playstation, bless it, does!
and, on top of this, there is playstaion world...you can see the globe spinning, find out world temperatures, visit world heritage sites, click on countries and read the news from there (though, lets face it, none of it is good, let me tells ya!), and see the sun rising...this last one is good, as sightings of this celestial body have been rare here, despite it being the middle of the summer...im sure you know that we have had 3 months rain in a matter of hours, and half the country is underwater. in edinburgh, the water of leith burst its banks and practically all of the dean village and half of stockbridge is flooded. rose and simon went out for a meal in leith on saturday night, and because simon is averse to getting a taxi, they got soaked to their underwear in a matter of minutes after getting of the bus. when they got to the restaurant where they had booked a table, you guessed it, it was closed due to flooding. lucky for me that i was sitting in a pub at the top of the mound, where if you were under water, the whole city would be a swimming pool, and the only person who would be safe would be bill, who, as im sure you know, has gills instead of lungs. so, to get back to crowded house from 2011,,lets hope im not taking the weather with me to the antipodes next year...and how prophetic was it when i said we had the worlds shortest summer in march! even iceland has had better weather, and its 4 seasons are light, light going to dark, dark and dark going to light. living in the north...all i can say is WHY?
then the other thing about living in the north is sea gulls...they have become the bane of my life. i am now getting attacked by gulls almost every day..and not just on the mornings where im the only person on the street. on sunday, at around 4pm when there were loads of people around, i got dive-bomb-shat-on before i had even crossed the road, and then had to duck when that loose- boweled bastard turned and swooped again. on monday, didnt leave home till 10am, but, you guessed it, got tormented, dive bombed and screeched at yet again. now i creep along the street when i leave the gate and get under the overhang of the building next door...charge across the road and get under the scaffolding...so they cant see me. its lucky that the cops cant see me, too, as i would probably get lifted for acting suspiciously...still, it wouldnt be the first time that someone thought i was a terrortist!
last night, went out for a brillaint meal at calistoga...came home, went online for a short while, and was shaken to the core...why?
fireworks!
blasting off at a venue near here, which i belive is called the castle, it was the end of the tattoo! fuck me dead, how one forgets! the festival is on...already!
so as your annual correspondent of all thing theatrical, i feel i have to let you know the 'terrific' laugh a minute' 'alternative' and just 'sheer brilliant' shows you could go and see if your hangover wasnt that bad, and you had at least £200 a day to spend on shite!
1. still life.
sue maclaine performs a one-woman show about the life of henrietta moraes, fast-living muse to freud, bacon and hambling, among others. the twist? she does it in the nude, in the setting of a life-drawing class. pick up a charcoal and settle in!
pretentious...you bet!
2. comedian dies in the middle of a joke.
a bold interactive piece from rising star ross sutherland that re-creates the last two mintues of stand-up delivered by 'joey pops pooley' before he was tragically murdered on stage. you could find yourself playing the bar man, the heckler, even joe himself!
tragic...you bet!
3. back to school.
relive the best days of your life with this site-specific show that casts the audience as school pupils at the fictional saint dumbiedykes. the brainchild of actress clementine wade and playwright ranjit bolt, the show will shepherd audiences through dissection classes, school dinners and assemblies. and on friday and saturday (as a real treat) the venue will transform into a school disco!
pathetic..you bet!
4. allotment.
dont miss this scotsman fringe first 2011 winner, returning to the fringe for one week only! join edinburgh company 'nutshell' for a cuppa, a home-made scone and a moving tale of sibling rivalry played out in the earth of a real allotment. performed outside whatever the weather - come prepared!
wet...you bet!
5. endure. a run woman show.
endure presents one runners marathon as a metaphor for lifes losses and triumphs. follow along outdoors on a journey through edinburgh parkland thats at once immersive, gorgeous, raw, poetic, hillarious and honest.
endure..you bet a misdenomer. you will be leaving after the first 5 minutesand going to the pub!
6. nothing is really difficult.
a life sized wooden box, a show about nothing. three men full of self-mockery and vicarious shame. male poetry for men and women.
you bet its not vicarious..its just vacuous! i walk past this 'venue' every morning..it a huge wooden box!
7. piff the magic dragon in jurrasic bark.
its 2012, the year of the dragon, and piff's back! see the worlds first million dollar chahuahua cheat death on a nightly basis as he is laminated live on stage, escapes a flaming straight-jacket and is fired from a the cannon of certain death! book early to avoid disappointment!
disappointment...you bet! piff poof paff!
8. more tape, by the boy with tape on his face.
im certain you remember this class act from last years totally hilarious edinburgh festival blog entry. mime with noise, stand-up with no talking. drama with no acting. all done by a man with tape over his mouth! what does he do...the blurb says the less you know the more you will enjoy...
you bet christain grey, or any other sexual deviant would say the same to his victim!
9. summerhall.
edinburgh universitiy's former veterinarian school is fast becoming one of the most vibrant venues on the fringe. highlights of a packed visual arts programme include ian hamilton finlay's take on the french revolution, rankin's collaboration with pam hogg, and 'only women women only' - an exhibiton of work by female artists for female visitors only. if you buy 5 tickets to shows at the venue, you gain access to a secret exhibition in a locked room, featuring the work of a 'well-known contemporary british artist'.
i wont be going to any of these things...you bet!
oh, yes, i know you all should be here. david hasselhoff is here, so is stephen fry, simon callow, miriam margolyes, men doing macbeth on stilts in old college square, virginia ironside, greg proops, sean hughes, the boy with tape on his face, the ladyboys of bangkok and, lets face it, every wannabe comedian, thesbian and pick-pocket in europe, if not the world is here . its all happening! and in a city that is too small, too narrow and just too presbyterian for all this high jinx!
and im sure you are dying to hear what happenend to india and jasper..of course you remember them from last years hilarious blog entry, ('unmissable' chortle magazine; 'lol' festival review, ' how i did laugh' belinda fisher, 'it made me choke on my steak bake', kim lee, 'i wet my pants over how funny this was' rose coventry, 'so disrespectful' eli brown).
well..give the current economic climate india has not been able to find a job, despite that killer BA in media studies, and is currently having to rent out both bedrooms in the flat that her parents bought her in stockbridge! it has been a real struggle for her, as her parents can no longer afford to pay for her festival lifestyle, and the £1000 a month she gets from her rented rooms barely covers her bill at the beautician, getting those nails done, waxing, facials and doing that hair that she spends all day tossing over her head! if only she hadnt developed a black truffle habit (£25 a jar of 5 at valvona and crolla) she might have been able to -pay off that huge loan that she 'only got because she had to, like, have fun, eat oysters for breakfast with jasper and go skiing at val desire every year, and, like, text books are sooooo expensive.'.
jasper, on the other hand, packed india in as soon as they both graduated, as he was off to london to become the next director general of the bbc. strangely that hasnt happened, despite that killer BA in media studies. unlike india, jaspers parents are now paying for him to put on a hilarious show at the edinburgh festival called 'how come everyone thinks a media studies is not a real degree?' its a one man show! once the festival is over he is taking a gap year...or perhaps a whole heap of gap years travelling round the world, meeting the same backpackers in different countries, probably getting dread locks put in his hair on the koh shan road in bangkok, getting tattoos in hindi in india, and smoking a whole heap of skank in jamaica, where he will get robbed in his 5 star hotel room and shot in the head when he tries to come all over all 'british empire'.
india will never get over her loss.
fuck me dead...this could be a fringe show...all i need is a venue!
you know it is the festival when i man walks into your shop at 7.45 am with red rimmed eyes, disheveled hair and clothing with a rubber stamp mark on his hand and says 'are you still serving bacon rolls'..and you say, 'well of course we are mate, we have only just opened, and its not even 8am...and he says, 'oh god, is it the morning, i thought it was 8pm!' (now, binni and kim, if he was on the 24 hour clock, this could never happen)!
you know it is the festival when there are literally hundreds of wanna-be thesbians, or comedians lying down on the high street with flyers in their hands, risking being trampled by the thousands of festival zombies who are so intent of seeing the next hilarious street performer they may not even notice. thank god that they are walking so slowly even aesop would find it hard to bring them into one of his fables..perhaps the one about the tourist outpacing the edinburger...oh, in your dreams aesop i say!
you know its the festival when there are hordes of indias and jaspers walking about the streets, though not as fast us you understand, wearing that all-important accessory..the festival pass, on a ribbon round their necks. they do not come alone, believe me, they have to travel in packs, around 6 is necessary even in order to buy one sausage roll from greggs, and, who would have thought, they all have estuary accents.
you know its the festival when there are so many people on the meadows at 6am doing yoga, tree hugging or just staggering home...some of whom are wearing their trousers so low that you can see the back of their thighs under their designer underwear. then there will be a queue in the 24 hours shop where i buy my paper in which, apart from the staff, i am the only sober person. not to mention the only one who does not have to over-act the whole time, pay with a £50, or ask for something totally stoopid, like oysters or black truffles.
you know its the festival when someone comes into greggs and asks for a green tea without a hint of irony.
you know its the festival when you can buy a tshirt saying 'stick that flier up you arse!'
what fucking larks...someone take me away...to turkey preferably, in the next week or two!
yes, today is eid, the end of ramadan, and the most exciting day in the muslim calendar, akin to christmas day. all around my shop, which, i hasten to add i am not working in today, there will be people dressed up in their friday best, shaking hands, wishing each other well, celebrating and, hopefully stuffing their muslim mouths for the first time during daylight for a month with pasties and cakes that they have bought in my shop. it is actually quite a nice day to work, if you happen to be round the corner from a mosque, and the traditional greeting on this day of happiness is 'eid mubarak'. happy eid. how ironic then that the fat, ugly and tyrannic ex-dictator of eygpt, lauguishing in some prison hospital should be called mubarak! im sure there is a future fringe comedy show in there somewhere.
anyway, im also pretty happy, though i will be even more blissful come tomorrow at 5.15pm as then i will officially be on holiday! being me, of course, i have not done a single thing so far to prepare for my turkish trip, though i did get my new passport, and have bought some euros to pay for the apartment, and the taxi. the girls at work cant understand why i have not packed already...how long ahead do you have to throw several pieces of lycra, some flip flops and a host of chargers into a bag i wonder.
so here are a few of the things i will not miss while living it up in kas.
1. having to get up in the dark. yes it is so, so depressing, as i now have 9 months of this ahead, but it is already dark when i drag myself kicking and screaming out of the arms of morpheus in the morning. everyone has started to sleep in at work, as we are used to waking in light, and ones body clock is just not geared to that blackness yet. by the time i get back, it will also be dark when i go to bed at night at the so rock-and-roll time of 9pm.
2. working in the tropics. hey, i may live in scotland, but let me tells ya, it is equatorial in my back shop. yesterday the temperature near the ovens was 35.7 degrees. (thats about 95 degrees for those imperialists amongst you). receipe for disaster..take fridges that food safety says have to be at 5 (for closed) and 8 (for open..ie, dont have doors), add in a healthy dose of humidity so that they vary between 15 and (one morning) 30 degrees, fold in fucking cream cakes, and bloody sandwiches and move them constantly so they are at the right temperature. add in a heady mix of tetchy 50 something women, who have to wear baseball caps, polythene aprons and oven gloves up to their elbows, and then bake in a greggs shop. record all your actions in a food safety log book for future reference!
3. the tattoo. as if its not bad enough that the tattoo has fireworks blasting off at 10.30 pm every night...this year they also have fucking fighter jets doing a fly over at 9.30, and holy hell, are they loud. to be honest, its not even the noise that is irritating..though it is, its the whole principle of fighter jets flying over the castle as some sort of exciting show for tourists. im mean, correct me if im wrong, but dont fighter jets only have one purpose...apparently ability to bomb has become something to celebrate!
4. the new (i suspect, australian), way of asking for what you want to purchase in a shop if you happen to be called rupert, jasper, india or sophie...'can i grab a... (insert desired item here)..to which the answer, in a sarcastic scottish way is 'no, i will put it in a bag for you'..(meaning, fuck off you pretentious wanker, and while you are at it, stick that fringe pass hanging round your neck up your pink, downy, never-sits-on-a-public-toliet-seat arse!)
5. the media still harping on about the olympics and their 'legacy'. for christs sake can we get over the 'best games ever' shite! lets face it, the only thing that happened more at this games than ever before was atheletes crying...because they didnt win, or they did win, or they only won a bronze when they should have got gold, or they let the relay team down, or they tried to lose games to get a better draw in the next round...blah, blah blah....lets give them a games so they will all forget how shite everything is, banks have screwed the whole financial system in the world, and top executives get pay rises of 9% while everyone else takes cuts to pay them their, on average £3million a year. and lets not even mention what is happening in syria!
6. sorry, i shouldnt have written that last paragraph as its made me angry. so i will move on to a thing i will miss when im in turkey, maybe, and that is 'lost'...jeez ive become obsessed with lost! its the most interesting thing ive watched since twin peaks...and full of enigmatic questions...my favourite kind! what can i say...blame netflix!
so im bored with this now..im sure you are too!
roger that!
1. when ataturk introduced the new turkish alphabet in the 20s only 10% of the population was literate. this was partly because turkish does not readly transiterate into arabic script, so our man kemal got dewey to make up a new romanized turkish alphabet. within two years of its introduction, and education being made compulsory for both sexes, 70% could read.
2. turkish has no double vowels...it has umlauts...except over the i...it has one with a dot and one without. as the one without is used more often it is in the place of our 'i' on a turkish keyboard. this can play havoc if you happen to have an i in your email address..as you will only be able to find the long i, and therefore, will be told that your address does not exist. hence you will not be able to access the members area in your blog. still it could be worse...you might be using a aerty french keyboard and not be able to find @ or . because that, oh so useful semi colon is in its place.
3. when the nation anthem plays you have to stand still. if you are sitting in a bar, you must stand up, clapping afterwards is optional, but it is something to be taken seriously. how disrespectful were we, therefore when we were screaming with laughter after being woken at 8am on 'victory day' by said anthem being played right under our windows. hell, you might get woken by the call to prayer at 5am, but its not blasted out by a brass band! but, i cant deny, i love the call to prayer, there is something deeply exotic and spiritual about it...even if you dont wake up you incorporate it into your dreams, and who needs a watch when it happens every 4 hours. (though those hours after 9pm can be tricky...before you know it its 3am, and its only 2 hours till it starts again). on the other hand i detest brass bands with a vengence!
4. we bought a turkish turkish-english phrase book which included these essential sentences....'these pears are too hard', 'where can i buy an axe', 'could you prescribe me some antidepressants', and, most notably 'i have a vaginal infection!' just when i thought that learning guniden and marhaba were enough! though it didnt include the phrases that we needed which were 'are you jealous of our balcony or what?' 'the bar is at least 15 paces away could you call me a taxi'. 'please could you put some more embers onto my nargile, i think its gone out', 'im far too lazy to stand up and put on shoes to walk over pebbles, so, barman, could you just bring another beer to my huge cushion', 'we call him 'the dolphin', and 'please fuck off with that brass band'. though at least i didnt need 'this mosquito bite has turned into a medical emergency, could you please take me to a hospital'! allah be praised!
5. who would have thought that turkey was the new cuba! when i got back last year and told rose that i could happily go and live there in my dotage, she thought i had gone stark raving mad. luckily now the shoe is on the other side of her face, according to bill! kas really is the most happy, sweet, safe, chilled out, lazy, beautiful place ive ever been, and it has 300 days of sunshine a year. i havent seen bill so happy for years...he got to wear shorts and a vest every day, swim in the turquoise water as much as he wanted, he wasnt stressed out or intimidated, everyone was his friend, the food is brilliant, the people lovely and he became known as the dolphin...a legend in his own life. rose and i became undercover turks by night, as we were...actually still are, so brown, that everyone thought we were turkish. we didnt hear another scottish voice...thank the lord, the beer and fags were cheap as chips, the men were handsome, even the children were cute...and thats not something i normally think, i can tell you. i like kids about as much as i like brass bands.
6. if you go sea kayaking, dont get any proper instruction, and very quickly are out in the deep sea, with huge boats passing ( i use the term loosely, they didnt even slow down, and would have just hit you, if you didnt get out of the way)..you might make it to harryhausen island, with the biggest wasps in the world, rocks that are so jaggy you cant even climb over them, and the prospect of the hydras teeth being thrown on the ground, i would just call a rescue boat. before you know it you will be stowed away on a luxury gulet with a bar being taken back to kas in total heaven. you wont even have had time to develop that blister between your thumb and your forefinger. halle-fucking-lulah!
7. even now im still chilled out...and i have been back at work for 4 days. nothing is too awful...im so not stressed...but give it a coupld of weeks and i will be back to normal...dont you worry. although im going back in a matter of weeks....cant wait to go back to istanbul...ya dancer!
yeah yeah, i know, im going turkish crazy....but have just been trawling to find out why it took the average turkish person years to learn to read...and here is what i have found out.
arabic script is totally unsuited to turkish. arabic only has 3 vowels....turkish has 8. arabic has consonants, including several variations of the letter z, which are redundant in turkish. no wonder only 10% of the population could read. the undotted i, which gave me internet problems is the equvalent of 'oo' which of course is a vowel we love in scotland. or is that a dypthong? and it got me thinking that while we only have 5 single vowels...acuallly we have 7, and then there is finnish which has a dytpthon a and u but not e, and then those italian trithongs...oh, language vs script...its and incalculable pancake, it is! and its not even about a bicycle! or a watch.
so here are the good things about not being in kas.
1. the internet...being able to skype australia, check property prices in kas, this ere blog, and, of course wikipaedia. read it in scots today...why? because i could.
2. playstation..darksiders 2 ordered and arriving this week. vidzone and netflix bloody magic...though i did not miss them.
3. lost...im addicted.
4. sleeping in my own bed...though the call to prayer at 5am might come in handy...better that a fucking alarm clock i tells ya.
5. mmmm..running out of good things...miss the sun, miss the food, miss the leisure, miss the happiness, miss the life in primary colours, miss the sea, miss the friendly, attractive people, miss the balcony, miss seeing turtles, miss the beer, miss the blue sky, miss the nights up till 3am....miss it all.
but life is a party...it might not be the one you planned, it may not be as exciting and fun filled as you had hoped, there may, even not be anyone you want to talk to or flirt with...but since we are here...we may as well dance!
i spoke to binni and kim this morning, and i dont mean to downplay the fact that binni has broken her elbow playing around with trees, but while we were on skype kim was watching a programme about the burning man festival. i googled it and it happens at the black rock mountains in nevada every year, you build something amazing, you burn it, as you have to leave the desert as you found it. it has been happening since 1986 ( such a long time if your are amerikan), and involves nakedness, tattoos, burning, ecology, zen, mindfulness and hippydom...i have never heard of this thing until this conversation.
then 10 minutes later, i skyped gareth, and he, as an aside, asked me if i had ever heard of the burning man festival. he had just read about it in the south african press. and also had never heard of it before. we were, just like sorabji looking at the same thing and exactly the same time!
if i was appearing in 'lost' i might mistake coincidence for fate. but only if i was with sawyer or saayid! sawyer is a con man, and saayid is a torturer....i would be happy with either, as long as they didnt want to move in. but since everyone lives on the beach it would be fine.
so, binni has broken her arm, fuck me dead...what will they be eating for the next 2 weeks, with kim in charge of the kitchen, probably not sausage rolls and steak bakes, though who knows...i dont think they have a greggs to hand.
i need to sleep...so playing death will have to wait.......
just been at a meeting all day today in which we covered halloween and christmas bakery products, how to properly clean your coffee machine, and do grinder checks, the governments new pension arrangements, doing a sponsored walk over the forth bridge for children in need, and profit and loss, especially in relation to electricity costs. god, i bet you wish your life was this exciting! i know i would if i didnt have the exquisite pleasure of being myself, as things dont really get more perfect than a 45 minute bus journey through loanhead and the beauty of straiton, to the bakery in an industrial estate off the city bypass. however, in true greggs fashion, it does have the compensation of being able to gorge yourself all day on scones, sausage rolls, buttered crumpets, bags of crisps and sweeties which are trowelled onto every table, while, the new addition to our meetings, fruit, is hidden cautiously at the back of the room and, no doubt, eaten in the toilet by those strange enough to partake of anything so healthy. god...what next, salad? the mind boggles!
and talking of salad...did you realise that the uk was being invaded by a race of 'super slugs' brought into the country, alllegedly, from spain on said healty options for the calorie conscious. 'the giant slugs, arion vulgaris, can reach up to 15cm in length, and are mating with indigenous species to create a mutant slug, which threatens crops, native slugs, and presumably the whole british way of life..they have, it says here, already spread as far as wales'. the invaders produce 100s more eggs, meaning they are capable of overruning british species. so there you have it...slugs are the new poles, and thank god they arent looking for jobs!
and as to playing death, which i did all night on saturday...fuck me dead, he is limber. he runs, he spins, he climbs up walls like a gecko, he propells balls double his body weight at 100 km per hour, he scythes with abandon..all this despite carrying a entire hardware store of hammers, axes, armour and, of course, at least 3 sets of sythes at any one time. what a guy! blue oyster cult advised you, back in the 80s, baby dont fear the reaper....i 'm tellin ya...do fear him, unless you are a giant spider who can only die by being hit by balls double his body weight, and he is being played by a directionally-challenged woman who is far to old to play games that a 15 year old would romp through. although having said that...bill has, of course, already beaten the spider. god i hate him! now, if only i had a scythe.....
i have just finished reading the funniest book ive, perhaps, ever read in my life. its called 'a foreskins lament', and as you would, presumably, imagine, its by a jewish guy who goes by the interestingly judiastic name of shalom auslander. i was gonna put the first paragraph in here, but my kindle is lying, in its funky red cover, next to my pillow..ie, in another room, and im just too damn lazy to get up and leave the fire on this cold october night. you all realise how far away that is, as my flat, as those of you who have got lost here realise, is just too huge...god, that trek to the toilet is enough, without having to go all the way down the hall to the other room! anyway...i digress...so shalom auslander...yes, he mentioned a website in this book called virtualjerusalem.com...because he got a prayer put into the western wall so that god wouldnt kill his wife when she was giving birth to his son...who he also wanted god not to kill. and he didnt, god, that is...but that is not my purpose in bringing this up. this website not only exists, and you can get a prayer put into the wall, but it has a live wall webcam with a zoom function so that you can scan the wall for your family or friends. obviously they will not be together, as men and women have segregated sections of the wall, and, who would have thought, the mens section is so much more important, as women do not get to sway back and forth with tzitzis, philaxeres or tiny black boxes tied to their heads. my guess is, also, that their prayers are less important, after all, why would god listen to women when he has the hopes and dreams of so many men to put into action! but, if i got a prayer put into the wall, where would they put it...because they might, given my name, think i was a russian man! would god be fooled? and would he pay more attention because he thought i was a man, or would he just do what he has always done...absolutely nothing! am i alone in thinking that if there was an omnipotent being that he might just have shown himself at some point in the last 10 000 years, and not just to some crazy loner who climbs a mountain to get the 10 commandments, but still never gets to enter the promised land, but to all of us, en masse.
doesnt it seem weird that god has never shown himself, except to strange, isolated losers, and yet evangelists do stadium gigs. i rest my case.
no, im not dancing naked behind a red curtain to 70s music in the uks answer to the twilight zone, or as parodied in futurama...'the scarey door'...no.,these are all real things...trust me, there is no one more honest than a woman up to her elbows in flour and baking grease for 11 hours a day!
the first thing i have to tell you is that i just looked at switching my mortgage...and the things you learn! i only have £29401 left to pay, and it ends in 10 years 3 months! actually none of the deals are less than the normal rate...and in december my payments will come down by £60 a month, because i was tied into a 5 year rate before the crash! yfd!
so here are the other highlights of the news, such as it is..
1. jimmy saville was a child molester...whod a thought! the main question seems to be..how was this man allowed, not only to present childrens tv, but to volunteer in childrens wards in hospitals. maybe he should have moved to japan, where child porn, and sexualising young girls is normal. on ebay in japan, you can buy worn schoolgirls knickers.
2. jullia gillard is a kick ass pm..check out bit.ly/gillardspeech..
3. in florida the winner of a cockroach eating competition has died. edward archbold (32) collapsed shortly after the contest to win a python at a reptile shop. police said that about 30 other people took part and none of them died. 'unless the roaches were contaminated, i dont think they would be unsafe to eat' said michael adams, a professor of entomology.
4. abu hamza, aka hook hands..has finally been extridited to the us. he has been living at the taxpayers expense in some £1million house in the uk, a country he has described as 'a toilet'. lets hope he has more luck with the sanitation on the other side of the pond. all of us here wish him all the luck, bog paper and locked cubicles that he clearly deserves.
5. lance armstrong took drugs! fact! it clearly wasnt all about the bike!
6. im going to istanbul in 2 weeks...and australia in 9! bloody magic!
was once sir jimmy...then just jummy..now just saville! look at this man! he presented childrens tv, helped out in childrens wards in hospitals, did all that great work for charity...hosted jim'll fix it! for the whole of my life, until he died at the age of 86 last year we were meant to look up to jimmy saville. yet deep down inside every young person knew that there was something amiss. can there really have been young people who didnt think this man was a pervert...he seemed so to every one i knew. rose and i thought his predeliction was boys...apparently not...but we were not wrong in essence. now his family have had to grind up his headstone, and send it to land fill, and they are talking about post-humously taking away his knighthood. pants i say.
look at this photo and tell me that no one knew!
when i told one of my workmates that istanbul was such an exciting city for many reasons, but the main one being that its half in europe, and half in asia, i realised by her blank face that she did not really believe me. i think it was because she could not contemplate a city that strided continents..but perhaps she just didnt think that that was very exciting...who knows. given that she is a creationist with a pink bible, i doubt she really understands much about anything...so best not to delve.
anyway....istanbul...it does stride continents...and here are a few of them.
i dont think i have ever been anywhere with such diverse people, except maybe brazil...but turks can be blonde, and even northern looking, or swarthy, hirsute simians. there are loads of headscarves, but you are just as likely to see a man pushing the pram. they may be sitting in bars all day, but still go to one of the 5 prayers a day, which meant that we never got to go into the sultanahmet mosque, or they might just drink apple tea all day, but never go to mosque. it has a huge river runs through it...which seems exciting, watching all the boats, cruise ships, fishing etc...but if it was a road with artics, which really isnt that different, it would be dull as ditchwater. you can decide not to bother with the grand bazar, and then, by mistake wander in down some side street, while just trying to find a coffee shop...and then spend over an hour trying to get out of the market streets with wedding dresses, cheap underwear, shoes, childrens clothes, kitchen wear, bags, leather goods, watches, books, etc etc...and then just when you were about to panic, find the way out...onto the tram lines, and then have to dive into the nearest bar to drink vodka and red bull to calm you down ! thank god for middle'class-ville. and then you go to the sema.,..the whirling dervish ceremony, and the whole time the person next to you is either texting, or looking at a map, while you get reduced to tears by the wonder of it all.
but to jump off at a non-striding continents tangent...some of us got transfixed by istanbul, and reduce to tears more than once, and particulary in hagia sofia...which i have to say i think is one of the wonders of the modern world.,...its 1000 years old, its one of the most overwhelming spaces that i have ever seen. words do not explain how wonderful it is. or how big...there must be, at any one time, 3000..maybe even 5000 or 6000 people in there, but they cant even make you feel anything but how insignificant we all are, and all there is is a hum of speech, like putting a shell to your ear. it really is the most awesome church i have ever been inside. if it was in europe, it would be the thing you had to see...because its in turkey, hardly anyone here has ever heard of it. more fool them i say.
and then there is tile heaven...topkapi...the place that makes you just want to tile your entire house, get an ottoman lounge, lie around on cushions all day, and have boys bringing apple tea on silver trays, while you smoke a nargile, and pick at baklava.
0h, if only!
yes, at the present moment,....my flat is something of a cave, as i have no windows at all. luckily its on the warmest day we have had for ages..its a balmy 10 degrees, and amazingly its not raining...but it is blowing a gale, and its a little on the chilly side for sitting in the open air. still, the worst is over....they have removed all the old windows and are now crashing around with the new kitchen window. the little 18 year old apprentice is standing out on the ledge...and i cant even look! who would have thought that being a joiner could be so life-threatening! i think ill stick to the danger of burns in greggs. maybe i will just go out, so i dont have to see anyone breaking their necks, or smashing all my stuff with power tools. still, im looking forward to cleaning all the plaster dust off everything in the house, not to mention re-painting round the living room window! what larks.
still they have now managed to insert the pesky kitchen one, which is a real bugger because of the units sticking out into the window space. thank the lord, no one has died. nor have they dropped the window into the garden of the flat downstairs. which is just as well, as my neighbour spent months doing up that pointless red phone box which stands by his front door, and i dont think he would take to kindly to it being hit by a huge piece of wood. in fact he has already complained about the rubble, and the wee apprentice has had to go round and sweep up. its strange that he didnt complain about the power drilling at 8am...but there you are...
so, due to all this window palaver, i forgot, until i switched my mobile on, and saw the date, that it is bills birthday today....his last before becoming an octogenarian!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BILL!
my new windows are just brilliant...i know they are things that most people take for granted...but after living in the third world of the window world...i feel like im in a warm, safe bubble..no noise, no wind crashing them together or seeping in to my otherwise cosy home, no worries about them being blown in, or leaking. oh...such security...and worth every penny of the £4200 i paid! it is, in fact, now so quiet in my flat that its like im alone in the world when im at home...and, let me tells ya, thats the way i likes it! well, apart from my neighbours, who have the same loud american girl for dinner every friday, and i can hear every nasal intonation, and every use of the word 'like'. still, they have to put up with me are rose watching maroon 5 on vidzone, over, and over watching 'moves like jagger', until 2am when i go to bed, and then wake them up again at 5.15am when i get up. the lucky bastards!
got home from work last night, and felt a little on the peaky side, so went to bed early, despite it being my day off today, as i thought i would wake feeling fine...but god! i felt like i had the flu...which is just not possible, as, due to my chronic condition, i have already had my free flu jab! so, god forbid, i had to call bill and tell him that it just wasnt possible for me to go to the gym...imagine my devastation at being robbed of those 100 floors on the step machine, 5k on the cross-trainer, and all the other pounding i just so delight in! i swear there were tears in my eyes!
so instead i have had to suffer lying reading 'a hundred year old man climbs out of a window and dissappears' on my kindle, sitting in front of the fire drinking hot chocolate doing the crossword, and playing around on the internet! fuck me dead, its been tough, but somehow ive managed! i have also done a couple of other things i never normally do on my day off....have a couple of glasses of wine, and eat a slice of battenburg cake! i just thought it couldnt hurt! and now, despite the hankies all around, sore throat still going on, and general malaise, i feel fine. i put it down to the couple of glasses of wine...i may make that more than a couple, just to check that it works! bill also came round to see me, what a sweetie he is, and brought chocolate, the newspaper, a bag of crisps and my birthday present to myself, of which there is a photo here. yes its a cordless power screwdriver, though unfortunately the carry case of 100 heads to go with it hasnt arrived yet. call me a guy, but i love power tools...actually thought of buying a cordless drill, with built in screwdriver, but decided that it was a little unnecessary., and also bulky. you know how little storage i have. and to be honest, i have never thought 'god i wish i had a drill just now'. but...a screwdriver...dancer! i know that not everyone is directionally challenged...but i can never tell which way to turn a screw...to confuse me all you have to do is give me a toilet seat and ask me which way to turn the boltsto affix it to said toilet bowl. however...now i dont have to question left and right..i can just let the bloody tool do it, no messing!
is it weird for a woman to love power tools...ha! as if i care...there cant be a person reading this who doesnt know me enough to know that i dont really give a toss what other people think...if i like something i like it. i probably more than just like it. its one of the things i always found very strange when i was mates with mandy...she had no idea what she liked! strangely, i have never been in any doubt about that one, even if i cant tell which way is clockwise without really concentrating on imagining an analogue clock! but actually, i couldnt read one of them till i was about 12, as i couldnt tell the difference between the side with 3 and the side with 9. seems strange...but all true.
and to change the subject from power tools, left-right confusion, and even illness...this week there has been the 'bad sex in fiction' award. this has, for me, been doubly amusing, as the author that won not only was there to collect his award, he then wrote a column in the independent slagging the whole idea of it, and accusing the literary review (who donate the award) of bullying and rubbishing good authors.
here is the offending sentence which collected this acolade for rowan somerville.
'like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin, he screwed himself into her'
the editor of the literary review replied to the authors accusations in a letter to the independent as follows...
'like mr somerville, i know that nakokov was a lepidopterist. i also know that lepidopterists study moths and butterflies in particular, not insects as a class; that they dont mount themselves on to their specimes; and that while you can screw someone, screwing yourself into them requires drastic genital surgery'
touche!
HELL, YEAH! THE WORLD IS ENDING TOMORROW AT 11.11am!
and, god forbid that i should be cynical...but on which time zone? because, ya know, i get up in the middle of the night...and perhaps i shouid just stay in bed if the shop that i am gonna spend 4 hours setting up is suddenly going to be vapourised! the thought of all that black bun turning to dust fairly brings a tear to my eye...and the eye of every oap in edinburgh, im sure!
and yet the mayans lived 6 hours behind us...and in the tomorrow-land of australia its 10 hours ahead...so which 11 am are we talking...
that has not been explained.....but we have to be told, so that i dont spend my last hours on earth in a blue uniform and a hairnet! i want to be drinking champagne and listening to mozarts mass in c minor...not selling sausage rolls and hearing bruno mars once again being played on radio forth.
but, im guessing binni, that you will never get to see your birthday, i have just wasted all that money on a stoopidly long flight that will not exist, and i better get a move on with darksiders 2, otherwise i will never get to find out what happens at the end!
actually, when i think about it...why am i even bothering to write this, when we will all be dead in a matter of hours....mmmm.....some might just ask....
well, i hope you all had the perfect christmas, god knows, we did. it was fab with a capital F! not only did bill do us proud with the perfect christmas dinner, which was just so the best meal ive had all year, gareth managed to eat all of his, and more with no ill effects, we drank some fantastic wines, and had such a laugh, it was just a wonderful day. it was also magic to see simon on boxing day, as we see each other so rarely, and marge and bill fergo were also on really good form...it was all so magic, i felt like crying when i had go home so i could go back to work today! happy happy joy joy.
however, in a few brief hours, (at least im hoping they are brief, as i just cant wait), i off out to the airport to take that stoopidly long flight over to tomorrowland, to spend almost 3 weeks with my antipodean family. as i have packed, charged, cleaned, tidied, and even defrosted the fridge, im now at a bit of a loose end. fuck me dead, its not like me to be ready too early! normally i start packing a couple of hours before i leave, but i decided to be sensible this time, so that i dont arrive with no underwear! god forfend!
so i suppose i will just have to put on playstation and start killing things!
in the mean time, let me wish everyone all the best for new year. this year is the first in my life that i will be spending out of the uk, it all seems a bit unreal right at this moment, but i just cant wait to see you binni and kim. we will just have the best time...honestly sometimes i think im the luckiest person in the world! how many people have the worlds best christmas, with all the people here they love, and then get to fly over to the other side of the world to spend new year with other people they love. i am just so blessed i feel that i will burst with happiness! my life really is bliss!
who would have thought selling sausage rolls would be so rewarding that it would allow me this life? hallelulah for greggs!
and all of us. i cant imagine life without me mates.
what would be the point.
well, what can i say about living in tomorrow? its MAGIC thats what. what a laugh we have had, what with the firstfooting, where i gave binni and kim that useful traditional gift...a piece of scottish coal in the middle of summer where it is about 40 degrees, screaming at the playstation when we all have different opinions about where death, or war should go, and what he should be doing, having brilliant meals, wine and chit chat till...well dawn in some cases...and i have to say that all these photos were taken on jan 1st..when you were all in last year..and what a dawn it was. bloody fab. we have also painted a boat in blistering heat, changed a toilet seat, been to a town fair where we ate beef and chilli sausages in rolls while drinking a bottle of wine while every fly in cobargo buzzed around us. oh, no, not for us the normal female persuits of knitting and beading...god no...it cutting down fences with bolt cutters and filling the water tanks for us. and i still have to go on the sit on mower...cant wait. on top of all this it is actually so hot today that we can no longer sit outside, and so i have time to do this....which is lucky for all of you as i know how much you are all missing me already.
i have to say that its really funny for me to go to visit wearing lycra and shorts, in 37 degree heat, and see a christmas tree and garlands with holly...i keep forgetting that its january..and let me tells ya, long may that continue. im having just such a great time...binni and kims house is just sorta paradise...and having the sun coming in through your windows at 5.30am, and knowing that all you have to do (well apart from all of the above things) is spend all day with really good friends having a laugh and eating and drinking is so halcyon that i could almost burst with happiness.
im having the time of my life...and may just decide to stay, so that i never have to look at another sausage roll!
love to everyone..and will speak soon...rose, if poss will skype at some point.
and bill...we have been so rubbish at ps3 that we have still not even finished darksiders 1..do you think it could be all the wine or what? ha!
WELL, YESTERDAY WAS A DAY UNLIKE ANY OTHER IN MY LIFE. YES I KNEW THAT THERE WERE FIRES IN NEW SOUTH WALES, AND YES I ALSO KNEW THAT ONE CATASTROPHIC FIRE WAS 35K AWAY..BUT, CALL ME A CITY GIRL IF YOU LIKE, I JUST DID NOT THINK THAT WE WOULD BE STANDING LOOKING AT DANTES INFERNO FROM THE FRONT DECK. BINNI AND KIM SEEMED SO CALM, AND SO AMAZINGLY WELL PREPARED, (WET TOWELS BY THE FRONT DOOR, BUCKETS OF WATER IN CASE THE POWER WENT DOWN (THEIR WATER RUNS OFF AN ELECTRIC PUMP), BAGS PACKED WITH ESSENTIALS, AND OF COURSE THE 'FIRES NEAR ME' APP RUNNING ON THEIR PHONES IN CASE THERE WERE EMERGENCY MESSAGES! AND I HAVE TO SAY IN AN EMERGENCY BINNI IS JUST THE BEST PERSON TO HAVE AROUND, BUT I WAS JUST SCARED SHITLESS!
ANYWAY TO CUT A LONG STORY OF TERROR AND ORANGE SKIES SHORT (AND I WILL PUT SOME PHOTOS ON LATER, AS I DONT KNOW HOW TO DOWNLOAD ON A MAC, DESPITE BEING SHOWN MORE THAN ONCE,) WE SURVIVED, AND THIS MORNING THE SKY IS BACK TO BEING BLUE, THE WIND HAS GONE DOWN, THERE ARE PUFFY CLOUDS FLOATING SLOWLY BY, AND IT SEEMS LIKE THE WHOLE THING NEVER HAPPENED.
AND YOU MAY THINK THAT ALMOST BEING BURNT ALIVE IN BUSHFIRES IS THE ONLY THING THAT HAS HAPPENED, BUT YOUD BE WRONG! WE HAVE ALSO PAINTED THE BATHROOM AND THE BOAT IN THE PADDOCK, WE HAVE WATERED (WELL KIM HAS) THE PLANTS, CUT THE GRASS WITH THE DEERIE (THATS THE SIT ON MOWER) AND EVEN MANAGED TO FIX THE BELT WHEN IT CAME OFF, EATEN FABULOUS MEALS AND MANAGED TO FILL THE RECYCLING BIN WITH WINE BOTTLES IN A MATTER OF DAYS, DONE A BIT OF BIRDWATCHING, WALKED ON THE AMAZING BEACH WITH THE PACIFIC CRASHING ON THE POWDER SAND, LAZED AROUND IN A HAMMOCK, TALKED, LAUGHED, DRANK, SMOKED..AND STILL HAD TIME TO PLAY PLAYSTATION ON THEIR BRILLIANT 55INCH SCREEN TV. OH HAPPY DAYS.
I WAKE UP EVERY MORNING IN A ROOM WHERE THE SUN SHINES IN THROUGH THE BLINDS AND I CAN SEE TREES AND FLOWERS FROM THE BED, IT IS JUST SO WONDERFUL..HOW COULD IT NOT BE A GOOD DAY WHEN YOU START IT LIKE THAT. EVERYONE IS SO FRIENDLY AND EASY, PEOPLE IN SUPERMARKETS EVEN SMILE AT YOU! AND IM STAYING WITH THE BEST HOSTS IN THE WORLD, AND FLIES APART (DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ABOUT THOSE WORKS OF THE DEVIL) I REALLY LOVE AUSTRALIA, OR AT LEAST THIS LITTLE PART OF IT. I EVEN COULD QUITE HAPPILY LIVE HERE..A PITY THEN THAT IN A LITTLE OVER A WEEK I WILL BE BACK WEARING A BASEBALL CAP, SERVING THE DENTALLY-CHALLENGED PORK PASTRY PRODUCTS IN THE DARK AND COLD.
BUT IM NOT GOING TO THINK ABOUT THAT WHEN I HAVE JUST GOT RID OF THE SHOP ANXIETY DREAMS I CONSISTENTLY HAVE AT NIGHT, AND FEEL THAT I HAVE BEEN AWAY FOR WEEKS.
DESPITE MY BRUSH WITH THE REAPER YESTERDAY, IM TOTALLY HAPPY HERE. ITS JUST FAB.
AND I HAVE TO SAY, BILL, THAT YOU WOULD BE RIGHT AT HOME HERE AS SHORTS AND VESTS ARE COMPULSORY FOR ANY MAN OVER 70! SANDALS OR BOOTS ARE OPTIONAL.
WILL PUT PHOTOS ON LATER, WHEN BINNI SHOWS ME, YET AGAIN, HOW TO DO IT.
LOVE TO YOU ALL. XX
we are leaving bermagui today to drive up to sydney for my stoopidly long flight home tomorrow. i hate to put binni through the 5 hour drive, but then i am hating putting myself through it too, as i would so much rather wake up here tomorrow with the sun coming in, and get up and sit on the deck in the peace and serenity. it is just so wonderful here, i feel totally relaxed and calm, its almost soporific its so peaceful. and if you get up early enough you can even get a couple of hours before the fiys get out of their little fly beds and try to get in your ears, up your nose and in your mouth. happy days indeed! as you can see from the photos, i have been busy too...milking cows, cutting barb wire and painting..ive got so country, you just wouldnt believe it. but now i have to put my city head on, and maybe put on socks and shoes. my lycra and shorts will be packed away for some months, and i may even have to have scarf lessons when i get home.
but i have had such a wonderful time here, and i can just hear bill saying that i shouldnt be sad, i should be happy to be upset to be leaving, because it just shows how lucky i am. and he is right.
oh, ive had the time of my life...and i am indeed a very lucky girl.
yes here i am back again in the frozen north, after a stoopidly long triplet of flights in which i had to share my space with that work of the devil...children! on the sydney-kl leg i was totally surrounded by them..including one whose mother made so much fuss about his peanut allergy that, not only was he allowed to eat only bread, as they couldnt guarantee that the meal was peanut free, everyone else on the whole plane, in every cabin was banned from eating said nuts. imagine my amusement when the same family tried to board the kl-amsterdam leg, and were not allowed to fly on the orders of the pilot, as the meal on that flight included sate sauce! oh, what poetic justice, even if it did delay the flight, as their bags had to be removed from the hold. that'll teach em!
its funny when you have these really long flights..in a way, i always think that i will never get home, maybe will be on a plane forever, the ultimate ironic nightmare of always travelling but never getting there. i dont know if its an ms thing, as my spacial perception is kinda wierd, but sometimes on long flights, i have a feeling that im weightless in a sort of limbo, and i dont really know which is the floor, and which is the ceiling and im fallling somehow, its one of the reasons i hate the toilets on planes, and always keep my seat belt fastened, and somewhat similar to the dream where you fall down stairs but it goes on for hours. i also get it if i lie down in the back of a moving car..or perhaps even sitting on a mower in a field with no perameters. like im spinning, and i cant tell which is the earth and which is the sky. strange but true.
in a more real universe...i have to go back to work in 2 hours..and even more inside the twilight zone..i feel fine about that. i woke up this morning with a ping at 5am...like i have never even been into tomorrow and back. and its now 8.26 and its light! what i difference 2 weeks make at this time of the year. on the other hand, i really have no idea what day it is, what the date is and if its 8 or 20! and neither does kim know the latter, as the 24 hour clock is a total mystery to her. im just glad i have it, so that i dont go to work at 6.30 pm tomorrow...which could happen.
so thats it...my visit to tomorrow is over, and i have to now remember how to put on make up, tie a scarf, deal with city traffic, and how to do my job. and, a thing i had forgotten so quickly, but was scarily reminded of getting the bus back from the airport..how translucently white, ugly, fat and dentally challenged scottish people are.
welcome home!
fucking pants!
before i start on my day from hell yesterday...let me just say, never put on hand lotion before playing playstation! those of you who have never held a plastic controller in your hands whlle killing all manner of gruesome creatures will probably not understand...well, sobeit...
but...yesterday...lets me tells ya! when i got in to work on the sabbath...the day that the big G in the sky (or wherever) strictly forbade mankind from working, and, it turns out for good reason, there was smoke in the shop. no...strangely lucifer had not deigned to appear, as lets face it, he never does except in hammer horror from the 70s. no...calum had left a tray of steak bakes in the oven which had turned into charcoal so well you could have done a life drawing.
and then there was that annoying peeping noise...um....what is that, have i left the retarder door open...well no, but for a fridge, the temperature on the dial seems a little high, its meant to be below 5 degrees...and its reading 30! so, yup...open said door...and its blood and guts in there...the cheese slices had melded into a mush in an inch of fat, the rolls had proved themselves (a little bakery joke that you just wont get unless you have yeast in your life), the butter had become liquid, and i dont even want to talk about bacon, milk and chicken mayonnaise! and then the phone goes..
its alix calling in sick...ok, fine. go and put baguettes, steakbakes, chicken bakes..etc in the oven. and then the phone goes again....its maryam calling in sick.
so im all alone in the shop. with the ovens full. a health and safety nightmare...we are never meant to have things in the oven when alone. so what to do...take them out...leave...or do what i did...burst into tears when leaving a voice message to your sales manager.
then petya turned up at 10am. she is bulgarian, so perhaps god does not extend that far!
and then later...after hours of cleaning, throwing boiled food into bags that looked like a human being put into a microwave, putting pork pastry products over and over into that oven with no thanks from the ugly, fat and dentally challenged public, the clock said it was 10 to 3...(kim for you alone thats 14.50) for over 20 minutes. when i went and checked my mobile phone it was, in fact, 25 to 4! (kim thats 15.35). and we close at 4(16) ! can you imagine my horror!
i had 25 mins to clean the soup unit, the armana oven, the coffee machine, count the stocks and stales, pack up all the bags of microwaved humans, and the other stuff, wheel everythings into the front, clean the window unit, the self selector, mop the floor, throw out the bags of rubbish and do the cash! FUCK ME DEAD!
never, ever go against gods rules...thats my advice. and dont forget that advice about hand lotion either...
AND, FUCK ME DEAD...THE POPE HAS JUST RESIGNED! I MIGHT HAVE TO ASK MARTY HOW OFTEN THIS HAS HAPPENED!
sorry marty...i dont need you i have a kindle fire and wikipaedia...the first pope since 1416 to step down...oh, god moves in mysterious ways they do say!
yes, this is how exciting life is in the north in the winter. a girl gets totally elated by something as mundane as a new lamp! not that there is much mundane about this baby, its hand painted goat skin stretched over a hand made metal frame, and the guy in the shop told me it came from marahkshhh! it took me a minute to scramble that....yes its moroccan. but like your table, bandk, it seems like it is just made for my flat and, has, in fact, been here the whole time. its about 3 feet tall...(thats around a metre for those non-imperialists who read this rubbish), and they also have both bigger and smaller ones. sadly the bigger ones just would not fit anywhere here....though cant deny i could so see one in you den binni...but i may get one of the smaller ones so that i can complete the look. there is an orange one with curls and squiggles that drew me in in the first place...so it may also end up where it always should have been...ie, here. so enough about lamps..though, god knows there is not much else good to report.
the world is such an ugly place just now, i sometimes wonder why i bother going out at all. maryam, a head-skarf wearing libyan who i have just spent 2 months training at work has handed in her notice to spend more time with her family, as her brother has been arrested and tortured, and her brother-in-law has absconded with her sisters children and is holding them as hostage, threatening to kill them if he doesnt get money. the poor girl collapsed at work behind the savoury counter....but there was a queue, and, sadly, i had to leave her lying next to the steak bakes and serve the undeserving public.
on top of this, i had a meeting in, oh, horror of horrors, ocean terminal. i know that that sounds really grand, like it is overlooking the crashing atlantic, probably with a lighthouse on a rocky outcrop, with liners coming and going, and people riding horses through boiling surf....but not a bit of it, its in the skuzzy part of leith, overlooking the forth with the royal yacht britannia darkening the sky, and empty lots of scrub and rubble all around. inside...well, its just a shopping mall with a glistening array of rubbish shops, and ugly people who seem to want to spend the whole day there. perhaps it was because i was giddy from blood loss - i always get a nose bleed going this far north in edinburgh, but i almost felt like kissing the ground next to the 35 busstop taking me back to the middle-class, soft-focus, dream of the south of the city. god i hate leith..its like stepping back in time to the 70s...gill scott heron has a line in 'b movie' about going back to the time when films were in black and white, and so was everything else....well leith is the same, except its brown!. and being a child of the seventies, i hate brown as much as i hate cubes of canned ham, pickled onions, cubes of orange cheese and (that wonder of a new fruit) cubes of pineapple on the same cocktail stick (which, i discovered in australia, are called tooth-picks, no idealistic drivel there then...how many people in the 70s in britain had ever drunk a cocktail) stuck into an orange cut in half and given pride of place on the party table, next to the decrusted pan-loaf tongue sandwiches and vol-au-vents with mushrooms in lumpy white sauce.
and yet, despite its brownness...when we all grew up, even those so much older than me, who were born in that pre-me decade, the 50s...things were optimistic. the 60s and 70s were great times to be young, despite the terrible fashions. we really believed that we could change things, pre-aids women could, for the first time have sex with who ever they wanted, and were in charge of their own fertility and destiny, technology was pretty exciting, and didnt rule your life, children were allowed to walk to school alone, and play in the streets, we were not afraid of anything. and now everyone is afraid. of everything. and its dark and cold...its an ice age of the soul.
but luckily for me...i have my new lamp in all this darkness......and its steering me through...
before i begin with the pointlessness of life, i thought i would put on these photos. i had forgotten that in australia it is customary to travel some distance in cars with a huge tree for company...in this case a mulberry. god, what larks we had that day. more sobering is the photo of the burnt trees on the highway to sydney, which we would not have been able to drive had i been leaving 3 days earlier. the ground was totally ash and even looking at the photo reminds me of the smell, which clung to your clothes, and i could still smell it when we arrived in woollongong hours later. obviously the one of the bathroom is just me blowing my own trumpet...but if i dont, who else will.
anyway...pointlessness...yes....as i think i have told practically anyone who will listen, im reading a book by a frenchman called georges perec called life (a usuers manual). in it, apart from the jigsaw analogy of the building, and all the people who live there, there is a man who is so rich that he devises a plan for his life that is the most pointless thing he can think of, and very ingenious it is too. he spends 10 years learning to paint watercolours, then spends 10 years travelling the world painting, at the rate of 2 a month. these he sends back to a man in france, who sticks them only wood, and hand cuts them into jigsaws. on his return to france, he spends 10 years doing the jigsaw puzzles, at the rate of 2 a month, and then returns the completed paintings to the jigsaw maker, who glues them back together, removes the paper from the wood, and sends it to be bleached, so that no record of any of the puzzles, or paintings remain.
just when i thought this was, in fact, the most pointless waste of a life i could possibly imagine, i read in the paper today that sir ranulph fiennes has had to pull out of an expedition to cross the antarctic on foot in winter due to frostbite, after having taken off his glove in -30 degrees. he said, and i quote 'i started work on this expedition five years ago. ive been working full time and unpaid for five years'. poor fucking dear...i mean your heart really goes out to a man who thinks that, despite being a millionaire who can afford this frivolity, that he should have been paid for something so crushingly unecessary when there are people, even in britain who cant even afford to feed their children. can there really be anyone who believes that gallivanting about on skis in the antarctic winter, 24 hours of darkness, and temperatures of -70 is something that one should get paid for? perhaps the stupid old bastard should have learnt something from the last time he got frostbite, when he had to cut off the tips of two of his fingers with a fret-saw, but apparently 5 years unpaid isnt enough time to teach him to keep his gloves on. what is even more pointless is that the expedition aims to raise £6 million for seeing is believing, a charity that fights to prevent avoidable blindness. mmm...how much does it cost for an expedition of this type...even given that they didnt pay ranulph fiennes for all those five years of hard work finding out, yet again, that, oh so difficult poser...should one wear gloves in -30 degrees or can you just take them off to play around with skis? is it just me...or should they just skip the expedition, and just give the money it would have cost to the charity, thereby cutting out the need to risk life and fingers, and the poor little blind children can sleep easy in their unseen beds, knowing that no one is going to lose fingertips over them. oh honestly....what a pile of tosh!
in another corner of tosh lies cardinal keith o'brian...the king...or is it closet queen, of euphemism. in a brief statement issued on sunday he said that allegations against him from 3 priests and former priest 'had some substance' and admitted that his sexual conduct had 'fallen below the standards expected of me'. well...talk about the understatement of the fucking year.! given that he has been such a vitriolic homophobe..perhaps the standard was not to be such a hypocrite...but would the catholic church be the catholic church with hypocracy, sancimonious lectures and false piety..well, just dont get me started. catholic-schmatholic, pope-schmope!
we are living the the era of pointlessness....thank god we have each other to give the world meaning...if i didnt have you all to talk to i think i would just go totally bonkers. there are so few interesting people left in the world...and i think i know all of them!
weather...can i tell you how much i hear about it, working in a shop serving old biddies, and crumpled old men who might not even speak to another living soul all day for all i know...and what do they invariably chat about...yes, the fucking weather, like we need to be reminded! i realise that some of you reading this live in places where you have weather on stereroids, but at least you have something called a climate, and not just weather. for example....as im sure you are all aware, its the spring here...we have got through the snowdrops, and crocus..and the daffies are just about to come out. last week it actually felt like spring, warm days, sunny, people even sitting on the meadows, a glimmer of light in the sky on saturday morning walking to work, which i swear was the sun getting ready to get his hat on, and said celestial body has even risen sufficiently in the sky, if does deign to show himself, that you do not get temporarily blinded at every corner. and then what do we get today....FUCKING SNOW, THE WHITE HELL! combined with -3 degrees during the day, and -7 tonight.
funny thing was that i got up at 7am, as i was again working on the sabbath, and couldnt understand why it was so light. i realise that i have been getting up in the dark for 7 months now, and it is one of the great things about working a sunday...its light both ways....but it was unregularly light...yes, you guessed it, there was a blizzard going on, and everything was white. so i went back to bed for 30 mins...got up to have my shower, and the snow had all gone...like it had never happened, i actually thought perhaps i had imagined the whole thing...not a fucking chance. 30 mins after opening the shop, down came the hail, then sleet, then snow, then rain, then back to hail, then sunshine, then more blizzard, then more sunshine, then more snow...god, im turning into one of my customers...
.well, apart from the fact that i dont have 3 thieveing children, blackened stumps for teeth, take 10 sugars in my coffee and eat pies for breakfast on a sunday, or in fact, any day of the week. talking of our delicious savoury range, did i tell you that we now sell sausage, bacon and egg rolls..which look like your average sausage roll, but have oodles of extra goodness, and are just the ideal breakfast locked inside healthy golden pastry. at £1 a pop, i imagine you owe it to your body to have more than one to get you going in the morning. if you could imagine a sausage roll crossed with a quiche lorraine you might just get the most delicious idea known to breakfast-kind. beats porrige anyday of the week, though we do, in fact, sell that too, ready made in pots you just add water to. but while you may be thinking that scottish people have become healthier than you imagined, as oats are good for you, let me tell you that our best selling porrige is the 'golden syrup' variety. would you like some oats with that syrup? i think it might be a little like the pouches of 'capri sun orange drink' that we sell....they look healthy, people buy them for their kids, believeing that they are orange juice, they have sliced oranges on the front, glistening with tantalizing drops of mouthwateringly healthy juice, but not a bit of it. they have only 5% juice, and contain 47% of and adults daily intake of sugar as well as a huge quantity of enumber colours, additives and preservatives. but then, people buy red bull for their 6 year old kids, what can i say!
well, i can say something completely different...and its about these new year photos ive put on here, a little tardy in their uploading, i admit, but who would have thought it would take 3 weeks to upload several thousand photos, all my music, my playstation saves and my videos into my cloud. well...it did. while i was doing that, i couldnt access these...and i put them on because, well, theyre worth it. living in the future as i was then, it was the start of 2013 while all the rest of you were still languishing in an old year for at least 11 hours. at around 12.25am on january 1st i did what any scot would do in these circumstances...go out side, rap on the door, pretend to be tall dark and handsome, and present the householder with that most poignant of gifts in the hottest summer on record...a lump of coal.
for those of you who dont know what that is, its a carbon fossil fuel, the same base as, but kinda the opposite of diamonds, black in colour, messy and dirty, but with the help of some sticks and a box of matches one can turn it into a hot, comforting, mesmerising mass of flames, with which one can, if not paying proper attention, burn down ones entire house. no wonder they dont have it in australia...they can easily turn half the country into an interno without the help of coal. while the other half is under water.
and something else about australia. pumpkins. now call me a pedant...go on, i know i am, but binni and kim were not only doing that thing that is so strange to us here in the frozen north, growing their own vegetables, they also called the butter-nut variety a pumpkin, while we would call it a squash. having pedantically looked up wikipaedia, i can tell you that this is one of the few times that the uk is with america and not australia. the pumpkin for us, and the usa is only the halloween orange one. the rest of these gourd like works of god are squash. in australia, they call the whole shebang pumpkins. but then again they call fields paddocks...when we all know that paddocks only are paddocks when they contain horses.
and lets not even get into the debate about what is a crumpet, a muffin and a pancake.
that clearly is an incalcuable pancake, and its not even about a bycicle.
now, i realise there are those amongst you who do not get bowie. pretentious lyrics, rubbish voice, bad teeth, and concept albums. but look at this photo. this was taken at the start of the aladin sane tour in 1973. 1973! when most music was about black guys in gold satin suits with velour, long-collared shirts singing about going to the disco or lurve, whilst doing synchronised dance moves in a line., only moving forward to sing their given part about what star sign they were in a cresendo voice.
this photo, and indeed the suit it shows is 40 years old, and yet even looking at it today, im amazed by the design, the sheer artistry of this image and even now, how fucking strange it is. this photo encapsulates why i, and thousands of other teenagers growing up in the uk in the 70s got sold on bowie. before him there was just nothing like this. bizzarre music about everyday tiny moments of life, bizzarre costumes which he had designed in an age before john paul gautier and the fusion of music fashion and art , which had just never happened before.
funnily enough, i am not the ohly person who thinks this as there is a bowie exhibition at the v & a in london just now, and, who would have thought,. he has just released his first album in 10 years. being a modern 50something woman, i have listened to mp3 samples of said album, and it didnt really do it for me..but perhaps thats because i wanted a new aladdin sane or diamond dogs, not songs that sound like 'heroes' done over when i thought it was pretty boring the first time. (and pedantically is it correct syntactically to start a paragraph with the clause 'funnily enough'. i doubt it. )
so...now im moving on from bowie..hard as it is..to beetroot.
last monday i, belatedly i believe as binni and kim will attest, called my travel insurance brokers to renew my worldwide policy. and my card was declined. so i did what anyone would do...called the bank in something of a snit. and they told me that i had made 'irregular purchases' so they had flagged my card. moi...irregular purchases..no way!
so they went through them. at 4.30am on a sunday i had bought something costing $6australian on an organic food website, (mmm,,beetroot ) then i had spent a round £100 on amazon at 5am. 5 hours later i had purchased an easyjet flight (turkey) and an amazon purchase of £1.68 (two music downloads). 20 minutes later i had accessed the sony online site and put in the wrong expiry date, so by the time i tried to spend £40 updating my insurance over the phone, they decided i must be bogus, and called me...but, naturally, it was a 'number witheld' and i dont answer those calls.
so my question is...what is irregular. dont get me wrong, i respect, and even feel safer because the bank questioned these things....but given that i have had the same bank account for over 10 years, dont they think that what would be more irregular, which you know would not flag up, is if i spent £300 on the 'next' website and wanted it delivered the same day, or bought a car on gumtree. given that i often make the 'irregular purchase', hell, ive spent my whole life doing it, can they see that that is regular for me.
sometimes i think i should be a retail survey experiment. if i like it probably no one else will, so just dont bother with that product, what is 'normal' for others is just not how i would do it. and its not a choice..i cant help this, i dont mean to be so obtuse, as i know you all know, i just cant help liking, doing and making the irregular. its just who i am. and on this point, i blame bill. yes its customary to blame your parents for everything, but on this point, it is his fault. we are not 'regular' unless you are talking about bowel movements.
oh, i seem to be going off into a philosophical bent..but one thing i can say about my life, and, also, perhaps, about myself, is that it has never been regular. not for me the everyday 9 to 5 monday to friday. god forbid! i have never done that ever. that would be stupid. much easier, obviously, to change from 11am -10pm, to 6am- 5pm. what an easy thing that is. honestly,what am i...mad? apparently.
now, which country in the world would you consider the happiest? its a hard one i know, sometimes the poorest places seem so much happier then we are in our deluded western lives, grasping at huge tvs, iphones, facebook and expensive cars to lead us to nirvana, when what we end up with is enormous credit card bills, having virtual friendships instead of the real thing, and spending our whole existence wondering if our gadgets are cool enough. well according to world map, which has a map of happiness...if only we could all find our way around that one...these are the ones..
costa rica is no. 1, despite, or perhaps because of, the fact it is one of the few countries in the world that doesnt have an army. it also, luckily, has no indigenous people left, nor any historical sites to argue over, nor does it have any fossil fuels, mineral resources, or illegal drugs growing freely. what it does have, on the other hand is ecotourism, emphasites, sloths, bats and mangoes hanging off ever tree, a very small population who all work in either coffee or banana prioduction, and no real different culture as america owns half of it, and has put a firm downpayment on the other half. so much for the good news.
here are the other happiest countries in the world...
denmark, puerto rico, iceland, switzerland, canada, finland, mexico, norway, sweden, panama, australia, ireland, luxembourg, colombia, austria, the netherlands, the dominican republic, new zealand and belgium.
now i dont know about you, but does this list seem a little strange. im not sure the criteria for happiness in this particular site...but norway and finland? home of ibsen and sibelius, darkness, alcoholism, suicide and brutal sports which often involve guns. finland has more guns per head than any other country in europe, and far from this idea of scananavians as tall and blonde, both countries are full of small dark people who are as ugly as, and have a lot in common with, the scots. they are also lutheran...does that seem like the path to happiness to you.
and ireland...country that banned public libraries in the 60s to keep the population stupid, and had places that they put 'fallen women' till the 70s. it still has the most repressive abortion laws in the world, harder even than saudi arabia.
iceland...it dark 24 hours a day for half the year, and then light 24hours...ive only met a few icelanders..but they were all mad. and no wonder. jeez, its worse than here...and also lutheran....can a country really be happy when the religion is so repressive, denying and just miserable.
the dominican republic to me, it just seems happy as it shares and island with haiti. i dont need to say more.
but the essence of all this is, that you all make me feel happy. i do not live in a happy country, quite the opposite at this moment. and these photos are my essence of nirvana, my ohm mane padme om. we all have starstuff...you all reading this are that to me...we are all strangely connected through happiness in our lives. i could burst about how i feel about all of these photos, and every one of you.
i died with the first blow, and was buried amongst the rocks of the field.
the raven taught my parents what to do with me.
if my family is famous, not a little of the credit goes to me. my brother invented murder, my parents invented grief. i invented silence.
afterwards the well-known events took place. our inventions were perfect. one thing led to another. orders were given. there were those who murdered in their own way, there were those who grieved in their own way.
i wont mention names our of consideration for the reader, since at first the details are horrifying, though finally they're a bore.
you can die once, twice even seven times, but you cant die a thousand times.
i can.
my undrground cells reach everywhere.
when cain began to multiply on the face of the earth, i began to multiply in the belly of the earth. and my strength has long been stronger than his. his legions desert him and go over to me.
and this is only half a revenge/
yes, klm, what larks! i have received 2 emails from them about schedule changes....you know the kind where you have to scan the small print in order to find the miniscule 5 mins change in amsterdam which you would have been lucky to notice had they not told you..but, in hindsight, thank the lord for that change, as these mails made no mention of the vietnam airlines flight back from ho chi minh. it was booked on a different code, so i didnt really think about it too much...but thanks to my magic kindle, and the free klm app i downloaded, when i tried to access this code in 'my booking' it said it was invalid. so having two days off due to having to work, not only on the sabbath, but the holiest day of the entire year, or at least the one where you get to eat that most holy of items, chocolate eggs, i decided to call them to make sure all was well with the world of intercontinental travel.
after being told that i was pretty much wasting their time, as i could access all this information on the website, i was put on hold for around 10 minutes, at 10p per minute!
imagine my amusement, after all that time of piped europop , when i was told that the reason that it wasnt coming up in 'my booking' was because the flight had been cancelled and there wasnt another one till the next day! how i did laugh!
when i had contained my mirth long enough to speak, i had to ask the, well, pretty poignant question...'and when were to planning to tell me about this change, oh so less important than a 5 min change in amsterdam?'. 'we we did flag your booking with an, 'inform customer' , she said, but 'um...no one did'. well..hoorah!
so the upshot is, dang, we have to spend another night in ho chi minh..and of course i have send a strongly worded letter to customer services along the lines of, what if i hadnt had the foresight to call about this, please assure me that you are going to pay for the extra night in the hotel, and by the way, it means i have to take an extra days holiday through no fault of my own, so what are you going to do about it. funnily enought, i have heard nothing back!
kinda late mentioning. kouldnt laugh more. keep lip motionless. kould listen more. and kompensate lost movement.
Hey, we are currently in a taxi just having crossed the Cambodian border..and it has wifi!
Bloody magic. We have had such a great time in bangkok we were sorry to leave, especially as we had to get up at 4,30 to get the train at 6am! And boy did our arses hurt after 6hrs sitting on those wooden seats. Still, now the passport queues inside an oven is over, and we are on our way down to seam riep and are going to Angkor tomorrow. Can't deny I'm looking forward to a shower and a beer more at this point..it's been a long day, but we have coped admirably, despite the heat and even managed to cross a zebra in bangkok without waiting for a local follow.
Love to all. Will write properly soon when not being jiggled around in a taxi.
Just got up in siem reap, to a slightly different atmosphere to bangkok, where there was pounding traffic even at 5am. Here there are cocks crowing, and lots of mopeds, much less humidity and no smog. Off to get a tuk tuk round those temples! Been here before but still so excited. Will finish this later. Byeee.
I had forgotten how totally, utterly, completely jaw-droppingly wonderful Angkor is. It is not just the amazing size, and perfection of Angkor wat itself, but all the going through jungle in a tuk tuk, the city gates, the rice paddies, the wheeze of crickets and the fact that as you walk towards yet another temple, you have no idea what you are going to get. Could be climbing up the steepest steps known to mankind, or climbing through rubble, could be marvelling at carvings or serene water features, or feeling you are in a PlayStation game. It really is the most fabulous, in the true sense, place in the world, and we really have had the time of our lives. We got up this morning at 4.30am to see the sun rise over the wat and were rewarded with the most amazing dawn I've ever seen, will put photos on when I get home, as thanks to my magic kindle, internet cafes are just so over. Ok, Derek, we did not manage as many temples as you, but, even with the huge parties of Koreans here, as long as you pick your times you can still get entire temples to yourself, which is just serenely peaceful, and feels like a meditative experience, even with the heat. To be honest, as those who have been here know, it's really hard to put into words how wonderful it is here, suffice to say we have both been reduced to tears by how it feels. On a different note we have also been soaked to the skin, had to resort to soy sauce on everything as we have sweated so much we got leg cramps, got mozzie bites and blisters, hell, we have even eaten bugs, and rose ate a scorpion! We are in heaven...though the hot kind, not that clouds and harps shite. Off to battambong tomorrow..Will be so sorry to leave, but so much else to do. Love to all. Gandr. X
Yesterday was the start of the new year here, and, who'd have thought, not a lump of coal in sight! Anyway, we have finally arrived in Phnom Penh after a 6 hour local bus ride from battambong, which was a pretty boring provincial town, but we still managed to have such a laugh there, including the slowest tuk tuk ride in Cambodian history, hell, you could have walked faster, seeing a mirage of a bar in a town with no bars only to discover it was a bar! Hallelujah! And on getting lost at night in a town with no street lights, and no visible tuk tuks we hired a moped to take us home. I'm sure he had never had so much weight on the back, and was surprised we didn't do wheelies all the way back, but we made it in one piece will all our knees intact!
Our remaining time in seam riep was just wonderful. It was the start of the new year celebrations and we saw some classical Cambodian dancing, lots of modern Cambodian singing, and watched the sun set at Angkor wat as a goodbye. I cannot tell you how much the town has changed in the 10 years since I was last there, when there was only one 5star hotel and no Koreans wearing gloves and face masks even inside the temples. Don't mean to racially stereotype or anything, but they really are the loudest tourists, and sadly never seem to come in groups of less than 50! I will not even mention their clothes!
So now we are back in city-land, though because of the holiday there is much less traffic than usual, and most shops are closed. We are going to tuk tuk it round the city in an hour or so, which hopefully will be faster than yesterday.
On a health note, you will be pleased to hear that the panacea that is soy sauce has completely done the trick of replacing the pounds of salt we were losing daily through our pores, neither of us had had to visit a&e due to mozzie bites, and the sun hasn't toasted us to blistering heaps. We do, however, both have cankles after sitting on the bus, which, I'm sure you'll agree, is a very attractive leg look.
And rose has just seen on her magic kindle that 'ding dong! The witch is dead' has entered the UK charts at no 2!
Oh, happy days!
I realise that the blog says we are still in Phnom Penh but in fact we have just arrived in Saigon after a 6 hour bus journey and the funniest border crossing ever where the bus conductor got your passport stamped for you and then shouted out your name. How we did laugh when we had to smash our way through 2000 Vietnamese with enormous boxes of food and cooking utensils when we were called by our first names. Who knows what they do with Russian or Greek passports!
Anyway, was very sorry to leave Cambodia as we just had the time of our lives. Spent the last night in Phnom Penh at the foreign correspondents club which looks out over the Mekong, has big leather armchairs and wicker chairs, and that kinda 30s feeling of espionage. They also had happy hour from 5 till 8, so you can understand our reluctance to leave! We also ate bucketloads of curry and noodles, not to mention that staple of any hot country bus journey, laughing cow cheese, on seaweed crackers. Bloody magic!
And now here we are on our third language and script and 4th currency, as we paid for most things in Cambodia in dollars, but got riels in change. Vietnam is much more modern and more western than Cambodia, and quite obviously has stricter laws about how many people fit on a moped! Ho chi Minh is a really pretty city, with pounding traffic deafening us as we sit here on our balcony, and as they follow the Chinese calendar, New year was ages ago and half the city is not closed. Oh, what a time we are having, it's so fab, work seems a million miles away, though I did get a notification that my gas bill needs to be paid. How we did laugh!
Write more later, hope everyone is fine and dandy. We are, I can tell you!
Love uncle ho and his city, can't tell you what a laugh we have had here and how sweet and lovely the people have been, not to mention how fantastic the hotels I chose are, not to blow my own trumpet or anything. We have had the best time, and thanks to klm have had a whole extra day here which has been halcyon. The airport is only 10 mins away, so we don't have to get up till 6.30 am. Oh happy, sad,sad, day! Wish we weren't leaving, but a 2 week sauna is probably long enough for anyone.
Speak to all soon.
this is the post that should have happened from hcmc airport, had the 30 mins of free wireless not cut out just as i was pressing 'save diary'. dang and double dang!
on our last night in HCMC we had a million dong dinner. some of you might think that was a little excessive in these days of frugality and belt-tightening (though let me tells ya, you swell up so much in the sauna that is south east asia, that belt-tightening is out of the question), but as you probably dont have that all-important 'xe' exchange app handy, as i do, let me tell you that you get 34000 dong to the £. so for a million of the babies you can enjoy 2 courses of delicious curry, noodles, spring rolls and the like, 9 cocktails, as its happy hour, and they are buy 2 get one free, a couple of beers, and a round of vietnamese vodka to finish, and still have enough change from £30 for an ice cream and a taxi home. oh, vietnam, doncha just love it. have to point out that, and gareth was really dissappointed by this, but there are no tuk-tuks in saigon, has that always been the case? im sure binni will tell me, but it felt a little strange getting into an airconditioned taxi after so long in the hair-drier experience of the tuk-tuk. whatever the case, we just had the most brilliant trip, buddhas big eye was looking after us the whole time, and it was just so stress, and hassle free.
as was our long journey home. a $3 taxi to the airport, arrived before there was even a queue at the check in, hcmc does not have internet check in, so managed to bag the two seats on their own right at the back to the plane, watched 'life of pi', went to sleep, woke up in paris, found smoking rooms at cdg, slept the whole way back to edi, and our bags were already on the carousel as we walked into the baggage reclaim. see that buddha, he kept his big eye on us the whole way...though rose and i have decided that his vision may be a little like broadband, and that we are probably now out of range, as scotland really is the antithesis of a buddhist country. i always feel so amazed, on returning home, how basically ugly, fat, rude, loud, angry, white and just, well, hellish scottish people are. no wonder buddha doesnt turn that big eye towards this remote, unfriendly northern part of the world, where good thoughts, good deeds, and above all, good words are the exception not the rule. unless you are bill, of course, who could easily be a buddhist, without ever even knowing anything about it. there are always, of course, compensations to returning home, and bill is one of them. and all of you. and my flat. and not losing all the liquid i have drunk during the night in the first 10 mins of going outside, and wine, and playstaion, and knowing the rules for crossing the road, oh, life, it really is an amazing journey.
in cambodia, you do not see many single modped riders...quite the opposite, but this is the tale of the cambodian rites of passage..children born to moped life. and it goes like this....
it starts with a single guy...there are very few old people in cambodia for reasons that im sure we are all aware...so single guy on moped, meets probably not single woman on scooter...as women seem to come in groups in cambodia...but you get the picture.....
so , lets skip the wedding and get down to the moped dynamics...they have a kid. with just one, it is sandwiched inbewteen its parents and perhaps might have always stayed that way...unless...they have kid no. 2, probabaly the restless, never settling one who need a little bit more of restraining...so kid no. 1 has the happiest day of its life...it moves to the front of the moped. imagine kate winslet in titanic, though understandably without the annoying celine dionne soundtrack...they are at the front...they can stand or sit, wave, eat, pretty much do whatever they want, including falling asleep over the handlebars....they are now, totally, king of the road! they can see everything, it is, i imagine probably some of the best childhood memories they will ever have. they must think that this is never going to end...that they will always be at the front, but, hell, how wrong they are! relegation is about to come all to swiflty!
if there are more than 3 kids, or if, for some unforeseen circunstances one parent is not available...the oldest child is, omg, relegated to the very antithesis of his of her former position of glory...the very back of the moped, where one cannot see a thing. they are now, at the age of 5 or 6 an honerary adult, and it is where they will stay, watching one sibling after another being kate winslet in their wake, but never again attaining that position of glory., whilst also being responsible for the safety of not only themselves, but any other stray children who happen to end up on their moped. the next time they will make it to the front, is when either they or their parents buy their own moped..and as few people in cambodia can afford driving lessons, 90% of moped drivers have never sat a test. so they dont have to bother with that then.
and no one will ever bother with you again, as once you are 5 in cambodia, you are regarded as being able to look after yourself. if you are getting on and off a bus with drinks in one hand, and that all important bag of cars in the other, no one will help you, not even your mother, you just have to get on with it. no one even helps women with loads of kids.. its a strange dichotmy....endless compassion, total independence. once you are 6 your are able to look after yourself. and you so rarely see kids crying...not to mention carrying on, that oh-so-not-cambodian thing. the kids are also the most beautiful, cute, calm children that i have ever seen..i could almost understand why angelina jolie just had to adopt one...!
but getting back to moped life......
supposedly this is the reason that cambodian bus drivers toot at mopeds...because they dont know how to drive and can pull out without looking. my guess is, given the signs for 'horn' and 'no horn' that i saw, that do not exist anywhere else i have been in such proliferation, bus drivers just like to horn.. they may be small in stature, and as skinny as a 13 year old westerner, some of the mens jeans we saw were too small for the shop dummies. (shop dummies i happen to know from my time in charity are a uk size 8!) but they still love to horn! and what man doesnt!
so there you have it...moped life...and now....flavours..
you know how you always see that bizzarre flavoured thing that we would never have....but can i just say that seaweed and wasabi were expected....strawberry laughing cow cheese was a bit of a strange one (though im not sure it is cheese, i think its like cockroaches and aligators..it would probably last till doomsday)! and we bought a pack of oreo cookies...i thought they were just normal, but when we were, yet again stuffing our faces on a 6 hour bus journey, i said they tasted like blueberry....and i rest my case. they were 'blueberry icecream' flavour. whod a thought!
and on a final differernt culture note....men in vientam were leery. in thailand and cambodia, no man would leer...that would be disrespectful. they are not leerers. hcmc loads of men lazing about on streets making comments about the women. just like here then....dont mean we cared...hell we come from the haven of the leerer, it just seemed so weird after so long without men talking to your tits, and obviously rose and i are not small breasted even by british standards..compared to women in SEA we are gigantic in every way....
except feet! they are the same size.
so the netherlands has a new monarch, after queen beatrix decided to abdicate in favour of her son, willem-alexander. but the wait goes on for the heirs to 11 other hereditary monarchies who joined the new dutch king to celebrate his accession, no doubt with pouts on their faces. on the right of the fat ginger of orange, with his three giantess ginger daughters right at the front (the eldest of whom is the princess of orange!), is our own beloved heir, prince charles, who has been waiting patiently for 'mummy' to die since he was 3, keeping himself busy with gardening, gathering millions out of the dutchy of cornwall without paying proper tax, and writing to politicians in a way that some think is unconstitutional. his horse-faced wife, camilla, has only been waiting since 2005-a mere blink of the eye. also in the photo is prince vajiralongk of thailand, who has been waiting a short 4 months less than prince charles for his father bhumibol to relinquish his 66 years on the throne. then there is the crown prince of denmark who has been waiting for 41 years, and whose ability to reign was in no way blemished by marrying an australian woman who he met in a bar at the sydney olympics. as i dont want to go into the stories of all these parasites...let me tell you there is prince alois of liechenstein, prince guillaume of luxembourg, prince felipe of spain, prince haakon of norway, princess victoria of sweden, prince naruhitp of japan, and prince philippe of brabant, heir to the belgian throne, who is widelt regarded as being unworthy to follow in the footsteps of king albert II.
have to say, makes me think we should all just become republics. i mean look at them...do you think they have what i takes, whatever that is. with the young royals it just seems to be looking good, smiling at everyone, not putting your foot in it by sayiing anything at all, and not wearing nazi uniforms to fancy dress parties.
anyway...royal schmoyal! who really even knew that all these pointless heirs existed. lets just say even as a young person, i loved the french revolution. storming barricades, thats the way to go!
on a different note about storming barricades, dont you think these vietnamese posters are brilliant. i know its not eveyones cup of tea, but i love political billboards.
and i also love my kratos, sent to me from binni and kim. he would never let a barricade stand in the way of his revenge on the gods. to the point that he destroys the whole world.
now that is storming!
1. the weather...omg! the blossom has just come out on the meadows, and some of the trees dont even have proper leaves yet, they have had to close the snow gates on some of the passes up north, as there is so much of the white stuff, and we had hail yesterday so heavy it coated the inside of my bedroom window ledge..who would have thought you couldnt have your windows open on the 23rd of may!
2. rose and i went to see 'the great gatsby', and it was just fucking fab, but sorry to moan again, but it cost £9.20 to see a film at 1pm. however, loved every minute, and if you like baz lurman..ie, anything that is full-on, in yourface colours, swooping camera shots, and razzamataz that is camp as a row of tents, then this is for you. even leo decaprio was good, if you can forgive the fact that he still looks like a pudgy boy. i also watched the ralph feinnes modern take on coreolanus..and i cant tell you how amazed i was to like a film he had directed. i think raif is a pretentious wanker...but presumably that helps when you are adapting shakespeare into terrorism in modern day italy. bloody magic it was..bloody being the operative word, though it didnt involve anyone getting their tongue cut out, which i believe happens in the play, though its not one ive ever had the pleasure of studying. the fact that shakespeare at school didnt include watching gerald butler is something of a disadvantage i think.
3. im working all day friday, saturday, sunday and monday this weekend...well, what else are weekends for but working to the point there is no end, just more days, and weeks just run into each other. what a pile of shite! incidentally, i have applied for another shop...its on rose street, and would mean that i couldnt have my catharsis on the meadows at 6am, but it would be a change. im going there to run it for 2 weeks next month to see if i like it. dont mean that this means i am already packing up my locker (into a cardboard box, as always seems to happen in films when someone gets fired...where do they come by the boxes?), i might hate it, or liz might decide that im not the right person for it, or perhaps she has no intention of giving it to me and just needs someone to cover it...who knows. work schmirk!
4. klm have given me 6000 free miles for not informing me of the flight change home.
5. michael jackson is the biggest selling artist of last year, despite being dead.
6. the new lara croft is driving me mad...she is such a woos, and not only does it involve aiming bows..which im crap at, she spends all her time sneaking around in the dark, trying to avoid men with guns. oh, remember those heady days when she just went crashing in, killing endangered species, or riding motorcycles with all guns blazing. jumping onto the roofs of trains, or biking through mayan temples...well, no more my friend...she has b ecome pc..and will be hugging trees wearing sandals and socks before you know it. what a cissy...she may just as well join the church of england.
7. ive just had my hair cut.
8. i wish i was going on holiday...well sooner than i am. oh yes, and i also wish i was rich enough to just go anywhere, anytime..kinda like the martini ads from the 70s.
9. finished 'the chemistry of tears' by peter carey...and now reading 'basti' by the world foremost writer in urdu, but im afraid i cant remember what his name is..
10. have realised that nothing has really happened, and i dont have anything to say. so better finish then...
sorry to sound like someone who has been up all night,( as if) , and has just had a glass of wine and hit 'beer buzz central', the station of utopia, but can i just highlight here how much i delight in everyone who i have the pleasure indeed to call 'my friends'. sometimes, as someone who loves solitude, i kid myself that i could be one of these people who go and live in isolation, whether on an island, or in a cabin in the woods, who could do without companionship, and just talk to a basketball for the rest of their days...but who am i kidding, well, myself really! the only reason that i could even think of this, is because i have all of you, the foundations of my being, and you all give me the security to believe that i could be independent and alone in the world with no one who cares about me, because i have the people who do. the bedrock of my very life.
one of the reasons for this whole thang here is that i just watched a bbc adaptation of bleak house. there is a boy in it who earns his living by sweeping horse shit and mud off the street so the 'gentlefolks' can cross without getting any of the above on their shoes or clothes. he does not have a second name, he has no remembrance of his parents, he has no friend in the world, and he has no concept of 'home'. IMAGINE! i have 3 'homes'....here where i sit writing this rubbish, merchi, which will always be 'home' while bill is there, and the remote home in australia, which, despite being on the other side of the world, well, i just feel so at home in, to the point that, who ever sleeps there in the mean time, i have the room that i dream of waking up in.
while im with the quote i put on here before, that happiness is something you have to feel alone, inside yourself, and that no one can 'make' you happy...but you all do do that for me. i feel so blessed that i have such fantastic people to talk to...whether its you gareth, and all our literary chit chat about aldous huxley etc...jeez you have enhanced and broadened my life more than any other man i have ever known...
except for bill....ok, he is my dad, so he is not a chance encounter, but bill not only is the most buddhist person i have ever know, he is also the one i would call if i have a problem with playstation, or even a crossword clue..who else is going to be able to tell you that the old slapper in 'henry IV' was called mistress quickly...not to mention making the greatest fish pie know to mankind that i would chose as my final meal, were i to find myself on death row...but i would also have expected him to have hidden a saw, or a key, in that pie.
and then there is the chance encounter....mali...a place you cant even travel to now...binni and kim, in a few short years i just cannot, fo one moment, imagine my life without you two, i just wish that you werent so selfish as to be living on the other side of the world...
and derek...with whom, this year, im celebrating 30 years of friendship...have just had to reread that...because i cant comprehend how we have all got so old......cant wait to see you in july...
and then there is you rose...what can i say. thursday nights, maldives, turkey, thailand, cambodia, vietnam...this is how you remind me of who i really am.....lets never look back....
this last week at work has been the usual nightmare of staff being off etc, which i dont want to even go into here, but as a result ive worked with some people from other branches that i dont know. one was a girl who, when i asked her what she did in the rest of her life, told me she was writing a book. now, for a start this is not a normal greggs conversation, as im sure you can imagine, but when i asked her what genre it was, she told me it wasnt my kinda thing, as , she imagined, i was more of a non-fiction reader.
oh, the arrogance of youth! and...do i seem like an 'only non-fiction' reader to you. cant deny, it took me aback a little..in a 'how you are perceived by others' sort of way...do i seem so serious...or does she think im only reading self-help books. well...she was right that it wasnt my kinda thing, as then it transpired that it was about witchcraft, werewolves and faries. she didnt mention vampires, but i bet they were also involved, as, for some reason, 21 year old women, of which she was one, seem to find them hopelessly romantic...hence 'twilight', 'buffy' and 'angel'. series i would have thought even more pointless and tedious at 21 than i do now. and thats really saying something..and then i think she was a little annoyed when i asked her if she was planning to put it on kindle as a free book...ha!
so moving on...did you know that there are phenomena of sunlight akin to rainbows called light pillars, sun, or indeed moon, dogs, and most notably what americans call 'glorys' but here in europe we define as 'brocken spectres'. i was going to copy and paste photos of these things, but you can look them up on wikipaedia, and they are literally amazing...and im annoyed that in my life, while it has witnessed so many fantastic things, none of these has even been involved. i want to see a brocken spectre...and if it doesnt happen soon i may stamp my foot and sulk. maybe i have been watching too many reality brat shows on netflix.
yes, todays subject is fragility...something i do not feel about myself unless i have had a night with rose during which it magically changes from 11pm into 3am in the blinking of an eye, and i have to get up at 5am. have to say this does not happen very often, as, these days, im a sensible middle-aged woman, am usually in bed by 9pm, and have given my liver voluntary redundancy, as the poor dear has had to work so hard in the past and deserves a little rest. god knowq, its been through hell.
but this here photo, of the tree of life is a allegory of how things break so easily, and this one thing, which looks so complete has, in fact, been stuck together so many times, an entire tube of glue must be contained within its branches. it is unfired clay...my guess is that who ever made it just sat it in the sun to set, and bits break off every time you touch it...glueing it is a nightmare of logistics as if you hold it to stick a leaf back on, you will break off another petal. how i still own such an object intact, let alone how i managed to bring it all the way back from cuba, is a mystery to me. as im sure you are all aware, im not exactly careful with things, myself included. i push myself so hard in the inferno that is my shop, where it is constantly over 40 degrees at the moment, that i have come home and watched the same film 3 times and still never seen the end as i just fall asleep. i almost fell asleep in the dentists chair yesterday, as it was so comfy, and he kept telling me to stop closing my mouth on his blue-latex-gloved hands, the taste of which i have just managed to get rid of with a red bull.
and here is the rub. im getting a crown on a tooth i broke eating a sweet potato chip at macchu picchu..when i came home, a got a huge filling, as the tooth is a crater. then the filling, nae, the entire tooth fell apart when i was eating smarties one night. i had an emergency filling put in, which came loose in australia at new year...a mere 2 months after having it done. so yesterday i went in to have the prep for my crown which involved an hour of drilling, almost drowning in the water jet, and the said dentist asking me questions which i felt unable to answer due to his aforementioned fingers being stuck inside my gob. so the upshot is that i got a temporary plastic crown put in...which he told me was a bit fragile, so i had to be careful with it, as it might not last for the week it was in place for. and how long did it last....mmmm....well....go on, guess!
4 HOURS! 4 hours and it almost choked me when it fell out, when i had just got the taste of latex, and dental glue out of my mouth. so now i have a bloody (literally, not in oath terms) stump which i, and anyone who has the pleasure to make me smile has to put up with for a week. not that that happens...smiling i mean, despite the host of workies who end every thing they say with the endearment 'pal' telling me to do said muscular spasm on a daily basis. (i think here i have to discuss scottish idiom...not only does the word warm include and empathetic 'u'..so it becomes 'warum', and 'hot' in similar fashion becomes 'hoat', it is impossible for most scottish people to just ask a question without an endearment added. so its not 'geez a sausage roll'...its 'ehpal, geez a sausage roll pal, mate, darlin, bigman, or, my favourite, especially when said by a boy young enough to be my descendant by 2 generations, 'hen'. 'doll' is another one, which, i dont know about you, but i just dont see as endearing when said to someone old enough to be your nan. and then there is the particularly scottish term of goodbye...'see you after'. after what? has the eschaton started and no one has told me, or am i just a completely pedantic wanker who has to analyse the english language on a daily basis. make up your own minds on that one. i know which side im on.
anyway...i digress...imagine! i had a conversation with jennifer at work, who is a creationist christian. (some might think that that is an oxymoron, but apparently not), in her words us all being descended from adam and eve just makes so much more sense than the evolutionary theory that we have all come from monkeys! (sic). so we were talking about australia...about all the poisonous things there...and lets face it, you can name them, and they have them in the antipodes times a million. she asked me if i saw black widow spiders...mmmm, well no, but my friends do have a spider chart on the fridge incase you get bitten telling you the common mistaken species. and so they have hellishly poisonous snakes, mmm..yes. and do they have hellishly poisonous jelly fish...mmmm,,,yes. so, said jennifer, 'why does anyone live there?' well, jennifer, since you believe in god, why dont you tell me why he created all the dangerous things, and since he also created australia, though he didnt let anyone know till the 17th century, maybe it was a test of human resiliance, as god seems to love a test, for reasons best known to himself. he really is the most mischevious bastard...hell, why dont we just go back to hera and zeus...they fucked around with us, but, hell, they didnt let the holocaust happen. on the other hand they did take part in the fall of troy...achilles, and his rogue heel...god how they must have laughed to discover that get-out clause.
and lets not even mention the trojan horse, or puffins.
sorry to mention this for those of you who are not so unique....and i think that is all of you....but i believe i may be the only person in the world with my name. if i am the only
FUCK ME DEAD..JUST SPENT 2 HOURS WRITING A HUGE MONOLOGUE...AND ITS ALL GONE APART FROM THE ABOVE SENTENCE, WHICH HASNT EVEN GOT A CONCLUSION. HELL, ITS HAPPENED BEFORE, BUT NEVER HAS HALF A PARAGRAPH BEEN LEFT.
BUT THE JIST OF THIS WAS THAT MY CONCEPT OF HAPPINESS IS BEING ABLE TO TRAVEL, THE ONLY REASON THAT I HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE TO THE POINT I AM ABLE ON A REGULAR BASIS TO GET UP AT 5AM IS BECAUSE I EARN SENSIBLE MONEY NOW TO THE POINT THAT I COULD FLY TO AUSTRALIA TOMORROW.
'HOLIDAYS OF A LIFETIME'..IVE HAD AT LEAST 15!
I DONT WANT A ';DREAM' KITCHEN, BEDROOM, FIREPLACE, CAR.....THIS ROAD DOES NOT LEAD TO HAPPINESS.....
I WANT DREAM FRIENDS...SHIT...I ALREADY HAVE THEM.
WHAT DO I DO NOW TO UPGRADE....?
ok...i have just had an interview today for a shop i only applied for because my sales manager told me i should. i worked there yesterday and realised that it was so much a bigger challenge than i had expected. it hasnt had a manager for a year...and it would be like me starting all over again in nicolson street, perhaps without the hell that was working with gail, but who knows. im kinda hoping that lee, the only other person who applied for it, gets it, because, actually i dont really want to go there. but now that i have. and gone through the interview, it would be professionaly suicide if i turned it down.
thing is it would only involve a very small increase in salary for me, but the hassle would be enormous..and there is the rub. is it worth it? if i turned it around i would be the star manager, but what if i didnt...or what if i really, really hated it and just dreamt of being back in nicolson st. and to be really honest, i dont give a toss about being the star manager...i just sell my labour and do my job to the best of my ability or the end of my thether,...which ever comes first. what if the latter became the case?
any thoughts on this dilemma would be most welcome...i think they will let me know tomorrow...or perhaps monday..
...i will not get to walk over the meadows if i go....yet again all the women were amazed that i did that in the winter when its dark, as apparently rapists are out in force at 6am..but only in the winter. but i would get to walk along princes street without any traffic...not even trams...hang on, there arent any trams yet...whod a thought!
should i go or should i stay?
it appears that there are millions of andersons in the world...and I have just been visited by three of them. one is no longer an Anderson...so it only counts as 2....
first Derek, and his sister, who is no longer an Anderson, but still counts by birth, and marty, who has never been an Anderson..but is joined at the hip to one, so counts by association. we had such a great night out at room in the west end, great food, champagne and great company..and actually one of the reasons I loved it so much, apart from the fact that dereks mother terry paid for the whole thang, thank you terry, was that these 9 special individual people were there because of ME! they would never have met unless they knew me...its 0 degrees of separation. bloody magic.
and then carol Anderson, who I had not seen for what we worked out was 14 years...what a great night we had....who would believe that women could talk for so long...well, most men I think! but, being the most courageous person I know..she is moving to Haiti for 18 months to oversee a building project...can I tell you how much I admire this woman! and funnily enough I have already looked at flights to pap..thats port au prince to you, and lets face it, this will be my only chance to go to Haiti in this kind of way. fucking dancer.
I don't mean to go back to an older blog entry where I gushed about all of you..but honestly, I know such great people, it is reaffirming in my ridiculous bakery life of scum bags buying rubbish food that when I get into my real life there are all of you. my newest friends...binni and kim we have now known each other for 7 years...amazing really when I feel it has been for the whole of my life.
god...how lucky are we all!
blessed..oh, I think so!
I know all of you have probably been looking at this space in anticipation of my yearly round-up review of the most pretentious, ridiculous shows that people spend their 'oh-so-expensive-pounds-to-the-dollar-ratio' on...and, quite frankly, I cant blame you, as this blog is probably funnier than anything comedic at the fringe..not that im blowing my own trumpet you understand, heaven forfend.
so here it is...the shows one is in tatters mentally to be missing.....
1. thrice. an 'absurdist suburban nightmare of a sketch show' with the promise of 'casual cruelty, misanthropy, oblivion, perversion, yearning, loneliness, corned beef, Christmas, desperation, desolation and dancing (always dancing, it balances out the desolate parts)' what a load of total baloney...why don't they just tell it like it really is...a group of posh wankers with estuary accents believing they are hilarious for an hour while you pay them £15 so they can drink till 5am, and then have boring and unfulfilling sex with someone they met in a bar that was open till 3am! then they will go back to the job daddy has arranged for them in the city.
2. laura levites. New York born and bred, laura has tried almost everything to achieve a calm state of mind, even having the words 'breathe, and 'fearless' tattooed on her wrists. but most of the methods haven't worked...even the tattoos. 'every once in a while I look down and go 'I forgot they were there..i should do that', that's how fucked up I am; I write 'breathe' on my wrist to remember, and it still doesn't work' so a younger, female, version of woody allen then, though presumably without the marriage to an adopted child, a son called satchel, and a brownstone overlooking the park, and mia farrow. she does, however, have geek-chic glasses!
3. the colour ham. were kevin McMahon, colin McLeod, and gavin oattes to be exactly the same kind of comedian or magician, there would barely be a point to 'the colour ham'. thankfully (sic) their various talents (magician, mind reader and primary school teacher) make their show an endlessly entertaining and occasionally mind-blowing ride. injecting chaos into magic.! chaos into magic indeed...didn't pen and teller try that a century ago, and then went back to their given career as chartered accountants. 'barely a point'...no fucking point what-so-ever is what I say!
4. sluts of possession. driven by what she calls 'a deep desire to try to understand the human condition in new ways, and how meaning can be explored through the body as well as through language' rosie kay is transforming herself into a possessed slut!' of course she is, for, what better way is there known to mankind of understanding our condition than writhing around naked on a stage in front of a bemused collection of tourists presumably wanting self-help, pretending to be possessed by demons. I realise that this probably makes you want to jump on a plane and fly here for enlightenment...but while you are here why not also see
5. l'apres midi d'un foen. a show we feel has potential to enter the pantheon of fringe greatness (it says here); a physical performance piece, set to classical music, performed by plastic bags'! American beauty, eat your heart out!....or perhaps
6. shit-faced Shakespeare. a crew of actors perform a Shakespeare play, and one of them is blazing drunk. at first glance, this premise might seem a tad gimmicky' (oh, come on, really!) yet somehow the show turns out to be an unexpectedly thrilling cross-over between theatre and late-night comedy. 'we don't in any way advocate drinking to excess and actively encourage our audience to enjoy Shakespeare responsibly. we rotate cast members every night so no performer will be drunk more than four times during the entire run. compare that to the booze consumption level of your average Edinburgh performer and we're practically teetotal'! gadzooks, what fucking larks. don't know about you, but I prefer my bard without a chaser of vodka!
so there you have it...there must be tears in your eyes, realising the theatrical genius you are all missing by not living here during this oh-so-special time of the year.
and as im sure you are all aware, I will be seeing none of these shows....hell, I wont even go into town unless I really have to without getting a nose-bleed from all the tourists stopping suddenly right in front of me to view yet another human statue, or a fucking punk piper wanting £1 to have his photograph taken.
wish you were here....
HA!
people lying on cushions...in a bar,,,,in turkey, this was....and they'd been swimming hadnt they norm.....the dirty, fucking lucky, bastards!
yes, you may all be amazed to find out that a woman who can fly all the way to australia and on arriving discovers that she has forgotten to pack underwear....or the next time, when there was a real danger that i wouldnt get home due to bush fires, hadnt updated her travel insurance, and therefore wasnt covered, is ready to travel too early..but sadly it is the case. im not going out to the airport for 2 hours...and here i am ready.
obviously my standards of ready may be a little different to others. im sitting on the pod in my rompers, listening to pumping trance, still have to have a shower, pack up food for my journey, and put out the rubbish...but hell, im ready! im so ready i have time to write this, have cleaned the kitchen, done 3 sudokos, sent a couple of emails, texted rose, cleaned out my fridge and painted my toenails, all before 9am! fuck me dead! or is that 'jupiters cock', an expletive i have decided to start using after watching spartacus for the second time...
so the fat lady has sang, the festival is over, the city has a really different tone, and the weather has become autumnal. we are moving into the darkness! it is now dark when i get up...and when i return from turkey it will be dark when i leave the house. i realise this happens every year....but it always takes a while to get used to being back in the dark. mainly because i dont want to live in darkness..it it just hellish..and unhealthy.
so for the next two weeks...im running into the light. halle-fucking-lulah!
cant wait to get on that plane...
sitting on the best balcony in town..Sun is just going down. Cool jazz wafting up from the bar below. It's really warm, delicious cooking smells all around, just waved to a couple of people I know here and have just returned from spending all day lying on cushions in the sun.
the other good news is that orhan is going to be here on the 11th..dancer!
Oh, bandk so wish you were here..miss you both.
Having the time of my life. It is in every way as beautiful, sweet, friendly and beautiful as I remembered. Kinda feel like a kid on holiday in the 70s. It's also so lovely to be with Bill and rose..everyone just loves Bill...dolphin Bill
I can't tell you just how quickly, effortlessly and with complete decorum Turks can get their kit off, and into a bikini...do they have beach changing classes at school or what?
there is an older woman...obviously I use that in the loosest possible terms..she is possibly younger than me, but has grey hair, which I just don't have...who can whap on a halter neck over her vest, snap on those black panties under a serong and be swimming in the sea before I have even been able to catch the barmans attention to get another beer!
and even the young girls, barely out of training bras seem to be able to change from a wet bikini top to a dry one, quite a big thing here....as if a girl could go out with less than 2..in the flash of an eye, and without even a hint of nipple showing. What amazing skill.
British women faff and flail for ages under towels, we actually seem to be barely able to pull up our pants in public without a panic...here women just seem born to it. They also cackle, are feisty and don't give a shit what people think. Funnily enough I have complete affinity with that.
Think I was born in the wrong country...do you think I could be transnationality reassigned.
?
so...Just how lazy can a girl be on holiday you ask. Very, very lazy indeed apparently!
The most exhausting thing I have done apart from lifting beer and food to my mouth is walk for 5 minutes to where we are now luxuriating on cushions overlooking turquoise sea, with the sun with his hat on passing through the azure cloudless sky. I'm sure you will all be surprised to hear that I already have a tan, due to the fact that I have done absolutely nothing for a week but lie about in the glorious sunshine reading, eating and drinking beer..fucking dancer.
I have heard nothing of the world apart from your bad election news binni and Kim...you have my sincerest sympathy. And just wish you were here.
Rose has changed her ticket so she is flying home with us on Saturday, we are, hopefully meeting orhan tonight or tomorrow and Bill walked into a door and had to get three stitches in his forehead..And you wonder where I got my clumsiness from!
So that is it...nothing..I've done nothing. It is just what I was expecting me to do!
honestly! i realise that you, the thousands of eager readers of my musings, must just be bereft at my lack of correspondence here....but can i tell you how many times i have started to write something, just never to finish. because i just do not have enough time! is this a thing about becoming older...that time seems to just dissappear, or even rush past so much faster that it used to in those heady days of youth when one had 6 weeks of school holidays that seemed to go on for months. where do our lives go? binni and kim and i were discussing how long we had know each other...obviously it seems like i have know them for the whole of my life, and well, gareth, who has just left my flat having brought me gifts from croatia (now i dont want to get into an age thing, but the best present a man can bring me now is slippers! ya dancer! how fucking old-woman is that) and yet again...time is not on my side...and i have to go.
have to say that i was all geared up for a slaggy entry about stoopid news stories when i got home, but, instead was met with some really sad, real news, on my return ... that binni's dad died yesterday, and the entry about him that she put on her blog was such a lovely sweet epitaph that it has made me cry, for him, for her, for all of us who have lost people in life that we love, and for the magic memories we have, and all the lovely moments in our lives, and for their, sadly, coming to an end before we had finished with them. life sometimes just seems such an unfinished business, like anna's knitting bag, full of bits of things that will now never get done, and to go back to my last entry, why is there just not enough time?
sorry...but i am going to have to put on one of the ridiculous stories from the papers....a story of not 'too little' but 'too much' time...or lets just call it 'the worlds most spoilt 12 year old'
FEAR OF FLYING TRAPPED SCHOOLBOY IN ABU DHABI FOR 18 MONTHS.
joe thompson (12) from weston-super-mare was stranded in the uae for over a year after developing a delibitating fear of flying, but was finally able to fly home, thanks to hypnotherapy. joe had travelled to abu dhabi with his family in 2009 without any problems after his father got a job, but in march last year, the schoolboy, who had no fear of flying before, became terrified of travel. while the rest of his family returned home, joe was forced to remain in the country with his father, and stayed with friends, while joe tried 4 times to board a flight home. each time he broke down in tears and was unable to make the 4500 mile journey. his parents spent £40,000 on cancelled airfares, and on trying to cure his fear.
finally a hypnotist offered to help joe for free, and managed to 'work through his issues' while he was having a meltdown on the plane.
joe said 'im so happy to be home. i cant believe how cold it is here. i just want to see my dog, i havent seen him for 2 years'.
the schoolboy has missed more than a year of schooling, so has plenty to catch up on when he returns to classes this month. he hopes to be a professional rugby player when he grows up.
good luck with that then...
now, i know that no one would believe this, if they didnt work in the fotg business (that means food on the go, and its the new vector of my life), but if one works in bakery in britain, as im sure you are all just dying to do, halloween it the busiest week of the year! jupiters cock, we were so busy that we made £2000 on thursday, and even more on friday. our average spend is £2-18 so im sure it does not take a brain surgeon to work out that we served almost 900 customers both days.
i, as im sure you are all aware, have worked in retail for all of my life, and i thought i had see it all in oddbins, where we took around £15000 on christmas eve. but we never, ever had to deal with almost one thousand people in one day.
fuck me dead!
now i realise that sleeping is not a sport...to think so would be as ridiculous as thinking that speed eating, synchronised swimming or memorising the entire dublin phonebook were 'expert' activities, but were sleeping to become an olympic competition, i think i could win. this weekend, i went to bed at 10.30pm on saturday night...fuck me dead..got up at 8am sunday and called binni and kim. spoke to them for 3 hours-ish, went back to bed, woke up at 4.15pm only because eli had been calling me three times, and spoke to her, went to bills stayed up long enough to eat as much of his food as my tiny girth would allow, and watched 'american horror story' series 2, (fucking magic) got back home at 10pm...(kim thats 22.00) and, well, you guessed it, went back to bed. slept for 12 hours...got up and went back to work.
so, lets face it out of the whole weekend, i was only awake for 13 hours!
what a fucking waste of time that i could have spent killling on playstation, arguing with my game character because he, or she, just will not do what im asking them to, ranting at my friends, watching a spinning circle on love film, reading with one eye shut and finishing that all important giant saturday sudoku when i have put 2 in the wrong place and it has fucked the whole thing up. jings!
but, and here is the rub, i was up, and awake, long enough to book a flight to bogota!
none of my staff even know where that is...and if i tell them columbia, im not even sure they could guess the continent, despite the clue in the name.
when i told eileen, who went to disney world florida last year for 3 weeks, for the first time she has ever gone anywhere in the world except the edinburgh suburbs for as long as i have know her, and has already booked another two weeks in the same place costing £1700 without flights next year, she said 'why?'. so, obviously, i had to ask her the same question.
and then when i told jennifer, who is a creationst christian that i had booked a flight that cost £666, and was that dangerous, she was only scared by the cost, not the number of the beast. presumably you only use the book of revelations when it suits. im so excited about columbia.....and i cant wait to see bandk...but i am also just so excited about bill present...you have all seen it..i cant wait till he does.
ya dancer!
so, who would have thought...bill is turning 80 this week! it seems bizzare despite the fact that rose and i have been reminding him of this fact for probably 4 years....almost 80!
so what are bills greatest achievements out of this longevity....well, as he is not here to speak for himself, i can tell you...to put it simply, he has fabulous daughters! and what more could a father want than at least 2 old harridans demanding his attention, making him go to the gym once a week, expecing to be fed and watered, not to mention using his washing machine, expecting a lift home, and to be picked up, and an ice cream on the way, god, he has even been forced to go to kas in turkey 2 years runnning just to please us! the poor old bastard...with the stress on old!
if i had a heart...it would go out to him!
but instead im going to quote from the book of revelations.....yikes!
can i say before i start quoting the bonkers st john, that i read this because of a playstation game. i played war, and then death..and i always had it in my head that the other riders of the apocalypse were famine and disease
but apparently not...come and see....
'and i saw and behold, a white horse; and he that sat on him had a bow, and a crown was given unto him; and he went forth conquering and to conquer.
and there went out another horse that was red; and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the eath, and that they should kill one another; and there was given unto him a great sword
...and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balacnces in his hand.
and i heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say 'a measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.,
and i looked and behold a pale horse and his name that sat on him was death, and hell followed with him and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth'
was this man delusional, or just on drugs...but...i thought i knew about the 4 riders...and i was wrong...what is that wheat and barley thang...im sure if we were living 900 years ago it might be an analogy we would understand, but it is totally lost on me....if its not on you, let me know.
cant deny, had a horrible nights sleep on sunday...cant tell you what time this happened, but, it scared the shit out of me.
didnt hear the stair door, but woke up in the middle of the night...and there was someone dragging themselves up the stairs. now i have to say this is not unusual...all the bedrooms in the building are next to the front door, and there are always drunken wankers crashing in while im in bed, as i have such an early bedtime. but this was different. it took who ever it was ages to get to the landing as it sounded like he, or she, was dragging their feet..and there was a sound like metal clanking, but not keys...more like cans, or aluminium...some light metal. then it was like they were dragging their body around the landing and slapping their palms on the doors opposite me. they were looking in through the letterboxes, slapping the doors, and clanking metal, but it was all really low down...dont get me wrong, i know i watch lots of horror films, and you may think i dreamt this...but honestly, i didnt, i was so freaked i couldnt even move, not even to put on the light, as i thought that would just draw attention to myself. and all i could think was 'dont move' . so i didnt.
and then it just stopped.
after i just dont know how long...i managed to move and get out of bed, though i still didnt put on the light, and looked out...and guess what....there was nothing there.
i was really tired at work, but the only person i told about it was jennifer, the creations christian...she said 'what time did it happen, was it 3am?'
to be honest...i have no idea, as i couldnt put the light on to look, but she told me, and obviously i totally believe this...'demons come out at 3 am'.
yes, well so do most of the nightclubs. and i have probably seen more 3ams than most people, as it used to be my bedtime when i worked in oddbins...and strangely, i have never, nor, known a single other person, who has seen a demon. and, im sorry, how are demons, who have no worldy body restricted by time as we have invented it.
and on the other hand she thinks that vampires, werewolves and witches are stupid.
so its just so much more sensible to believe in some otherworldly entity that has never existed, than something like ghosts or witches, who at least are, or were human once.
but then again, belief in some all powerful being who has existed for all time, created the universe and everything in it, and still has time to listen the the prayers of the entire population is far more sensible that vampires and faries.
it still doesnt change what i heard...
ok, so im just not the blogger i used to be..filling your lives with hilarious anecdotes of my amazing and fulfilling life, witty repartee and bon mots to split your sides. this is mainly because i spend my entire week sleeping, getting up, going to work, coming home and going back to bed to do more napping, and then, well, you guessed it...getting up and going back to work. i realise that gandhi said that sleep was good karma, but im sure he didnt intend it to be an alternative to having a life. sometimes i can barely even remember walking to work, and wonder if i was, in fact, asleep while walking, perhaps i dont even really have a job at all, and it was all just a terrible dream of sausage rolls, hairnets and queues of the ugly, the fat and the dentally challenged being rude while ordering a large latte with 10 sugars and a bacon and sausage doubler with ketchup on a well-fired roll with double butter! (that will be £2.55 please. but it says up there its £2.25. yes indeed it does, but we charge 15p for butter. well i'll have the fucking roll without butter then. well, unfortunately, i have already made it up for you with butter. just forget the whole thing, this shop is shite, im going to complain about your fucking attitude..etc).
however on a happier, more sensible note, i did, actually, managed to stay up all night on bills birthday meal night, and only got home at lunchtime on sunday...way to go! it was a great night and a good time was had by all...it was just so nice to see martin and joyce (my brother and sister-in-law for those of you who have forgotten about my family tree), and the pie, the cake and the bronze lady that rose and i got flown all the way from the us for bills present, all went down a treat. i cant believe that that was almost 2 weeks ago, and in fact it is going to be december on sunday. where has this year gone...? i two weeks im going to be a year older, and i have barely come to terms with being in my 50s at all. and it is less than 4 weeks till christmas....fuck me dead...
crap thing about next year is that im not jetting off to the other side of the world, as i have done 2 years running, and will have to spend january here in the dark and cold. i am already having withdrawl symptoms, and may have to go to rehab on the 1st jan 2014 to try and overcome my craving for sunshine, warmth and laughter. as a compensation rose and i are jumping on a £40 flight to copenhagen where we are staying in a penthouse apartement overlooking the river. but, funnily enough, as its only a 1 hr 30min flight, it will be as dark and cold as it is here, and we will only have a 4 hour window to see the little mermaid and the tivoli gardens, which, im just guessing will be somewhat lacking to floral abundance. we were actually meant to be going to barcelona...but ryanair, in their wisdom decided to cancel our, and all the flights there from edinburgh till march. but i have never been to denmark, and it will be my 60th country visited...that is until april when im meeting up with binni and kim in newark airport and we are flying to bogota together for 2 weeks of sun, beach, wonderful hotels, gabriel garcia marquez' home town, carribean sea, national parks and copious amounts of whatever the local hooch is. im guessing its a rum country...but peru has pisco, brazil has cacacha, bolivia has sangani, even costa rica has its cacique despite having no indigenous people, no army and even no real identifiable indigenous culture. it does, however, have a lot of bananas, even if all of them are owned by american companies who do not give a shit about polluting the rivers....but that is another story.
im now off to eat my staple diet of soup and bagels...and then, you guessed it, going back to bed at the heady hour of 9pm. my life is just so rock and roll!
no brown paper packages wrapped up with string or snowflakes that land on your nose and eyelashes (though, god knows, i have had a few of the latter this week..and they are just so not my favourites).....no sirree! let me tells ya...what getting into you fifties is all about. having a doctor tell you that the itchy thing growing in your oxters that has been driving you mad for 2 weeks is not eczema but a fungal growth (and i think he was right, apparently, as the cream he gave me, which i have to keep in the fridge has brought it down to deep red instead of purple, and those antihistamines have really stopped me from scratching it till i make it bleed, if you do not have an itchy thing, i realise you will never understand this...but can i tell you how good it feels to scratch it...its better than drugs and almost close to sex from what i can remember. it really is orgasmic!),
then you will also be told that you, despite more than half a century being able to see perfectly well, suddenly need glasses to see your kindle, and perhaps you crossword, as you have realised that you cant distinguish between 16 and 18, nor indeed 25 and 26. some may say that perhaps you should just get better lighting instead of sitting in perpetual gloom, but, i am scottish...we live most of our lives in darkness. especially at the moment...
and then, to compensate for all that cold and dark, i went and got a burning hot lazer passed over my face to stop me being that circus freak that i was destined to turn into without treatment...yes...the bearded lady! roll up, roll up etc....and can i just say, it hurt, but god, not a patch on electrolsis....which is, without a doubt the most painful thing i have ever endured....getting a toe cut off with a local anaesthetic, which wore off too early and i could feel the last 2 stitches going in was a doddle by comparison.
and you will also hardly be able to believe it when i tell you that i have signed a form to opt out of ever getting another smear test, but did get a free flu jab. called up the council because i had thrown away my registration form, only to be told, that i had registered by phone at 4am 2 weeks ago, a call i have totally no recollection of at all, and i have done all my christmas shopping, put up my decoration (ok, its a wooden angel, and in fact it sits there all year round...so what), and still had enough time and money for an ice cream on the way home. fuck me dead!
so there you have it. im going to be specky for the first time in my life, and have fungus under my arms, and be able to vote...but i will never again have to have a pap smear or facial hair...getting older..its a strange and wonderful consruct of firsts and lasts.
and not a moment too soon....
dang....how old are we all.....old enough to know better, but apparently i dont! but just looked at the time and thought it was about 3am....and hell its 23.49,,,,,kim thats about quarter to twelve. that is so past my bedtime, you would just not believe it. so...this date thang is not gonna exist for 99 years...till 01/02/03......by which time we all will be dead...lets make the best of it here and now....after all its only my birthday..and kims, though she lives on the other side of the world for another three minutes.
ok, im not doing day one up to day twelve and back again, my life is too short...so..bear with me...#
on the twelth day of christmas my true love gave to me...
12 grannies moaning
11 scumbags stealing
10 sugars in a junkies coffee
9 chlidren a-tantruming
8 students a- hestitating
7. men talking on phones
6. cup-cakes for a fiver
5. SCOTCH PIES
4. steak bakes.
3. hot ham and chees baguetts
2. festive bakes
and a sausage roll in a buttered roll!
so, here we all are in a whole new year...although obviously some of us have been in it for a whole day longer, as it is always tomorrow, but that is an incalculable pancake indeed. however...lets get back to those of us who live in yesterday, and then talk about 2 midnights ago...on the radio at work they had an entire globes worth of midnights....the first one was at 11am here...kirabati, then noon here...new zealand. 1pm here was of course the people of tomorrow-land, where, of course i just happened to be last year, watching dawn before it had even reached midnight here. then we scanned across the world, until we reached the people i know who live in yesterday...derek and marty, for whom it was midnight at 8am here, and then the very last place in the world to hit 2014...and island just this side of the date line at 11am here....trying to imagine this is a little akin to schrodengers cat...(i think i may have spelt that wrong, or perhaps i just spelt it correctly, but in a parallel blog, or perhaps we cant really tell as it could be both correct and incorrect at the same time...im mean, really...) but getting back to the date thang,,,,time...its a strange concept isnt it. but thanks to the wonders of skype it is also a relative one.
obviously when i was a kid, by 2014 we were all going to be living on the moon wearing clothes made out of tin foil and conversing with aliens on a daily basis, while transporting ourselves by jet pack. dont know if you have noticed, but not many people are, as yet, existing without an atmosphere, wearing sliver, but some of the things that seemed so unlikely at that time have indeed come to pass...and well...here are a few of my favourites.
the internet, the e reader, netflix, tesco-photo, mp3 players, broadband, mobile phones and, yes, that futuristic extravaganza known as skype...by what other means could two drunken dames in scotland sing 'copenhagen, copenhagen, salty queen of the sea' with 2 other like-minded types on the other side of the world, after having just watched the danny kaye clip of said song on utube, at the same time. how we did chortle i can tells ya. (lets not even question how anyone knew that such a song existed).
which leads me on to this new, virgin and exciting year, as full of promise as moonlight in a martini. the connection being that rose and i are flying off to the above salty queen of the sea next friday, a flight that only take 1 hour 35 mintues, and where the weather and amount of daylight are identical to edinburgh, and is also the only city on mainland europe from where you can take a train to sweden that only takes 35 mins. of course it also has the little mermaid!
on top of this excitement, rose starts her new job on monday, and i have just braved the horrendous weather, got the bus out to pc world in corstorphine and bought myself a brand new laptop...one without a pink, psychedlic screen with an enormous crack ringing it. it has windows 8, and i have this feeling that it will take a bit of getting used to, as the screen is all 'smart-phone'y,, though i did resist the need to get touch screen. so this will be my last blog entry with this clapped out old hp machine.
in with the new, out with the old....
and on a parting note, in reference to my last entry...can i just say that one of my staff takes a sausage roll, flaps off the top pastry, adds two normal sausages, and ketchup, and then put the entire shebang into a buttered roll....double sausage whammy!
apparently so!
not only do i have a whole, shiny, new silver laptop, with a different keyboard (ha, they havent moved qwerty, obviously, we are not french..but this has a number key pad, and having learned to touchtype a million years ago, i keep putting my fingers too far left and end up with hashtags all over the place), but i now have windows 8, which is like a smartphone with apps all over the screen...and can i tells ya, its a pain in the arse. cant deny i find this a bit with kindle...there is no tool bar, you have to open apps and then close them to go to another...and it doesnt have that essential, for me, travel browse...the 'favourites' area. having just spent about an hour reassembling my favourites, i kinda think they are important, and have given up on the apps, and reverted to desktop....its sorta windows 7 with some new fandangles.
however...despite the gripes, can i tell you how magic it is to actually be able to see properly after 2 years with a pink, psychedelic screen, and a giant crack that looked like a tattoo gone wrong. hell, its almost as if i have just got glasses for the first time! imagine! i realise that no one reading this can imagine the scenario....they always say that in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king, what a pile of tosh. ive lived with the blind with both my eyes in perfect order, for 50 years or more, and no one has ever so much as offered me a crown, never mind a throne! how many of the millions who read this are not wearing glasses...i want my throne!
talking of thrones...have been watching 'game of thrones' and its bloody magic...the tudors meets lord of the rings...full of sex, violence and court backstabbing...three of my favourites!
and then onto my other favourite....im on holiday for almost a week, and as you all know am off to copenhagen, salty queen of the sea, on friday. and to cap the holiday feeling, i just found a bottle of champagne in the fridge from new year that i didnt even know was there....talk about mazeltov...
you may be surprised to hear this, but denmark prides itself on being the happiest country on the continent. you are reminded of it as soon as you get off the plane, due to huge bill boards tell you, and drunken danes bring it up in bars. so how is it that a country about the same size as scotland, with about the same population and, above all, the same weather can decide to be content, when we are such miserable bastards. on saturday it poured all day, and the wind cut you like a knife, but those happy danes just strolled along stroget like it was a warm summers day. we would have been bent double with scowls on our faces, tutting at everyone who was carrying an umbrella that could have our eyes out. the danes still sit outside in january, as every bar has toasty halogen heaters and blankets, they also wait patiently for the green man to cross the road even if there is no traffic and its pouring with rain. they have half the city under metro construction, a little like the tram works here, but you never hear anyone moaning about it, or is that actually that they are moaning in danish, of which i cant understand a word except tak, and hai, and danish moaning sounds content instead of miserable. perhaps alec salmond should sent the scots on a mission to denmark to show them what we could be after independence, if only we could stop bloody moaning and become..well, a little more danish!
they, then, would also find out that you can smoke in some bars, cigarettes are half the price of here, drinking can be done all day, everywhere, food does not have to be deep-fried to be tasty, you can have an unmanned electric metro that runs 24 hours a day, and, if bored with denmark, you can go to sweden for lunch, without so much as even having to show your passport.
i just never thought i would be so taken with somewhere i never thought of even going...but there it is. i do heart denmark!
1. walked for 30 minutes in torrentail rain to see what must be the most underwhelming landmark ive ever walked for 30 minutes in torrential rain to see...yes...the little bloody mermaid...small, pointless, not even pretty and surrounded by windfarms and industrial chimneys belching out smoke. she should have just stayed in the sea...where she would probably have died a horrible death due to chemical poisioning and been washed up on a tiny pebble beach only to climb up spluttering onto a tiny pile of glued together rocks miles from anywhere...hey....wait a minute....
2. saw the worlds biggest lego man. yes, one forgets that denmark actually has more world beating inventions than any other scandinavian country. (sweden has abba ikea and volvo, finland has nokkia phones, and norway...mmm...what does norway have...apart from depressing writers, artists and composers?)...but denmark can pride itself on lego, lurpak butter, bacon, danish pastries and akvavit. lucky old denmark, no wonder its so happy.
3. yes, lucky old denmark is also in a similar oh so fortunate position as we are in that they are similarly blessed with a royal family, hence the ridiculously dressed soldiers who do a pointless changing of the guard every day at the palace, marching around the streets with drums and pipes wearing that most ludicrous of all things sartorial...the buzby. rose and i did see the guard on their way to said changing, but obviously we were cozy under our blankies and halogen heaters and had just ordered another drink...so there was no way we were going to see that pompous rubbish. royal/schmoyal whatever the country.
4. as everyone knows, as we have hardly been able to have a conversation since without dropping it in somewhere, we got the train over the oresund bridge and went to malmo in sweden for lunch. what larks. as im sure you can imagine, trains run bang on time in both countries, though we did notice one leaving 3 seconds late from copenhagen, i might have to write a strongly worded letter to the danish rail authority, and it was as easy and painless as travel between two countries can be, without even so much as showing a passport. but what i havent mentioned is the wind in malmo, which when you walk out of the station is so strong in nearly blew my beanie hat off, and was so cold your face was numb in a matter of seconds. this same wind, and the sleety showers prevented us from sitting outside...and as it was a sunday, hardly anything was open. and another thing...we didnt have any swedish kroner, couldnt find and atm, and hadnt checked the exchange rate. so when we found the serendipitous moosehead, where rose had moose stew and i ate a mooseburger...we actually still have no idea how much it cost, as we paid on a card. for all i know...and as this was sweden, it could be completely possible, it was the most expensive burger on the planet. however, as i paid for the train, and dinner later...rose bought the mystery-priced swedish lunch, so hallelulah to that.
5. we had dinner in what is called a bodega..basically a pub, with pretty basic food, but it was on sunday night, and they had a real jazz band playing! when we got our perfect little creme brulle desert, they played 'its a wonderful world' sung first in terrible english by one of the band, and then in danish by some old guy in the crowd. i know this doesnt sound terrific...but it was one of those fantastic holiday moments, it was just the perfect end to a perfect day, i know its corny, but i love that song, and rose and i were almost in tears with happiness, as the words just summed up everything we felt. or are we just becoming old sentimental wankers? maybe....but also...
6. as we were sitting on stroget drinking that delicious hot chocolate, a guy came up and asked us if it was ok if he filmed us, as he was filming moments of happiness for some concert opening. we had never heard of the guy, and the cd he gave us is all in danish, so i still have no idea what it was all about, but he said that we looked so cosy and happy that he wanted to film us. how nice is that.
7. and then, obviously, we ate herring, and moose, and i have to tell you that rose almost ate lard as it was in a wee tub like cream cheese which she spread on her rye bread...and then had to spit it out. ha. we also went to a really cool, and very camp gay bar called the masken bar, where not only did we have to shimmey between hundreds of guys in vests to get to the toilet, (as they didnt even notice me, being a woman, i could enjoy every moment of being crushed up close to all those hot bodies), an old make-up wearing queen got up and did all the moves and sang along when they played 'all that jazz'...you just couldnt get camper! on top of all the buzz, we got drinks bought for us, the bar man was just brilliant and passed us beers over and over, it was about the same price for drinks as it is here, and above all, you could smoke....bloody magic!
8. the whole city is under construction due to metro works...so there are those industrial blue board fences up all over the place....some of the things written on them....
'dont worry, the summer will be back'
and 'anxiety is the dizziness of freedom'.
somehow both these things seem very danish to me.
its not just about the bacon.
these have appeared in edinburgh for one week only, and im assuming its for chinese new year, and the fact that edinburgh is twinned with xian, but arent they just magic! derek you might recognize the setting as old college, and you can see them from the street which just looks surreal. the other good thing about them is that you are not allowed to walk in amongst them, so you dont get that photo with half the world and their bloody cameras held at eye level and at arms length. call me traditional, but i just so prefer the view-finder as a means of photography, and am, in fact, pretty useless with the screen thang!
and added to this excitement can i tell you, if you didnt already know, that scotland has become the 17th country in the world to allow same-sex marriage. obviously, as im sure you are all aware, i dont really understand the principle of chaining yourself indefinately to the same person, when the chances are that you will be bored out of your mind in less than 2 years, and want to go and shag someone else long before that, but of the people i know who are couples, can i just say that the same-sex ones appear to me to be the happiest. or is it just that you are very, very fortunate indeed. whatever....obviously there are those who are not happy with this new law...the churches have complained that they were not consulted about the issue...and there was a smidgeon of straight-backed religiously-inclined bigots outside parliament holding placards with messages of the impending doom of 'traditional' marriage.
now, i dont know about you, but i have no idea why churches should be consulted when, as totally apparent to any rational person, that they are not actually part of the legislature, and that their opinions are irrelevant to all but a few of the above straight backed religiously inclined bigots. nor do i have any idea why they believe that because it is now legal for two men, or women, to marry that heterosexual couples are going to see their own unions as a sham and give up on the whole shebang, perhaps resorting to meaningless sex, abandoning their children and probably nights of debauchery and drug taking, cross-dressing, s and m. who knows, perhaps they will even decide that alternative lifestyles are, as we all know, the way to go and give up on the whole idea of marriage, thereby plunging the world into mayhem and disaster, the end of civilization as we know it, and quite possibly, the eschaton that jehovas witnesses have been looking forward to for...well, as long as they have misguidedly existed.
on the same note...yet another ukip (thats the uk independence party for those of you not involved in the ongoing joke that is british politics. basically they are all rich, zenophobic, male, public-school educated ex-tories who formed a party on the premise that the uk should leave the european union. the leader of the party famously got barricaded in a pub on the high street, on his first visit to edinburgh, by 'left wing racists' and had to be rescued by the police) member has just been suspended (it happens a lot, let me tell you, as they are responsible for more racist, sexist and homophobic gaffes than even prince philip), for releasing a statement saying the the terrible weather that britain has been suffering recently is gods way of punishing the country for allowing gay marriage. it seems ironic that, in fact, england has suffered terrible flooding, gales, etc while they only allow the marriage that god prefers, while we up here in the heathen north, who, have quite obviously flouted gods word (though, lets face it, where does god ever say that marriage has to be heterosexual only...actually when does god ever say anything, except to abraham or moses...and dont get me started on the 'kill your son or else...nah, just kidding.....how we will laugh about this one later'), are all fine and dandy!
so there you have it in a nutshell. god only punishes the ones he loves. way to go god!
SO HERE IS MY NEW SHOP...WHAT DO YOU THINK. ITS CLEAN, ITS SHINY, ITS CONFUSING AS I DONT KNOW WHERE ANYTHING IS, ITS MINE! IT HAS NEW OVENS, FREEZERS, COFFEE MACHINE, SOUP UNIT, RETARDER, SELF SELECTORS, COUNTER, AND, FMD, TABLES. SO NOW NOT ONLY DO WE HAVE TO SERVE PORK PASTRY PRODUCTS TO THE UGLY AND UNDESERVING, WE HAVE TO WATCH THEM EAT THEM, WITH THEIR BAD TEETH AS WELL!
HOWEVER, NOW WE HAVE A CONDIMENT STATION, THE JUNKIES CAN PUT 15 SUGARS IN THE COFFEE FOR THEMSELVES, AND THE NEW MACHINE SUCKS THE MILK STRAIGHT FROM THE BOTTLE, SO WE DO NOT HAVE TO FILL IT AND WAIT FOR IT TO HEAT, AND IT IS PLUMBED IN SO WE DONT HAVE A BUCKET UNDERNEATH THAT FLOODS 3 TIMES A DAY.
ON THE OTHER HAND WE COULD NOT FIND BAGS, SPOONS OR NAPKINS.
OUR NEW UNIFORMS, RED AND BLACK, ARE A LITTLE ON THE PINCHING SIDE, AND THANK GOD I ORDERED XL FOR MOST OF MY STAFF. JANE AND I ARE MEDIUM, BUT SHE COULDNT GET THE TROUSERS DONE UP....I COULD, BUT THEY ARE STRANGE AS THEY HAVE POCKETS, AND AS WITH ALL UNIFORMS, IM NOT SURE WHO THEY ARE MADE FOR, BUT I DONT THINK THEY ARE HUMAN. THEY CERTAINLY ARE NOT FEMALE, THOUGH KEVIN LOOKED A TREAT IN WOMENS TROUSERS, AS WE DIDNT GET ANY MENS ONES.
NEXT WEEK WE ARE STARTING OPENING TILL 6PM. MAKING UP THE ROTA WAS A NIGHTMARE....WE HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT WE WILL NEVER HAVE TO WORK 6.30AM TILL 6.30PM, OR DO A LATE FINISH WITH AND EARLY START THE NEXT DAY...BUT, WHAT A SURPRISE KEVIN AND I ARE DOING BOTH NEXT WEEK. WHAT LARKS.
LIFE IN RETAIL....ITS A BLAST!
they have 4 seasons. dark. dark to light. light. light to dark.
they do not bother with daylight saving, apparently if you live that far north there is no point.
they have no railways, nor underground, everything is on 4 wheels.
apparently europeans get confused by the use of 'son' and 'dottir' as the only surnames, as due to the breakdown of traditional family, there can be several children with different names within the same family. the europeans in question, quite obviously dont live in wester hailes, where practically every child has a different surname from its siblings, and often its mother.
iceland is considering banning internet porn, because it is demeaning to women.
while it is not considered proper to be naked on the streets, if you visit a swimming pool, or one of the volcanic spas, you have to shower naked, as costumes are full of germs.
you get 189 icelandic croner to the £...a difficult exchange by anyones reckoning. i think i will just think 200, and subtrack a smidgeon.
they are on the same time as us here, but as our clocks go forward this weekend, we will be an hour ahead.
it only takes 2 hours to fly there from edinburgh...
we are going in a week..
yes, we ate puffin and minke and rose, bravely, or foolishly, the choice is yours, ate formented shark, which she reported was "like eating old ladies knickers"!
I would suggest never putting anything in your mouth which is brought to the table in a sealed jar so you won't gag from the stink! however we are just having such a great time, our room is just wonderful and has windows all the way round, so we wake every morning to a view of snow covered peaks..possibly the most dramatic sight I have ever been able to see from my bed! there are so many bars within a five minute walk and, even better, most of them have happy hours...two beers for a fiver, ya dancer.
today we are going to see the sun voyager, and then drop by the only museum of phallusology in the world. yes iceland has a penis museum..who could resist?
don't know yet if our northern lights hunt will go ahead, as it is cloudy..have to wait till 6pm to find out. If it is cancelled I'm sure we will think of something else to do..though I don't think it will include formented shark!
iceland..
it's bonkers!
well, the weather was rubbish today, it rained, the cloud was really low and, to be honest we haven't seen either the sun or the stars since we arrived. However at 6pm we called the tour people and it was running..so we went out into wilds of iceland with no real hope of seeing anything other than snow on mountains, though we were told there was a bar at the stopping point, so the evening wouldn't be totally lost!
so we sat and had a coffee, then decided to just have a quick peak outside just in case the almighty had decided to put on his celestial show....And low and fucking behold, a green circle opened in the sky and WE SAW THE NORTHERN LIGHTS!!
how jammy are we?
Iceland...it's bonkers but the aurora borealis came out just for us.
and the rain smells of sulphur.
yes, i know what you are all going to say, nae have already said, how can a woman who endlessly drones on about hating living too far north on the planet now wax lyrical about the most northerly capital city on earth, and about as far up as i will ever go towards the pole...but there it is. i really liked reykjavik, though i cant deny, i dont miss smelling sulphur every time it rains, you have a shower, or indeed, turn on a tap.
the thing is that it is just so easy for us to like it as, like denmark, and even poland, is that the culture is completely understandable, and we feel right at home. nothing in iceland was a mystery....well, apart from the language, obviously, which seems intent on having so many syllables in one word that it is just greedy, and the total enigma of why anyone ever decided to go and live there in the first place. god, i thought scotland was barren and bleak, but it has nothing on iceland, which is in fact the most god-forsaken place ive ever seen, and if it werent for the brightly painted houses, the whole island would be monochrome. still, as they are lutheran, perhaps thats closer to god, he hasnt forsaken them at all, he just likes it better this way.
i suppose it kinda reminded me of being on the scottish islands, everything moves at a different pace, its very friendly, but no one wants to know that much about you as you are an outsider. im sure everyone knows everything about everyone who lives there. it feels like the safest city in the world, the idea that anyone would have taken our stuff, even in a busy bar, while we went out to smoke just did not occur to me. and while the entire city youth are out crashing about steaming on the streets of a saturday, there is very little police presence, and i did not see blood on the pavement on sunday, which is a feature of lothian road every weekend. there was, however, so much debris in the form of plastic beer glasses, fag ends and food papers, that there were garbage trucks out in force, i could see 4 on the street at the same time.
but the thing i really liked, which the islands here do not have, is the crazy frontier feeling which i thought was such a feature of reykjavik...it really does feel like a city on the edge of the world, its a bit wild west, though without all the guns and leather waistcoats. instead its hiking boots and knitwear. but despite all the healthy eating and living, my god, the icelanders know how to party. and shout! didnt hear singing, but god can the men shout!
so....what did we get up to in this crazy edge of the world town....well, let me tell you...
1. we stayed in the most stylish, huge and well equipped apartment ive ever been in, and it had the best, most dramatic view from the worlds comfiest bed you could hope for.
2. we bought knitwear, hats and slippers....are we middle aged or what?
3. we ate puffin, whale and i had one of the best steaks ive ever had in my life....it was horse!
4. we were completely surrounded by penises, in a museum!
5. we realised that you could, in fact, spend a weekend in reykjavik and never leave laugarvagur...our street, the street, it just had everything. and as its such a totty city, you can just walk everywhere.
6. you will be amazed, nae, gobsmacked, to hear that we drank a lot of viking lager, though we did also have a beer with cinnamon and orange, and a pale ale. rose also decided to drink some of the cod liver oil that came with a fantastic sunday brunch we had...will she never learn that things that are good for you taste like old ladies knickers mixed with rancid fish! apparently not! i, of course, would never let anything of the sort pass my lips, and stuck to alcohol for all its life-enhancing properties.
7. we also had skyr, which is a kinda like yoghurt but more mousse-like, and let me tells ya the food tasted....i mean it really tasted of what it was supposed to, not the namby-pamby neutral rubbish we have. dont know if you have noticed, but northern countries are obsessed with licorice..it comes in lots of different forms, but my god in iceland did it have a strong flavour. it was the most licoricy licorice ive ever had. [ i would like to say that i had some to prove this....but on monday, i just sat and ate the entire bag i brought home.] and everything else was the same...the pepper cheese was so peppery, fmd even the cheesy puffs actually tasted of cheese, and not just something created from e numbers.
8. and of course, above all, we saw the lights. we picked one night out of the entire year to go and see that...what are the chances? how bloody lucky are we?
very! for all of the reasons above..
the jammy bastards!
actually its 1,530,000! and the old asian guy in the post office was very bemused when he had to count it out, not to mention the fact that i returned the $100 bills i had bought, and asked him to give me smaller notes. i just dont think that colombia is going to be a place where they will be happy with $100 bills...hell, im not even sure they go down that well in america! big notes, while beloved by chinese 21 year old students, who must go into the bank and ask for £50 notes, (as atms do not dispense them), and then come into my shop at 8am to pay for a yum yum that costs 65p with said note, are a total pain. no one wants them. too much change!
but can i just say that i have not been a millionaire since 1989 when i went to yugoslavia...a country where the petrol pumps just had stickers of '0's stuck onto the display, and i couldnt get all of the money i had just changed at the bank into my purse as it was a wad about 2 inches thick! i think i might have also been very rich in polish zloyts the first time i went...but i might have to phone my bank manager to discover if i was really a millionaire, as you know, sometimes, like ray davis, you are just not sure of these facts.
on a similar, im so rich, tack....i just went to primark, after having my teeth cleaned at the dentist, you know, as you do, and bought 4 vests, a tshirt, a sleep dress thing, 2 bra tops, 5 pairs of socks and 5 pairs of knickers all for £30! i realise that all these things are probably made in sweat shops, where 5 year olds are working to pay off the debts of their great grand father, losing their fingers in machines spinning cheap fabric for the fat and indolent westerner who demands cheap clothes akimbo...im sure its true, as clothes seem to be about half the price they were 10 years ago, but what can i do about it. if i dont shop at primark...what bloody difference will it make. none. its not as if they will stop trading because i choose to refrain from purchasing their oh-so-cheap vestments. to be honest, its the first time i have bought clothes, well, apart from icelandic knitwear, which are not made by indian children, actually probably knitted by hand by some icelandic 50 year old dottir, living in some god forsaken, bleak, desolate valley who has nothing better to do in those 10 weeks of winter darkness than get the pins out! knitting...women love it.
what i love if having a million pesos, a week and a half to work, and thoughts of meeting binni and kim....stroll on. oh that and my ppi pay out...like a room without a roof.....
here I am yet again at the airport...having a pint before most people are even out of their beds. Got grilled to death by United staff...And there was no internet check in..and have to pick up my bags in Newark to clear customs, despite the fact that I'm not even entering the United states. Still...it will pass the time till I meet up with bandk at the Guinness pub. Even though I'm sitting here, it all seems a bit unreal..And I miss you rose...it's ages since I did this alone. But in a matter of hours I will be sitting in another airport with another pint waiting to meet 2 of my favourite people...when I am with them, in the words of clean bandit, there Is nowhere Id rather be. But I feel like this about all my friends...And even my aged and withered father.
But to quote another song....woo woo woo woo woo, This is gonna be the best day of my life..
Bogota is just bloody magic, and not at all the smog and beggar infested city of crime and ugly seventies blocks I imagined. It's cool as its so high up, there are mountains all around, it's all red tiled roofs, elegant shops and streets, great bars, and above all the most amazing street graphitti I have ever seen, and I'm not talking gang tags and words you can't read, I'm talking full wall art in amazing colours..I'm surprised there is not a taschen book of bogota graffiti. We are just having such a great time here, and it is not in the least threatening in any way. Off to Montserrat in a cable car where there is a church and fab views of the city. Today is also Labour day, so there is a street festival on calle 7, where yesterday we bet money on racing guinea pigs...I kid you not.
Will write more later...And try and take some photos which are not graphitti.
omg...what can I say..cartagena is just one of the most brilliant places I've ever been. It's so beautiful it brings tears to my eyes, it's safe, it's easy to walk around, even if you do spend an hour looking for a clock tower that features in the first photos you took, but you didn't notice. It's cheap, the people are lovely and the men are handsome. It's a place where if you order another 3 Cuba libres the waitress will suggest you just buy a half bottle of rum instead as it will be cheaper...now that's my kind of place. Today we are having a lazy day, as its just so hot even binni and Kim are feeling it, and our hotel has a pool on the roof that no one else seems to use. At night we have been all alone up here, and they leave the fridge open if you want a drink, we can see the spire of the cathedral lit up while splooshing around in the pool...And it feels a little like being a millionaire...Just total heaven.
We have also, you might be surprised to hear, been shopping quite a lot, as the artesanal stuff here is just wonderful..And so my kind of thing...fantastically patterned bags, bowls, shoes etc in really bright colours.
just having such a great time. Did I mention it was hot?
Bill...We are going to try and Skype tonight about 5ish your time...you have to click on the icon at the bottom left of the screen where you will find a friend request from Kim which you have to confirm. So maybe see you later...
so...have to go and lie about now drinking tropical cocktails by the pool, as, amazingly I got up early and swam 10 lengths before breakfast...I kid you not. It's a hard life...
and I'm giving myself away too early. Maybe it's the sunshine, the cool music, or the fact that I'm here on a rooftop in cartagena with a beautiful blue pool, a fridge full of beer and views of the cathedral all to myself. Maybe it's just the sheer pleasure of the company of friends I haven't seen for over a year, or the friendliness of the locals. Maybe it's the prawn cocktails so wonderful that I had them for both lunch and dinner yesterday, or the fact that you can buy rum by the bottle in bars for $40,000, the equivalent of £15. Maybe it's the amazing urban rejuvenation of bogota after being one of the most dangerous cities in the world, into a wonderful place to stroll with possibly the best public transport system I've ever seen, and the world's most fantastic graffiti. Maybe it's the fact that people seem really happy or just that I am so happy I feel like a room without a roof. Or is it that I'm on the roof...And can see the Caribbean. Is it the frangipanis in flower or the amazing things to buy that if I could afford the money and space would be filling my house. Or Is it that this seems to me one of the most underrated countries in the world.
whatever it is...I think that it's just possible, we are at an early stage at the moment, having only known each other for less than a week...that I just might, maybe be in love....with Colombia.
just having the time of my life, and, strangely, have not though of sausage rolls once!
Gareth...hope you have a brilliant time in Istanbul..
Bill....have tried to Skype you, but you are not online...
will blog again soon...
Words to describe taganga...sweet, beautiful, lovely, we are staying right on the beach...And I mean that we can swim in the Caribbean sea with 20 steps...We have also had a three bottle of rum day...perhaps I should do this when I can actually type.....that is not now....
pants...I just wrote a gushy happy message about how wonderful it all is here, how I have already been for a swim in the Caribbean and its only 8:30 am and how perfectly chosen our trip has been that binni and I could just set up our own travel agency...And then I leant forwards and deleted the entire thing with my breasts. Doh.
so..let me tell you how fucking great Colombia is yet again.
taganga is so sweet and laid back, the kids finish school and go and goof around doing handstands on the beach in the apricot and peach light of the sun set. Binni and Kim and I can eat the most fantastic coconut prawns sitting on the beach, drink 3 bottles of rum, hear pharrell s happy while we are having a dip in the sea, and still have enough money for an ice cream on the 20 steps back to our rooms, and wake up without a hang over! It really doesn't get much better.
We are coming back here to start the "hotel bogota" each room will have different graffiti..We will do free pick up from the airport in our graffiti covered minivan and you will be given a t-shirt on check out with the design that was in your room. Oh, Colombia...what a country of possibilities. I just love it...it might be the new Cuba...
1. Women with frilly dresses, and fruit on their heads, which I thought were Cuban, or just Carmen Miranda, are in fact called palenqueras, and originated in Colombia. They were runaway slaves, and made money by selling fruit..becoming a symbol of liberty around the Caribbean. In the plaza Santo Domingo in cartagena, there is a woman dressed this way who still makes a living supplying fruit salad to all the restaurants. The things you learn!
2. The carnival in baranquilla, which is shakira's home town, is the biggest in the world after Rio, and involves a host of traditional characters whose masks you can buy everywhere. Amongst the many bizzare masks are African animals, Dracula, a zoro lookalike, a palenquera and a guy with huge floppy ears and a huge nose. Wish we had been here to see that.
3. For under £20 you can buy a litre of rum, 4 beers, a huge bottle of coke, and one of diet, 2 bottles of water and 3 packets of cigarettes...bloody magic.
4. There are police everywhere...On our 3 hour taxi ride from cartagena we were stopped twice by cops...it's all very polite, they shake hands and exchange pleasantries, but can't deny it makes a girl feel safe, in what used to be a country of kidnapping galore. Have to go now...rum is calling.....love to all...more later
ok..where was I..Oh, yes...cops. here in taganga, which is a town of about 20 streets, most of which are not paved, the cops go around on segways which can also cope with driving on sand..but they are so not 911shorts. They have full cop uniforms with huge boots and of course guns, and must be so hot in this sweltering heat. Have to say, in our time in Colombia, I think we have rarely gone for more than 20 mins without seeing at least 2 policemen. They are everywhere. But it's funny how your perception changes...if I saw this many coppers in Edinburgh, It would kinda scare me, I would think that we were becoming a police state as I neither like nor trust them. But here, it makes me feel safe. One can't help but wonder how Colombians feel about it..
4. Botero. He is the most famous Colombian artist and his sculpture is everywhere. You also get offered prints or copies of his paintings everywhere. I suggest you Google him. I think his work is hideous. Supposedly it's about political satire...all I see is ugly fat people with the same face. Sort of like my daily life at work then.....
5. It's Saturday in taganga and its full of day trippers..kids with rubber rings and buckets and spades..their parents with the entire contents of their kitchen and copious quantities of rum...Just so like Havana, though they can't get so many people in a car..And unlike Cuba, here you have to have your number plate on the side and roof of your car. If you have a motorbike, you have to have it on the back of your helmet or wear a vest that has it in large letters and numbers. And trucks have it covering the entire sides. You so can't be invisible as a driver in Colombia.
6. I love, love, love it here. It just has that feeling of hope and happiness a little like Croatia after the war. But on the other hand you are under constant scrutiny. When I was out swimming in the dark last night...a huge police spotlight suddenly went on. I was unaware of this being in the sea...but binni had to go to the cops and explain that I was just a stupid tourist not some drug mule swimming in, and the only coke I had consumed was Brown, fizzy and comes in a plastic bottle...mostly with the addition of ron.
so tomorrow we are flying back to bogota, away from the Caribbean, away from the sun, away from denim shorts, lycra tops and flip flops. Away from 2 prawn helping days. Away from being able to swim in the sea at 8am, poodle around all day and get a boat ride out to another fantastic beach with the world's biggest coastal mountain range in the background enhanced by Ron and coke and being with people you love, even if you do think you might die because the sea Is so rough. I honestly have had the time of my life..And omg....binni and Kim it has just been so great seeing it with you, I can't even tell you.
I actually think that the whole economy of Colombia will crash now we are leaving...who else is going to eat so many prawns, buy so many souvenirs, and, above all, drink so much rum as we have. No wonder the chef in our favourite restaurant was almost in tears when we told him we were leaving...
let's just hope that the ball of my deodorant doesn't pop out yet again draining the entire contents over my toiletry bag as it did the first time.
bogota....its high up, and cold......Oh Colombia..it's a country of contrast....
so, no, you will be amazed to hear that i have not done anything surpring recently...i havent got a cable car up to the top of a mountain covered in amazing flowers and equally incrediable religious tat while suffering from the altitude at around 3000 mtrs. no i havent been out in a grafitti covered city, supposedly so dangerous, with thousands of students wearing braces (such a feature....there was hardly a person under 25 in bogota without said toothwear), just doing young people things....drinking shots, shouting at 3am, crashing about....you know the drill. nor have i had my roll on deoderant shooting its ball out over the room, bought a bottle of rum in a bar for £12, nor eaten coconut prawns 3 days running. i havent swum in the caribbean before breakfast, sat watching sunset with best mates and a bottle of rum, eaten gigantic steaks on the street, or had to swither about which of the many fantastic bags i just had to have. havent been to any gold museums recently, nor bolivar squares, nor had to speak spanish. havent had to bet on which of the little houses a guinea pig was going to enter, watched kids doing handstands on the beach at sunset, with violet light or seen very many police men. nor have i had mozzie bites which swole up my eye, seen iguanas crawling down telephone wires or had my photo taken with one of the thousands of policemen swarming around the city. i havent had to ride waves so huge going round the coast in a boat that we had to slow down, sit down to drink...or actually, just sit down.....havent seen incredable grafitti, great food, beautiful beach sunsets or mojitos in jars. now its only a memory of sunlight on my shoulders, swimming in a pool on the roof at midnight, and being with mates. oh, i know im so lucky...i doubt even pharrell is this happy...even if i put the roof back on here..i know it is detatchible.....next stop kas.....
well, i should have taken my camera out tonight when gareth and i went out for dinner, as you will never believe what we saw travelling the streets....yes, jings, crivens and help my boab...only 3 years late and at double the original cost, not to mention the total disruption of the city centre for 6...yes, 6 years....we now have trams running, and even carrying passengers!!! amazed...i bloody am, as i thought i would never see a tram running in edinburgh in my lifetime...but then again, i never thought i would be able to have all my music in a tiny stick, all my books on a tablet, virtually walk around any city in the world, never mind video call people on different continents from colombia...or have this thing here...my blog. who would have thought how much the world could change in ones life-time. im really glad that i grew up without all these things, or i could not possible imagine how amazing they all are....and would probably spend my time with any one of you looking at my smart phone instead of speaking. what great nights we could have not even looking at each other...but instead looking at our many devices....dont even get me started on that one....
and now for something totally different, that doesnt involve trams..but is in the news...
'home alone'star macaulay culkin stormed off the stage during a gig in nottingham by his pizza-themed parody band after the crowd booed and pelted him with beer. The Pizza Underground change the lyrics of velvet underground songs into celebrated italian dishes, turning 'perfect day' into 'pizza day' and 'walk on the wild side' into 'bite of the wild slice' which failed to win over a jeering audience at the dot to dot festival, and the gig was brought to an end after just 15 minutes. the band received a similarly hostile reception in manchester, with culkin leaving the stage after one audience member interrupted his kazoo solo. 19 year old jess, attending the gig, said she felt sorry for the singer. 'the music was terrible, but it isnt very fair to be hit with so much beer and booed, is it?' culkin, 33, who began acting when he was 4 has led a troubled life in recent years. 2 years ago he was forced to deny reports of a heroin addiction'.
and another story you may have missed...
'surging population growth in africa and declining birth rates in europe could signal the decline of athiesm, a world -renowned geneticist has claimed. steve jones, a professor in genetics at universtiy college london's galton laboratory, said that population decline in religiously sceptical european countries, combined with rapid growth in africa could see a resurgence of christianity, leaving sceptics in a minority. (which world does this man live in....) professor jones, who is one of the world's foremost experts on the genetics of snails (!) and regularly appears on tv and radio pointed out that britain was the only christian country in europe that was 'replacing its population'.
'we athiests sometimes congratulate ourselves that the incidence of religious belief is going down' he said in the daily telegraph, 'but religious people have more children. it is clearly the case that the future will involve an increase in religious populations, and a decrease in scepticism. where are people having the most children...its in africa...'
i dont mean to disagree with prof jones, god forbid, he is an expert on the genetics of snails....but where people are having the most children who survive is not africa...its india, china and south america. no surprise then that white americans are now in the minority...and strangely its not african-americans who have overtaken..its hispanics.
and im sorry....'the decline of athiesm'...when has it ever been in ascendancy......
now, im not sure how binni and kim managed to travel when they did, as they, presumably, missed the event of the year in australia, and the other 170 odd countries and territories that make up that glorious british-based institution...THE COMMONWEALTH! yes..not to be outdone by the jetsetting of the olympic torch..the queen's baton has travelled all the way round the globe ahead of its glorious appearance in glasgow to inaugurate the games, and arrived over the bridge, into edinburgh on saturday, where it was wined and dined not only at the parliament building, but also at holyrood palace, where our majestic monarch was deigning to celebrate her official birthday....no doubt ice cream, jelly, musical chairs and pass the parcel were enjoyed by all guests!
it was crossing the meadows as i was walking home from work, with thousands of well-wishers waving flags and dancing highland flings in the streets...nah! kidding! it was pouring with rain, and there were more police than spectators...i saw 5 soggy children trying in vain to wave what had turned into paper-pulp on a stick, and lets face it, the queens baton is pretty underwhelming. my re-creations in my kitchen with kratos holding a burning match are more exciting...especially as i thought he was going catch fire! but, hell, as he didnt come with instructions to 'keep away from matches' or 'do not expose to extreme heat' i probably could have sued, had he burned down my flat.
'commonwealth': the worlds biggest oxymoron!
and on to other figures of speach...hyperbole!
gareth and i once, in our ramblings, formed an imaginary sporting event called the hyper-bole...the greatest show on earth, the biggest, the best, the most exciting, even more than the super-bowl, naturally. and now, i realise that it is happening this month...in brazil! no wonder there are people protesting in the streets of rio and sao paulo..they probably wanted litotes instead. health care and housing are more important than football...or is that an understatement!
well...annoyingly i wrote here last night, the first night of ramadan, which started at midnight uk time...and its just gone, dont know what happened, but, not having to do ramadam myself, i drank myself stupid, and apparently didnt press the correct button...you know, as you dont!
so...here so close to the solstice...can god get harder on muslims! they cant eat between around 3.45am and 11pm. hell....that is hard..well, actually its just hell! being an infidel myself, and not really knowing many believers as, i expect, they would just walk away if they met me, no one has ever been able to explain to me why god cares about these things. as an eternal, omnipotent, universal being glittering in hyperspace who knows neither time not death, one might think that there are probably more important things to consider than whether or not half of his creation eats during daylight. im sorry to question god, but how does he even know where daylight is falling on the tiny little earth he created, given that it is so different...i have just spoken to binni and kim...they are going to bed..ive just got up!
so my question is...does god/allah/whatever you decide to call him own a watch?
i think he does...and for us, i think it stopped in the late 16th century.
gary, the, oh so camp, manager of the charity shop next door, asked me yesterday if i had had my main holiday yet this year. and do you know...i didnt really know what to say. working, as i do, in a place where most people do not even own passports, and the only person, other than me, travelling abroad this year is going to disneyland in florida for the third time..what counts as 'main'? ok...i must point out that one of my staff cant travel as she got a dvt travelling to dubai...and eileen, who is going to florida, doesnt actually own a passport right now, as it is caught up in the passport delay that is happening in the uk at the moment. (for those of you aliens who do not live within these majestic shores, let me tell you...the government laid off half the passport issue workers...then everyone in the country, it appears, applied at the same time..so you can have a wait of 8 weeks for your new passport..and loads of people have had to miss flights because of this...david cameron has apologised...so that has helped then! but on the other hand...who books a flight without a valid passport?)
anyway...to cut to the chase...what counts as main...
and here are a few interesting statistics to add to this...
two thirds of the people in the world (thats 66%!) have never seen snow!
one third (33%) have never seen the ocean.
only 3% have ever seen the northern lights.
45% of americans have never owned a passport.
if you were born in, and never left, the netherlands, you would never have seen a mountain.
it you were born in, and never left, the arctic or iceland, you would have never seen sand dunes or trees.
spiders can spin out on skeins of silk so high into the atmosphere that its possible they could traverse the atlantic.
hawaii is so isolated in the world, that it is the only place in the pacific that the coconut has never reached.
apart from insects...frogs are the biggest colonisers in the world...they exist on every continent except antartica. even hawaii has frogs...
in edinburgh only a fifth of the population has been on a tram...despite the 6 years of mayhem building them. rose and bill have....i havent.
20% of the population of australia has never seen a kangaroo...though i expect they all live in sydney. or perth.
actually, i made that last one up....but i bet its true.
so here is the rub...in a year where im going to 8 countries...and possibly 9...if i leave for australia on the 31st as im planning.....what counts as main.
i just completed a survey for trip advisor about space travel...im sure you can imagine the questions...but my answer for why i was not even slightly interested was because there are so many amazing things to see here...this is our planet, it is, as far as we know, the most unique, amazing place in the universe, and i want to see as much of it as i can.
im just besotted with the earth!
i walk past this christian meeting place every day...and i have to tell you that they put up messages to god on the window. they used to be on post-it notes, but they all faded in the sun, so now they have started to contact the supreme being by writing backwards on the window in paint pens...a little like we used to do in oddbins...though, funnily enough, the messages are a little different.
so, as i always have to either have a list or a question in every blog entry, unless im actually abroad...here is my question...
as these are happy-clappy types christians, cant they just talk to god personally? or do they believe that by writing it on, what used to be a shop, window that he will notice it more? or is it that they think that god is walking down lothian road, having done his shopping in tesco, 2 doors up, and has a spare few minutes before the pedestrian lights turn green, and wants to fill it with divine compassion?
and here is the rub...why does religion have to be about show? and dont get me started on irish nuns..or any nuns..or even just the irish...but im sure everyone is aware that untill 11th september, the niqab was practically unknown in britain...now its still a tiny minority of islamic women, but i see it every day. i also see far more religious tattoos, and dont even want to talk about my 'born again' assistant, who is convinced that the world threatened by a cabal called the illuminati, who, strangely, mostly happen to be jewish, but also include lady gaga, marylin manson, katy perry (who seems a strange choice, given that she is incrediably religious, and her parents are missionaries) and j k rowling (presumably writing kids books about wizards means that you really believe in them).
what the hell is going on right now? oh...i know i dont need to speak about this...we all agree...but it is getting scarey! when did rationality become stupid and blind faith in every one of its incarnations become sensible.
and to get back to a previous entry...why does anyone think that god cares about all of this...or any of it. im just glad that i did, for most of my life, live in a rational world...im just sorry that it has gone. and with it..my youth....thank god i actually was there when it happened.
for that ephemeral time.......
no more theology...i promise. instead...rubbish musing on happiness...bet you cant wait.
there was a study done recently about the general happiness index of countries which proposed that we have been looking in all the wrong places. instead of gdp, or average wages, we should be concentrating instead on smaller things. in its index of happiness were..
the availibility of cheap glasses.
the availibility of the washing machine. (as a guide to who has a water supply plumbed in).
the possiblility of walking to work.
the closeness of open spaces, trees and birdsong.
cheap and easy public transport.
the cost of dentistry.
the influence of music and storytelling.
and then the radio station im compelled to listen to 12 hours a day at work also had a list of things that make your day happy....(one of which, presumably would be not having to listen to 'timber' by pitbull 15 times a day...but they didnt mention that...)
finding a fiver in the pocket of a jacket you havent worn for ages.
finding, and looking through, old photos of good times you had forgotten about.
booking a flight, or a holiday.
falling asleep, and waking up in the sun on a day off.
sitting in front of a real fire on a cold day.
and here are some i would like to add to both of these....
finding a ticket in a pocket of a jacket that you havent worn for ages that is for a tram in helsinki, a museum in new york, or sugar loaf mountain...or it could be sand in those flipflops you havent worn since last summer, a shell you once put in your pocket on a beach, or a gigantic blue diamond necklace when you had miraculously survived the sinking of the titanic by lying on a piece of wreckage while the love of your life froze to death in the atlantic. whatever....
hearing a song abroad that you just love.
a beautiful sunset. i know dawn can be...well, hesperidian....but nothing beats a great sunset. especially if one has a rum cocktail in ones hand...
seeing things that you never, ever thought you would ever see in your life.
having wonderful food, sitting around a table, talking with people you love.
and friends..having real friends..the most important thing in my life, and the one thing that makes me the most happy, outside of myself, and my personal stuff. you all who read this tosh. you make me happy. like a room without a roof....
but before i talk about our jonestastic night...let me relay a passage from the luminaries which im reading just now...
he did much recommendation, in fact, and often made an example of his own customs for the profit of other, less visionary men. he derived an especial pleasure from argument, so long as it was of the preposterous, hypothetical variety, and so loved to fashion absurd theories of abstraction from the small but dedicated circle of his own tastes. this attitude was affectionately reinforced by his friends, who thought him vivacious and amusing., and scorned by his detractors, who thought him affected and self-absorbed - but these latter voices were subdued in Nilssen's ears, and he spent no effort to better make them out.
remind you of anyone you know, and might even find vivacious and amusing?
but to get back to sir tom....bloody magic my my my...though what was not, was having removed my card to upload photos...i forgot to put it back into my camera...so, took it out and why why why did i not put it back in..my my my..but i suppose its not unsual!
but let me tells ya...tom just does not move anymore...i know he is 74, but having seen grandads at weddings dancing with 11 year olds, one would have thought the hip-thrust is still possible, but not for sir jones...he just dont dance. nor was he thrilled by knicker-throwing. but my god, can he still belt out a song...like a thunderball! why why why...perhaps he just cant take anymore.
it was just great...so campy stoopid...and the weather was just brilliant..for an outdoor event in scotland, you just couldnt hope for better. it was so funny..loved it!
and he did kiss for the encore...i love that song...i think i better dance now...
i dont know what is happening to my life just now...but can i just say that it is rushing past at such a pace, i feel i should have a security barrier to hold onto! or at least a seat belt. how can it be thursday already, when sunday feels like it was only yesterday, and as simon once asked in drug-fuelled hillarity in amsterdam, when discussing the relative holy days for the worlds religions..'if wednesday was sunday, what day would saturday be?' well, we were staying at the hotel philosoof at the time!
but, can you bloody believe that it is going to be august next week, that the world cup wimbledon and katie price's recent marriage are over already, the commonwealth games start today, and next weekend edinburgh will, yet again, be swamped by slow moving, comedy-loving tourists from all over the world come to watch idotic, pointless, yet very expensive, shows in that ridiculous circus we call the edinburgh festival. blimey!
no bloody wonder im not having one main holiday this year...but 4, with 4 smaller ones thrown in for good measure. if i dont, i might never get the chance again, as my life lurches forward at the speed of light, with hardly a stop for a snack, never mind lunch, and i will be drooling in my deathbed before i even notice...perhaps at the end of next month. though, actually i will be in kas at the end of next month...and then in raleigh at the end of october, and then spending the end of the year on a plane to tomorrow. just as well im not crossing the date line or who knows when i would get to wherever it was i was going, or had just left. oh...time, its a slippertigibbet! or is it and incalculable pancake...i forget.
still...one thing i, nor anyone else could ever say about my time here on this blue ball orbiting the giant burning orange one, which half the world sees too much of, and the rest of us hardly even know is there, as we are bent double due to the wind and rain, is that it has been boring.
and i realise that no one could imagine this, as it seems like one of the most boring things on this spinning ball..but my work is actually exciting. i dont mean that im going to find the mysteries of the universe, discover tutankhamens tomb amongst our packaging or use the philosophers stone to make gold out of stale steak bakes, but its like fighting a war every day. i have never had to problem-solve on a daily basis before in my life, nor prioritise my actions at least once an hour, or just have to 'run-with-it' when all else fails. it has actually been such a great thing in my life, and not just the pay cheque...though that has also changed everything, it has made me realise that anger is pointless, rudeness will get you nowhere, that if you prioritise your actions at work, you can do it in all walks of your life, and if it doesnt make you happy, just put in the 'to do' tray. or delete. or shred. try and solve what you can..and you can do this most of the time, but there are times that it is just not possible...there is no solution. and you cant spend precious time trying to solve the unsolvable as life is short....
and getting shorter by the minute....
believe me it is...ive just spent over and hour writing this rubbish....
yes...by all thats holy, this is the blog entry you have been looking forward to for months, go on, you have so...
yes its my annnual run down of all the most fabulous, posetastic, loveymazing shows at that overblown, overpriced fiasco we loving refer to as THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL!
i realise, before i begin, that none of the linked photos are in fact anything to do with our glorious expo of comedic arts and theata...but with a little imagination, im sure you will agree that they do fit in to the theme, the theme of EXTRAVAGANZA!
so to begin.....here is a list of the weirdest venues this year.
1. an amateur boxing club in craigmillar. it is the set for a verbatim theatre piece based on interviews with muslim female boxers, featuring a live electronic score.
2. a mobile phone shop on princes street. yes, the 'phones 4u' site is hosting a variety of theatre, puppetry and stand-up featuring a ukulele-inspired musical about nandos.
3. a caravan. and, what better place to get up close and personal with two 'john waters grotesques' than a venue with a maximum capacity of 8. cuddle up and find out more about 'an exceptionally close mother-daughter relationship'.
4. a police box. no one knows exactly what happens here, but its one of the venues for the free fringe. another one is a statue...
5. a rickshaw. audiences of two are invited to hop in and sip jasmine tea while learning about daily life in china, in this intimate piece. (of baloney).
6. portobello beach. at sunrise and sunset for 3 days, singers and swimmers with assemble on the sand for 'a poetic and captivating, hour of soprano song, storytelling and staring wistfully out to sea'. obviously i will not be among them, as those are the days i have pencilled in my diary to sort my sock drawer, my elastic band collection, and that paint i have just noticed that just will not dry without the aid of an observer.
so, im sure you can hardly contain your excitement to discover my hot picks for this year...and im also sure you can understand how hard it has been to select from such an array of loveyliscious, thesbtastic phantasmagoria...but here it is. the best of the fest.
1. come heckle christ. ever felt the need to shout at the lord, well nows your chance as the australian comedian josh ladgrove dons a crown of thorns and mounts a cross for an hour. not long enough, i say!
2. blind hamlet. a hamlet with no actors, run by a visually impaired host. the audience is invited onto the stage to tell the story. one of the benefits of this show, and the previous one, in fact, according to the blurb, is that they only last an hour!
3. one man breaking bad. one man, one hour, all six seasons. featuring 'spookily accurate' impressions of walter white, saul and skyler. one for those who havent got round to watching it on netflix, or buying the box set.
4. simon munnery sings soren kierkegaard. the wonderfully weird simon munnery has previously hosted a 'conceptual restaurant' at the fringe (without food). in this years eccentric innovation he will perform writings by the existential danish philosopher to music, apparently.
and here are some of the best quotes so far...which is rich given that it starts tomorrow...but give me some slack...
german comedian paco erhard on his show 'worst. german. ever.'' the title derives from a berlin gig in which people walked out, and one woman shouted something to the effect that i was 'the worst german ever'. i thought that was funny because, lets just say, historically, i do have competition'.
igor meerson, one of the first russian stand-ups..'if a man stands on stage and says, 'hello my name is peter, my wife left me yesterday because im an alcoholic, and i drank all her perfume', in russia no one will know you are joking. they see a person with a problem and are ready to help, to advise, to drink it with you.'
lou sanders american comedienne. 'id like to talk about feminism and spirtualism and stuff, but i dont know if its my calling. i'll let someone else do it. i'll be the one singing a duet with a vagina on a stick. someone needs to do that too!'
and the question to the whole thing...WHY?
i was actually gonna do some rubbish about the scottish referendum, as i just got a pointless leaflet through my door explaining that, and i quote...
'if more people vote 'No' than 'yes' in the referendum , scotland would remain a part of the united kingdom.'
'if more people vote 'Yes' than 'No' in the referendum, scotland would become an independent country.'
therefore, as i dont want to insult your intelligence...instead, in the blink of an eye, and almost a quick as comic improvisation at the edinburgh festival, i have a totally amazeballs blog about the new words in the dictionary instead.
i hope you are ready for this...as im sure these will be tripping off your tongue on a daily basis before you can say douchebaggery!
here are my favourite neologs...mostly as they all apply to me...
1. BINGE-WATCHING. devouring whole seasons of tv shows in their entirety, often in a 24 hour period, because you just cant stop watching. this has been made possible by streaming (for those of us in the sensible countries who have broadband) and boxsets (for those who arent). and on a similar theme...
2. HATE-WATCHING. turning on a programme purely for the pleasure derived from scorn, criticising or mocking everyone and thing in it.
3. SIDE-EYE. a facial expresson displaying ones distain, annoyance or scorn for another person. (otherwise known as 'the cynical eyebrow' for those of us facially dextrous enough to be able, not only to lift, but to lower! yeah, i know, lucksters or what!)
4. LISTICLE. an article, especially on the internet, presented in the form of a numbered list. do i love listicles or what?
5. HUMBLEBRAG. a social media or blog entry subtly letting readers know how fantastic your life is whilst undercutting your rant about your, for example, off the top of my head, holiday to colombia with feined self-effacing humour.
6. HENCH. a man who has enough leisure time to spend hours in the gym working on his upper body, but, sadly, omitting any kind of leg exercise.
7. HOTMESS. a person, usually a woman, who maintains an undeniable attractiveness or beauty even in a state of stress or dissaray. (usually found in horror movies, or roses bedroom).
8. MANSPLAIN. the art of delighting in condescending, inaccurate explanations delivered with a rock-solid confidence of rightness and slimy certainty..ie, a man in a conversation with a woman.
9. CLICKBAIT. internet content, especially of a sensational of prevocative nature whose main purpose is to draw visitors to a web page.
and finally
10. DOX. to search for and publish on the internet, information about a person with malicious intent.
and while i was looking this rubbish up, i also found a word i think is fantastic..
DOXASTIC. relating to an individuals beliefs.
another one is
KAS...small town on the southern turkish coast, just above cyprus, 2 hours from dalaman airport.
it's about 6am, and I'm on the balcony of our swanky apartment wearing nothing more than a t-shirt. For the first time on our stay here, I was woken by the call to prayer, and decided to si out to listen to the silence, and watch the sun come up over the turquoise sea. All I can hear is the lap of the waves, and the woowoo woo of those doves that follow Bill around the world. Before we came back here, we were all really disappointed because our quirky wee apartment in the middle of town has been changed into, what we have now discovered is an Italian ice cream cafe, at which very few people actually sit, but not now....I can tell you.
our New kas home is so much superior, the view is just beautiful, the beds are much cushier and, of course, Bill can get up whenever he wants, cross the street in nothing more than swimmers and goggles and take one of the many wee paths down to the sea. He doesn't even need to wear shoes! I think it is close to his idea of heaven.
it is also close to mine...We lie on cushions in the sun all day, dip in the amazing blue, clear water full of fish and turtles if we get too hot, eat ice cream from the omnipresent vendors, back here for a quick shower around sundown, and then have a very leisurely, healthy and, more often than not, totally delicious dinner in any one of the plethora of brilliant restaurants, of which last night we discovered an entire street that we didn't even know was there. Then, if we are not too worn out from this hectic schedule, we have a nightcap or two in our favourite bar, which not only plays blues music not too loud, and has a barman who is very attentive but doesn't want to be your best mate, but also, as, in fact, is the same as every where else here....Just stays open till everyone goes home.
and yesterday we went to Greece for lunch! Ate Greek salad and moussaka washed down with Greek beer, and still had enough money left for an ice cream on the way home from the ferry.
We are just having the best time...And our tans are coming along a treat!
Rose has just come out with coffee...write more later....
just woken up in the sun on bean bags. The sky is azure, the sea, which I can hear splooshing against the rocks, Is turquoise. I am Brown, the beer is golden, the sun is bright yellow, the cheese salad I had for lunch was deliciously green, red and white. At this moment the world is rose tinted. There are silver spangles on the waves, a gorgeous cool blue sea breeze and I can see Billy doing his lazy-arm crawl in the stunningly blue sea. Pharrell is playing "happy" on the beach speakers...it doesn't get much better...I'm in the sound of the wind and am polishing the pebbles!
when the clash posed this question in a lame song from the 80s they, presumably, had no idea of how enormous this decision to split up one of the worlds weirdest historical expedients would be. a nation comprised of 2 countries, a principality and a province united under, and by a single monarch...oh, that king billy, what a guy...but more about him later.
derek, your message was timely, as i took my camera to work with me today, so that i could record what, for me, is one of the most exciting weeks in politics in my life. hell, even the day thatcher resigned wasnt as thrilling as this, though i do still remember painting a blackboard in oddbins which said 'thatcher resigns..7 for 6 on champagne' only to get a message from head office telling us that on no account were we allowed to allude this in any way. dang.
anyway...here is how it is...we are split, and it is just too close to call which makes it so much more exciting...
my shop is something of a microcosm of scotland...there are 13 of us...4 of us are 50s, one mid 30s, 2 just about to be 30, 4 early 20s and 2 under 20.
there are 4 definite yes votes...3 in the old group and 1 in the early 20s.
2 total naes...(tory voters) one 50 the other 18.
the others undecided despite knowing it was going to happen for 2 years.
and, strangest of all, one not even bothering to register to vote as it doesnt really interest her! WHAT CAN I SAY!
and today we had a huge orange march through the centre of town! strangely 'the orange order' was in the top 3 things trending on yahoo when i entered the virtual world, can i tell you why...because young people do not even know what it is, they dont know about the formation of the uk, they dont know who william of orange was, they dont know about the plantations of ulster, and they dont even understand the word 'unionist', hell, they dont know shit. but, whilst i deplore their ignorance about their own country..i applaud their lack of historical hatred. when i said to my 3 20s staff, working this afternoon, about sectarianism, i realised they didnt even know what that was.
tell me that i was generalising when i described the orange order as short, ugly, shaven-headed men with sashes round their necks, cheap suits and hatchet mouths, probably with horrendous tattoos featuring dates, slogans like 'never forget' or union flags, who just look like thugs and shout a lot. i was just telling jenni (18) about this in totally tolerant and unbigoted terms, and she had just said, 'i dont know anything about them, and have never seen such people' (i paraphrase) when who should walk into my shop...ha! 6 so obvious orangemen to whom all the above applies, i may as well have been the director of a film that had on the board 'entering the greggs shop while rolling up the sashes'. i said to jenni...they were orangemen...she said 'how can you tell?'
perhaps there is no hope in independence after all!
THIS IS WITHOUT A DOUBT ONE OF THE MOST THRILLING POLITICAL WEEKS OF MY LIFE. WHEN I WALKED HOME FROM WORK TODAY, THERE WERE ABOUT 500 PEOPLE ON THE MEADOWS, ALL COVERED IN SALTIRES, YES BADGES AND BLUE AND WHITE. THERE WERE FAMILIES, STUDENTS, GREEN SUPPORTERS, TOURISTS TAKING PHOTOS, PEOPLE WITH FLAGS (NOT THAT IM A FLAG LOVER, YOU UNDERSTAND), THERE WAS A HUGE BUZZ...IT ACTUALLY FELT LIKE IT MIGHT REALLY HAPPEN!
WHEN THE REFERENDUM WAS CALLED TWO YEARS AGO, THE NO CAMPAIGN WAS 10 POINTS AHEAD...NOW IT IS JUST TOO CLOSE TO CALL, AND WE WILL JUST HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL FRIDAY AT AROUND 6AM...I WILL PROBABLY BE ONE OF THE FIRST TO KNOW, AS I GET UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT TO GO TO WORK...MIGHT EVEN GET UP EARLIER THAN NORMAL THOUGH DOUBT THE VOTE WILL BE IN AT 4.45.....HELL, EVEN IN TOMORROWLAND IN AUSTRALIA, WHERE EVERYTHING HAPPENS FIRST, YOU WILL NOT KNOW BEFORE ME, AND HAVE TO WAIT TILL YESTERDAY!
IM STILL RESIGNED TO A NO VOTE, EVEN LONG TIME SNP SUPPORTERS ARE VOTING NO....WHY I HAVE NO IDEA, BUT ITS VERY SCOTTISH. THEY HAVE WANTED THIS FOR THE WHOLE OF THEIR LIVES, BUT NOW ITS HERE, THEY ARE CHICKENING OUT...COWARDS I CALL THEM!
ANYWAY, IF ITS A YES, AND I FIND OUT BEFORE I GO TO WORK....I WILL BE SHOUTING WALKING THROUGH THE DESERTED STREETS AT 6AM....'ITS YES, ITS YES, ITS YES!' AT THAT TIME I KNOW EVERYONE WILL HEAR FROM THEIR BEDS, AS THERE IS NO OTHER NOISE....
THEY WILL WAKE UP TO FIND OUT THAT WE ARE AN INDEPENDENT COUNTRY...MAYBE....
IF THAT ISNT EXCITING, I JUST DONT KNOW WHAT IS.....
ok...i have voted...and decided at the last moment, that i didnt want to break up the union, that we are better together, that change is just too dangerous, and that i had to vote 'no' for the sake of future generations who would not get to grow up knowing the true meaning of the sharing, caring ways of being in a union, and would never get to hold in their hands that bastion of all things glorious...the british passport!
DID I FUCK! I JUST COULD NOT GET MY X INTO THE 'YES' BOX FAST ENOUGH, AND HAD THEY OFFERED ME ANOTHER VOTE FOR £10 I WOULD HAVE TAKEN IT.
and not, you understand, because i believe that this would alter the vote, purely for the pleasure and excitement of getting to put an x into the yes box all over again, as it just went too fast the first time. i dont think i have ever enjoyed exercising enfranchisement so much, and felt like lighting a cigarette afterwards and snuggling up..though, in fact, what i did was go to the gym instead! some people just have all the fun!
anyway...its all now in the lap of the gods..or at least in the hands of the scottish people which would most likely be in gods pockets rather than his lap..whatever..now we wait and see.
and binni..i will not be tucked up in bed on this momentous morning, let me tells ya. the polls close at 10pm, but the results wont start coming in till about 3am. edinburgh and glasgow, at 20% of the population probably wont be declared until around 5am, my normal rising time. however, as it is one of the most important days in our history, i thought it warranted getting up a little early, so im planning an early night, (though there are pubs here with all night licences tonight) and getting up around 4.30am so that i can check the internet. if it is really, really close and they have to count all the areas, it probably wont be fully declared until around 6am...in which case i will find out when i get to work around 6.10..so, despite being in tomorrow already, you will not know before me, here in yesterday, as it is one of the very few times in which our lives will run concurrently and we will both be in today. though, of course, thats tomorrow, which you are already in.
so there we have it....
and can i just ask those of you who read this tosh but are not eligible to vote on geographical grounds, as anyone who lives here is able to vote, regardless of nationality....what would you have voted had you had the chance?
now i know that there are those amongst the zillions of eager readers of this blog, who were not in the yes camp...but, presumably that is because you live in an independent country...and honestly, what country votes against its own independence? well, we are in great company, apparently, as aruba voted no, and interestingly i read a thing that greenland did, though it must have been so last century, as greenland has been on its own for bloody years. so there you have it...us and aruba, perhaps we should start a non-freedom games, or at least a golf tournament, overseen by westminster to celebrate our momentous, and, frankly, astounding, decision, not to take responsibility for ourselves, and our own shit, but to continue moaning on about someone else doing it for us, like a spoilt child. oh, no, not for us to decide our own future, make our own future, tread our own path, make our own mistakes....no...lets just keep on with what has been happening for the last 300 years...blaming someone else for everything that goes wrong...god, we are just such losers! no wonder alex salmond is resigning...who can blame him, and who would want to represent such a nation of wankers!
this week should have been one of the most exciting in our history...instead it is dull as ditchwater, and we are back to doing what we do best. moaning and being miserable.
im so through with scotland, and will take the first opportunity to leave.
in the words of taylor swift...we are never ever ever, like, getting back together.
and, no we are not talking about the referendum...
it is gareth's birthday today...AND HE IS 60!
FMD!
just about to go out for dinner....maybe they do an oap discount! ha!
so here we are already in october..and i was hardly even finished with august! what happens to all the time, as we plunge headlong into middle, and then, old age....ive asked bill, but all he can say is that he feels that he is 47 not almost 81, and on gareths 60th every so often he would break into a 'HA!' at the stupidity of the number he has attained...and i also have a ha....as i just wrote a giant blog entry...saved it all the way...and then clicked on the diary editor...fucking deleted the whole thang! fmd...all that humour, all that effort, all that nobel prize winning writing just lost in a second like the buddhas of bamian. was going to equate it to the burning of the library of alexandria...but i expect that took longer, and quite so obviously didnt make anyone want to throw their laptop out of the window...no anachronism intended!
so it was all about bridges...did anyone know that there is another bridge over the forth being built...blah blah...im sorry....had a lie in till 06.30 (who would ever have thought i would write that statement!), and the meeting today was in north queensferry, so all i could think was....bloody hell, i will be able to see the progess....and i did, but also lost my entire blog entry...my internet is being a bitch right now....
ok...i understand, you might not want to sit through an entire, bonkers, strange, vaguely-horror, but reminded me of the third policeman, film. it has every french film cliche known to mankind...except bicycle wheels running down the middle of a road, and women commiting suicide in a storm, because they are so happy. it has sex, nudity, s and m, repetative eye shots, people not saying what they are thinking while making coffee, reapeated drinking to excess, and people calling the police to search for 'a man with a beard' or 'a brunette woman who always wears red'...you know, as does happen in real life.
but, love it or hate it, watch it or dont, one of the most fantatic things about it is the sumptious, art noueau building...amazing staircases, stained glass, windows, balustrades, wallpaper, murals..just totally jaw-droppingly fab!
so...today, after staying up all night talking to people in america and australia...i spent a couple of hours trying to find out where this building was. and whodathought.....its in belgium!
now, dont know about you, but when i think of belgium, it mainly about beer, lace, chocolate and the headquarters of the european union. dont get me wrong, i think belgium is a really lovely little country, the first place i ever got chips with mayonnaise, had beer that was as strong as wine, and smelt stinky canals. but...we are all totally underestimating belgium. at the turn of the, well i was gonna say last, but, scarily it was the one before, centrury, belgium was a hotbed of design.! and most notable amongst the many artists there at that time was victor horta! and i have to ask the question...how come none of us has heard of horta? we all know gaudi...how has this belgian been obliterated from the history or art and architecture when he designed, nay, built, the most fantastic staircases known to mankind, and not only made the blue-prints for the buildings, but also designed everything else that should go inside...chairs, beds, fireplaces, lamps, you name it, he did it.
this is the power of the internet....you watch a film, you see something fantastical in that, you google it, it takes a bit of sifting, you come across something stunning that you just didnt expect. and you learn about a whole life of creation that you didnt even know existed.
google horta...and then just look at the tab that says 'more examples'. he is sublime.....
an a different note, i feel sublime right now...monday, no work, as i did the sabbath, and wine, fags and talking with all your mates...who could want for more....
Hell y'all..fucking love Carolina, despite the fact that it is raining right now like a Scottish monsoon, and getting here was one of the most stressful travel experiences of my life. Had to run around the airport like a fucking dervish...but it all worked out so serendipitously despite my flight to Paris being an hour late....that I arrived into Raleigh after a flight from London, in which I had three seats to myself, so could lie down and sleep like a baby, three hours earlier than my booked flight. Fucking dancer! Have been to the hunt library whi an d just ch seems to me something thought up in the past as a vision of the future...but, Bill, didn't have lunch with Susan as she was too ill.'so had lunch on our own...walked around down town, such as it is,, and went to the landmark bar stayed there
sorry haven't been in touch...but here at the airport just before we leave is the first time there has been WiFi in haiti. .so much has happened in the last 3days, I just can't tell you...but here are some of the highlights. We toured a building site in 40 degree heat in flip flops, we travelled over what are undoubtedly the worst roads I have ever been on to eat the best lobster I've ever had in my life of a beach where we were the only people, we also went on said roads to another beach and went for a swim in torrential rain, we flew through a storm in a 20 seater put=put plane with 5 totally terrified business men, and most notably we went up a mountain on horses to la citidelle..I don't think the horse will ever recover, and I have bruises on the insides of my thighs, and my ankles from holding on for dear life. Have to also say that I lost my insect repellent an have the entire constellations of the night sky on my legs....I have never, ever been bitten so much. It's been really lovely to see Carol, and I have had such a fab time...but can't deny kinda looking forward to being back where I know the rules. Will write more from Eli,s have rum to drink now. A bientot.
just a quickie to let you all know that we made it back from Haiti in one piece, and much as I love travel, and being in exoticly different places, it was just wonderful to wake up where there's hot water, wifi, proper shower pressure, constant electricity, proper roads, wine, supermarkets groaning with food, and cheese! Will fill you in on our adventures later, and, boy, did we have some! But it's nice to be back.
that is just so apt a term for haiti. cap haitien has no tourist infrastructure...it has no postal service and no garbage pick up facility. it has one supermarket...and i use the term 'super' very loosely...the tiny tesco metro here has more food...though, im sure you will not be surprised to learn that the shop in cap has more alcohol for sale than any other item..and there are medical personnel in there in scrubs paying on visa!!! the only public tranport is the tap-tap...so called because when you want to get on, or off, you tap on the side with a coin...the equivalent of mutatus in kenya...and hitching on the back of a truck is the way to travel most of the time, standing up with 57 other people, goats, bananas, couches, bags of sugar and anything else one can get in there. one of the dangers on the paved roads, such as they are, is hitting a cow, or a goat...and we saw people in wheelchairs in the middle of the traffic chaos. i just dont know how they survive. it really was an experience...and of course, it is perfectly acceptable to be drinking beer when you are driving..as, along side cuba, and many third world countries, beer is not alcohol...it is a soft drink, and is cheaper than water.
fuck me dead! anyway...have also put on more photos of the chairs in the hunt....i know you love them gareth.
i have to also tell you that carol has hired the man who found her phone in the mud, and its the first job he has ever had...to say he is delighted is an understatement. and im going to send him money to send his son to school....everyone thinks im mad...but i want to do something...its a small thing...i wont even notice the cash from my account..but for them, it could be life changing. we are talking the same as two packs of cigarettes.....for education...i am just humbled by how little it can cost to change someones life. perhaps we should mention that to bono.....
ok...one might think that having been here twice before, i would be jaded by barcas charms..but not a fucking bit of it. for a start, rose was so excited by going inside the casa batllo that she burst into tears..and who can blame her. not only was there no queue, and we had the place pretty much to ourselves to the point we got this photo infront of the window, it was so quiet in there that you could almost imagine living there...in what is, quite simply, one of the most amazing houses in the world! and then...the christmas lights were on outside on the street, and we were on the roof..with only 2 other people...oh, halcyon, i can tell you. and rose...that would never happen in august..but, mm,,,,no doesnt really matter in december.
and then we went to sagrada familla...now...the first time i went here was 2002 and apart from the famous 4 towers it was a building site with not much else. when gareth and i went , perhaps around 2005...not really sure, though have found the photos of the partial roof, and the gaping windows...there were still 150 foot cranes inside without any real semblance of a cathedral, or anything.
now 10 years or so later...imagine my delight, dear reader, in walking into what is almost a finished cathedral, with well...you dont need me to tell you...i have just upploaded more photos than i have ever put on the blog at one time. and no wonder....i have to admit...i think this is one of the most amazing buildings in the world, and how they allowed it to carry on for 129 years i have no idea. rose said that it looks like fungi and pastry..and i agree..it is very organic, and if you fancy mushroom pie...i suggest you book the next flight to barca.
its also warm enough to sit outside during the day in december...with blue skies....god i love spain. and this is, in fact, northern......
ok....I may not be Laura Inglis, and have my memoirs published, hell I don't even have a dad that cries every day with tears of joy....but, actually I feel like doing so every morning waking up here in the big house on the paddock. My room has windows and mirrors for wall, so which ever way yo lie in bed you can see the trees, hear the bird song and watch the sun come up...at 5:30am....none of your stoopidly short day here matey! During the night the only sound that is likely to wake you is the milk truck coming from the dairy farms round about...And even the flies seem to be on vacation this year! It is just so wonderfully peaceful...waking up here makes me feel so happy inside, It is better than any other therapy I can think of for my stressed out brain and palpitating heart. If only they prescribed It on the nhs! Binni and Kim are, as usual, the world's most generous an indulgent hosts....an binni is so right.....I am totally spoilt! On th other hand I do have my chores...though painting, playing around with a caravan trailer or cutting wire hardly seems onerous....hell, I'd even shovel that 6 cubic meters of sand that were delivered this morning! Such is life in Australia!
Having the best time....an I think my shoulders might even have become detached from my ears!
Derek..lovely to hear from you....
and..btw....if anyone else I considering flying here...I so recommend paying the $20 to sit upstairs on the big Airbus. Bloody magic!
happy New year everyone from the land of tomorrow. It's fab!
and you just won't believe the onerous tasks I've been forced to undertake in my bondage here. Obviously I have had to cut fences with huge bolt-cutters (do you think I will be able to carry some of those home in my hand luggage?). Cut netting off blackberries and raspberries, put up a gazebo, and roll out a carpet. Then we had the task of opening and putting up binnis New toy....a silver trailer that opens out into an enormous tent complete with fold away kitchenette and a Queen size bed....a bit like a pop-up book, but not made of paper. Then there was the terrible drudgery of going to pick berries and plums, ostensibly to eat for breakfast....but then decided to make them into tropical cocktails that had so much rum in them we all were steaming after one....but still had another.
sorry to leave you so soon...but we have to go to the beach now....God life I tough in Australia.
well.....I've just woken up on Monday morning, while the rest of you lazy buggers are not even in bed on Sunday night, to see what I've been missing these three days past.....yes the giant yellow ball which has not appeared here since what I can only describe as the most amazing storm I've ever seen. It went on for 2hours...the rain was torrential, the lightning was downwards, upwards, horizontal, sheet all round us, and some of the thunder cracks were so loud, the Windows literally shook! After our electrified dinner, we turned out all th lights and went out onto the veranda to watch the show. It was probably the only hour since I arrived here that we were all reduced to silence! Amazing and fantastic, but all it has don since then is rain. Yesterday was the Sabbath, and due to the weather we had to forgo our churchgoing, hard chores, and improving walks. Instead we had to sit inside drinking wine, eating cheese an playing ps3....imagine my disappointment! An have to say that while it ha been rainy we have still been to several fantastic beaches, played around with the campa trailer and found time for me to get either a bite, or some kind of allergic reaction, we are not sure which, that swole up my left eye so badly it looked like I was the victim of domestic violence! What larks! Way to go. However this morning, and I would have to say that this is not normally the case on a Monday...it's a beautiful morning hallelujah!
enjoy your Sunday nigh in bed while us folks in tomorrow are already up an at it. You are all just so yesterday daddy-o!
for example, i got up at 7.15 this morning, my day off, to go to the doctors about my many mid-life crisis issues. we have 4 inches of snow! but that aside...was the first person there...had to wait for reception to open..but thought...hey...will be home in 30 mins. not a fucking chance! just as my name was called, the fire alarm went off!!!! luckily the fire station is just round the corner, not that i hang around there when i hear the bell you understand, so 2 fire engines turn up while we are all standing outside in the -4 morning! strangely, it was a false alarm..but it meant that we all had to brave the cold for 35 mins! so much for being the early bird!
so, here is how it is...walk in, talk normally, say i think im having horrible menopausal shite...and then, out of the blue, as if to compound the whole thing...burst into tears...still, it could have been worse...i could have started getting tetchy, swearing and disagreeing with everything he said! (dont you fucking tell me whats wrong...what do you know etc!).
anyway...he suggested lots of herbal remedies, though since he wasnt a woman (his words not mine) he couldnt recommend them...he also said that i could go onto prozac as a lot of women in our situation find it helps..or i could get progestrone again...he said that while my implant went out of date a year ago its possible that its only really kicking now, and maybe that is why im going so mad. he also checked my blood pressure which seems to me is going through the roof, and ive been having these heart flutters...and strangely, blood pressure is normal...heart did not twitch...but as usual, nothing ever does these thing when at the doctor!
anyway...i realise im becoming a menopause bore...but fuck me dead...i never even expected this to happen to me! what a pain in the arse that is. even eli said to me that i had been a little on the irritable side!
so lets move on....please....
derek....australia, or at least down on the south coast...cant possibly generalise about a place that takes 6 hours to fly over...gets plenty of rain in the summer...actually the winter is drier. they are almost going into a wet season, dry season thing...california actually has much bigger problems...binni and kim have so much rain just now they dont know what to do with it, and a lot of their 'drought resistant' native plants have died due to too much water. but you are right...as a whole australia has water issues....as does california...but can i tells ya somewhere that doesnt....scotland!
we have fantastic beaches...everywhere but it is so cold and windy...you can walk, ride, run...but you cant lie down in the sand, or you will get hypothermia!
and we have snow right now..cant fucking tell you how much i hate snow...
maybe i should be thinking of where my next holiday is going to be.....
and i just love these photos ive put on here of eli and i in haiti..eli is not someone who generally feels happy....but here, in this deluge, she was....i consider that one of my greatest achievements!
i dont know why these photos, take at barcelonas famous food market, just in raval on the other side of the ramblas (as if you had any sense at all, you would be staying in the barri gottic...that is the gothic quarter for those unilingualists amongst the zillions of my avid readers..) seem to me relevant, but they do. perhaps it is because i have had one of the most 'medical' weeks of my life, which included not just 2 doctors appointments, a minor procedure, getting puffs of air shot into my eyes, and lots of waiting, but also a hospital visit during which i had to sit topless with plastic pads stuck to my chest. what larks! anyway...here is the rundown..
got my last ever contraceptive implant removed (will never be given another because of my age), the doctor read out a heap of disclaimers, which i have to say were never mentioned when i got it, and the one before it, put in. and i got paper stitches on the cut which kinda made me laugh, as i cant deny, i had thought of just removing it myself with a stanley knife. strangely, i thought it best not to mention that to the doctor!
i got my eyes tested again...and my prescription has changed in a year...so kim you just cost me £50 by sensibly advising me to go. i now have 2 pairs of glasses..one for tv...one for reading. they are the same frames....kinda stoopid that when i think of it. anyway....the italian optician said to me...'my god that is a huge floater...look up, look down...god its huge...do you know to get rid of them you have to get two tubes inserted into your eye socket...one to suck out the fluid, and one to replace it...' right. well wasnt thinking of bothering...given i have had them all my life i know, once one goes, another just appears....so its fine, just give me the glasses.
and i got an egc as i have a twitch in my heart. all i can say is that i gave up smoking because of this, and it hasnt gone away...in fact its worse. i feel so stressed about this...but i dont know if the stress is causing the twitch...or the twitch is causing the stress. thought i would get the results today...but they werent back from the hospital. looking at the lambs hearts in the counter in barca...i feel a little annoyed with my own...i realise that it might be nothing..but sometimes it hurts, and it jolts me...and i just always thought i knew my own heart...now it seems i dont. how very very dare it!
and then...when i left the hospital...out at little france, which may as well be in real big france, for all i know of the geography...i got the bus, as one would expect, on the opposite side from the one that took me out there. but oh, no...wrong. started reading the paper so wasnt really paying attention...but when i did, realised the bus stops had become green. here..that can only mean one thing...you are in west lothian...dang. oh....ok...im going to dalkeith then...AND SO I DID. but luckily i asked another passenger...so i avoided gorebridge...phew! but do you know the most annoying thing....i was in and out of the hospital in 25 mins...it was a walk in...i have never had such a quick thang in a hospital..and i thought i would be home in 30 mins...ha!
and so...there it is. i was off work from friday till tuesday..i know i was off sick...but my god i did so little. i barely left the house. when i went to the hospital on tuesday...as i hadnt left the house since sunday night...i just could not believe how cold it was...never got warm all day....even in the hospital where it is tropical all the time. except in the smoking area...which i cant deny, as its outside...made me feel really good not having to bother standing out there being a pariah.
my feet are so rarely warm in the winter.
even with hot sweats....
feet seem to do their own thing.
jings, crivens and help ma boab, you will not believe the day ive had as a housewife. i know you will find this hard to believe, hell, i do, but i actually for the first time in so long i am ashamed to say, tidied my bedroom. not only can you now see the floor, shut the drawers and the wardrobe...i crawled in under my bed and hoovered, and pulled out the chest of drawers and cleaned behind it. now i am not going to regale you will tales of cobwebs or mould...though both were involved to extreme extents....this is what i found under my bed. a ghetto blaster that was so coated in dust, i was barely recognisable...and no wonder...i havent owned a cassette for around 6 years. 2 foldable chairs that i must have bought when i first moved in and have been there ever since...they still had woolworths tags! (woolworths went bankrupt in the uk around 5 years ago). 3 pairs of sandals i didnt even know i had. 2 pairs of slippers that were unrecognisable and went immediately into the bin, 2 odd socks, 3 open books, 2 paintings in frames that you couldnt even see what they were, my first laptop...couldnt believe how square and boxy it was, a bag of cables for what i dont know, an old printer, a bag of sheets for putting on the floor when painting, 2 pens and £1.25 in change! i threw out 5 bags of shite. i found a bottle of pomegranite salad dressing i bought in turkey for binni and kim which went out of date in april 2014!
then i moved on the the bathroom, where my toilet seat has been broken for an embarrasing (in that i havent fixed it way) since december...and binni and kim gave me the spare hinges that have been lying on my couch for 3 months. and, jeez, it only took me an hour...but thanks to my magic electric screwdriver (and if you dont have one of these, i suggest you but one on amazon immediately), done and dusted. so no more cold white porcelin for me...thank the lord..
so one of the whole things about this...i feel me again. after months of being someone i didnt particularly like, but could seem to stop being, i think im back to being me. thank god!
it was horrid nanny!
now...at this moment we all, all thousand of the people who read this, are going somewhere. binni and kim are first, naturally, as they live in tomorrow, and are going to borneo on sunday...then derek is going to new zealand, then bill is going to north carolina, then i am going to louisana, then rose and i are going to iceland, then bill and rose and i are going to turkey...then...and its a bit then, im sure im not the only one, but in november im going back to haiti with eli to meet up with carol. so i have travel and, especially change on my mind. and i dont want to sound like a buddhist...but isnt change what life is all about. there is no buddhist in the world who is out trying to 'find themselves' as they do not believe that there is a constant 'self', and that we change all the time so you are trying to find something that does not exist. trouble is, in the western world, we want to change ourselves when we are unhappy, but stay the same when we are on top of the world...and as every buddhist knows, life is not just about change, but also about suffering, and we have to learn how to deal with hell.
yeah yeah....we all know...but as someone who has just gone through really quite a horrible period of life, can i tell you.....of course i can, who can stop me...
good things in life.
1. going to the northen ballet doing romeo and juilette....amazing choriography, amazing dancing, mix of modern dancing and ballet....ive seen the bolshoi...this was better...i fell asleep seeing the bolshoi....no chance of that happening here...edge of seat with glasses on for the first time in my life...even the fabric on the clothes was brilliant. i put a review onto facebook....they thanked me for my 'lovely' comments and said they would pass them onto the dancers and staging crew. how great is that.
2. staying awake for more than 4 hours before having to get up again before dawn to go to work.....think ive mastered this one.
3. sleeping with a window open. even in march,,,,i just cant tell you....you could fry an egg on me right now...
4. all of you...
in the unlikely event that anyone reading this believes in reincarnation, my advice is - dont come back as a swan! i know we think that swans are noble, and vaguely admirable, as they pair bond for life, not to mention beautifully elegant but what we dont notice is what a horrible time swan teenagers have. i realise that they are, in fact, less than a year old, but in swan terms i think that counts as adolescent...and after the lovely safe time, poodling about on a pond for 9 months, with mummy and daddy watching your every move, and protecting you from people, dogs, seagulls and other swans....suddenly your mother is no longer interested, and your father upscales from finding you superfluous, then annoying, to, within 2 weeks, not letting you in the pond at all , and even, horror of parental behaviour horror...physically attacking you every time you try and get in the water. until eventually, bruised, abused and, no doubt, starving, you are forced to fly the nest (no pun intended) and find somewhere else to live with swan strangers! the other swan behaviour that we choose to ignore, is how bloody aggresive male swans are, and not just when they are protecting said cygnets
the pond that i get to see while i am a sweaty mess on a step machine, climbing 100 floors in 26 minutes used to have an old swan couple..obviously as they are white it was hard to realise how geriatric they were...but the male died of cancer..and they took the female off to the swan equivalent of sheltered housing, where she, no doubt, ended her days blind, incontinent, slumped in front of a television turned up full, and dribbling out the side of her beak. a new swan couple arrived...and the male is a total brute. not only does he attack his own children, he will have a go at dogs, seagulls and grebes, and even people. during the school holidays there used to be a kayak school for kids on the pond...no longer. not only is he driving off his own children, he has forced the human ones to leave too! so its true...the penn is mightier than the sword! (sorry, just couldnt resist!)
so enough swan-talk.
here are some of the other strange things i have noticed recently....
when i walked to work on wednesday, and indeed they were still there today, i noticed a pair of mens trainers lying in the gutter on the other side of the road. then 10 mins later, on the meadows, there were a pair of workboots standing together. when i walked home from bills yesterday, there were another pair of trainers lying on a wall, and this morning on the meadows...the workboots had gone, but there was one solitary walking boot lying on its side.
now, i am no stranger to abandoned shoes...see the one high heel left every saturday night, presumably by a woman who has been dancing round said shoes, and then has fallen, face first into a taxi to take her back to wester hailes, at 3.30am, with shoes in her hand, one of which has cascaded into the gutter, and in her haze, has been unnoticed....
but men are rarely so careless with footwear...when i worked in the charity shop, people, actually generally women, asked me why we didnt have more mens shoes...well, let me tell you...that is because men actually wear shoes till they fall apart...they dont buy a pair of manolo blaniks for $400...wear them once, realise that they hurt, and you cant walk in them, keep them under their bed in the original box for 3 years, then sell them on ebay to another woman who will do the same! how strange are women?
and on the same theme....has anyone noticed how trees can just burst out with leaves in a day. we had 3 really beautiful days this week, well, until it horizonally snowed on friday, but during those days...honestly...when i walked to work in the morning, there were no leaves...and when i walked home, a mere 13 hours later...there were on many of the young trees. what a difference the sun makes.
and what a differnce glasses make...after living for years with what i thought was ok sight, i have just realised that i am blind as a bat! cant tell you what a boon they are, even if i do forget that i need them frequently, its too new!
AND CAN I ESPECIALLY TELL YOU HOW MUCH IM JUST SO GLAD, GLAD, GLAD THAT I DONT SMOKE! i dont know how this has happened after so long, and i dont care if anyone else does, but i rejoice every day that i dont have to bother with fags. not to mention the fact that i have saved £900!!!! bloody dancer!
i have just doubled my dose of prozac...perhaps that is why everything seems ok,. when i asked the doctor if it was ok to do that she asked me when i realised that i wasnt coping so well...when the clock went forward, was my reply. the doctor said 'mm..well, what difference does that make..' hark her..so fucking obviously the person who doesnt get up at 5am. trust me...us early people, we understand how hellish it is when the clocks go forward...it takes 3 weeks for it to even out to light again...after 8 months of darkness..we so need light...
i am just so tired of darkness....
and then someone said...'let there be light'....
who was that...
ok...the leaves are appearing, we can actually see the sun, and i have actually cleaned my living room window, so can see out to the bright, sunny april day that we have today. hallelulah! being able to see out is a bit of a novelty...not only because it has been dark for 8 months...but because my windows were so filthy you could barely see through them. i know that you cant see him...but let me tell you, i have a solar powered pope francis...and god, is he waving!
and no wonder...on tuesday, for the first time since august, it was light when i got up! can i tell you how bloody magic that is...that and the blossom which has just appeared everywhere....oh, happy happy joy joy! now all i need are some holidays...mm...wait a minute...yes, as usual, off around the planet with a huge slant to travelling west..actually going to the states 3 times this year, and iceland...so turkey is the only eastern trip in 2015. but what a plethora of experiences i have planned for myself. funny how talking your friends into going to haiti can grow organically into meeting up for new year in las vegas, and staying in a navaho hogan in the middle of the utah desert near monument valley...but there it is. i wont even mention the view suite i have booked at the venetian with the sunken living room, and roman style bath.! the hilarious thing is that when i booked it...the website kept telling me that i had better book now, or the hotel might sell out! i mean..what are the chances...the venetian is the biggest hotel in the world, has over 4000 rooms, and we are staying on the 13th and 14th january...hardly peak season! its going to be a great year....
and here are some of the things i have learned in 2015.
smoking is so stupidly expensive that it costs as much in a month as a night in a queen view suite in the venetian hotel las vegas.
when you try to make your life easier, and less tiring by applying for a quieter shop that isnt open on sundays, and closes at 5.30....instead your sales manager talks you into applying for a brand new shop that isnt even open yet, which will be much harder work, open every sunday, boxingday, perhaps the 2nd of january and till 8pm on thursday night., on the other hand...its in princes mall with doesnt open till 9am...maybe i will be able to avoid 5am rises...maybe...
a double dose of prozac makes you need to vacate your bowels within 30 minutes...so probably, without giving you tmi, best not to take them 15 minutes before leaving the house when you have a 25 min walk over the meadows. the horror...the horror..
scientists have discovered that its not lack of exercise that make a person obese...but bad diet. well, 50/50 chance...but, as someone who pedals pastry products, can i just say that that is no surprise to me. do you know how many customers i have that buy a sausage roll, and a cake for their kids lunch, and then get mad with them because they want to eat the cake first. the parent will then say 'no, jayden, dylan, kylie or khalisi, you dont get the cake until your have eaten the sausage roll'...like that is the healthy thing!
and hellishly, did you all hear that 400 people drowned in the med on a boat from libya. the eu really has to do something about this...over 1000 have died this year, and its only april., talk about tragic....though, funnily enough, the captian of said boat did not go down with the ship, but survived to be charged with manslaughter. and just like with drug trafficing...he is not the person making all the money.
and, yes, derek...binni and kim saw oranutangs!
yes...walked home from work, on the sabbath, only to be bombarded with hail stones...i expect those amongst us who live in more temperate climes, have never experienced the total joy of horizonal hail...lets me tells ya...hail in the eyes hurts! perhaps it is one of gods little jokes, like nasal hair, but whatever...you do not expect it at the end of april when the blossom is coming out on the meadows. then, when i had braved the hail, come home, sat down and tried, in vain, to do the saturday independent crossword, i had to go up to bills, as he, selfishly, makes me go all the way up there so he can cook my dinner and make me watch aiden turner in poldark, IT SNOWED! huge flakes of snow! now prince has a song called 'sometimes it snows in april', an allegory for the fact that life can be pretty shite...and i know he grew up in minneapolis, where it snows like buggery...but i dont think anyone expects snow on the 26th of april...hell, it is almost may! and almost time for me to go to nawlans....yee ha! i am just so excited about my travel year, it almost makes me forget that i have to get up at 5am, work 13 hours a day and on the sabbath to get said holidays!
and on a holiday theme...i took an extra 2 days last year, well, actually this year, when i went to binni and kim's, but it was last years holiday year that ends in march. thought they would have deducted 2 days pay for that...but, hallelulah, they didnt. so i have the same again this year...as it appears im spending new year in a panoramic apartment overlooking las vegas, oh, how holidays just grow, like fungus...and while i can, and will work bank holidays to get time in lieu...i wonder if i can get away with it 2 years in a row! is that naughty?
so i have my appraisal tomorrow...or as it is called in greggs bsm....brilliant shop manager! now...think i have said that i applied for a teensy weensy city centre shop to have an easier life..its not open on sundays, closes at 5pm, and is only busy at lunch time..and instead was nominated for a new shop, which is not open yet , in princes mall...or as it used to be called...the waverly market. talk about hoist with ones own petard! anyway...for me to be nominated, which i already have been by my sales manager, i have to be a gold in bsm...at the moment, im two points short. have been stressing about this like mad..or at least as much as i stress about anything with that double dose of prozac, but, lets face it...if im getting nominated, im also getting gold. if justi can explain how fluoxetine makes me feel...it is just calm. and thank god...as work is a total head-fuck. cant tell you how many managers of my age, or older have taken demotion recently....who would ever think that working in a bakers could be so demanding.
here is a list of the other things...
the bully male swan has left the pond....the girls have also gone...so the mum is all alone there...
i have not seen anymore male shoes on the streets...but have noticed 3 abandoned gloves lying on the meadows.
it is now light when i leave the house....ya fucking dancer.
in the uk greggs now sells more coffee than starbucks or costa.
i have started doing a new machine in the gym that is so hard on my glutes, that sometimes i can hardly walk after it.
on thursday, after above gym session, bill and i sat outside and ate lunch...then i fell asleep in the sun.
on saturday it hailed...on sunday it snowed.
just a normal week in edinburgh then....
ok...its gonna be a rant..so gird your lions!
at the moment eli has a peno1..that is plastic. did you know that every piece of plastic that has ever been made is still here! it doesnt go away, and every person in the world, short of native people in the amazon have the chemicals that make it inside them. so does every creature that exists in the ocean...as we have not only gone to land-fill, we are also filling the sea! but that is not my most hated!
my public enemy no 1 is something that we all dont think is as dangerous, or hurtful, it is not heroin, tobacco or alcohol, but it is just as addictive, our bodies cant process it, and to all intents and purposes, it is a poison! and one that is in the future going to cost our healthcare systems more than the affects of any of the above, if it is not already, as it also affects children! and having escaped the paraiah status of pedalling alcohol...i now sell this instead..it rots your teeth, it gives you spots, and because our bodies cant cope with it, it makes you fat, and causes diabetes..
yes...public enemy no 1 is PROCESSED SUGAR!
in 1977 there were no recorded cases of type 2 diabetes in children in the US. today there are half a million kids with something that should only affect adults. in 1977 there was no such thing as childhood obesity...today 2 out of every 3 american children is obese. we have all discussed this...when we were in primary school, there was, perhaps, one fat person, but, lets face it, they might have been a bit porky, but not morbidly obese! i knew one girl with diabetes who had to bring her own sandwiches to parties. in secondary school there was a girl with seliacs. but, in the 70s we actually cooked, we didnt eat processed food. nor did we drink coke. i didnt even taste coke till i was in my teens...and to be honest...the other drink that is just the work of the devil is orange juice...which actually, if this is possible, has more sugar than coke!
the us food lobby countered claims that they were selling addictive, unhealthy and fattening food but creating the whole 'low fat' sector. but, unlike processed sugar, we need fat...it is part of our rda..and actually children need as much as adults...fat is just not the problem. food without fat tastes bland...so how did the industry counter this...go on, guess...yes, they added processed sugar. breakfast cereals, granola bars, orange juice, organic whole grain muffins, baked beans...we see these things as healthy...but they are so full of sugar, corn syrup, frutctose, glucose, natural sweetners, you name it...they are bogus!
one of the most bizzare things about being in haiti that eli and i spoke about is that everyone is porky. it is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, and akin to africa in its daily wage. but people are not fat in africa...but they are in haiti..why...because they do not have access to water, so they give their kids drinks with...yes...you guessed it...processed sugar.
for the planet, plastic is the problem.
for the people, it is processed sugar.
both are as bad as each other....
i dont even know what the answer is....but i do know the question. bill and anna, the modern 70s parents....were we allowed chocolate, sweet drinks, cakes?
NO!
I call it norlins...let's call the whole thing off! Nah.....let's not, I've just woken up here..And ok, it is not beautiful blue sky, due to the tropical storms that made the flight here so bumpy..but it's 07:30 and I'm sitting out side in my Brazilian t-shirt dress with the big flowers on it. They have hosed down the street with what looked like washing up liquid.....and now all the Orange school buses are going by. There are joggers, dog walkers, and a few people doing the walk of shame......business as usual on a Wednesday morning though I believe we are not in.Scotland anymore Toto!
really loved it, but so dont want to live there.
reasons i loved it
1. music everywhere
2. great food and drink
3. lovely architecture...even if 'the french quarter' is a misdenomer.
4. lovely people...who called you 'sweetie' 'gorgeous' or 'love'...im thinking of adopting an endearment for work!
5. paddle steamer jazz cruise...bloody magic.
6. bill loved bourbon street...and picture this...octogenerian bill and his two 50 something daughters having that so nola thang...dirnks to go...so walked around with beer in our hands.
reasons i hated it.
1. racism. it was huge.
2. the humidity....fmd...
3. skeeters.
4. destruction after katrina...dont even know what to say...
5. storms...and not even hurricane season...
6. mint julep...dont like it...but its better than dr pepper...
its not havana...or kas...but i really liked it. dont think i will go again, but really glad i saw it.
no...not an island in the south pacific....new orleans lousiana...and i have decided that that last blog entry was far too short...so here is mora bouta nola! it hot and humid as hell....and this is may...i just cant even imagine what it is like in august.
there are so, so many obese people, i felt pretty slim!
there are huge, oldster, coach parties....bill seemed young by comparison...but then again, he has his daughters to keep him on his toes. bill loved walking down bourbon street, with that, oh-so-nola-thang, drinks to go, which we got from the old smiddy, which, while the blurb says it has no electricity, eli and i noticed a plug in the wall for the juke box. there is lots of wrought iron in frilly balconies in what is called the french quarter...but all the french building burnt down, and what is here now is spanish. apart from the smiddy. there are voodoo tat shops, boutique shoe shops, lots of expensive art, bars with 'drinks to go' everywhere, gas lamps, beads everywhere from mardi-gras, masks that look venetian to me, also from mardigras, 'praline' tastings which you, in fact, could spend the whole day doing from shop to shop...they are not pralines...they are just chocolates. beignets...deep-fried chou pastry which is like a donut onto which you have to pour your own icing sugar, muffulettas..an entire loaf of bread made into a sandwich with around 10 layers....though, unlike some american sandwiches...i could actually fit it into my mouth without taking anything out. hallelulah! lake pontchartrain...its not a lake, but it does have the longest land crossing in the world...id call it a bridge..but i really think its a causeway. buildings, areas, the ninth ward, land reaclaimed from the lake, that is way below sea level..it was all under water after katrina. nola used to be about the same size as edinburgh...after katrina the population halved...now it is about 300,000. it might not ever reach pre-hurricane levels. the thing i find so fascinating about the whole katrina thing, is that now they take tours there...before the hurricane no tourist would have gone to the ninth ward, kinda off limits, and most nolanders would never have known a thing about it either...but, hell they do now"!
bill and eli left on the saturday...and i was flying home on the sunday night. walked up and down royal, where i took most of these musician photos, ate the mufletta by the mississippi, bought pralines, bread, cheese and beer. went back to the hotel, packed up and left my luggage by the desk. went to the pool, swam all alone, poodled around, and fell asleep on a lounger. had booked a hotel by the airport, so asked the hotel for a taxi, while i waited outside. it did not come. got savaged by mozzies all round my ankles..before flagging down a cab with a haitian driver, to whom i said..'so you are haitian, right', how do you know...was his reply...well, i just heard you speaking creole on your cell phone. 'you speak creole', 'well, of course not, or i would do that right now, but i knew you were'. i was the first non-haitian person who had ever recognized creole that he had had in his cab. so we spoke in french, and he admired my taste in bread, which i had bought from a french supermarket where he goes too. he helped me into the hotel in kenner with all my split carrier bags of food and drink.
slept like a baby, apart from all the ankle stratching...when i woke up, realised that the clock was electric, and was not switched on...spent around 30 mins trying to work out which us time zone i was in from the choices on cnn. then a maid knocked on the door, and told me i only had an hour left in the room. hallelulaha! so...packed, took my bags down to reception...still had 6 hours before my flight, and was a ten minute drive, in a free transport from reception to the airport...so asked if there was a bar round about i could go to. it was 11am. the opinionless woman on the desk waved me in a direction across the adjacent parking lot, so i girded my lions, and braved the outside temperature, which, in my 'flying home' clothes of long jeans and proper shoes, was like walking into a oven. after a while trying to locate a walk way, i reached what looked like a bar...but, when i went inside i just couldnt tell, as it was so dark after the sunbleached highway outside it took me a good 5 minutes to adjust my eyes.
but in the gloom, i eventually discerned around 20 tv screens all showing a different sport...or probably just different games of the same sport..a huge bar, around 50 tables, all kinds of sporting paraphenelia on the walls, 2 people behind the bar, on male one female, and not a single other patron. the female bartender was from georgia....the first thing she said to me was 'youre not from around here are you', to which i replied...'neither are you with that accent'.
i had $21 to my name, this being the day i left, so i put it on the bar. i said to the server, 'i have to leave at 1.30pm to go to the airport, this is all the money i have. please let me know which comes first....the money running out, or the time.' she asked me if i wanted her to change the channel on one of the many tvs, from sport to something else. i didnt really know what else there could be that would possibly interest me, so said no, it was ok. and got out my kindle. with my second beer she asked me if i wanted some lunch, like a burger or ribs...it was 11:30, so i just stuck to the beer. then i had another.
the server came over and said, 'did you just want to go to the airport at 1.30, or is that when your flight is...hope its the first'...so i got the bill...it came to $5!
when i got to the airport, strangely, went to another bar with my remaining $16, and got asked for id. i stood in amazement for several seconds, before the barman said 'you are on the airside, you must have your passport'. oh, yes, naturally.
eventually got to houston after a 2 hour delay due to a storm over the city, and the airport was like a disaster zone. every single flight had been delayed, there were people sleeping, blogging, playing cards, and drinking beer lying down in every corridor, the queue for customer services was, im guessing, at least an hour long, every bar restaurant, coffee shop and duty free was packed to the gunnels. im guessing it was a very successful day for houston airport shopping profits. luckily for me, not only was there a later flight to heathrow, where i was bound...i went to the desk in nola, before the flight even left to sort this out, so was not only bumped onto the later lhr flight, but ones to edinburgh that i had enough time to make through security.
it was fine...got home...but at 7pm instead of 1:30.
and working the next day!
btw...did not get the waverly job, but got forrest road instead. far less hassle.
reykjavik over the solstice..what can i say...it was illuminating! (pun intended!)
for some reason i had pictured the sun just staying in the same position all the time...but it doesnt do that. around 24:30 it goes down to the horizon, hovers there fully in sight for around 30 minutes, and then comes back up again. the really amazing thing about this is, as we actually had a blue sky with a touch of cloud, is that you get a totally fantastic red sunset followed swiftly by a hesperidian dawn, all in the space of an hour! just totally amazing! it wasnt until i was on the plane on the way home, when it got dark that i realised we hadnt seen night for 4 days..and, god i liked that! we didnt even close the curtains to sleep!
and the rest was just wonderful, from our quadbiking trip, on which we both gave up the driving and let men do it for us, the bikes were 2 person, really heavy steering, and we went up and down a mountain. we so made the right decision to become passengers....doing it on one person bikes on sand dunes in namibia just did not prepare me for volcanic vertical rubble paths in iceland, and neither of us could enjoy it because we were too busy driving...that thing neither of us do. however, when we became pasengers, it was just wonderful...fab scenery, icelandic ponies, snowy mountains, and while the steep paths were still a bit hairy, the guys knew exactly what they were doing and we both felt safe....strangely i did not feel safe when i was driving!
that was just brilliant....and then we climbed out of one suit...went for a really great lunch at the old harbour, and then climbed onto another vessel, and put on, what i can only describe as a space-suit with inside braces that was the warmest thing i have ever worn, but, god, what a nightmare going to the loo!
so, sadly, we did not see humpbacks breaching as we had hoped...but we did see minkie...my guess is, given that the bay round reykjavik is actually quite shallow, that you have to do a whole day trip going out into the deep ocean to see humpbacks...but we still had just such a great time as we both love boats...though cant deny, going down stairs backwards in a space-suit was quite challenging...i couldnt even bend my knees! how we did laugh!
and then the food was wonderful, there is a 24 hour supermarket 10 mins from our apartment, we found the vinbudin...thank the lord as we actually almost bought low alcohol beer, and the bars were open till 1am. we also, again ended up buying more icelandic knitwear! but this time we claimed the tax back at the airport as we worked out it was about £60! and sadly got hassled leaving as we had too many bags, had to stuff things into each other, put on 3 layers, and carry the rest as jackets..and then rose couldnt find her passport on the plane, and thought she had dropped it in the tunnel. that was kinda stressful, to say the least...but, thor was looking after us...and it was on the floor under the seat in front of her....hallelulah!
does anyone know what you do arriving in a country without a passport? would she have ended up like tom hanks in terminal? we will never know...the relief was palpable....at least until we got into the taxi queue in which we had to wait for 45 mins.
i didnt get home till 01:30 and was supposed to be working at 12:30 today, but i just called kevin and asked him to cover my shift, and ive taken it as lieu!
iceland over the solstice....it wears a girl out!
and she comes home smelling of sulphur...the water smells of it, the food is cooked in water that smells of it, the beer is brewed with water that smells of it, you shower in the water that smells of it, you drink that water.
iceland...its just mad as a jar of flies!
so here are a few things i have learnt recently while deliberately trying to avoid the news. i used to despair of people who didnt read the news..usually they were also people who didnt vote, and i could never understand them. but, god, i do now. i actually find what is happening in the world so upsetting, mad and bewildering that i now completely endorse the adage that 'no news is good news'. i cant read about the destruction of syria, the murder of 35 tourists in tunisia or the suicide bombers blowing up their own people in mosques in the middle east with no emotional response..it actually makes me feel a little like going to auchwit(sorry you will have to do without the last letter of the alphabet...for some reason it has totally stuck on my keyboard...i dont see how it can be through overuse....), injustice makes me bonkers...
so sorry for the things that i am going to speak about...things that dont matter.
and one is....the word cisexual! this has arrived in the oed this year...which is, in fact, the major indicator of a words popularity in the english speaking world. so...do you know what it means....presumably it is pronounced to rhyme with bisexual...but i would pronounce is sis-sexual! that is because i studied roman history...because, as im sure you might have guessed its latin. there used to be places in the ancient world called cisalpine gaul, and transalpine gaul, and cis is the opposite of trans. trans is the other...the far out, the different, the scarey over the mountain thing. cis is the safe, near, secure, usual. cisexuals are people for whom, ssothe sexuality noted on their passport is what they are, are conmfortable with, and its safe and easy. and i have to say I AM CISEXUAL! hallelulah! another safe and easy thing done and dusted...
a little like the verruca i used to have on the ball of my right foot (things like this always happen on the right side of my body) that for abut 2 years was the bane of my life...in istambul it almost brought me to tears..and, hate say this but i used to cut it out with a pair of scissors over and over till my foot bled....but it was such a relief when i cut it as there was a huge ball there, its funny how periferal things like teeth and feet can have such an impact...but they can, in fact, end up taking over your life with pain! ITS GONE...ALMOST DIDNT NOTICE WHEN...BUT HALLEFUCKINGLULAH! never ever get a verrua! they are the work of the devil!
have bingewatched the entire 5th season of game of thrones this week....except for the last episode.,i think cerci is going down....but not yet sure....as with many things, i dont want it to end!
in a poll of happiness recently, you know, as they do, taking holidays came out as the most 'happy-making' thing above owning a huge telly, a sports car, or a mansion in essex. who'd have thought. the thing with experiencing is that it can never be taken away....the mansion in essex could be re-possessed when they find out you have been diddling the vat for 25 years. though, luckily if you are rich as roosevelt you dont have to worry as the tory party is on your side, and presuambly has their investments in the same offshore bank as you!
so, so, so looking forward to my holidays this year....kas cant come fast enough, so looking forward to our mad, all emcompassing trip to haiti...and then....ha...hoggers...cant wait to see that in las vegas and do our desert road trip after. thelma louise and their sensible friend binni who will not let them get raped in a parking lot or robbed of all their money by a cute guy! my life is dull as ditch water in scotland...but, god, then i do things i never dreamed would do....how brilliant is it!
mmmm....very!
it was greggs staff that did that!!!!
a guy walks into a greggs shop...he picks up a sandwich and a bottle of dr pepper and then procedes to collapse on the floor and bleed from his mouth. two of the staff run round and put trousers out of their lockers under his head, and the manager calls the emergency services...the woman on the end of the 999 call is brilliant...she talks calmly to the manager asking things about the man on the floor. no one else is with him, no one knows his name, he is unconscious and he has stopped breathing. his lips turn purple...the manager informs the emergency phone help of this, and she advises putting him on his back...he coughs up blood, but starts breathing again...the manager has to tell the 999 help every time he takes a breath. now...now...now...colour returns to his face.
then he regains consciousness..and he is disorientated, crazy and cant even speak. the emergency service woman says dont let him stand up...and if he looses consciousness again dont try to revive him, or do anything...wait for the paramedics...he goes mad flailing about on the floor..the two women are not enough, and 2 workmen in for bacon rolls and coffees help to hold him down, thank god...he roars as 4 people are holding him down...every one of those people reassures the man on the floor...'its ok, an ambulance is coming..' he does not understand and keeps struggling..the woman from 999 says to the manager.....'you are all doing so well, just keep doing what you are doing'.
then sirens are heard....but there is a van parked right out side the greggs shop, so they have to park round the corner...all the time, the shop had customers coming in, some of whom just went pale and left.
eventually the ambulance men and women arrive, the man on the ground is still roaring, and freed from the 4 people restraining him, he tries to get up, but fails, and his head falls into the lap of one of the paramedics. he has no idea what is happening!
the manager thanks for 999 woman for talking her through it, as the ambulance men and women carry the man out. the two female greggs employees have to go and sit in the office as they are so shaken.
the assistant manager who has taken no part in any of this mops the blood off the floor!
ok...for those of you lucky people who do not live in edinburgh...im sure you have no idea that the world famous, biggest, best and most pretentious arts festival is about to begin on friday. the city is already crowded with advertising hoardings, fringe venues on every corner, and, best of all, southern english darlings called rupert, jasper, sarah and india spending their 3 month long vacation from their media studies 2nd year course putting on the most hilarious review in one of the few remaining phone boxes on west nicolson street, up a ladder in holyrood park, or in a toilet in tolcross. the fringe programme is almost 400 pages long, even without the venue guide..so give me time to digest it so that i can regale you with the most brilliantly hillarious shows that you just shouldnt miss.
so here is a taster...i just know you cant wait....
the iraq pack live from das vegas. singing dictators of dark cabaret. frank sanazi, sean stalin, saddami davis junior and osama bin crosby croon extreme renditions like mein way and third reich. 'comedy gold' evening
and
puddles pity party. with over 20 million views on youtube, the acclaimed puddles is a must-see for the music and unique comedic talents of one of the world's most famous clowns. 'an enthralling performance' adelaide advertiser.
so can any one name any of the other globally famous clowns...na..me neither...
watch this space...
and holy frijole..down-loaded my amazon cloud of photos...it is all over the place....hence the diversity...almost as much as at the fringe...ha fucking ha!
i could tell you lots of reasons why kas is so special, and has a special place in our hearts. its pretty, sweet, cheap and sunny with lovely people, and great food. you can walk round the whole town in a couple of hours, go shopping at midnight, have dinner at 2am, and bars will stay open till you bugger off, with no fisticuffs or arguing in the streets afterwards. it is on a beautiful bay, with turquoise water full of fish, which bill says in the best sea he has ever swum in, and its warm, clear and has no jellyfish. it has a kind of old-fashioned charm which makes me think of staying in the pension pavlos in tolon, the first time rose and i ever went away on our own back in 1986...and yet here i am writing my blog on one of our 4 balconies at almost midnight by bumping off someonelses wifi, that so didnt happen in 86!
we have always loved kas...but ha...can i just say that it has, this year, got even better, which didnt seem possible, but there you are...because we are staying in what is just not only the best apartment, im guessing, in the whole town, but without a doubt the best i have ever stayed in. it is simply wonderful. last year, we stayed in the building in front of this one...and bill looked up at the very balcony i am presently sitting on, and said...'thats where i want to stay...how good would that be?'
when i booked this, it looked like it might be that one, but how is a girl to know, but to cut a long story short...it is that very apartment we looked at from outside last year...but the great thing is, its just as good inside. we have 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs, another of each on this floor, fully fitted kitchen with everything you could need, except a plug for the sink, an enormous living room, really good ac in every room and best of all, 4 balconies...one off the living room which has a table for 6 which we have made full use of, one off each of the other bedrooms on the other side of the house...and a huge one off bills with has 2 tables, 4 chairs, 2 sunloungers and a barbeque right next to the roof. the views are just halcyon, and, cant deny, i have already spent a night outside, sleeping on one of the loungers looking at the stars..it was heaven!
so apart from hanging out on one of our many balconies, watching the sun come up, or go down, having dinner, either here, or in a couple of the very many great places to eat here, and frolicking in the clear, blue med, devoid of effluent, or rubbish...all i have done is lie about on cushions under parasols, drinking and eating. well, you know, when in turkey...why not have some delight!
and we have...everyday since we arrived...it really is narnia, but without that bitchy ice queen....
no snow here matey, nor even a drop of rain.
we are just having such a great time....
and, strangely, we are all brown as the proverbial berry.....
oh....kas, turquoise sea, whitewashed houses, lovely food lovely people and the best apartment we have ever stayed in. you dont need a watch there...the call to prayer 5 times a day, the boats going out, the boats coming back in, sun going down, sun coming up...regular as clockwork. everyone going for dinner at 9pm, having breakfast at 9am...the clink of cutlery on china...and us arriving at the asma6 at 10am...bill doing his swimmy routine (rash top on, with the help of a daughter, water in goggles, nose clips on...hopefully he will remember to remove his shorts, but hell, not always!...bill, you are still wearing your....oh whatever...he is running to the sea and nothing will stop him as he has made a deal with posidon which, i believe, might have included sacrificing his daughters. due to this pact, bill got the best bashy, wavy, windy swim ever....and obviously, posidon took one look at rose and i and decided not to bother, far too much trouble those women!
so luckily we do not have to live underwater..and were able instead to lie around on cushions like some sultanas in the harem of topkapi. and we just talked...all day, all evening, and sometimes even till way past our bedtime. it was magic...these days rose and i so rarely get the opportunity, our worlds collide because of work...and it was just really nice. obviously we also had to put up with bill, who was going to trade us to the god of the sea for a good swim, but, despite this, i cant deny, i kinda enjoyed his company, as did half of kas...everyone loves bill. on the plane on the way over a guy asked bill if he was that 'man who swims'..and when we went back to one of the restaurants we ate in last year you would have thought he was their long lost brother. one of the waiters even had a picture of bill and rose suspended on his phone...how we did laugh...but, god, how many 82 year old men are famous in a town in a different country?
we swam with a big turtle, we saw the moon rise, we had a hidden day, as rose had decided it was saturday..and we didnt find out it was only friday till 1pm...magic! and above all...i did nothing, nothing, nothing. and i loved it...
asked the people at hestia if the owners might think of selling....they said they might..and they are going to ask them.....
oh...if, what if, and if only....the 3 brothers of regret!
it has already been a year since we stupidly voted against our own freedom. and where. oh where, has that year gone? is it just me, or have we all just got unfeasably old!
when i tell my 20 something staff that one day they will wake up, look in the mirror, and realise in horror that they have become 50 without even noticing, they just dont believe me...but im sure most of the people reading this just, so, know what im talking about. i am closer to retirement than i am to my young staff, amazing as it may seem to me, and, in fact, i could retire in 7 years! scaree! the funniest thing is when my 19 year old staff ask me if i have kids...thinking of little toddlers scurrying about, and i have to remind them that if i did, they would, in fact, be old enough to be their (the 19 year olds) parents. how amusing is life!
very apparently....ok, the festival is over...but here are a few of the conversations i have heard recently...
student 1 to student 2...'if you were a piece of prose, you would be a monologue'.
student 2 to student 1...'oh no...i always imagined myself as a sililoquy'.
cyclist dressed up the the nines in cycling gear, with a cannondale resting against his groin, being filmed with tv cameras talking to bystanders....'so i want you to know, there is not a pair of socks hidden anywhere on my body'!
a man who has walked into greggs and asked for a sausage roll and a cup of tea....still with a full mouth and pastry crumbs all down his front when assistant turns round with the tea....'m divien get thav slasa mole'.
wendy p, the south african, gambling-obsessed, loud, obnoxious assistant manager-substitute ive been given while anne is on holiday and beth is covering home street...
'im so lucky...im going to win the lottery'.
mmmm...so lucky that you are plain as a board, loud as thunder, have one of the worlds most horrible accents and have never even managed to become a greggs manager...not to mention that gambling problem!
and finally an amazon review...,'its a confusing book for a lazy person, to be more precise, for someone who hasnt grown into the habit of sitting down with a serious book, but wants to boast about having read something!'.
fucking magic.
ok, i realise that now i'm doing this blog, my hall will be so full of get-well cards, good wishes, bouquets of roses and the worlds most delicious grapes that i will probably need a spade to reach the door, when my thousands of readers realise i am off work! its a risk im prepared to take, although, i expect the post man will not agree!
however..there it is. 2 days after i recovered from an annoying, but very shortlived cold, boasted to my staff that i never got ill, and had only once been written off work while working for greggs...well, someone slap me...i fell in the shower and smacked my side on the edge of the bath. result....i couldnt move for 3 days, felt like someone was stabbing me with hot daggers, couldnt bend, couldnt sleep properly...and, oh woe is me, the worst of all scenarios...i had to stay off work on the advice of a doctor!!!!
i did, however, manage to work my 6am to 3pm shift on tuesday...which annoyingly stretched till 4.30..because i had an 'investigation' into my comments to my staff which caused one of them to cite a 'grievance' against me, which was just wavering on calling me racist. when i tell you that the two women involved were lithuanian and white south african, neither of which culture is exactly known for its open-minded, liberal attitude to...well just about everything...you may understand my ironic amusement..but i cant deny...i did say to an irate customer who had just been told 'the pizza is cold...take it or leave it..!,' when he asked why she wouldnt admit that it was to do with tax..'well, she is south african...' fucking hush ma mouth! yes...idiotic, especially as she has already taken out 3 grievances before, and everyone told me to be careful. me and my stupidly big gob!
so came home after that...went to bed...got up to go to the doctor on wednesday...and pretty much, apart from bill and rose coming round for coffee, and me going up to bills last night so he could have the pleasure of cooking me denner, and doing the dishes after wards....i have been in bed more than you could possibly think a person could be! and this is not just because of the rib thang...though bloody hell that hurt, and continues to do so...no...lucky old me, i also got the hellish cold back...and this time it was all throaty...made me cough, which just hurts, and a lay in bed and sucked an entire pack of strepsils in a day! so now, on top of everything else, all my teeth will probably go rotten!
then there are the mice in my house which i havent had for ages, but are driving me mad scratching around at all times of the day...
and to top it all...when bill was helping me back to my flat with my bag, he stood on a giant rat! A FUCKING RAT! up the lane where i live!
someone just take me to haiti, will ya!
well...lets hope the fog in london fucks right off, or i will be going nowhere!
however...i think i am pretty much readyto fly to the caribbean with a huge bag of toothbrushes and torches, and next to nothing to wear as all i need is denim shorts and a couple of lycra tops, and coming home with hand luggage only.
meeting mel in london...and then we are meeting binni and kim in the impala hotel in miami. then we are meeting eli and mike at the airport in the morning and all going down to cap together. then we are meeting carol at cormier plage...and then louis is coming to meet us there too. lots and lots of meeting! cant wait.
im also a little bit self-satisfied because not only have i managed to get rid of every pile of mail lying around in my flat..on both ends of the couch, by the phone, next to the bookshelves, in bags under the couch etc....i have also cleaned, repaired the wonky toilet seat, watched 2 series of rupauls drag race, pinned around 500 things onto pinterest, read 3 books, thrown out around 8 bags of rubbish, downloaded a new version of skype, and, amazingly found time to get my hair cut into the style i have wanted for 2 years and dye it. god how busy can a girl be?
obviously having had to do all this, i havent had a second to answer all those 'get well soon' messages that have clogged up my hall for over a week now...so could all of you just stop sending them...its just getting tedious!
on a parting shot...here is my favourite quote of the moment..
i have always had empathy, and would try to imagine what it was like to walk in anyone's shoes. unless they are wearing crocks. then they can just fuck right off!
well....what can i say? our trip to haiti was just wonderful and im sorry to gush this early in a blog entry...but it just made me so happy to see so many of my friends from various parts of my life getting together and having such a good time. i really am so bloody lucky to have so many brilliant people in my life....you know who your are...and i dont know what i would do without you. for me, it was an absolute pleasure..and it all went so well, in a place where so many things could go wrong. and how we did laugh....
interesting facts about haiti....
i call it haiti...they call it ayiti...
the currency is gourdes...haitians call them goudes...as they do not pronounce arrrs. so it is mesi...not merci! bonswa not bon soir, and istwa...not histoire.
i just had an email from ralph from hoha, who we took all the donations to....he said...'the things you brought...we just cant find anything like this of this quality here...and that makes them priceless'! he also want to thank binni who made a donation, and he didnt know your name binni...so he asked me to pass on his delight. not to mention a receipt in case you want to claim back the tax. he has packaged our things up into parcels and has already taken 25 to needy families...that just makes me feel so good....
it is really beautiful...beaches and mountains to die for....it should be one of the wealthiest places in the world....they can grow anything in haiti....
it is the only country in the world that became a republic after a slave revolt...though it did have two kings for a while.
to gain independence it paid reperations to france until 1947 in lost revenue!!!
there is a phonemena called zoeboys....they are proud haitians who know their istwa and belive that they are the best black people in the world.
they sell rum called pango...its pineapple and mango...dang!
cormier plage is really heaven.
if you are well endowed in the chest area as a woman...never sit too far back in a mini-bus in haiti....men will just keep asking you if you are cold as you yet againg crash over another hurtful pothole...
when i was with all of you in haiti...i had such a halcyon time....it makes me feel really happy to think of it.
what a great time we had. in the words of tiny time...god bless us every one....
sorry I haven't got round to this before....And before I start to tell you o our adventures in th white stuff......let me wish everyone happy 2016. We had such a laugh in Vegas I can't tell you..luxurious apartment, golden cardboard top hats, possibly the most people in one place I've ever seen....And Kim almost got mugged...not for her wallet, you understand...no, because she was carrying a giant margarita in a champagne glass back to our room. How we did laugh! So then we went to see the grand canyon via th Hoover dam, which was totally fantastic, not just for the feat of engineering, but because it was built in the early 30s and all the stairs, bannister s, toilets, towers, and fittings and fixtures are completely art deco...it is beautiful! Totally fantastic!
Then we hit the snow...snow, snow and moresnow! Thank God we are in a huge 4wheel drive, the like of which parents drive their children to Watson's in Edinburgh. The grand canyon had been removed for cleaning on the morning we got up before dawn to see the sunrise, and replaced with a grey wall of snow clouds...though we had seen it the day before, so all was not lost. And though we saw the Clark telescope at the Lowell observatory seeing the sun, let alone Pluto, which was discovered there, was out of the question. However we are now in Flagstaff Arizona which is a cutsie wee town, and are driving into Navajo country today. We are going to tuba city which is in rainshadow, so there should be no snow, and then ending up, hopefully at fire tree b and b, which is our Hogan in monument valley. There is no electricity there so will be off the grid for 2 days. Luckily we have an enormous amount of bootspace in our Ford explorer, as we have all our food, and drink for two days...
Having such a fantastic time...but thank God for Icelandic knitwear...
Love to you all...
Miss g, in the desert, with the thermal socks, tops, hats, tights and scarves. X.
omg.....can hardly even come up with words to describe what we have seen and done. Beautiful, stunning, amazing, dazzling, awesome.....none of these words actually relay the wonder of the landscape here. It is literally breathtaking as we are about 8000ft above sea level, and there is snow to our knees, but it's not that. Every time you turn on the road, every time you crest a hill, every time you look over your shoulder, the views are just fantastic. We have seen white, pink and vermillion cliffs, petrified forests, canyons, washes and dams, mushrooms, hoodoos and buttes, slot canyons, valleys and waterfalls. Our time in monument valley staying in the Hogan was just totally wonderful, the beautiful blue sky we have had since, despite six inches of snow, and -10degrees has been cathartic, and finding a liquor store in a state you thought was dry was like tutankamens tomb. WHAT A TIME WE ARE HAVING! Just so much more than I had thought....And that's really saying something.
Love to you all.....
back in Vegas, we have left the snow behind, and are now luxuriating in our suite on the 19th floor of the largest "green" building in the world....the Venetian hotel and casino which has canals on th second floor on which you can go on a gondola ride, while the ceiling is a film of blue sky which changes with the time of day. It also has the comfiest beds and pillows I think I have ever had the pleasure to lie down on...total heaven. We are fortunate also to have a great view of trump tower hotel, who's mission statement is "if you don't get everything you want, you aren't staying in this hotel!" Cute!
So the rest of our road trip was just jawdropping. Bryce canyon was freezingly beautiful with icicles everywhere, knee deep snow, temperatures well below zero, and amazing rock formations, petrified wood, and frozen waterfalls. Kim and I did a moderate hike over the mountains to the canyon view...scrambling over rocks, and slipping down icy narrow paths was just such fun...loved,loved,loved it. However it was a real joy to step away from the thermals, hats, scarves and two pairs of socks, and put just shoes on when we had another, astounding but in a different way, canyon experience at Zion national park, which is much higher, narrower, and more alpine than the others, but much warmer. We saw deer, elk, mountain goats, big horn sheep, huge ravens and excitingly bison! We also went to st George and visited Brigham young 's winter home. What a giggle that was..they offered us a free book of Mormon at the end..And despite being in Utah for several days previously...it was the first properly Mormon place we had been. All perfect clean cut men in suits with totally straight partings in their shiny hair, and homey women in print dresses who, no doubt are wonderful mothers, and champion pie-makers. God it was good to get back to the excess and debauchery this is Nevada! But honestly....what a bloody fantastic time....Just couldn't have been better even if we ha been able to see the snow hidden dinosaur footprints, th snow covered coral pink sand dunes or the snow drenched petrified forest. And what a job of driving binni did, for one not used to snow.
And I forgot to mention that we went over ridiculous mud roads to Grafton ghost town, where they shot the famous bicycle scene from butch Cassidy and th Sundance kid. In the extreme travel competition for coolest due to the dirtiest car competition, I think we nailed it.
Flying back to Edinburgh tomorrow night and arrive on Saturday afternoon. .
All good things must come to an end apparently....And can't really complain. It has been one of the best trips of my life. Don't think I have ever oohed and aahed as much at just the wonder of nature.....what a time we have had......
ng
she planned it for a week, she had had the dream of killing, and it seemed like it might work when nothing else had. she was at the end of her tether...death was the only answer!
so, she took a piece of bread, put it in a carrier bag on the floor and buttered it.
once buttered, she knew, the poison would stick...so she sprinkled it liberally.
once the poison was done she slapped another slice on the top, tied the bag, and put it inside another plastic carrier that cost 5p at tesco. she laid it by the bin in the kitchen, put some other rubbish on top...and waited....
just like having sex in a tent in a horror movie, it didnt take long before the reaper used his scythe.
within a night half the poisoned sandwich was gone...but, not content with short measures, she left it for another night, and it seemed that there was a feeding frenzy in her kitchen, and all that was left was a hyundai sign.
gone gone gone....
mice...ha! played you and won!
but sadly while i might have got rid of mice...and so has bill, with the poisoned sandwich, none of us has got rid of the weather....just when i left the storms behind in the us...they followed me home. there has been torrentail monsoon rain for 3 days without stopping, 2 inches of snow and wind gusts of 100 mph! all the bags on top of my wardrobe blew down onto my bed, i have had to close all my windows, which, as a menopausal woman, are open all the time, another 2 trees on the meadows blew down, and i have been soaked to my underwear on my way to work 3 days running. what larks.
we all had a really shite journey home...mine was weather crazy over the rockys and god leaving the mainland of the us towards greenland...yikes! i was delayed by 2 hours...got put onto a later flight..but even then only just made it...i have decided, as i did long ago, never ever connect in heathrow airport..got home 4 hours late. binni and kim were also delayed...they got home 6 hours late...and crossed the date line..so they were not only late, they lost an entire day! dimph, dumph, damph!
and another scottish horror story...derek, sorry i didnt get to talk to you...but on our last night in vegas, having won $80 on slots, we got so trashed on the free drinks that kim had to go up to the apartment...binni took her up but was planning to come back. she didnt. i was alone at a dinner table with a half jug of margarita that none of us remember ordering. being scotiish ai had to finish it as a matter of pride. then walked round the casino for 2 hours as i couldnt find my way to our executive elevators...a service person came up to me as asked if i was lost...when i got into the elevator, i realised that i had given my room key to kim...doh!
so when i got back to our beautiful delux suite with the fantastic beds and pillows to die for, could i get in...NO! knocked, pounded, shouted, kicked, rattled the handle...not a peep of life in there.
next thing i knew...i was woken up by security guards..i had fallen asleep in the corridor outside our room....they were really sweet..and treated me like it was the most normal thing in the world to help a middle aged woman, asleep in public, to get into her room.
what larks!
they are gone, my favourite trees on the meadows that i have walked under for so many years. first one in the storms in january. and as they proped eachother up, i did think that the other may not last.
as i walked to work on tuesday the remaining tree had fallen over the path.
i saw a young guy with a saw cutting bits off it. he was not a council worker, and good for him. i almost thought of doing it myself, but obviously, it would make me late for work!
by the time i walked home, it was gone.
i miss them, if it is possible to miss a tree...
my walk to work will never be the same....
ok....i have discovered to get rid of those annoying little buggers, which contrary to public opinion neither come in ones, (as in, ive got a mouse), nor like cheese, you dont, in fact, need the sandwich...you just need butter smeared packets of poison in a plastic bag lying next to your dustbin. mice supposedly like chocolate...but, in my experience of them, which is more detailed and constant than i would like to admit, what really floats their boat is butter! ha! you will be glad, and no doubt relieved to hear that i have neither seen, nor heard one of the little parasites sliding down through the wall next to my head when im in bed. hoorah!
cant deny, it has kinda scared me, how much i have enjoyed mass extermination through poisoned food...probably not something to mention in front of anyone buying a sandwich ive made at work!
but, enough rodent chit-chat...here are some of the very many high-lights of my life since i returned from the freezing, glitteringly snowy canyon paradise that is the south west of the usa.
1. i still have not received my 'venetian las vegas' matttress. for those of you not sleep-obsessed, or who i just havent seen to brag on about it...the beds in our suite in vegas were just the comfiest thing ever, so i trawled the internet to find out where they get their matresses. you will be amazed to discover that, not only is there a website called hotelpillow.com where you can source the pillows from aroung 500 hotels around the world, but the mattresses in the venetian are hand made in the uk by mr and mrs smith and take 4 - 6 weeks to manufacture. so i ordered one at the reduced, and to be honest, pretty reasonable price, for something made specially for you, of £500! so far they have sent me the bag to seal up my old mattress but every time i check my booking, it is still 'pending'. to be honest, its probably just as well....its still march, gets dark at 6pm, and the instinct to hibernate hasnt ended...on monday, after speaking to binni and kim, i went back to bed for a snooze at 11am, and didnt actually get up until i had to go to work on tuesday at 9am. ok, i did read for about an hour...but the rest of those 22 hours i slept! now that is what i call commitment!
2. in may i have to spend a weekend in miami to complete my 'global traveller' application, as, annoyingly there were no interview times available when i was in las vegas. for those of you zillions of readers of this blog who dont know what this is...let me tells ya. it is a 'trusted traveller' programme, and it allows people to skip the passport and customs queues when entering or transferring in us airports. i had to apply to the foreign office here to get a code, and then send it to homeland security, not to mention adding a non-refundable fee of $100. i have to show proof of my address at the inteview, have my fingerprints taken...and then, hopefully, for the next 5 years i can breeze through american airports unhindered! as i intend to not only visit the us, but also travel through particularly miami, it just make sense. and, damn, i have to spend the weekend in miami....shit!
3. not only am i flying to iceland on tuesday, next month im going to bratislava for the weekend, (thats in slovakia btw, and is so close to vienna, i will be having lunch there). then miami in may, and in june, im flying to switzerland and crossing into france to meet my friend jo. (ryanair flights for £40 return!) woo hoo! then turkey staying in the glorious apartment in kas in turkey in september...and then...well...who knows...but just looked at flights on qantas on the A380 in feb next year...
4. greggs-tales. a junky woman ran in to my shop and snatched a mexican chicken baguette...when i followed her and asked for it back, she threw it into the road and said 'go and fucking get it then bitch'. a car ran it over. i said 'nah...you can keep it'. 5 mins later her mate brought it back in and said 'sorry for that'. i put it back on the shelf....nah...just kidding, i threw it in the bin! on a similar note...a man walks into a greggs shop and says..'i'll have a breakfast deal with a bacon roll and brown sauce and a latte' (actually no one ever says this...even the workies who come in ever day are like blood out a stone...what do you want on your roll, which sauce, what is a 'normal'coffee etc..) me...would you like a large? customer...just whatever is in the deal...me..well there are 2 deals...£2 or £2.25. customer...which is which?!!!! another customer who couldnt get his card into the same place on the card machines as cards always go...'i cant find where the card goes, is there a slot here, or am i just being really stupid'. me....'you are just being really stupid'. a queue of workmen...me..'what size of coffee would you like'. workman 2...'mines a big one'..me..'they all say that'. (this really happened, i swear).
5. bill and i got to see the swans on craiglockhart pond doing their courtship dance. entwining of the necks, making a heart with beaks together, dipping in sinq, fluffing of the feathers...it was really beautiful and went on for about 40 mins. then he climbed aboard her and they both craned their necks right up in unison. very pretty. then he swam off and flapped his wings about..hooted and showed off. she fluffed her feathers, kept her head down, and pretended that nothing had happened. then he went for a snooze while she tidied up the nest. no, not really...they dont even have a nest yet...though think one might be on the way.
thats it...
im off to eat my dinner....
well...fmd, what a time we had in iceland! great food, amazing sights, it didnt rain the whole time we were there and we all managed to stuff our new icelandic knitwear into our bags and carry them home. and...above all...how we did laugh!
we ate fish every day...apart from the day we all ate horse. we woke up every morning in the warm as heating in iceland is geothermal, and its even cheaper than chips...everywhere inside is toasty...perhaps too toasty for a 50something woman...i was melting all the time. we saw wate
rfalls, geysirs, glacial ponds and a continental rift. we saw a pod of orcas, loads of dolphins and, woo hoo, a pair of humpbacks, one of whom dived down, so that we saw his (or her) huge tail flapping up in the air, something rose and i have always wanted to see! we went snow-mobiling on a glacier..possibly the most surreal landscape outside of sandunes. it was so white, it was hard to tell where the land ended and the sky began, sometimes there was fog all around us, and it was like being in a white tunnel, it really was other-worldly to a point that it seemed like a playstation game, as you just could not believe that reality could be so weird. totally bloody magic.
oh, iceland...its cool! literally! it never gets below -10 and it never gets above 20. its as bleak as, if not more so, than scotland, but it doesnt seem as miserable. it has really astounding natural features, but just like scotland, most icelanders (75% in fact) live in the city and never see them. the tourists last year outnumbered the locals 4 - 1. there are building sites everywhere in reykjavik,....its all about tourism, which is now the 3rd biggest industry on an island with no natural resources except fish and geothermal power.
ok...i would not fly to the other side of the world to visit iceland...if it was, to us, where new zealand is, i would never go there. but it is a hop, skip and jump from here...2 hours flight, and at the same time as here, and we can fly late afternoon, and be there in time for that fish dinner. and to us...one of the things about iceland is that it is not strange, its not dramatic, its not even slightly mystical..its totally understandable, it seems familiar, and we know the rules...totally what you want for a weekend away.
we had such a great time....i cant thank myself enough for booking it months in advance so we got our flights for £80! way to go me!
and way to go bill.....how many 82 year old men do you know who have driven a snow-mobile over a glacier?!!!!
now derek....your statement about the €65 bowl of pasta in iceland got me thinking, and as you know my astute political and social insight has gained me zillions of readers on this 'ere blog...so here is my insider analysis of the icelandic situation, studied religiously by me on my many in-depth trips. some may say that 3 weekend trips to reykjavik does not really enable me to comment on the economic currents of the island....pshaw to that i say! im doing it anyway!
as someone whose indication of the cost of living in a country is the price of a pint of lager and a bowl of pasta, and having had said culinary and thirst-quenching delights in 64 countries, i do feel that i am in the perfect position to comment on the financial situations of countries through their food and drink. here is my icelandic analysis....
i think we are all aware that iceland went bankrupt back in 2008...and the government there did not bail out the banks...result...loads of closed businesses, devaluation of the kroner, and no doubt, a really hellish time for your average icelander. when rose and i first went in 2014 there were still loads of closed sites that had been starbucks or kfc...and a guy we spoke to then said that he thought they would never recover, or reopen these sites. well....he was wrong!
in the last 2 years tourism has rocketed. on an island of 300,000 people, last year there were, for the first time over a million tourists. this year they think there will be 1.5 million. this has resulted in a total frenzy of building. rekyjavik has a building site on practically every corner, and there are posters up everywhere telling you what new stores are going to be opening there. the fact that there is going to be a superdry on laugervager kinda says it all. for those of you who are not young and hip...superdry is a hot, hot, hot japanese brand of clothing, a little like jack wills, hollister, abercrombie and fitch etc etc....ie, pretty basic pseudo-outdoorsy clothing at prices that only a 20year old would pay to have that 'branding'.
then there is the geo-thermal electricity, cheaper than chips, which has resulted in iceland having an aluminium smelting industry despite having no bauxite...it is all transported in...
and then there is fishing...it could only be a matter of time before we got back to food. because iceland is not part of the eu, it does not have to share its waters, and i think there is very little chance it will join. fish is on every menu in every restaurant in iceland...it is the first and for a long time the only industry.
but here we come back to the €65 bowl of pasta! because of the crash, this pasta has become €20...and though still a little pricey, people will pay that. so more people come...so tourism has become the third industry. if the pasta was still €65 iceland would be pricing itself out of the market and given that it is a one stop destination...its not like your pass through to go anywhere else...partly the crash has caused the huge rise in tourism.
so...in a nutshell...my god did we eat well in rekkers. i have to say i have never had a bad meal there...but god, we actually went to food heaven. we ate huge chunks of cod, on cheesy pasta, on mashed taters and pureed carrots, on salad. we had fantastic horse steaks, fillet of beef eat your heart out....not a flake of fat, cooked to perfection with lovely veggies. we had icelandic fish stew....a little like fish hash....baked mashed fish and tatties with cheese on the top....we bought bread out of a bakers on laugervager which was just FAB! and we drank icelandic ipa with most meals. we had icelandic camembert with smoked ham, and skyr! yum! and not a drop of formented shark passed our lips. the most expensive meal we had, for the 3 of us was around £120....which is, in fact about €65 each, but did not just feature a bowl of pasta.
oh...and the beer was about €7 a pint...so just the same as edinburgh then.
the most expensive bowl of pasta i have ever had was in helsinki....
is actually mostly about rain, just like all the other seasons, but at least we have flowers for the first time in 5 months, and there are leaves appearing on the trees. and, i also got to see swans doing their dance of love...twining their necks, then making a heart inbetween them, dipping, fluffing, everything in mirror image..it went on for about an hour...then he climbed on, their heads and necks went shooting upright together, touching, it was really quite beautiful. and then all over! he went off and flapped his wings, showing off half out of the water. she spent the time preening and pretending that nothing had happened...and now they are building a nest. god you see it all in craiglockhart, true! in the past month i have cycled over the alps, through the languedoc and the cote d'azure. ive been from rheims cathedral to the eiffel tower, and through champagne. hell, ive even cycled up the champs elysees. all that without even knowing how to ride a bike!!!
and i have also been hiking like you wouldnt believe! been to bryce canyon and trekked the hoo-doos, and through the doorways in arches national park. next week im doing rainforest mountains in new zealand, and may finish with a quick round trip of the best hiking trails in the world.
all this without leaving edinburgh...all you have to do is go to the torture chamber known as 'the gym', and fire up the 'courses' feature on the display. you can cross-train or step-machine through the utah canyons, and cycle the 'tour de france'. it certainly helps, let me tells ya!
also spent a night in mog and joyce's fabulous new crib, in port seaton. not only was the house amazing, the food was delicious and the company must have also been brilliant as we stayed up till 5.30am apparently. how does time go so quickly? one minute its midnight...the next its five in the morning...i blame all of you! i would never stay up that late on my own...its after i get up for work.
and on that note...happy happy, joy joy...in 2 weeks we are going to be open from 7am until 6pm. that means a 6am start for us....what larks! i can hardly contain my enthusiasm!
no. 1. SLEEPING.
ooohhh the smith mattress...i just cant tells ya how good that is. if you lie on your back, which is not normally how i sleep, but it is almost like you are weightless in water it is so fantastically comfortable. total heaven and worth every penny....getting out is a struggle....just as well i didnt buy it in november...hibernation might have happened.
no.2. SLOVAKIA.
bloody magic place. bratislava is sweet, cheap, windy, pretty, cheap, with great bars and cake shops and restaurants...oh, and did i mention, its cheap! really didnt have any huge expectations, and, as so often happens, that makes it so much more exciting when it turns out to be a hidden gem. cutsie old town, no traffic, tourists practically all old europeans on cruises down the danube..only in town for a few hours, and following a tour leader with a flag. once they leave...amazingly for an old town....everyone is local and going to bars, coffee shops and eateries. its one of the few places, as i said, that as an english speaker you are exotic. if slovakians speak another language it is usually german, and most of the tourists are dutch or belgian, or other slavic....what a lovely experience to be unusual. as vienna is so close...a mere 30 mins train away, we were going to go there for lunch....but woke up in the morning, and just thought 'WHY?' eating and drinking in vienna are bound to be at least 5 times, if not more the price in brt....why go to austria? so we didnt...and we just had the best day on tuesday....the weather was lovely...we sat out and had lunch, then we sat out and had mojitos that only cost £2.50. then we went to the loch ness scottish bar and rose had stew in a loaf of bread. then we went and drank prosecco in the sun. bloody fab. love bratislava. and will go back. defo.
no 3. SMOKING.
i realise that there are people reading this that hate smoking. to be honest i totally understand, and will never do it again myself ever. but rose still does...and, amazingly, for a country that is part of the eu....it is still allowed in bars in bratislava. now...however shite you might think that is, there is something in me that still rejoices in the freedom, and while i have no desire to light up myself, really dont mind being somewhere that you can. smoking...im just so over that.....
and finally
no4, and whoda thought....STITCHES!
first day back at work...shop closed, 18.10. bagging stales. twisted to take out the till drawer....lianne had just mopped the floor...and it just got pulled out from under me. went crashing down onto my right side and see-sawed on my elbow. smacked my forehead on the floor. after lying for a minute saying...'fuck that hurt' sat up...and there was liquid...realised it was blood dripping all over the floor...lianne, who has a nurse for a mother, gave me napkins to press against it...dang.
did the cashing up...called bill, bless him, who came and picked me up in a taxi.
went to A&E.
got 5 stitches in my eyebrow!!!!!
DANG!!
yes....I have now now joined th elite group that includes Derek.....the global entry network! So I can now swan through passport control and customs leaving all you losers stand in the 2 hour linens at passport control..ha!
Now just waiting for Eli to arrive, with th help of a golden lady! Happy.days!
there is very little that can prepare you for a weekend in miami, but, due to your luck and foresight, you need look no further than this blog for the confidence, fashion, etiquette and chutzpah to get you the through the cultural minefield that is south beach. they say that NYC is the city that never sleeps, but that is because they have never been to miami! so come with me through the highlights of what to do in SoBe...thats south beach to you!
1. prepare for your trip!
this will probably include an entire body wax, a different, but equally tiny piece of beachwear for ever day you are there, possibly considering getting a verse from the bible tattooed on your upper arm, buying shoes so high you are scared, and having false nails in different lurid colours, at least 20cms long applied to those your already have. as well as this, you have to prepare yourself for miami time....kinda like madrid, nothing in sobe opens before 11am, dinner doesnt really start till 9pm, you can still eat at 2am, and there is more traffic on the street at 5am than there is at 7.30am! so i suggest you try to get into the time zone before your leave by getting up in the middle of the night to eat dinner, then walking the streets wearing next to nothing at 5am, before arriving at work 5 hours late, at 11am! that should do it!
2. learn how to bend over wearing a thong.
now for those antipodeans who might stumble onto this blog by mistake, i am not talking rubber shoes with a post between your toes.....im referrring to the worlds briefiest under-garments, with a ribbon from your nappy hair over the crack of dawn. in miami it is totally acceptable to be out shopping in the dark in said garment, and i came across a woman trying on floridas highest shoes wearing just that. now, for those of you who only buy shoes on the internet...let me tells ya, trying on shoes usually involves bending over...yikes! so a course in buttock clenching is obviously compulsory before a miami trip.
3. ink!
there must be about a billion dollars of tattoos walking around south beach. most popular themes include angel wings, cursive script, passages from the bible, faces of famous people, animals, words like 'faith' 'courage' 'strength' or 'love' and, that old favourite, the teardrop by the eye! i realise that most of the inked are black people, but even the blans no longer have colours, its all black and grey....god, even my tattoos are showing my age!
4. flesh!
to be honest, i have never, ever seen as much visible skin as i did in miami, and this is the thing...its not the beach...its everywhere! it is perfectly acceptable to eat dinner on ocean boulevard wearing ribbons which just cover your tiniest bits, and the strange thing is that most of the girls are wearing these kinda what i would call 'slave sandals' but they are all the way to the knee. so the worlds biggest sandals with the world smallest clothing...that is so miami.
5. bad-ass rad lesbians!
fmd..(there appear to be a lot of firsts here), but i have never seen so many black, cool, doncha-mess-with-me-biatch, little round shade wearing, inked from the neck down, just left the boxing ring sistas as in south beach. they stroll down ocean drive like gun-slingers, and normally have either a totally beautiful tiny girl in their wake, or a titanic valkerie! eli and i saw a group of them on a street as we were walking back to the apartment, and we wanted to hang out with them, as they seem so cool. then we realised, we are old enough to be their grannies, we are white, and we arent lesbians...what are the chances that they dont see us as just pathetic...um...none! ha!
6. low slung jeans!
if you are unlucky enough to be male, (see above), probably best to practice in advance for walking with, not only your jeans at half mast, but with maybe a second or third pair of designer underpants underneath so your knees are so far apart you are practically straddling the sidewalk. this can make walking through the many beachfront bars on ocean drive difficult as every bad-ass rad lesbian and her girlfriend are walking in the opposite direction...and, let me tells ya...they will not give you an inch! no fucking danger! they are cool with a C you are a stoopid guy. game over!
7. hire a luxury car!
yes..what better way to say 'im a total wanker' than to hire a lamborghini, ferrari, maserati or beemer and zigzag up and down ocean drive with your male mates, head out the window like a dog from the farside, tongue out, shades on...cool as cucumber...well, only if has been frozen and thawed! dorks. even worse...there are 50something men rolling around on harleys..get sadder!
8. get used to being invisible.
if you are a 50something woman, you can bet that no one will really be that interested in serving you, not with all this young bikini-clad flesh about. so you might sit for 30 minutes waiting for a menu, a drink, or even worse, the bill, which includes a 20% service charge. so you might pay $65 for 2 margaritas...ok, they were huge, but nevertheless.....its just so miami.
love it!
could, obviously be wrong, but we just had two glorious weeks of sunshine while the rest of the world, or at least my friends world, had storms and rain like billy-o! yesterday when i walked to work in the third day of torrential rain, the first of which i was wearing my new suede sandals and no jacket, there were a pair of mallards on the meadows!!!! out of all the years that i have walked over there, i have never, ever seen ducks! what do they know that we dont i want to know? would not be in the least surprised if we get nothing but rain and white sky for the rest of the year. no wonder we go abroad...and talking of which, i am, in fact, supposed to be flying to basel tomorrow to meet up with jo who lives near strasbourg...but thanks to work, and the fact that one of my staff decided to have a shotgun wedding after 10 years with the guy, and he booked the honeymoon...i cant go and leave anne to work all day, everyday for 6 days in a row...especially as we are now open at 7am, so start at 6am - 18.30! i looked at changing it, but jo and i couldnt find another time during the summer, and as the flights only cost £60, and it would cost me £60 to change them plus whatever additional fare there is, i may as well just book new flights, and take the loss! pisser!
so to make up for the disappointment...i booked a flight to haiti instead, and 5 nights in cormier plage, where dinner is free, and includes lobster! where the beach has practically no one on it, and is a 30second walk from your bed. where the ocean is warm, clear and calm...so calm you can lie in it at night and stare at the stars..and, god, the stars...just amazing! and i have also twice been in crashing waves in storms with eli. i know this is really stupid...there was lightning...but it was so exciting being in the waves in torrential rain and thunder...one of the great experiences. (even if it did take weeks to get the sand out of...well, everywhere!!!). on the way i fly via JFK where i will be able to breeze through the airport thanks to global entry, and also have to spend a night in miami...dang! cant deny...cant wait to try out the trusted traveller bullshit...having had the entire passport entry system go down in may...resulting in scenes from some disaster movie...2 hours of waiting inside the ribbon barriers and everyone was lying full out on the floor in lines...had i had it then, i would have been out in 15 mins...hoorah! now my biggest trial is whether to stay near the airport..which would be easier, but duller...or go to south beach. its tough being me!
but not as tough, apparently, as being a 13 - 18 year old boy in the uk a third of whom, according to a recent survey, have never had an adventure...55% are afraid of new experiences, 37% prefer being indoors, and 26% believe that online adventures are as satisfying as real life (though, not sure how they know, having nothing to compare). according to the same survey 22% consider unlocking a new level on a video game an 'adventurous activity'! cant deny...i think its a little sad that young people dont seem able to have adventures...thank god we are all old enough that we had them even as children...and can i just say that not just, but especially, because of all you people, i have had such, such adventures. utah canyons, monument valley in the snow, the citadelle, miami, colombia, turkey, seeing orcas and humpbacks in iceland, sweden or greece for lunch, bison, bighorns and kangaroos, paddle-steamers, snow-mobiles ferries...actually i think i have had more adventures in my later life, though i was never short of them....
thank you all...what fun we have all had...
and looking forward to those still to come....how lucky are we....
and, derek, thanks for the message...that was lovely...didnt even know it was that long...kinda scaree these days...everything happened so long ago...next year i have been living here for 20 years....i rest my case!!!!
ok...im not going to bleat on about how devastating brexit has been, how much i hate and despise nigel ferage, how our economy has been reduced to rubble, and unwilling i am to give up my european union passport! instead i thought i might to something totally out of character for such a cynical old harriden....talk about the good things in life. and apart from all of you, my mates, who make most things in my life bareable, there are, in fact, so many reasons to be cheerful.
for one...i have booked my flights to haiti, and to australia before our currency went into freefall due to so many people doing a protest vote (in a fucking referendum...who does a protest vote...save that for a local or general election, surely you tossers!!). my flight to binni and kims was only £850 and takes only 26ish hours each way. my staff laughed when i told them that this was short...they consider a flight to tenerife long..but from edinburgh to canberra, you couldnt do it faster unless you had your own plane. its on qatar via doha if you want to know. on top of that i also have our 2 weeks in the apartment from heaven in turkey...and if anyone is worried, can i just say that we dont fly via istanbul. actually we are doing that thing that will probably dissappear now those spunktrumpets have voted leave...the cheap airline direct flight from edinburgh to the tiny airport in the middle of nowhere. and on my way to haiti i get another night in miami, where i might just try and book the same apartment given that the owner loves me because of my tripadvisor review, and the airport bus leaves about as close to it as the 35 does to take me to the airport here. hoorah. obviously i will probably not be able to afford to have a single drink out due to those wankers devaluing our currency against the dollar, but in haiti, i have free dinner at cormier, and i can just take my own drinks onto the beach...so its a win/win.
for two, i have just got two pairs of prescription sunglasses for the price of one, and they are just fab! for someone who has just realised how short sighted she is, or have i just become blind as a bat in the past 2 years, i dont know, but being able to see with sunglasses is a whole new thing for me. and it is just great! obviously i have had to get them, as i will never be able to afford another pair in a foreign country now that our currency is being used as toilet paper in france and germany.
for 3, i have seen two pairs of zebra finches living on the meadows..ok, at first i did think i was hallucinating, but i have seen them 3 times, and they do really stick out being so brightly coloured, and all. i also saw swallows this week...god how amazing are they? talk about ariel dynamics....obviously on their way somewhere else, they dont stay here, but then, now, neither will any of the poles, lithuanians, germans , spaniards or irish who we have come to know and love. i guess tesco will be getting rid of the polish section with that instant borscht that i live on in the winter. not that im bleating on, naturally...
for 4, the swans that bill and i saw doing their beautiful courtship dance, and then consummating their relationship now have 5 cygnets. so that is their life over then....and their moment of escstasy lasted for about 30 seconds. perhaps they are really happy, but it is hard to tell if a swan, or indeed any bird, is happy. however, it make me feel happy to see them, and actually at the gym (where we see the swans, the gym windows overlook craiglochart pond) i have also climbed most of the canyons of utah including arches, natural bridges, goblins, small wild horse and even sunset crater, which was something of a let-down...remind me never to bother doing it in real life, on the new step machine, which is so like actually climbing stairs i was so sweaty today i had to go and shower early as everything i was wearing was soaked. fantastic walks...obviously now, i will probably never be able to do any of them in real life as not only germany and france, but also the usa is using the pound as toilet paper...not that i am in any way moaning about this....
for 5, i managed through my own inguenity to find out where the leak was that has totally ruined my kitchen, grown mould on the wall, and made all the paper fall off and the plaster bubble. it has taken about a year, and 3 plumbers over them...but..thanks to the magic internet i discovered that the water was coming out of the overflow pipe from the tank in the roofspace because the ballcock and the valve were totally fucked. i also used 'trusted trader' and internet site where you put in your job, and how much you want to pay and plumbers call you to quote. you can read reviews of them...and god, how different it is to looking up the phone book begging plumbers to come out with them telling you that even to visit your property will cost £150 (what you are wiping your bum with right now...not that in any way im pissed or cross about brexit), so a plumber came the day after he called me, he looked, evaluated and fixed..it cost me £90 (or now the price of a margarita in miami if you could pay in £UK, which you only could if they agreed to accept toilet paper).
for 6. iceland knocked england out of euro 2016. the manager of england gets paid £4million a year. the manager of iceland is a part time dentist in a village. 10% of the population of iceland was at the match, most of the rest watched it on a big screen in rekjavik. as you all know, i am not in the least interested in football...but i kinda wished i had been in rekkers...added to the fact the sun never goes down, laugevager must have been such a party that night. but who knew? yes...and as something like 3 million people have now decided, who knew that leaving the european union would wipe £2billion off the ftse, and now want another referendum.....perhaps the accent should be on the 'dum' at the end.
not that im moaning...as if...!
and enjoy the next year...as, next year as i have said often to my staff...you just wake up look in the mirror and realise you are 50! i just dont think i realised how quickly the years would pass...and what is even more amazing...its 20 years since dolly the sheep, 25 years since the spice girls 'wannabe', 19 years since i bought my flat, 6 years since i joined greggs, over 30 years since i met derek, over 10 years since i took redundancy from oddbins, almost 55 years since i met bill and eli, almost 40 years since i met jo, over 25 years since i met gareth, and i cant even remember a time when i didnt know binni and kim! sometimes i feel like my life is just flashing in front of my eyes it has gone so quickly...the idea that rose will be 50 is another fucking stange thing! sheesht, jings, crivens and help ma boab! how have we all got so old?
im guessing its bill's fault! he is the oldest person i know...well, apart from fitz, gareth's father who i think is 95, though he could be 96...i dont suppose it really matters. when you are that age it is amazing that you are still alive, breathing and living in your own house! good for the old!!! at least they got to retire at a normal age, unlike the rest of us if the tories have their way, who will still be working at 75, eating baked beans and instant mash, and wont be able to afford to put our heating on, so will have to spend the hours not working in bed wearing every item of clothing we own to keep warm! i cant wait for the future...call me optimistic why dont you, but it just seems so halcyon now that we have left the EU! i count the days till brexit really happens! that will be our independence day apparently!
i was going to stop havering on about politics, but find i cant...god as if it was not bad enough that we would have to accept teresa may, we might, now, get leadsom who said....'i dont agree with (gay marriage)...i would have preferred civil partnerships to be available to heterosexual and gay couples and for marriage to have remained a Christian service for men and women who wanted to commit in the eyes of God!' well, she really has her finger on the pulse of society then! which ever one of them it is, it will be a woman...and then we might get hillary, and then there will be women running the countries that matter to me, and i feel that i should rejoice...but, fuck, i cant. they may as well be margaret thatcher in how much they will advocate, care or support womens equality, rights or issues. i dont mean that i expect a woman pm to spend her time thinking about womens issues, but it would be nice if they even gave a fuck once in a while..and it aint gonna happen with these dames...so i will move on.
to.....what i know you just cant wait to hear about...yes, THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL!
i realise you can hardly contain your excitement, god knows i feel the same, till the fun starts in 2 weeks...but just to feed your addiction to fringe frolics...here is a sampler of what is on this year...
1.sticks, stones, broken bones. bunk puppets.
sneaky chickens, flying ninjas and an unforgettable horse race. watch as award-winning Bunk Puppets crank your imagination into overdrive as they transform everyday objects into hilarious and touching shadow-puppet stories. (for 'hilarious and touching' read pathetic and well, just not funny in the least!)
2. the song of beast (after hamlet).theatre BradHit (korea).
hamlet reimagined in a slaughterhouse in modern korea. extreme violence and wicked plans are carried out by beast-like men, while one boy is seeking his escape. (gosh! almost unmissable...almost!)
3. sacre bleu. zoe murtagh and tony copeland.
a bubble bath. a protest. a slice of toast. some science. a performance confronting anxiety through poetry and storytelling. punk music, popcorn and some clumsily explained analysis of neural pathways. 'a riot organised by your nan'. (they, quite obviously, didnt know my gran! it doesnt involve claws-out bitching, making grown women cry or keeping your husband in a cellar...actually, that would make a much better fringe play! maybe next year!)
4. the naked magicians. lunchbox theatrical productions.
the boistrous r-rated magic show strips away top hats and capes, promising full-frontal illusions. good magicians dont need sleeves, and great magicians dont need pants. 'they are hot, mind-blowing....seriously hilarious' (radio B105 FM brisbane).
given the rate of the £ at this moment i will be amazed if each and everyone of you dont book a flight here tonight (well, if you dont live here already), derek...who needs to see bears when there are such wonders in the theatrical universe...
im guessing,correctly, obviously that everyone reading this is waiting with bated breath for my full fringe review...how could you not be....
yes...cant deny, i feel a bit of a rant coming on...so are you locked and cocked and ready to rock...then i'll begin....
1. boris johnston!!!! i'll say no more....'but you havent said anything', and thats all im saying....
2. bono was in Nice at the time of the shooting...dont really know how this is news, but apparently he miraculously survived due to being in some luxury hotel miles from the attack. so much for the good news....
3. turkey..sometimes its hard to know just who to believe. was there really a coup attempt or did erdogan just dream it up in order to arrest thousands of his opponents including over 2000 judges and throw them in jail. why did he encourage people to go out onto the street to protest when they just got shot? now there are lots of british holiday makers wanting to cancel their trips, and being told they will just lose the money as the foreign office is not warning against going to turkey. strangely all the 24 easyjet flights to turkey (bodrum, antalya, marmaris and of course our baby, dalaman) went on saturday and sunday. ankara is about 800 miles away from the south coast....kinda like not going to italy because of the shooting in nice.
4. anna karenina..how bloody annoying is she? i realise that you might feel sorry for the woman, but, my god, would you want to be friends with her? nah, thought not. just watched a version of it that i got for binni and kim with helen mcrory and kevin mckidd (he played tommy in trainspotting and was in 'rome') and there is this brilliant 'woman' moment where she tells her maid to tell vronsky, when he arrives home, that she has a headache and is not to be disturbed under any circumstances. unbeknownst to vronsky, this is a test of his love, obviously, if he still loved her, he would have disturbed her anyway, by tearing off her clothes apparently and making violent love to her. but, strangely, being a man, he does what the maid tells him, and doesnt come crashing in with a giant boner. so, naturally, that proves that he doesnt really love her anymore...any fool would know that, and for the next 2 days she spends her whole time with him moaning about the fact that he is looking for another woman. strangely, he gets fed up with her and leaves...if only he had realised that the way to deal with a hysterical woman is a good, strong punch to the stomach! that would have sorted her out! obviously i have no idea if this scene happened in the novel, as i have never read tolstoy, nor do i have any intention of doing so...i get a nose-bleed if i read 19th century literature! and thomas hardy brings me out in an allergic rash!
5. teresa may....same age as binni! fmd!
6. on what planet does it count as 'news' that taylor swift and calvin harris have split up? or that she is going out with some other guy called tom something....really...who fucking cares!
7. the highest paid actor last year....any ideas? no not anyone you would think...it was ex-wrestler 'the rock'! dont even know, or care, what to say about that....
8. watched a film on saturday night, cant even remember what it was called, but it had kiera knightly in a relationship with adam lavine from maroon 5...supposedly the 'sexiest man alive'. he had a beard, she wore little high-necked girly dresses and played the guitar..he was shagging someone else...no kidding!
9. donald trump!!!! retarded spunktrumpet!
10. headline news...greggs forrest road sells out of bananas! i mean really!
ok...im done ranting...might go to my luxurious, heavenly, almost-orgasmic bed! its so good i cant even tell you...i might just pack a lunch and spend a day there.....
work schmirk, and to be honest life schmife!
to say that the last 2 weeks have been a headfuck is an understatement. first week of the festival my sandwichmaker was off sick because (and i kid you not) she got a bite on her face which became a pus-filled lump about the size of an egg. then (presumably because of some immune system overload) she developed another lump on the back of her neck, which turned into a lesion which you could have put your finger into, had you wanted to take the risk that you wouldnt get the same. and finally...the whole left side of her face swole up, especially her eye...so strangely she was off for a week. then my assistant manager went for a hearing test...after which she started feeling strangely dizzy, like vertigo, and her blood pressure went through the roof. so she has a horrible ear infection and, guess what, has been off for 2 weeks. one of my 16hr assistants had to go home because she was sick at work...and tomorrow my saturday girl isnt coming in...guess what...d and v as we call it in the trade. on top of that my shop support refused to work a whole day (it is 12 and a half hours) so in order to get a day off at all this week (hadnt had one since last thursday), i brow beat my sunday supervisor into doing it. everyone was up in arms about that...cos they all think he is a snobby shite...and they were all cross...and i just thought..'what the fuck do you want me to do?' i have already worked every day since last thursday...working 50 hours this week..and that is just a continuation of last week as im doing sunday too. and now (friday) working every day till i go to turkey on saturday next week. to say i am looking forward to it is utter litotes!
and then there is the festival...we have been so busy, despite being 2 people short, that we are currently 20% up on last year, when i had the great fortune to be working with wendy p, the woman what reported me for being racist because i called her south african in front of a customer. ok...what i did was call her south african to the customer....as in 'you know, shes south african' and as jim jeffreys says in his skit about oscar pestorias, (which i suggest you look up if you havent already seen it), they are really horrible people! i rest my case!
if one more posh girl with dread locks, or another ya-man with his hair in a fucking bun, offers me a flyer for their hilarious, oh-so-controversial 1am showing of 'shit-faced shakespeare' i think i will just lie down and hold my breath till my head bursts! today i said, not as i really should have, 'stick your fucking flyer up your arse', but..'just what i need,...another flyer'...and oliver, or rupert, or jasper, said...'aaaoooh, but its so controversial...you just must see it'... of course i must...like i must at some point schedule in some unnecessary brain surgery that is both life threatening, and prohibitively expensive! what larks!
and dont even get me started on the fiasco with my laptop...wireless jsut stopped working...took it in to pc world (against all my better judgement i still pay an insurance thang of £6 a month)...but this one has worked out...last year got a new hard drive and a new keyboard...this year a new wireless card and a new keyboard....but it took 2 weeks...and of course is wiped of everything.....tried to get photos back from onedrive..download took about 40 mins...and all that came up when i went into it today was this one photo of the meadows.
can i tell you how much i cant wait to be back in kas....mmmm!
and derek, so glad you saw bears...
believe me, i know how hard other people work, how difficult their jobs are, and how stressful it is...but believe me, there is a particular level of the inferno reserved for retail managers...just ask gareth he still has nightmares.
1. when the phone goes at 06.30 when you are meant to be finishing early. (this means, someone is sick, and you are so not going to leave before 18.30), that is if 'hestia' our new cashing up system works out..whatever plans you might have made have just gone down the toilet....
2. at this moment you ask the other staff if they can stay...they are the busiest women i know...all of them have something pressing to attend to and cant even stay for 15 minutes after their shift is supposed to end so you can grab that 30 minute lunch, that by law you have to take, but basically it means eating a sandwich in a nanosecond.
3. the shop is open 361 days a year...which means if you can find anyone to work the 110 days you are entitled to have off, not to mention bank holidays, on which we are also open, you just have to work them.
4. we are open 7 days a week...this week im working 55 hours, but tagged onto last week given i worked saturday and sunday...by saturday i will have worked 85 hours in a row with no day off.
5. i have stayed behind in the shop 3 saturdays running for over an hour, because i am training people and cant leave them on their own in the shop so i can put all the end of week stuff through the computer.
6. very few people are expected to work from 6am till 6.30pm. but in retail, this is normal.
7. you never, ever get proper breaks...i do the orders, the time sheets and the cashing up in my pretend lunch!
8. if i wasnt flying to turkey on saturday, i know i would be asked to postpone my holiday.
9. my sales manager, who has been conspicuous by her absence, called me today to tell me that she had arranged someone to work for me so i can go to a meeting tomorrow...no...dont be silly, she isnt working tomorrow...she can work on saturday...so beth, who is off tomorrow, is just supposed to change her day off to satuday, so she can work for 12 and a half hours tomorrow. and when i told liz beth had made plans, she told me i should take it instead. when i said that i was flying to turkey on saturday, she huffed and puffed like, why the fuck was i making all this fuss when i am getting a day off this week....one day off in 10 days...hallelulah!
10. if you are reduced to working alone, not that that is allowed in greggs, due to health and safety, but even if it was, you sales manager would still come in and hassle you about your branch standards, tell you that your drinks labels werent facing the front, the jam donuts werent bagged in 'envelope' style, and condiment unit had coffee spilt on it, even if you have single handedly served 1000 people and made £3000!
11. you can hardly ever get even 5 minutes to yourself...sometimes i wish i still smoked so i could walk out of the shop in my own clothes, and have 10 minutes to myself in a 12 hour day. it just never happens if you dont leave.
12. i think im getting to old for this.
it never ceases to amaze me how looking out at the same view for hours, nae days, is still enjoyable....but it is. I honestly almost leap out of bed (well, as much as I can these days, more of a roll really) just to make sure that it's still there...And, guess what, it is, every morning. I'm not sure to describe how happy I feel here...pharrell ain't got nothing on me, room without a roof....more like an entire apartment, and I actually feel I could just dissolve into tears of joy every minute of the day...even when th call to prayer from the mosque right across the street starts at 5.15am.
Kas just has a kind of charm I have not felt really anywhere, well not since rose and I first went to Greece in 1986 and stayed in th pension pavlos in tolon, a place so small, and old fashioned that the pension-owners wife stayed up and gave us a row wearing a white nightie, when we came rolling in at 2am.....Just like home! Kas is, of course, far more sophisticated...it has fantastic shopping, brilliant restaurants, tourists who can afford to charter a gulet, or own their own yachts, diving, paragliding, you name it....but there is still something really quaint and sweet about it...for example....if I walk around town here, everyone says hi to me....the ice cream men, the bar men, the restaurant owners, even if you have never eaten there....when I went for a drink in a bar rose and I went into once, on our way back from having a massage, the first thing the barman said to me was "where is your friend?".....if anyone spoke to me like that in Edinburgh, I'd give them short shrift and probably worry they were stalking me.
However...it's not all good news...there has been some unsettled weather...which in kas terms means there were clouds for an hour, and I did a paraglide....I loved it, but sadly just could not stop throwing up....when I got back to earth not only did I have vomit over my face, clothes and hair...there was a pool of it in my lycra bra-top. Delightful! How I did gag!
And I think I have forgotten to mention, though God knows how, as its high up my list of priorities......God I have had some fantastic food here....been to restaurants I've never eaten in before....bloody magic. Most notable...though I can see how you might not think so was a freebie starter in an Italian of cold courgette soup with a crunchy piece of garlic toast....total heaven.....might go there again tonight....that I if I can tear myself away from the ottoman lounge I have created on the upstairs balcony.....two sunlounger cushions and about 30 pillows surrounded by bouganvilla.....as close to heaven as you can get......
already need another bloody holiday!
why is it that it takes you about a week to unwind, get to know the unfamiliar money, get a tan, get used to the call to prayer before dawn so that it doesnt wake you, it just gets incorporated into your dreams, and really start enjoying yourself. after 2 weeks you are just so chilled out, you have started strolling not marching, feel sunkissed and happy, have a lovely golden turkish tan, wake up delighted to be alive for another day when all you have to do is watch the sea, the boats going out at 10am, hear laughing people swimming in the sea, read yet another book lying on cushions, and go out at sunset for yet another delicious meal. on the 2 hour drive through the really spectacular costal and inland mountanous scenery back to the airport, you feel sad to leave, but really well, refreshed and ready to punch life in the face. even when you arrive back in the cold dark midnight of scotland, and there is a 45 minute wait for taxis, you dont break down and scream, you walk off in a fury and find the last bus to the city centre waiting for you, get on it, walk up from haymarket and arrive home before you would even have got in a taxi at the airport!
then you go back to work! within 2 hours the full horror of what you do for a living hits you like a cold slap to the cheek, nothing has got better while you have been away recuperating from the hell that is retail, in fact it has got worse. both your weekend support team members are leaving, your third in command is taking a transfer for less hours, and another is moving closer to home to save bus fares. the member of staff you were training to be sunday manager is off with 'work related stress' (so no bloody chance she will be running the shop then!), and your assistant manager is off for 2 weeks holiday starting on saturday. conviently, your sales manager is also on holiday, having promised to arrange cover that never materialised, and offering you support that just does not exist!
within 2 days your shoulders are back up round your ears, when you had just managed to detatch them....in your absence your staff havent filled in the temperature and cleaning books properly, and at you appraisal, the day after you return to work, you get marked down, not only for this, but also because your staffing hours, which have to be at 92% of what the computer system decides is ideal, are at 87% because 3 people were off sick at the same time. you get marked down at your appraisal when you have had to work 9 days and 90 hours in a row, because the computer has flagged you for not conforming to ideal! oh, the ultimate retail irony!!!!
on top of all this...louis, the wee guy i support in haiti has been in a traffic accident on a moto...a moped taxi. the driver was killed. he hasnt been online much, so i dont really know how he is...the told me that the hospital told him to go home because he was fine...but not really convinced about that one. more like they sent him away because he couldnt pay for treatment. but since we can only speak on facebook, if he isnt online i have no idea what is happening.
so that brings me back to reality! i know i moan about my work...most people do...but that does not for one second stop me from knowing how amazingly fortunate i am. my life might have its tiresome moments....but god, compared to most of the population of the world, im so lucky...even if i was born in scotland when it should have been brazil. (yes...its bill's fault!). although, i suppose english is a little more useful than portuguese!
for all of us...what amazing lives we have...paragliding, white water rafting, open water swimming, skydiving, flying all over the world, watching whales, the moon rise, the northern lights, the southern cross. seeing bears, rhinos, leopards, koalas, orcas, turtles, fireflies. spending new year in las vegas, summer solstice in 24 hours of daylight in iceland, paddle steaming on the mississippi, snowmobiling on a glacier.
what can i say.....we are the luckiest, coolest, most interesting people in the world....i can work as many hours as it takes to have this life, and meet up with all of you...my friends....what would, could i do without you....i'd be a johnny-nae-friends indeed!
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
AND PS...i just went out to get dinner (im having smoked haddock poached in milk with ham and cheese on the top and crunchy bread if you want to know), and a disabled ancient old man stopped me and said hello to me.....didnt say, but thought 'who the fuck are you'... he said 'you pass my windows every morning at 5.30am...and i always wave, but you never wave back'. cant deny...have noticed some old dude crushed onto a chair on my way to work, and saw him waving, but just thought he was drowning! so i promised him i would wave in the future...he was so pleased! its the little things in life.....
compulsive...moi?
as im sure anyone who knows me understands...im very compulsive...so here are a few of my latest flames...
1. spotify...totally mad on it, download endless music, play it while you are playing around on the computer, even offline. i now have 1000 songs on my playlist....it has totally replaced that old technology in my life...as has
2. amazon video...watch films you dont know...download the ones you do and want...god that saves a lot of space in your shelves...to be honest...im not sure we even need shelves anymore....
3. kindle fire.. just the best invention since sliced laptop! when i was lying on all those cushions looking out at that beautiful bay in turkey, i read 5 books. i travelled with hand luggage only, so there is no way i could have carried all that weight in paper. and now im going to haver on about books at a tangent.....
has anyone else read jose saramago...portugese winner of the nobel prize. that was for 'balthazar and blimunda', which i loved...but just read 'the double' in turkey...funny, clever, philosophical, ok, a bit on the strange side...but all his books are.
also 'the book of memory'...a zimbabwean female black albino in jail for killing a white man (she didnt!)...
very stange little book called 'the light of the fireflies' by paul pen...who writes in spanish...
all the light we cannot see....second world war, young german member of hitler youth only because he can build a radio and has snow-white hair, who is forced to use trigonometry to isolate resistance radio transmissons, hears blind french girl reading jules verne one night. her father is hiding a priceless gem in a model of st malmo. she hides in the attic while a scarey old german dying of cancer searches for it in the house where she has been left all alone. she eats peaches with the young german who saves her. she starts a new life as an expert on snails....he stands on a mine....
the people in the trees. this is by hanya yanagihara... and sadly she was shortlisted for the booker prize for her next book 'a little life'., which isnt a patch on this. gareth got me onto this...just one of the best things ive read for ages....
greyhound by steffan piper...an 11 year old gets a bus alone from california to new york state in the 70s before flying was cheaper.
the art of hearing heartbeats,. jan-philip sendker....her burmese dad has dissappeared, she tries to find out what has happend to him...he could hear heartbeats of the woman he loved..god lots of heartbreak...but its a really moving read in a sweet way...dont mean its schmaltzy...actually some horrible, horrible things in it. just like life.
the shock of the fall, nathan filer, confessions jaume cabre, the sound of things falling juan gabriel vasquez, krik krak edwige dandicat, butterflies in november audur ava olafsdottir, we need new names noviolet bulawayo, and a tale for the time being, ruth ozeki and the goldfinch donna tartt.
life is just too short for rubbish writing....
i used to stubbornly keep on reading when a book just didnt connect, or was just rubbish, or had things in it i just thougt...,m,,; dont think so. now i just dont have enough time left for bad novels. if they dont do it for me in the first 3 pages, i just stop reading them, and move on. there are too many books and not enough time....
and there are such great novels...
most of them are not best sellers on amazon....
went to the doctor today....had to wait for an hour and a half...when he called out my name, realised it wasnt doctor raffan...when i got in, i told him what i had come for...he said 'you'll have to see your doctor for that...!'. a bit baffled i said 'but since you are a locum, are you not my doctor now'...he just smiled and said, 'you need to see your doctor'. yes...presumably that is why i have just waited for over an hour....
so, matey, why are you even here.....?
seething, seething fit to burst i just walked out!
when i got home, this lichtenstein cartoon was waiting for me. it cost me $5!
how i did laugh!
apart from the sheer pleaure of working 13 days in a row, and three 50hours weeks since i came back from turkey, what joy, here are some of the other magic moments that have occured...
1. we had a rat running around in the shop...actually it was a baby, and wasnt really running as much as strolling, but 2 customers saw it, and i had to call health and safety, my sales manager and our pest control guys. h&s told me that the pest men would be out within the hour...but when they hadnt turned up for 2 days, and we, yet again saw our house-guest strolling around in the back shop, i decided enough was enough. got a box, cornered it, threw the box over it, shimmied the box onto some silicone paper that we use to bake the pasties, taped the paper to the box, picked it up carried it outside and threw it into the big bin on the street. the next morning the pest man showed up, and when i told him what we had done, he said 'oh, great, i'll just be on my way then'....'mmm, so are you not even going to check the traps or baitboxes, what if it didnt come alone'....'oh, i suppose i may as well do that, since im here..'! 'well, you have a really easy job, considering that a couple of women did it for you'...'well, you can just have it if you want...but have to warn you, the pay is shite'. 'no kidding!'.
2. my sandwich maker called up my sales manager in a strop and told her she 'could stick her fucking job up her fucking arse!' how we did laugh! its because every takeaway person ive worked with is verging on asbergers behaviour, and ruth just cant stand not being able to do her batch because she has to load and unload the ovens, serve, or tray up bacon because we are so short-staffed. eileen in nicolson street had to have her sandwich batch in even numbers, and when i looked at it a day that kevin had made it up, i realised that she had really pissed him off about something, as the entire list to make up was in odd numbers! ruth does the whole batch in the same order at the same time every day, and if there is a deviation she gets jittery...if she has to leave the bench too many times she gets in a fury, starts slamming doors and smashing things down...then she eventually just loses it, bursts into tears and has to go home. then, of course, i had liz on the phone telling me that i wasnt controlling my staff properly...but as i said to her, its common knowledge that ruth has had a breakdown, and is teetering on the edge at all times. i realise it is against the 'greggs values' to speak to a sales manager in a swearing fury...but shit happens, and we are all stressed, tired and overworked in a really hot, steamy environment...what do they expect?
3. and in a similar vein...i burst into tears on the phone to liz yesterday...and she said 'i dont know why you are getting so upset'...'liz, im not actually upset, im just totally exhausted..its the 10th and i havent had a day off since the 1st'...'oh dont worry dearie (this woman is the same age as me and she calls me dearie!!!), im interviewing on the 24th....!' 'oh right, well that just solves everything, i might take back the 5 lieu days im due next week then...HAHAHAHAFUCKINGHAHAHA!' pah...interviewing on the 24th...so perhaps by christmas i will have someone who can run the shop to give me a day off....'oh dont worry' says liz '
4. our average spend is £2.84 but we are making about £2400 a day....you do the math! it is so busy at 8.30am that the queue is out the door and along the street! we sell around 12 catering packs of bacon a day, and tray it up the night before, on silicon paper piled in a white delivery crate. the packs have 45 slices. that is a fuck of a lot of pig meat! on top of this ruth, the swearing take-away maker can produce 65 sandwiches an hour, and make about 400 a day. she also does salads, yoghurts and our star new product burritos...(we do a firey chicken fajita one that is just heaven!). over lunch we toast about 100 sandwiches, including around 35 ham and cheese baguettes...every one of which is not only made, but baked in the shop. we also pour around 500 coffees a day, butter about 100 rolls and scones, sell pan au chocolate and crossiants that are also baked by us, box up donuts and bag at least 10 bags of 5 different sweet items. on top of this we bake around a thousand pasties a day, sell 10 bags of soup, and spend an inordinately huge time filling the drinks fridge which can, literally, be totally empty at 2.10pm. on top of this we have to fill and clean down the condiment unit of sugar, stirrers and napkins, and clean down the terrible mess people make on our tables. then we have to clean everything down in the afternoon and sanitise it so that this madness can start all over again tomorrow. on top of this im training 4 minors which is just exhausting. then there is ordering once a day, cash continually, conference calls, making up the rota, unloading cages, fmd...how the hell do i fit it all in! i tells ya its just so lucky that we work from 6am to 6.30pm or im not sure we could fit it all in!HAHAHHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
5. TODAY IM HAVING MY FIRST DAY OFF SINCE THE 1ST OF THE MONTH!!! and strangely woke up at 04:30 just like normal...happy happy joy joy!!!
and, derek, im sure you will be happy to hear that i have now started waving to the old guy on my way to work.
and before i start on any of the pros...can i just say that i went to court today for the trial of the junky scumbag who nutted me in the face, an interesting experience which fulfilled all the scenarios one would expect in such surroundings. the scumbags in suits...the defendants, smoking fags round the main door having such conversations as 'so when were you last banged up' 'oh, i just got out yesterday.' etc. (please notice my subtle use of translation in these dialogues for those of you dear readers who are not fluent in colloquial scottish, and would, if present, require holographic subtitles). the lawyers (who do not wear wigs in sheriff court) all have their gowns hanging half way down their backs, and walk around with files in their arms, and us witnesses all sit in a room waiting...just waiting...in vain in my case. the guy did not turn up...who would have guessed...so now there is a warrant out for him, and its unlikely i will have to go and testify because they will consider him guilty for not appearing in court. hoorah. dont really want to have to go again. so apart from this excitement, all i have done since i got home is work...work and more work. got home on tuesday at 6pm....worked all day wednesday, friday, saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday and 10 hours on wednesday....this is my first day off .........
i have now been writing this for 3 weeks...as, strangely, all i ever seem to do is get up, go to work in the dark, sell unhealthy fodder to workies, school children and students, clean up, come home in the dark, eat, fall alseep, and usually go to bed less than 2 hours after i came home...then get up and do it all again. fuck fuck fuck...i have just lost most of what i just wrote....just dont have the energy to do it again.....im off to bed in a snit.....
so...had my last blog entry not drifted off into cyberspace, i would have gone something like this.....we had a brilliant time, despite the weather. i really did follow the advice of crowded house, and it rained every day. the only day we saw the sun was on the day we left...but did it dampen our spirits...nae danger. we had a lovely time just chilling, chatting, reading, swimming, and sitting on our balcony watching the rain. we ate lobster, drank cormier punch, swam in the rain, went shopping, spent a day looking after a 6 year old, and got caught up in a manifestation...a political demonstration supporting juvenal moise, the guy who won the first democratic elections in haiti for something like 40 years....louis is 29 and this is the first time he has ever voted.
we also, on that front, had to watch canadians posturing because they were un observers...and we got really pissed off because there was a woman, who was a civilian, therefore had no training, wearing a gun at dinner....would that seem ok in an other country...eli went up and gave her short shrift...so she slunk off to her room, and all the other observers didnt swagger about with their guns...but,,,why do they have guns anyway....cap haitian isnt really a place with drug running, drive by shootings, murder, or even burglary. eli and i, when we were leaving, like we had just remembered, got to talking about how there are few places we would stay without using a safe in the room, yet cormier doesnt have them...i never worried about money or passport...i went swimming at night and left the room door open...so did eli...who would have thought one could feel so safe in a country that supposedly is so dangerous.
but here is the rub...and it would have been the crux of my last entry, had it not gone to ether.....as you all know, i now travel on global entry...bloody magic...swing through miami in 5 minutes...dont have to go through passport line and arrived at the carousel before bags had even arrived from my flight...but....but...i dont get my passport stamped, and have nothing to say ive travelled through the us. leaving haiti...they wanted to see that stamp, and also wanted to see my esta....its downloaded onto my passport, so i dont carry a copy...but in haiti, the internet didnt work, and not only was i unable to produce an esta, i couldnt prove i had travelled through the us....so i was pulled aside and grilled...just after i had told eli to go through, as it wasnt a problem.
it was a problem!!!!
one of the major problems was that there was no internet. so i couldnt get into my esta through my email. so,,,the security guard took me into a little room and asked me to log into my email on the big, real computer. i did...yahoo rejected my entry because it was from an unknow location...and then sent a code to another email address..
i havent had this address for years...i tried to explain to the security gal that i no longer had that email, so couldnt get the code....but to her, and email was and email...she didnt get that you could have a redundant address...so back to square zero...
was standing there thinking, im not going to be allowed to leave haiti...cant fucking believe it...
so as a work of desperation, tried to get into my kindle email from homeland security to show the global entry shite...couldnt do that either...but she looked at the fact that i had a mail from them, and then just said..ok. just go through...oh happy day....
when i got into the departure lounge eli was, of course, almost frantic...thinking of how it would be possible to go back through security the wrong way...would they even let you, etc.
thank the lord we went out to the airport early....otherwise, i would still be there...i mean, i really love haiti, but i dont want to live there....
so, as my flying to switzerland tomorrow, lets hope i have no such hassle...cos i dont want to live there either...the most sexist country in europe...yikes.
even without michael buble.
but what i time i had in france...woo hoo. the airport at basel/mulhouse/frieberg is right on the borders with exits into switzerland, france and germany....it doesnt really get more european than that....and through the french window, i got on a tram to st louis train station, got on a sncf train to saverne, changed onto a minibus to sarrebourg and then got picked up by jo and driven to aberschviller where they live. the last time i was there the house was something of a shell, and jo and i slept on the floor in the living room in front of the stove. this time...well, its just lovely. the stove, which is tiled in blue, is still there, but there is now an aga in the kitchen, fantastic wet-room rain showers, comfy beds, amazing wood everywhere, and the garden is fantasticly wild. aberschviller is a really pretty alsacian village with timbered houses, artisanal butchers and bakers, and a supermarket with more types and aisles of cheese than i have ever seen anywhere in the world. i was in fromage heaven. and that lasted all the way home as we had raclette 2 nights running as it was so yummy. for those of you who do not jet set off to eat cheese in foreign countries on a regular basis, let me tell you what raclette is....kinda the opposite of fondu, a raclette maker is just a toaster for cheese with little metal slides which you place the cheese on under the heat, and then pour it over whatever you want...bread, potato, apple, you name it. you can get about 30 different kinds of raclette, but we chose a mature one and one full of pepper...god it was delish...so delish in fact that i have looked up the grills on amazon.
not quite certain what has happened to my font, but think i like it, so no messing around. so...we went to strasbourg on my birthday and sniggered at the christmas markets, almost made the mistake of going into the cathedral for mass (you arent allowed to leave until its over...yikes), and walked at a snail pace around the little windy streets because it was so packed it was on a scale of edinburgh during the festival, but in winter-wear. as you can see from these photos, the decorations are pretty impressive, and its hard to argue with the world biggest christmas tree, and giant teddies, penguins, polar bears, santas or singing reindeer ornamenting every shop and restaurant. we drank coffee, we ate pain au chocolate, we drank riesling from iconic green-stemmed alsace glasses, i bought a load of christmas tat for my staff's christmas, we were served by waiters in black waiscoats and white aprons to their feet, and the sun came out. it was just a lovely, lovely day. who would have thought you could have known someone for almost 40 years (next year, scarily) and still have so much to chat about you cant be bothered going to bed. well...until you get there, then its the greatest invention of mankind, and you will do anything to stay there as long as possible....or is that just me.
would just like to also mention, that i now have my youngest facebook friend....rhiannan ballingall...i was delighted that someone so hip that she goes out with bare ankles under her skinny jeans, in december, would deign to have an old dame like me in her friend list, but there you are. its hard not to respect a teenager that brings out a c grayling to read on a train at 10am on a sunday! what a lassie.
and then...hahaha...the journey home...well now!
bought a train ticket, all prepared, jo dropped me in plenty of time...walked into la gare....ooops. no trains on the 'depart' board for an hour. went to le gichet...mmmm...about 10 other people there, all been sold tickets on the imaginary train that went at 09.55. next train was 10.55 and only went to strasbourg...not enough time for me to transfer to st louis for my 13.45 flight...so i did the only thing i could...i called jo and asked her to return to sarreboug when she was almost home, and drive me a round trip of 5 hours to switzerland!!!! and...thank the lord she did. felt like a total shit, but what else could i do....i love you jo smith!!!!!
and on a similar note....also had the worlds worst airport experience leaving haiti....
ok. so now i travel through the global entry thang...dont have to wait in line for customs or to get through passport control, just swan through, but dont get my passport stamped either. so, leaving haiti...they asked me for my esta...its linked to my passport, but the computer system was down...and then they started looking for my us stamp...of course i dont have one. told eli to go through,.thought i would just be a minute...but they wanted me to show them my esta...so i looked into my email...no wifi...so they took me into a little room, and let me use the airport computer...of course when i tried to get into my email, it wouldnt let me in because it was from a destination it didnt recognise, so it sent an email with a code to the last email address it had on file...one i havent had for about 5 years. tried to explain this to the french speaking security woman...she kept saying cest ne pas un problem...ooooo...uuummmm. nest pas un problem, cest le catastrophe....then i tried to get into the global entry site...she could see i had mail from homeland security, but for the same reason as above, i couldnt access the mail...thank god we arrived at the airport early, but with 30 minutes left to get my flight, i was thinking that i would have to call my work and tell them i was stuck in cap haitien.
at that moment...she said to me...ok, cest bon...vous allez....
when i got through, which i have to say, since its cap only took about 4 mins....eli was, of course, a wreck. she didnt know what to do...and in the words of the clash...should i stay or should i go...but then, if i was stuck there would they have allowed her to go back to the land side...luckily we did not have to find out...and made it to miami where we left the airport for an hour or so to sit in the sun,,,something we didnt see very often in haiti...
one thing no one can ever accuse me of...having a boring life...hahaha
dont know about anyone else...but for me, this has been one of the shortest years in history. this time last year, i was getting ready for meeting binni and kim in las vegas, and having our freezy road trip...this year, christmas is almost upon us, i have gone up a social grouping box, and its only 8 weeks till i meet binni and kim again to do our hot as hell road trip down the great ocean road along the south coast of australia.
inbetween i have had such adventures....most notably watching geysers, eating horse and snow-mobiling in iceland with rose and bill, braving, yet again the worst roads in the world, and having such a laid back time with eli in haiti, going round the christmas markets in strasbourg with my oldest friend, jo, who i have known for 40 years next year, getting my global traveller while having the most expensive margaritas in the western hemisphere in miami and watching the planest coolest lesbians strut, (btw eli paid for the most expensive margaritas in the western hemisphere...but objected to the $15 service charge...and who can blame her...) and then....watching our fate being decided for us...both to pull out of the eu, and have the worlds most idiotic man being elected president! the only country that was in favour of trump being elected (well, apart from the us itself!) was north korea (and russia, if you count putin thinking that he can just do what ever he wants..and presumably he can!) the rest of us are aghast....derek...we know you didnt want trump....i stayed up all night watching it on skype with eli and mike...n carolina was the most populous swing state...when it went...we all went silent...fmd! the world is a very strange place right now...but...hell...we are all here...we are all fine and we are just the luckiest people in the world. we have seen the world in its pristine state, weve seen whales, turtles, rhinos, kangaroos, humming birds..and some of us have seen bears! none of us have kids...(well, bill does, apparently), and we are free. oh, and did i mention that my life is better for knowing each and every one of you! this has been such a horrible year for most people, and i realise its not exactly the war in syria, but losing every one of my staff bar 2, having to work stoopid hours and still being so fucking busy sometimes does my head in...its been a hard slog. but we've all got there.
binni is 60 tomorrow, and they are in some pacific paradise in new caledonia, only 2 hours from australia...lucksters. eli is thinking of applying for a job in virginia...but that will put a spanner in the works for our eclipse trip, so basically, she isnt allowed to go, whatever happens.
and me...well, i just thank my lucky stars that i met all of you people...
you are the most important thing in my life...
in the words of tiny tim..and with a firm cheek full of tongue....
GOD BLESS US EVERY ONE......
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!
last night, at some point, rose died. she died warm and cosy in her own bed, having been tucked in by bill. she looked really unstressed, unlike in life, and i believe it is what she has wanted for over 10 years. for the rest of us, it it like hell on earth...i cant believe i will never see, or speak to her again...i loved her so...i still love her...it breaks my heart....
this is the photo we had on the order of service. it was taken by her oldest friend alison telfer who met rose on the very first day of school when they were both 5, and was taken last year at al's wedding. it is just such a lovely photo, and though i know rose would never agree, she looks almost luminously lovely.
the funeral was a total ordeal, and i just couldnt have got through it without my family, and especially eli, who held my hand the whole time. we didnt have the hearse coming to our house so we could follow it through town, thank god, as even meeting it at the crematorium gates was enough for me to crumple. the coffin just looked so wee...it still reduces me to tears to think of it.
but we made it through, bill spoke such a lovely speach, and our wee cousin laura too. (of course, laura is actually a 45 year old woman, but she will always be a wee scone to me), but it was heartbreaking. have to say the celebrant did a really great job, and everyone from the registrar to the lawyer has been supportive and thoughtful. but nothing can fill the huge absence i now have in my life, not even liza minelli singing cabaret, which we had as the last piece of music.
oh rose....i just miss you so much.
just wish you had been able to hold on just a wee bit longer, though i know it was so hard.
just really dont know what i am going to do without her.
once you are on and moving, you just have to ride it to the end. i have had such wonderful highs, and terrible lows on this trip, but it has brought me back to life, and i will never be able to thank binni and kim for making me get out of bed, and fucking do something, even if it is only painting a door, or amazingly, flying over the twelve apostles in a helecopter.
the highs have been about as halcyon as life gets, one fantasfically beautiful drive, 3 states, 3 lighthouses and too many beaches to count. we have seen emus, kangaroos, iguanas, more birds that you can imagine, and surprisingly, as they are very hard to spot high up in the gum trees, several koalas. we have swum in the southern ocean, seen the jail where ned kelly spent his final days, visited one of the last remaining telegraph stations in the world, climbed a lighthouse, driven through some totally beautiful eucalyptus forests, seen snow in the summer in australia crossing the aptly named snowy mountains' highest pass at 1800 metres in freezing fog, had tastings of beer, wine, cheese, honey, relish and jam. we stayed in a wooden cabin in the bush where there was...imagine..no internet access, and kim and i played ping pong while binni cooked the most huge ozzie steaks on the comunal bar-b-q. fucken magic.
on the other hand, and i know i will probably be able to see the funny side of this in the future, but for now it has done my head in.
on the way to the airport, an atm ate my debit card, so i had to fly off and leave it behind.
because qatar couldnt change my flight to when i wanted it, i just booked another on ethiad, and didnt really think much of it. however, on checking that my return was still available, i was told that as i counted as a no-show for my outward flight, the return was not valid. so i had to book another return. this was complicated by the fact that i had a credit card bill for roses funeral due, but didnt have my debit card to pay it, so i wasnt sure they would allow the charge if i was late paying my bill.
on top of this, i was in such a state before i left that i didnt have any money, forgot my insurance documents, and hadnt brought rainwear or warm clothing when we had 2 days of downpour and storms, the temperature had dropped 15 degrees overnight, and there was snow.
how we did laugh!!!!
but can i just thank all of you for making sure im ok. bill, eli and mike, just dont know what i would do without you. derek, thanks for your messages, and gareth thanks for emailing.
and bandk...just dont know what i would have done without this trip, our beach walks, the excitement of the road and the helecopter. i feel so safe in your house, and you have prevented me from becoming a smelly, drunken lump who barely leaves the house..undoubtedly what would have happened if i had stayed in my flat. (ok the drunken is still applicable, but you do encourage me to make cocktails!!!! ha!)
of course i am still terrified at the prospect of returning to work, but i will manage, and at least im not afraid to leave the house anymore.
today i have even been able to listen to music that rose and i loved and was part of our culture without evaporating into a blubbering mess.
im taking each day at a time...and not flying home till wednesday, back on thursday lunchtime....eli is flying over and we are meeting at the airport, and i am so looking forward to seeing bill...thank you all of you, just really couldnt manage without you. xxx
ok, here is the continuing saga of my visit from the riders....
1. as you know, on the way to the airport, at about 05:45 i was tempted by a parked up taxi with its light on, as i had to wait 12 mins for the bus, and went to get money at the atm at tesco, which malfunctioned, and swallowed my card. some might wonder why i was flying to australia without any money...and let me tells ya, i do now...but at the time, apparently i wasnt really thinking straight. so has it been easy to sort out...HAHAHAHA!...NO FUCKING DANGER! that was the 30th january, its now the 18th march, and i still dont have a card for my main account!!! when i was in australia, i called to ask why the atm had stolen my card, and to ask for a replacemnent, which i asked bill to send over to me. it came, and bill asked the man in the post office which was the quickest way...it was supposed to arrive in 5 to 8 days. 3 weeks later, the day before i left, it still hadnt arrived, so i called the bank again...and this time, as one of the security questions was my address, they told me that they had it recorded wrongly, and would correct it, and send a card in 3 to 5 days. i thought i would be here when i returned home! wrong!
this is such a long story, ive started a whole new paragraph!!!! when i hadnt arrived after 10 days, i called again, only to be told that i hadnt asked for a new card to be sent out, and that my address had been changed to flat 3 chalmers buildings...of which there are 4 in my building!!! i was also told that i couldnt change my address again over the phone, and would have to go into a branch to reset it..happy happy joy joy! pissed off...moi! shurley shome mishtake. although, given the address they had its probably just as well they didnt send a card out.....however...i went in to the only nationwide in my close proximity, and did all the schtik, so hopefully, on monday, i will actually be able to access my major account!
in the meantime....
2. i asked qatar to change my flight, and they sent me a quote for a flight going out on the 14th feb and returning on the 30th january...i kid you not. for these changes(!) the charge was £969!!! strangely, i declined, but when i called again to report the impossibility of this, i was told that they had no other flights available, so i just booked another flight on ethiad via abu dhabi. stupidly i just thought that i would be able to use my booked return...but, thanks to binni, i called to check, and, of course, i couldnt use the return if i hadnt used the outward. fuck! so i had to book another return, and since i had to put the deposit for rose's funeral onto my credit card, i had a bill due, but no card to pay it with, and had to pay the bill before i could put on another charge.... poor old binni and kim..they had to not only give me spending money in the absence of my card, but pay my credit card bill as well! i actually had a panic attack at that moment. however, bill paid, flight home booked, seemed all fine and dandy. but now...2 weeks later, i still dont have a card! so they say that charity starts at home, how true...not only did my friends have to support me for a month and pay my bills, when i returned home, i met eli at the airport (i knew she was going to be there, dont mean i just bumped into her by chance), and then she gave me dosh as well. how fucking lucky am i. when i went to the back to give the schtik, the teller said to me 'god, how have you managed without a card for 2 months'....apparently she doesnt have as good friends and family as i do!!!!! but then, who does? no one!!!!
in the meantime....
3. when i arrived off the 13 hour flight from abu dhabi to brisbane, i was already informed on the plane that anyone connecting to canberra, adelaide or new zealand had 30 mins max to make the connection. and i had to do that thing im not very good at...runrunrun through the airport, missing out picking up my booked duty free, and get my bag at the carousel and book in again to get to the domestic terminal. round the carousel there were staff shouting, 'those of you on these flights...get your bag and run to the check in'.....gogogog....and i said to them...im sorry, i cant get my bag any quicker than it appears here....but i made it, just. last person to check in 2 mins before deadline! hoorah. and you might think that was all...but no...
4. on the way back, on the flight that i could only book because binni and kim paid my credit card bill, my flight from canberra landed in sydney 10 mins after my onward one to doha was boarding. ten people on the flight had flights which departed in less than 30 mins...and we all had to change from the domestic to international terminal. i have never seen this before...but we were allowed to get up while the plane was still taxi-ing to the gate, get all our stuff, and queue at the door so we got off right away. after running through the domestic terminal, there was a special bus to collect about 20 people with short connections...swinging us to the international terminal with 15 minutes to spare. there were two people going on a flight to hawaii leaving 10 mins before mine...you have never seen anyone run so fast in flip-flops, and to be honest, for me, the only reason i made it was the woman, lindsay, sitting next to me on the canberra flight was also on my doha flight, and was a nurse flying to iraq. she wouldnt leave me, but just also punched her way through any queue we were in. im guessing she is a fantastic nurse, and a real boon to the people of iraq. had it not been for her, i might still be in sydney airport, like tom hanks in terminal, picking food out of the bin at macdonalds, and sleeping in a toilet with the light on. but....hallelulah, we made it...with 3 minutes to spare...HA!
5. however..guess what....my bag didnt!
had to wait for it for 4 days....in the mean time, was staying at bills with no clothes, no toiletries, and, strangely, no money! something of a theme there!
6. luckily i just happened to bump into eli at the airport...and she paid not only for the taxi home, but also for the copious amounts of wine we consumed while still working out the lawyer shit, inland revenue who had sent a bill for £100 fine and £10 a day because rose hadnt filled in her tax return by the end of january. when i called them, they grudgingly acknowleged that a person who had died on the 10th perhaps couldnt fill in a return by the 31st, and that they would drop the fine. how nice!
7. my assistant manager, for 2 of the weeks i was off, didnt enter me on the rota...she just left me blank. i called liz about it, and she said that she had told her to put it through as authorised leave...but mel says that she didnt know what to enter, so she just didnt put in anything.....dont even know what to say. then she told me that after her mother died, she 'took a depression', and had to be written of by the doctor. she told me it was worse than a sister dying....i just couldnt reply to that one....so i havent been paid! i cant imagine a scenario, ever, that i dont enter something on the rota for everyone of my staff, even if it is 'unauthorised leave'. mel told me that payroll had called her to find out where i was, but she didnt know what to tell them, so just said nothing...they said, 'well, im guessing she will be back when she realises that she isnt getting paid anymore!'. i cant even tell you how mad that makes me feel....
but on the plus side.....MY CARD ARRIVED TODAY!!!!!!
thank the fucking lord!
all...i would go bonkers.
i know rose was just my sister, but i had known her for the whole of her life, and most of mine, and one of the things between us was unconditional love and understanding. i think that is one of the things that most people miss when a partner dies....they are never again going to have that thang...the knowing someone so well that you accept everything thang....
rose and i were so close...and i know it wasnt all the time, and we had drifted in later years, dont get me wrong, there is nothing im making into sainthood here...but i loved her without question whatever she did, and i know she felt the same. the trouble is, we miss being the special...being the one that is the closest...it is terrible having to face life without being that important for anyone!
but i have all of you.
i really am the most fortunate person in the world.
even if i am a big australian lizard who just lies around in the sun all the time, and doesnt even watch crossing the road!!!! (according to binni and kim)
i suspect there are! i think there is one called clumsiness!
to cut a long story short, apart from all the other gash that has happened to me recently, when i was taking out the rubbish with bill, i fell down the stairs and have hurt my knee and ankle so badly that i coudnt leave the house for 2 days. to say its driving me MAAAAD! is an understatement...as you all know, i walk everywhere, and now have had to develop a dangerous taxi habit which is costing me a fortune, and i may have to start mugging. though running away might be a problem.
however....on the plus side, as you can see from these photos, i have actually had time to decorate my kitchen, and now, apart from the floor it is finished. luckily i painted it all before i fell...but its amazing what you can do with only one leg. now all i have to do is re-decorate the bathroom, get rid of all the crap, put my bedroom back together, get a carpet fitted in the loo, put up the mirror ive got lying around, re-wire all my tv/playstation stuff, put back all the rugs, put up all the pictures from my walls that are lying in piles all over the flat...and make sure my washing machine actually works. easy peasy!
on a different note...i have also decided that im not going to step down at work. i know i have spoken about this....but hell....what am i thinking. its taken me bloody years to get to this point, the point where i do not even have to consider financial issues....and can pretty much do what ever i want...well, as long as an atm doesnt steal my card. i know that i went bonkers after rose died, and lost all confidence in myself....and really got so stressed about everything that i couldnt cope, but that was then. i do think having my flat turn into a building site, all the hassle with the plumber and the leaks to the flat below, and the petty squabbling that went on between the various parties involved drove me over the edge. but now its back to being my flat...only better...id like to say im back to being me only better...but sadly im still the same old pedantic, sarcastic idiotic woman ive always been. so much for the good news.
anyway....until liz tells me that im shite and i have to go to the greggs lodge for confused managers...im staying put. so put that in your pipe and smoke it!
btw kim...finally got to 80% on lumosity! hoorah!
my, hilarious, often-quoted and renouned review of the most hilarious shows at the edinburgh festival...bet you cant wait.
in the mean time, as a side show...let me tell you, i fell in my bathroom, smacked the back of my head off the sink, pulled the shower door i was holding onto off its track, and smashed my back to smithereens. what fucking larks!
thank god for deep heat patches, cocodamol and ibruprofen gel!
and...of course, there is that power cut on the outer banks still going on..
if i believed in karma...i might wonder what i had done wrong in a former life...
HAHA!
ok, before i start gushing...im starting with the baaad things.
1. when we were out for dinner in chattanooga there were loads of fire engines and cop cars going by the restaurant. didnt really think much about it till we started walking back down the road, and realised they were outside our hotel. it had been evacuated and there was police tape everywhere. we were not allowed in even to get things out of the car, so went out to a bar. because we had just been out for dinner, i didnt have any id...so they wouldnt serve me. happy happy joy joy. we were told later that some dude had been cooking meth in his room...dont know if its true, and never will. next morning the staff acted like nothing had happened.
2. bill and i took over 2 days to get home. not going to harp on...oh, ok, i will...we were congratulating ourselves as we got through security etc in a jiffy (of course i have TSA clearance, so can shimmy through)..but actually bill got stroppy with the security because she told him to take off his shoes...'im over 75, i dont have to' was bills retort, causing much humour, as she didnt believe him! anyway.....through done and dusted! HAHAHA! an hour after our flight was due to leave we were still in the bar...the flight still wasnt on the board as delayed, but, of course it was...for hours and hours. 3 hours after the takeoff time, there was a message saying that due to an electrical fault, it wouldnt be leaving till midnight at the earliest, and might not go at all. so i decided that we would hedge our bets, given that if it didnt go at all, every single passenger would need another flight, and changed ours to lunchtime the next day via charlotte and JFK. so....just needed to pick up our bags, and head back to elis apartment...NOT!
bills bag went missing, and we didnt get it till 1.30am.....so, we decided just to stay in the airport, given that we had already been there for 6 hours...we spent the night in the only open place...starbucks!!!! happy happy joy joy.
at 3.30 the desks opened, and we checked in...whizzed through everything...go to charlotte, and JFK...no bother. we were a bit concerned as we only had 1hr20 to go get our edinburgh flight....but THERE WAS NO SECURITY!!!!! we breezed it. went to have a drink to celebrate....then noticed they had changed our gate...mmmmm! who would have thought lightning would strike twice...the plane had an electrical fault!!!! now due to go at midnight, when a flight came in from miami, and we took their plane. so...back to the bar....to cut a very, very long story short....we eventually left at 23.30 (kim thats 11.30pm) and in a tiny plane with no entertainment, in which i fell asleep before the drinks trolley came round (goddammit!) we got home. but.....hahaha, yet again...bills bag didnt! so another desk, another queue, another wait! fuck me dead!
when we got home we hadnt slept in a bed for 2 nights, hadnt showered for 3 or brushed our teeth for 2!!!! we prpbably looked like homeless people! and i have to say.....bill you are a total brick. we both got a big jumpy now and again, but ive done all this before. bill, not old, but vintage at 84, spent his first ever night in an airport, didnt get furious when his bag went missing for the second time, and was nice to everyone. however i realised he was a bit stressed when he had 2 beers in JFK...dont mean to paraphrase 'airplane', but bill never has 2 beers at home!!!!
so...now the good stuff!
what a fab time we had! OBX...the outer banks...for all three of us (and we have all been a lot of places) one of the best locations, and best kept secrets in the world. lots of tourists (though, we didnt hear another foreign accent), but its so long and extended that nowhere seemed crowded. there is the pamlico sound on one side....huge, but calm so for swimming, sailing, kids, paddle-boarding. and the ocean on the other for surfing, beachcombing, walking and just listening to the waves. all the houses are on stilts with the carports underneath...and they are huge! some of them sleep 20 people....and i just want to stay in one right on the beach. it has its own quirky charm, lots of delicious seafood, 4 lighthouses, beach buggies for rent to drive on the sand...and, of course, the pirate connection. blackbeards hideaway was on ocracoke island...and the call the outer banks 'the graveyard of the atlantic' as over a thousand ships have gone down here. famously....raleighs lost colony was here (now the name of a local brewery) and there are just sweet little towns with eccentric people. its my kinda place.
its hard...but i suppose i must move on from the outer banks....so here are my favourite things about the road trip. the civil rights museum in memphis, graceland (surprisingly), the blues cafe, peg-leg porkers, bikers night in memphis, the soda fountains in corinth mississippi, where we spoke to the 91 year old pharmacist, who was the first female graduate in the field in the state, and in scottsboro alabama (which now doesnt have the drugstore, but is just fab nevertheless). schwabs general store. having a beer in one of the cars of the chattanooga choo choo, riding on the lightning rod at dollywood, crossing the mississippi on yet another bridge to go to arkansas to see the 'sulanta disaster' museum...sadly closed, but it was fun. the whole confederate statue debacle, the road-stops, the motels, well...the whole thing. and lets not forget the eclipse. we watched it in knoxville....with very few people, in a tree lined park, so we were in the shade. and it was just fab....when the sun went dark, the birds stopped singing, and the crickets and cicadas started,. the shadows were amazing and it was actually quite eerie. then the crickets stopped..the birds started again, and everything went back to normal....so glad i saw that. think i also have to mention, as one of my favourite things...i probably did more shopping on this trip than i have in the past 10 years. enjoyed every minute. and just being with binni and kim was great....thanks to binnis driving, even past the giant trucks, we made it everywhere, mostly ahead of schedule....and i dont think we could have seen more in 2 weeks...what a blast!
back to work tomorrow.....SHIT!!!!!
yes...back at work, where the major discussion point is what will all the workies say when our breakfast deal goes up 25p tomorrow at 6am. yikes! ive tried to warn as many as possible...but there will be sticking-out lips and dummies thrown like billy-o! i just cant tell you how angry grown men get when they cant get omlette on their bacon roll due to supplier issues, so who knows what will happen...panic in the streets!!!
but, like i fucking care...to be honest, since rose died, i have come to the realisation that very few things actually matter, and i no longer get stressed out about work, its not that i dont care, its just that its just not important. what is important is my people, friends, having a good time and, hate to sound really selfish, though its not what i mean, doing what you care about and want, as much as you can.
and these photos are all about all of that....we had such a great time. and, derek, omg, ate so much meat, just hunks of meat, which i dont usually do....we all got a bit bbq-ed out. wasnt mad on the dry bbq...though loved peg-leg porkers in knoxville...what fun it was, and the blues cafe in memphis...loud, busy, huge plates of chips and bbq sauce with cheese everywhere, including the floor.
and the brew thru is only in the outer banks of carolina...but i bet they could expand over the whole usa....brilliant service.
my favourite meals....blue cheese slaw in asheville, coconut shrimp in ocracoke, spicy chicken poppers in the hotel in knoxville, and spicy chicken wings (with no bones, and enough for 3 people) in calhouns. we drank so much boutique beer, its hard to pick one out, but in bottles...the blue moon beer. loved the lightning rod coaster, but wouldnt recommend paying $75 for dollywood, and yet..the $50 for graceland is money well spent..not to mention all the shopping i did there. the civil rights museum will never leave my memory, best museum ever, and the soda fountains in mississippi and alabama. kudzu is another thing, its everywhere, the scourge of the south, and the confederate flag, kinda the same.
but...what a blast...such great times, and at the right time....no hurricanes for us! just got out in time!
yes, we are well into the months that end in 'burrrrr!!!', and while we had an unseasonably warm october, with temperatures of about 14 C, it has now plummeted, and if you are going out to see guy fawkes fireworks, since remember, remember, its the 5th november, gunpowder, treason and plot...or a modern take...bonfires, fireworks and hot...drinks, as its going to be a shivery 2C tonight, max, you had best rug up, as rose used to say.
obviously, im not going to see fireworks, as, apart from going to work, i really dont do anything, unless im in another coutry. to be honest, you may wonder why im bothering to write this, as the only thing i have done, apart from eat, sleep and work (well, and strangely, drink the odd bottle of wine) is go to the cinema with bill to see 'geostorm'. it was utter tosh, ridiculous script, idiotic male bonding scenes when the world was about to end, and, despite all evidence, advice and intuition about trusting no one, every guy in the film trusted women, and told them the entire plot scenario from the first minute they met them. however....we both loved every moment. it was like one of those disaster movies from the 70's where you knew who the good guys were, the only people who died were faceless, unknown singletons, a little like the security men in startrek, and the hero appeared to be doomed, but survived in the last few seconds to deliver yet another one-liner or punch another shoulder another day. hoorah for potus, gerard butler and his fantastically sensible brother, who, funnily enough, all hugged each other at the end, and made up after years of not speaking! god bless america!
on a similar note...ie, disaster, my staff think i am totally mad, but im going to prypiat! its in Ukraine...doest ring any bells...no didnt to me either...but its the town that was next to the cherynobl nuclear plant that is now a ghost town. the ferris wheel, the bumper cars, the abandoned buildings....so my kinda thang. cant wait, even if i am going in january, and it will be, im guessing, about -20C and snowy. just going for the weekend, as you are only allowed to spend 2 days in the exclusion zone, but have a day either side in Kiev, and my flight from edinburgh was only £150! woo hoo!
then...on top of that, because i was off sick when i was supposed to be on holiday in turkey, and didnt get paid for it, i now have 2 weeks still to take, so im meeting binni and kim in albuquerque, and we are doing another american road trip....this time in new mexico....staying in adobe houses with khiva fireplaces, going to the white sands, first nation pueblos, santa fe, taos, and area 51! cant wait....! though...again its going to be cold, cold, cold! however 2 of the houses we are staying in have outdoor hot tubs, and the stars are supposed to be amazing....i'll let you know.
so thats it...nothing else to report...all work and no play....tomorrow im working my 9th day in a row...happy happy joy joy etc....
so how much time do you have to listen to my pet hates right now...the things that drive me MAD! ok, so you have a sock drawer to sort out...you can do that later.....
1. ok....when did it become acceptable not to swich off you music when being served in a shop, or even remove your cans, but whisper to the staff to compensate, and keep asking them to reapeat the same question because you cant fucking hear them? im sorry, mate, perhaps if you turned off the music you might be able to hear me when i ask you, for the third time, if you want squirty cream on your caramel latte!!!
2. why is that after standing in a queue for 8 minutes, getting your order handed to you, coffee, bacon roll, and fudge donut....and then, and only then, do you get your purse/wallet out and then decide to offer the pointless change...5p on a sale of £2.95, which you look for for 2 minutes, and then decide....guess what...yes, just to pay on a card....and then just put your card onto the chip and pin, and pay for another persons shopping....thereby causing all kinds of hassle with refunds and those larks we know and love!
3. another thing i just love....people who just say...'i'll have a breakfast deal'. when you just stand there awaiting more information they just look baffled. hell, im good, but im not a fucking mind-reader!
4. people who are speaking on their phones, reach the front of the queue, and ask the server to wait a moment...is he calling an ambulance, trying to persuade his wife not to divorce him, or talking his best mate down off a ledge...is he fuck!!!!! he is talking banal shite with someone else, possibly even more boring than him, if that is possible. obviously the 25 people in the line behind him are oh-so-happy to wait until he finishes his pointless conversation...sorry to be sexist in this regard... but it is usuall men who do this...women can speak on the phone, order a coffee and flip their hair at the same time! but obviously are shite at parking a car...what can you do?
5. people walking head down doing some pointless shite on their phone...i feel like walking into them on purpose...but realise that this would stupid...they wouldnt even notice. or care.
6. flavoured coffee...vanilla, caramel, gingerbread muffin with clotted cream and sprinkles mocha-choca-latte. i like flavoured coffee when it tastes of what it is supposed to...yes...who'd a thought...just fucking COFFEE!!!! coffee that tastes of coffee...yikes!
7. anyone who uses the word 'like' more than once for no reason other than to be an asshole!
8. people who call mocha 'mowkaa'....there is no mow in mockery!
9. anyone who has bought an iwatch for their 15 year old son to buy his lunch!
10. getting a begging letter from heriots school, asking for tombola prizes so that they can send a bunch of 10 year olds on a rugby tour of japan. im just guessing...but as the fees cost £11.000 a year, one would have thought that perhaps either the parents, or the school itself could scrimp and save in order to fund this oh-so-worthy cause. im sure no 10 year old boy in edinburgh can exist without flying to the other side of the world to play sport that he could easily do at home, with the help of a few other morningside ruperts or jaspers. just saying....
11. enmasse joggers...hell, im just walking home from work, could you give me a fucking break! AND IF YOU DARE TO WEAR A HEADTORCH...YOU ARE THE WORK OF THE DEVIL!
12. mormons. what can i say...im the stony ground.
13. 'comedy films'. am i alone in finding no laughs, just pathetic losers doing shite we find creepy. will farrel....discuss!
ok...jeez,. i feel i bit better having got all that off my chest...tune in next week for another pile of bile.
so...after all the negative ranting, i thought i would ameriorate the blog, by all my pet loves of the moment. actually, is that a real saying...'pet loves'. probably not unless it involves 1000 photos of you dog or cat on facebook..or even more scarey, porn movies featuring said animals, not to mention horses, snakes and even hamsters in compromising positions...but lets not even go there! so here are the good thangs....
1. i went to see Acosta danza; debut at the festival theatre with bill. now, i know not many people are into ballet, but carlos acosta is a cuban dancer who was the lead at the sadlers wells, and in the usa too...to be honest, he is probably the most famous and hightly regarded male dancer in the world right now...a little like nuryiev but with out the big lips, margot fonteyn, and several pairs of socks down his tights. he has now set up his own dance troupe, who do modern dance, but with a very balletic flair, and i found out they were appearing for 2 nights only a day before because of an advert on facebook. but, luckily the festival theatre is big enough that they still had tickets, although, also small enough that almost all the seats have a good view. and was it worth the £29 per ticket i paid (actually bills was £4 less because he is so old!!)...you fucking betcha! it was wonderful....there were people throwing crunchy dayglo plastic bottles about in time to the music, there was torchlight and tightrope walking, they were possibly the most limber and supple dancers ive ever seen, and sometimes appeared like water flowing, but for me the highlight was the guest appearence of carlos himself dancing with a mermaid, which i have to say was just really erotic...the music would stop when there were in mid caress, and you could hear her panting, presumably because she was out of her watery habitat, but, god it was sexy! loved i, loved it, loved it. and, gareth, sorry yet again i didnt call you about it...forgot how much you loved this stuff.
2. bill swam for 8 and a quarter hours for his 84th birthday to raise money for penumbra, the mental health charity that rose worked for before she died, and just because he can! the pool at nuffield health in the omni center at the top of leith walk had put a thing onto facebook, and joyce, my sister in law had shared it. when i shared it, im am proud to say, we reached the target in 12 hours! mandy, simon, eli and my friend lyndsay, who doesnt even know bill donated almost all of the money. bill dropped into my shop the next morning at about 7.45am, and i told him that we had already raised £400! when i say we...i use the term loosely...all i did was share it on facebook whereas bill swam for over 8 hours. this is the power of social media....its not the person who does the thing, its the lazy biach who shares it who gets the attention, and the money. sad but true....
3. playstation VR. for bills birthday, not only did i take him to acosta danza...i gave him a vr...ok, i realise not the normal gift for an 84th birthday, but then, bill is not your average 84 year old. it is just OMG fantastic....your house could be burgled, your dinner could burn, the undertaker could call, and there could be a hurricane, but you wouldnt notice because you would have on the headset, the earbuds, and be in another dimension. i hate to use the overused...but it really is awesome, in the real sense. one of my best ever purchases.
4. im going to chernobyl....though every time i type that i find it just so hard to put the y before the l. this alignment does not happen in english, and as someone who learned to type in 1978, when i left school, and teachers advised me not to bother, as in the future (computers were in there infancy at this point, and there was the myth of the paperless office) no one would be typing, it would be a thing of the past. funny now, everything is about typing, though i use every finger, now its just thumbs.
5. books. fuck me dead ive read some just wonderful books recently. most notably 'gut symmetries' by janette winterson....i have no time for her as a person, but some of her writing is just brilliant...'sexing the cherry' and 'the world and other places' being my favourites. 'the double'by jose saramago 'iQ84' murakami, euclyptus by murray bail, ten stories about smoking by stuart evers, tram 83 by fiston mwanza nujila, tale for the time being by ruth ozeki...and something ive started reading again, which gareth told me about...the people in the trees by hanya yanagihara. her next book a little life won the booker prize, but its not a patch on this. id like to say that the protagonist make more sense to me reading it again, and i had forgotten that the first third is about growing up with his parents and his twin....but it doesnt. he is devoid of humanity. if you havent read this, i suggest you do...it is an allegory of what is happening in the world just now.
6. all of you. you know who you are.
7. this blog. im not sure why so many people have started reading it...im sure you must be really disappointed as its a pile of shite...but it keeps me sane...almost!
i have always loved hogmanay, and the new year celebrations, because, to me, they seemed optimistic, and i suppose hedonistic...leave all the old rubbish behind and lets just begin anew. look forward, not back. and given that the weather is totally crap, and we still have about 4 months of darkness and cold, lets have a bit of a hooley to cheer us up.
last year was just great...its the first time ive been in edinburgh for hogmanay for 3 years, the year before in las vegas, one before that on a plane, and finally before that in australia, so i called rose and arranged with her to go to see the fireworks on the bridge near where i live. (bill calls it 'the cuddy walk', as there is a very striking bronze sculpture of a man on a horse just on the other side of the bridge, and it has a really good view of the castle that only locals know). rose and i hadnt really spent that much time together after she came out of rehab....it was hard because we were drinking buddies, but well, she told me that she was just going to drink, and maybe i should have arranged not to meet her...but i did, and i am so fucking glad i did, because we had such a lovely time. rose said that the fireworks were the best she had ever seen....we came back here and ate a deliciously ripe stilton that i had bought reduced to £1.50 from £15 because it was going out of date, and we spoke...we really spoke, for probably the first time properly in ages. i cant really express this properly, as i dont really know what its like in rehab...but whatever they do, they crushed rose, and made her feel like she was the worst scum on the earth. she had gone to meetings with drug addicts who had pushed their pregnant girlfriends down stairs because they wouldnt give them money, men who had stolen money from their children to buy booze, and then punched them when they complained, people of both sexes who had either stolen from, or abused, or both, everyone in their family and group of friends and rose thought she was like this.
at first when i pushed it, she was really pissed off with me...she didnt want to talk about it, but then again, rose never talked about anything like this ever, and i was drunk...so i just kept on at her to tell me what she had ever done that was that bad. and eventually...after about 40 minutes of me hectoring her, 'rose all you have ever done is get drunk, all you have ever done is get drunk' etc...she finally admitted that, actually...apart from standing people up, and being too drunk to cook meals she had arranged to make for people, and drinking all bills whisky, she had never done anything to hurt anyone, except herself. it was like a bolt from the blue, something she had never considered, and i let her sleep in my fantastic bed with the smith mattress when she got tired.
in the morning she was ecstatic.....she had had a fantastic dream about christmas sparkle....not really sure what happened in it, you know what its like listening to other people's dreams...but she was just so happy and actually said to me that for the first time in ages, she really thought that everything might be ok. we went up to bills and had a fab meal, she was still buoyed by this dream, and it was just a really great day, meal and time. she was meeting her oldest friend alison, who she met on the first day of primary school, 2 days later and spending a few days with her and she seemed really alive and just luminous. she was looking forward to the new year...ordered new shoes and dresses on the internet, and spoke to me about what she wanted to do for her fiftieth which was in july.
i saw her the next week on the sunday...she had been on a bender, and was so ill she couldnt eat or sit still. we had been going to meet on the saturday for lunch, as i had a rare saturday off, but she had stood me up and was just so apologetic....when i left to go home, i told her that i it was ok, and that i still loved her, despite the fact that she had, yet again let me down. we hugged and kissed....and, obviously, i didnt realise at the time, but that was the last time i was ever able to do that.
on the tuesday morning bill called me at about 7.30 as i was starting work late....but i was really asleep, and i couldnt answer in time. when i saw it was bill who had called...i kinda knew what he was going to say. the return call will stay in my memory forever.
and the point of all this....well...im just so glad that i spent that time with rose, it was just such a lovely hogmanay and im thankful i got to spend it with her. but im also glad that its this january and not last year.
but one of the really strange things about rose dying is that it has made me feel so much more alive. i know this probably sounds mad....but when i walk to work in the dark, i am so aware that im here, and she isnt, that i can see all this, and she cant, though it still sometimes surprises me that she cant, as i feel like i spoke to her yesterday. being alive feels like a miracle...
so thats why i thought i better fly to ukraine in about 5 hours,. and visit chernobyl!
so what kind of people go on holiday to ukraine, just so they can visit chernobyl you may ask yourself....well let me tell you. men in their 50s...and the odd crazy woman like me. of the 14 people on the trip. only 5 were women, and of them, 3 were wives who were there because their husbands wanted to go, two single women, of which i was, obviously one, and all the rest...middle aged men. and out first topic of conversation was how everyone thought we were mad going to the exculsion zone...or, in fact, even for for wanting to go in the first place. and i have to say, while i know that you all get it, my staff were bemused (apart from ross, who is obsessed with the accident, and christina who is into dark tourism...and, actually, just darkness in general).
and, cant deny, i wasnt really sure what to expect either. would i have to wear a hazmat suit and carry my camera in a plastic bag? would i have to shave my hair off, burn my clothes and stand under a shower for an hour? or would we have to stay on the bus for the whole trip, only taking photos out of the windows, and take all our own food from outside the zone? well...none of the above. the reality is so much easier, and yet at the same time, just so much more exciting! woo hoo!
YOU CAN WANDER EVERYWHERE...INCLUDING INSIDE THE BUILDINGS!!!!! this would never be allowed in the uk, regardless of nuclear accidents. we would have to have safety lighting, hard hats, security barriers, warning signs, and probably sign a disclaimer taking all responsibility. in ukraine all you get told is carry a torch, watch out for holes in the floor, try not to stand on moss, touch metal, or pet the many, many dogs, as all of the above absorb radiation, dont drink or smoke outside, and be careful. hahahaha! for me, as someone obsessed with abandoned places and ghost towns, not to mention horror movies, it was just totally, totally fantastic. so here is how it is going into the zone....
there is a passport control. you have to book in advance, and wont be allowed in otherwise. the first of many security stops. the town of chernobyl itself, about 10 km south of the plant wasnt too badly contaminated, as the cloud from the explosion moved north into belarus, and so this is where all the people still working on the clean up live. they either work 8 days on, and 7 off, or 4 on and 3 off...and get scanned for radiation every day. those who work inside the reactor itself only work for a maximum of 5 minutes before having to leave for an hour. it really is surreal. some of the workers have moved into cottages in the evacuated villages, they can do if they wish, but there is no electricity or running water there, and most live in hostels set up in the abandoned housing projects.
inside the 10km zone round reactor 3, the only places to stay are hostels, of which there are 2. all your meals are provided, hopefully with food brought from outside the zone, and you get locked in at night. there are dogs everywhere, but far from being the scarey, mangey curs who attack you on sight, that you might imagine, they are actually really cute, friendly, unthreatening mutts, who follow you around, and are desperate to be petted. they look really healthy, and are possibly the happiest dogs ive ever seen. except, that is, at night. they live totally outside...and its -12....so they howl, and howl and howl, and bark and bark, and bark all night. there is no other noise, except snow falling. and it is also the darkest place ive ever been. not a peep of light anywhere as you couldnt see the stars because of the cloud.
and then you get to prypiat...the town next to the reactor, the 'stepford wives' town of the soviet union experience. like the titanic, it was a place of dreams...the people who lived there just loved it, it was the ultimate soviet utopia. foreign envoys were brought here to be shown what could be done it you put your mind, and your rouble, to it...and it was a total and utter success. people were queuing up to come and live here. it was barely two years old when 'the accident' happened.
on the 27th of april everything was gearing up for the mayday celebrations....they had just erected the ferris wheel, planned a concert in the music hall, and had prepared all the posters and soviet propaganda shite for the parade.
and then....at around 1.30am on the 28th, like the titanic and the iceberg, the dream ended. except that, strangely, in chernobyl, the captain didnt go down with the ship. there was no orchestra, and they didnt arrange for an evacuation for 3 days. still...no one drowned!
there are no surveys about what happened to the residents...no support groups, no huge charity events, no statistics. they have dissappeared. no one knows how many people died, except the rescue workers...but practically everyone in ukraine has a larger thyroid gland than is normal. there are so many amazing things about going here...but the absence of information about the evacuees is one of them.
it is one of the most surreal, bleak, and yet fascinating places ive ever been. loved every minute...except not being able to move as i was wearing so many layers......
derek....hate to sound like amazon...but, because you showed an interest in chernobyl....here are some other photos you might like. prypiat is covered in soviet murals, some of which have lasted really well considering. here are a few....enjoy/
yes...tomorrow, im leaving the coldest week of the winter...to LHR and then onto the airbus A380...paid for a seat upstairs in the little economy area that no one seems to know about. woo hoo, to miami. spending the night in the airport hotel, that is, in fact, inside the airport...you dont even have to leave the terminal...and can check in right down stairs from your room. then on to the north coast of haiti...to cormier plage. hallellulah! i am intending to do nothing at all while im there except read, eat lobster and drink rum punch. might go into cap for one day to do a bit of shopping...but that is as extravagant as it is going to get. the food is included, even lobster....dancer.
it is good to be me!
actually derek....i flew to kiev via copenhagen on the way there, and via budapest on the way home. on the way to haiti i went via LHR and miami both ways. and on my trip to new mexico next month i fly via LHR, houston and denver on the way to albuqurque, and via ohare i think on the way back. in three months...thats a lot of airports!!!! think i might be about to get airport fatigue....heathrow, what a hellish place! miami is actually better than it has ever been, skytrains to passport control, not having to pick up your bag if you are travelling to the caribbean or back to the UK, and proper shops with sandwiches, snacks and books, not hemes, prada, bulgari etc. and of course i have global traveller....always a joy walking down those lanes....bypassiing the zillions in the queue. and cap haitian....what can i say...they dont give a shit what you bring in...but see trying to leave...its a nightmare. last time didnt have a paper copy of my esta to enter the USA so was held up for about an hour. the airport doesnt have wifi, so i couldnt even look it up online from an email. this time i had it printed out, but still got called into the little room at the end of security where everying thing got searched and i got frisked. and what did they care what i had in my luggage....i was leaving, and its not like you can buy drugs, guns, diamonds, rolex watches or ivory in cap haitian.
its hard to get into the usa...but fuck, in my experience, its harder to leave haiti1!!!!!
it has certainly been an interesting few days since the blizzard started. we were told that we were going to have siberian weather about 10 days ago, but i dont think anyone thought it was going to happen, so no plans were put in place for when it arrived. how very scottish.
so on tuesday when the blizzard started, and it was -3 but felt like -13 because of the wind-chill, and all the roads were impassible, everything just stopped. because i walk to work, of course i was able to get in as usual...but on wednesday, for the first time ever, we had a red weather warning, and all but essential travel was advised against. at 4am i got a message telling me that we were not to go to work until 8am. at 7am it was changed till 10am. but there will still no buses running, the airport, all schools, colleges and the university were closed. all banks, offices and public services were shut. however the trams were running ever half hour...thank god we didnt waste all that money for nothing.
so on wednesday i went in to work at 10. strangely, there was no one else there, as there were no buses. so i called my sales manager, expecting her to say...just go home. but not a bit of it....'ill find you staff..dont worry'! like i was worried! so an hour later maggie turned up, and then deinus at 12...what larks. and...guess what...we were really busy as were the only shop open...you might find something of a theme there.
the blizzard returned at 3pm so i was allowed to close and go home....but on the thursday liz said 'business as usual', so i left at 5.30am and you will be surprised to hear....when i got to work, there was no one else there...and no savoury delivery. we got nothing on wednesday at all...so basically we were running on empty. i had been on messenger with ruth, my sandwich maker, since 4am, and she had decided that she was going to walk from gilmerton...a 90 minute jaunt through deep snow...bless her!
so there was just the two of us....and as soon as we opened the door we were really busy...as, im sure you have worked out by now, we were the only shop open on forrest road. but call it dunkirk spirit, or pulling together in wartime...everyone was really happy, and i got thanked more than possibly ever in my retail career, just for being there when people wanted hot food. i dont think i have ever had so many big orders....talk about panic buying. 6 bacon rolls, 6 coffees, 6 sandwiches and packs of chocolate shortbread just incase! people bought like they just didnt know where their next meal was coming from, presumably because they didnt...because, as i think i might have said...we were the only shop open on forrest road, or pretty much anywhere.
usually people in the queue get antsy if they have to wait too long..but not today they didnt....they all thanked ruth and i for just getting to work, and were just so happy to get food...even if it was a butter chicken bake when they really wanted a steak bake, of which we had none as we didnt get a delivery for 2 days. everyone was actually in a really good mood because of that 'isnt this just hellish, but we are all in it together' kinda thang. it was a really strange day...but i cant deny, i actually really enjoyed it. no one complained...fuck me dead...thats a first! people were just relieved that a greggs was open, even if we didnt have and donuts, sausage rolls, steak bakes or bran scones, and ran out of milk by 8am. what is it with milk.....none of the supermarkets had any, as people had been panic buying...that and bread and eggs. these are the things you will need, apparently, come the apocalypse!
unless you happen to find the only greggs shop that is open...and it will be on forrest road!
this is on practially every new mexico tshirt you can buy....so sorry for the cliche...but it still tickles me! and no...its not new...it features the oldest house and church in america....and taos pueblo is the longest continuously inhabited place on the north american continent. there are petrified forests galore, petroglyphs everywhere, pueblo ruins and cliff dwellings that are 800 years old, and though more modern, there is also los alamos, with its oppenheimer avenues, and atomic streets, and the trinity site where the first ever nuclear weapon was set off. and, roswell site of the famous 'was it a weather balloon, or was it aliens' crash in 1947. on top of all this...there is the route 66 trail which although now very, very delapidated, and in some cases, downright scarey (most of the motels were boarded up, and the neon off...but if one had been open...i bet you that the only people who would have stayed there are the very ones who feature in horror movies, being tortured in underground cells, or hacked to death by a deranged brother who is kept locked up in the attic, but has managed to escape in order to but
er girls doing their laundry, wearing nothi
just spent 2 hours writing this entry...and its just gone into cyberspace. at this moment feel like throwing my computer out of the window.....but, it wont help. dang
so....trying again. and next year we might go back, so we might have other amazing things to report...but to paraphrase what i said in the post that got sucked into a vortex.....
new mexico is just magic.
it has more indigenous people than i have ever seen...despite the fact that the hellish, depressing town of tuba city in arizona is meant to be the biggest conurbation of native americans. in new mexico...as in arizona, they still refer to first nation people as 'indians'....something us bleeding heart europeans would never do, but i would say in taos, santa fe and around the mountains, about 85% of the population is first nations....not to mention that we couldnt visit the pueblo of taos...the thing that i said is the oldest continously inhabited place in north america. guess why. because the spring is the time for rites and ceremonies...all the pueblos are closed for the whole month of march....how fantastic is that. i was really pissed...dont get me wrong...i wanted to go, but the fact that they were closed for their own rites for a month is something i did not expect. i thought, sadly, that all that kind of thing had been replaced by christmas, alcohol, and the hell of living on a reservation. but...not in new mexico. they have corn dances, rites in the khiva, and initiations...so we cant go for a whole month, however luckily we can visit pueblo ruins, drink great margaritas, and buy as many hopi, zuni and navaho rugs and pots as we can possibly fit in our luggage. and thats a lot...let me tells ya.
we stayed in fab adobe houses, drank margaritas almost every day, shopped till we dropped...and we all got sick in roswell. actually binni was ill before this..but we arrived in roswell in a dust storm so thick you could barely see the road. kim said we shouldnt go out in it, and she was so right, even now im coughing like i smoked a cigar yesterday. we all got a flu-like thang...it was really crap, as it ruined our time in albuquerque, and i was so ill when i got home, i spent 2 days in bed.
but we have to go back to see taos pueblo...mesa verde in colorado, and silver city ghost town. omg...just too much to see....brilliant new mexico...love it. love it, love it....
well, you wont believe it, but finally we have sunshine for the first time since last summer....and after having had no leaves at all on the trees, and not even a hint of cherry blossom, at a time when it can be all done and dusted already, the meadows has gone mad with buds and greenery. not really surprising the trees have been in hibernation, considering we had 2 inches of snow during the first week of april, and it has rarely gone above 5 degrees C, but suddenly it is 22 and feels like spring. obviously, in the present climatic conditions, that could all change tomorrow, and we could have snow again, but, OMG, is it good to be able to leave the house without winter boots, an icelandic jacket and a hat. hallelulah!
anyway....this weather has not at all helped my just so bloody annoying cold, that i have had since roswell in NM. binni succumbed first, but the dust storm we drove through in alien country didnt help, and by the time we arrived at our amazing adobe on marble street albuquerque we were all sneezy, feverish and had coughs like a proforming seal. someone just balance a ball on my nose.
strangely flying home from chicago crushed into the only spare seat on the plane....yes, the one everyone dreads, the middle of 5, with an indian mother and son on one side (and i dont mean that in the US first nations sense, i mean a rich mumbai mother and her podgy spoilt teenage son), and a daughter with her mother on the other, the elder of whom quite obviously had dementia, and spilt wine all over herself, went to the toilet and got lost, and couldnt work the entertainment system. (the only other person i have ever known who got lost on a plane, was, and whod a thought it, rose coming back from cuba. went to the loo, and didnt even know which way to go when she came out....she had to get help from a steward to get back to her seat...she said it was really stupid, as she should just have walked up and down, looking for my hair....hahaha!)
it just wont let me add anything to that post....so...here is the next installment, bet you are on the edges of your seats...i know i am!
so despite my stoopidly over-active immune system, i just cant shake this bloody cough, may as well just start smoking again...not! so i blame those pesky aliens...the dirty bastards!
and...having been abroad 3 times in 3 months, one might thing that a girl might want to stay at home for a while....hahaha! no fucking danger. have 2 trips booked but not until october and november...so thought i better do something inbetween...so....well, to cut a long story short, unlike your average millenial, who seems unable to even be able to carry a pound in their pocket, binni and kim,. just like me, deal in cash. and unlike in america where the dollar is alway legal tender whenever it came out, we change our notes....and now out fivers and tenners are polymer. so bandk had some notes that are now ood. so in june im getting the train down to london to the old lady of threadneedle street to change them into current currency!!!
and then....you know, as you do, i decided to take bill to barra for lunch. barra has the only scheduled flight in the world that lands on a beach...and we are just going for 4 hours. what larks. the plane is an 8 seater, and we both have window seats...it takes about 1 hour 10 mins from glasgow....im pretty excited. ive always wanted to do this flight...the times of landing are dependent on the tides....
and then in october going back to kas....and then november...doing an overland guatemala to costa rica....
i know, for me, what the meaning of life is....
theres good news and bad news...which would you like first...well, in the absence of anyone to answer...im going with the good first....
the weather has been so much better, and, who knows, the blossom might even come out soon....most years its all done and dusted by this late date...ie, almost in may, but this year it has yet to appear at all. the trees are budding, the sun is out...but, fuck me dead, its so cold. the wind is blowing right down off the arctic, so its sunglasses, winter boots and icelandic knitwear here right now. ALMOGORDO its cold! (kim...)
i have decided that when bill and i go to barra, that we are going through to glasgow the night before. our flight isnt until 09:20 but its just so much less stress if we go and stay at the airport...and, you wont believe it, but i found a hotel with great reviews that is less than £100, including breakfast, and is A 3 MINUTE WALK TO DEPARTURES!!!! hallelulljah!!! get the champagne on ice!
ive found a site that will make your own design wayuu mochillo...magic!
I BOOKED A FLIGHT TO THE WRONG SAN JOSE!!!!!
so...yes...going back to central america in november....and going overland from costa rica to guatemala, through el salvador, nicaragua and honduras. amazingly it has been 26 years since i visited guatemala, but it has always stuck in my mind as one of the most beautiful and interesting places ive ever been. and also been to costa rica...and even nicaragua, briefly, when i went to the most hilarious border post ever, on the river, with young men who were quite obviously not expecting a boat load of 10 tourists to need their passports stamped!
anyway....i did the most common mistake in the history of flight booking....i booked a flight to the wrong san jose.
san jose costa rica is SJO san jose international CR
san jose california is SJC san jose international CA
FUCK ME DEAD...I BOOKED SJC NOT SJO!
booked it wednesday...but didnt notice till thursday night....you only have 24 hours to cancel...was already too late.
got in touch with the centre i booked it with...they told me that i couldnt change airport...but i could change dates, given that i was flying to somewhere 4000 miles out of my way, for the paltry sum of £300!
then i would have to stay in a hotel in the wrong san jose, and fly down in the morning for another £270 or so...given that the flight only cost me £600...was just thinking that i should cancel the whole thing, accept the loss, and start from scratch.
then....well, i remembered i actually had a really good friend who worked for BA!
mel...she has saved my life, my money, and my sanity! she has booked me onto the right san jose!!!!
after this...never again will i go to any other fucking san jose!!!!
last week, it seems to me, it was winter...we had snow in april (to quote prince...and i dont mean harry!)...the blossom didnt come out till the first week of may, and there were no leaves on the trees....
now, its almost june, the blossom has gone, so have the students, and the school kids will soon follow. the trees all burst out in their greenery in what seems like a week, and the meadows has been like woodstock, with disposable barbeques! it is only a month to the longest day (unless you are in the tomorrow-land of the southern hemisphere, where it is the shortest!)...so i reitterate...where does all the time go?
i realise that some of you, oh, my zillions of avid readers, have got there already, but the idea that i will be 60 in a mere 3 and a half years, just blows my mind! or is that the dementy kicking in? in 2022 my mortgage will be paid off, and i will finally own a part of the planet outright! i often say to my teenage staff members, one of whom wasnt even born in the same millenium as the rest of us....make the most of your youth....one day you will wake up and look in the mirror and you will be in your fifties, and wonder how the hell you got there so quickly! obviously they look at me blankly, realising that i am, in fact, even older than their mother...and so therefore, may as well have lived before there were cars, or electricity...if their feeble facebook-engorged minds can even imagine such a time.
and then....i think of bill!
now bill is going to be 85 this year, quite a feat in itself. but the phrase 'you cant teach an old dog new tricks' comes to mind, as bill is the proof that you can...and you can also excell at said tricks.
if you study the photos posted with this literary masterpiece of diary writing, you will see the bill has worked his way up to monthly NO 1 IN THE WORLD on one of his VR games. NO1!!!!! how the other players would laugh, i imagine, if they realised that they had been trounced by an 84 year old ex-teacher sitting by a wood stove with a blankey over his knees!!!! hahahaha!
so with this in mind, i have decided to enjoy being older, in some ways it is such a freedom, and i so dont want to turn into madonna...arriving at a party with my 60 year old arse hanging out of my dress to show im still fit! i would prefer to just start wearing purple! not just literally, i mean...i have done coloured hair, dyeing my doc martens, and wearing ridiculous clothes a zillion times in past lives, but figuratively.
i now, generally just wear my greggs uniform all the time, we are now officially allowed to wear it to work, so, to save on time, washing, and having to make a decision at 5am...i just wear my uniform. so the only times i get to wear my own clothes is on my day off....and i make the most of it. i may not be wearing purple, but im feeling it inside my head...and no one knows or cares what batty old women do anyway.
i am reminded of proust going back to his home town in 'remembrance of times past' and meeting all the people he had known when they, and he, were young. he describes them in the way that make me think of chairs in chernobyl with the stuffing hanging out, or pastries that are weeks old, but the one thing about his description is that he doesnt see himself in this way....he is still young, inside his head, and it is only them who have changed. vanity or delusion?
i have been vain for my whole life, but luckily, im not so delusional that i dont see myself as i really am. and that is pushing 60.....god...how did we all get so old.
last week i was only 45!
call me a lazy old dame, that exercise would be so much better for me, and that im wasting the very short time i have left on the planet, and that there is still so much to see and do in the city i live in...but, on my days off work, i just love doing absolutely nothing! i believe it is a very underrated passtime, and that we should all learn how to let go, think about nothing really important for a day, and just let our body clock tell us what to do. have no timed breakfast lunch or dinner, watch, bingewatch or not watch at all. nap when you feel like it, have a glass of wine when you feel like it, listen to deafeningly loud music, or appreciate the silence, shower dont shower, WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT!
so....here are some of the exhausting things i have done/thought about today.
got out of bed.
looked at the internet, emails, facebook, pinterest, argos, spotify...god it was just so tiring!!!
answered a call from 'sarah' from internet service provider (sic) tellling me that my broadband was being corrupted from california, though she didnt know which provider i had or what my name was. strangely i just hung up without pressing 4 for 'other' ispns.
watched 2 episodes of the new series of 'the handmaids tale'. i read this when i was about 20, and its always stuck in my mind, but (funnily enough) given what is happening in the world right now, and the regressive ideas about the position of women, it seems so poignant. this is our reality...what seemed science fiction 30 years ago now seems like something that could happen tomorrow...and not in a good way!! but i try not to despair, anyone who read 'the chronicles of thomas covenant the unbeliever' back in the 80s would know that despair is the opposite of life, and something that we should never, ever succumb to. and...that perfection is weak, strength comes from being imperfect, being an alloy, being a doubter! being a total cynic, this is, quite obviously, a cornerstone of my life, stephen donaldson apart. season finale of sense8 on the 8th, and rupauls dragrace still to finish....also spent a couple of minutes watching 'love island'. am i alone in finding it just so vacuous, and the 'contestants' so annoying, that i had to turn it off? yeah...thought not..
my shop now opens at 6.30am!!!! i just cant believe that i can do this....15 years ago, the only time i saw 4;45 was because i had stayed up all night. now its when i get up.! fuck me dead!
so, bill and i got a train down to the big smoke after a total nightmare-remaniscent scene where i had to go into email to get our tickets printed out, as my black cartridge has given up despite costing £40 and only being 2 months old, at the station, and get the guy behind the desk to do it for me. only last week i had a dream that was so similar...although in real life no one had cut our names out ot the tickets with scissors, and then put them back into my bag. ANEEEEWAY..lets move on....
london....what larks! dont get me wrong, i, and i hope bill too, had a really nice day, lovely salad for lunch sitting in the sun, walked down by the river to the tower, all fab....but london...why does anyone live there? 7 hours in london in numbers...
1. there is no space...personal or otherwise. people just bash into you all the time....hands, bags, laptops, cases....its just too busy.
2. its brown. almost everywhere....walls, rooves, just everything....yuk.
3. rubbish still gets put out on the street in bags.
4. business guys in suits hang around outside their work smoking...i havent seen so many people smoking for years....i even saw a moped rider with a fag. in edinburgh...people with these jobs would wait till they got home....it seemed a bit dated....
5. we saw at least 20 pregnant women in 5 hours....dont mean this is a wrong thang...its just something to comment on. i have never seen so many girls up the duff in one day. so presuamably the population of london will not be going down any time soon.
6. there are no...i mean, no stylish people...its not just me, bill kept saying this all the time. i respect his 84 year old take on the world. dowdy was the word he used.
7. it is far., far less grand than i thought before...seemed a bit narrow and tired. like a city far past its best.
8. the bank of england...well that was an experience. in retrospect i would have done this so differnetly.....you can change £1000 with no id...but not more. so i had to proove where the money came from. as i had take a letter from the lawyer as proof of address, and it was about roses estate, the guy asked me if rose had left me the money. i just said yes...doh. should have got bill and i to go in seperately with a grand...but no didnt. but...ok, now have all the paper work...will be done in a week, and go into my bank account. but, its like fort knox getting in there....you get questioned before you even get to walk up the steps....searched, xrayed, interrogated...its pretty heavy. what larks.
9. the shard....pants! its not a shard, and its not pretty. disappointing.
10...on the other hand...the gherkin....totally fab,
11...great day, but we just couldnt wait to get back on the train and come home....
bill is in hospital for the first time ever in his life...
and there is no good news...in fact quite the opposite.
he has terminal cancer.
2 weeks ago we walked around london for 10 miles, and last week bill swam for 3 hours every day.
i dont even know how to say how i think or feel.....
why cant this happen so some bastard in the world like donald trump....not bill, he is such a lovely man. i just dont know what i am going to do without him.
barratastic!!!!
short of doing a skydive, i think this is as much fun as you can possibly have in a small plane with no toilet! and, in any case, you couldnt join the mile high club even if you wanted to...the wee prop jet only reaches a hight of 7000 feet flying over the islands of mull, islay, jura, coll and arriving on the beach at barra international an hour and a half after leaving glasgow! but this is, without a doubt, the most exciting flight i have ever done (excluding helecopters).
when we left we were told that the weather in barra was terrible, and the plane might not be able to land, and just have to return to glasgow. not a bit of it. the weather was, indeed, terrible...we flew through really think cloud for most of the way, but as we ploughed through, we could finally see the sea, land and...in a quick turn and descent, we landed in about 6 inches of water on northbeach....barra airport...the only scheduled beach runway landing in the world! WOO HOO!!! what larks!
and then we had to wait hours for bills bag to get to the baggage reclaim, go through security, passport control and customs....HAHAHA!!! kidding...im kidding! the baggage reclaim was in the bus shelter 2 minutes walk from the 'runway', and we were into the bus to castlebay in about 7 minutes of landing. we had a snooze in our hotel when we got there..and when we roused....bloody hell, the weather had completely changed, and it was beautiful sunshine...how jammy are we? after a walk round the huge metropolis of castlebay, we had dinner, featuring the biggest and best cheese plate ive ever had, with 3 quarters of different truckle cheeses, and a blue; almost an entire packet of various crackers, 8 pats of butter and a just to-die-for pickle with grapes, plums and apricots. fucking heaven for the person for whom the phrase 'too much cheese' is an oxymoron!!!!
when we woke up on wednesday...the sun was shining, the oban ferry had left, and we went to the post office for coffee! as everyone reading this has been to the islands, you are all well aware of the unique island multi-tasking businesses....but this is the first time i have ever ordered a scone with cream and jam in a working post office, and then sat outside to eat it in the warm sunshine. what a great start to the day.
i have to say, i was pretty impressed with castlebay...for a tiny community on a very isolated island (the ferry from oban takes 5 hours!), it has everything you could need. a school, a swimming pool, a police station, more than one doctors surgery, electric car plug in points all over the place, a well stocked store, a bank with an atm, several cafes, and...most important....several bars! it also, being scotland has 2 huge churches...both presbyterian....there is no room for that poncy roman shit with velvet, gold and comfy chairs here....
but you cant help but wonder what will happen when we brexit...the islands depend so much on EU money....however that is a topic for a different day....this day...i called dan the taxi man, the only one on the island, and he took us at break neck speed back to the airport. we left in beautiful sunshine with about 70 tourists watching....its one of the things you do on barra...go and watch the plane landing and taking off....it is the most exciting thing that happens there....and WE WERE ON THE FLIGHT!
what larks!
it breaks my heart to write this, but, sadly, bill died on wednesday morning. it was unconditionally what he wanted, and im happy for him, but fuck im going to miss him so much! i know lots of people say this when someone dies...but in bill's case it was true...he is just one of the most caring, unjudgemental, egalitarian, feminist, and best men i have ever known.
the funeral is at mortonhall crematorium on the 22nd at 2.30...and please wear stripes if you have any. bills whole wardrobe of tops involves them. it was his favourite sartorial thing.
still finding it hard to accept that he is not here....especially on a sunday. for the last 21 years, apart from holidays, i have gone up to bills for dinner! cant believe i will never taste his fish pie again! if i had to choose a last meal, in the unlikely event i ever end up on death row, that is what i would have.
what a guy!!!!
if the ghost of christmas to come had visited me last year, as if not bleak enough in itself, and shown me this year, maybe i would have embraced the festive spirit a little more. dont get me wrong, bill and i had a real laugh, ate pizza, watched horror movies, played virtual reality games, and it was a good as it could have been without rose. but this year, for the first time in my entire life, im not spending christmas day with bill. where ever i lived, i always made it back for christmas, even if it was at 2am on christmas morning, and while i have never decorated my own place, to the point i have never, ever had a tree, and only own 1 christmas decoration, which sits out all year, i have always really loved it. so this year is just the most bleak ever.
so...what better that im flying off to summer in the southern hemisphere on thursday, to spend my first hot noel, in the company of my two best mates..poor dears, who are having to put up with me till february. and for the first time in my life, im flying business....on KLM to abu dhabi, and then on Etihad to sydney.....dancer. i also have a small solo side trip to uluru in january where i am staying in the backpacker hostel, as all the other hotels cost £200 a night. the outback pioneer bunk beds will do fine for me at £23!!!! i might still do a helecopter trip, or go round uluru on a harley, havent decided...but pretty excited about it. so there are some good things.
on top of this...derek especially, i know i havent said, but i have given up my job, and am now a woman of leisure, which fills me with such delight every morning i cant even describe how liberating it is. i have binge-watched horror movies lying in bed, spent hours looking things up on the internet, cleaned and painted at merchi, played solitaire on my kindle for hours, and tomorrow after a haircut i booked online, im going through to glasgow to meet gareth for dunch....mid afternoon equivalent of brunch, at the Ubiquitous Chip. there really are some good things....
for a start...i dont have to get up at 04:45, i dont have to wear a hairnet, a cap and a name badge. i now get to wear my own clothes for more than one day a week, jewellery, nail varnish, and no longer smell of baking pasties! hallelullajha!
the ghost of christmas to come last year, is, of course, the ghost of christmas present now...and while it will never be the same as the christmases in the past, i still have hope.
in the words of tiny tim...god bless us everyone.
god how bill hated him....hahaha
so, here i am spending my first ever summer christmas where it seems a bit strange seeing santas and tinsel, when everyone is in shorts and going to the beach. but OMG what adventures we have had already. as you can see we did a seaplane ride which was just brilliant....never been on one before, and it was so much smoother and quicker to take off and land on water that i imagined, though getting in and out was something of a challenge. and it was good that we did it the day we did, as the previous day there was such a huge storm we had to hunker down inside, the phone line got hit by lightning spitting the entire socket across the kitchen, smashing a glass and burning some of the fridge magnets, and, of course, took out the power and the wifi with it. what larks! the cats were traumatised, and we were also a little shaken, as we had all been standing by the phone a couple of seconds before, because it rang, and we all decided that we shouldnt answer it incase we got electrocuted. good call!!!! (no pun intended!).
binni and kim are at present mowing their acres of land, which takes them most of the day. on it there are berry beds, an orchard, a pumpkin and melon patch, a hothouse, vegetable gardens with cabbages, lettuce, potatoes, chillis, herbs, tomatoes, apricot, walnut, pear, cherry and fig trees. you get the picture....apart from meat, and bread...and, lets not forget wine...they just pick what they need. for a scottish person, that is just an amazing concept! life down here is bloody good...lets not even mention the flies!!!!
and, yes derek, flying on etihad from abu dhabi was kinda a step up to say the least, though the service on KLM was just fantastic, they treated you like royalty, the food was brilliant, and yes, i have a little house which im leaving for binni and kim, as i will get another on the way home. the pods on the sydney flight were just amazing, you could even turn over in the extended seat which became the bed, the wine was exceptional, you didnt even really see any of the other passengers, and etihad has a 'binge watch of boxed sets' channel just incase you couldnt sleep lying down! it was just heaven..perhaps one i shouldnt have entered, as now i will be wanting that all the time. i dont care about flights under 7 hours....but, what a difference it makes on a 14 hours flight not to be crushed into a really uncomfortable seat, surrounded by really annoying people and their kids who constantly kick the back of your seat, having to wait for the drinks trolley, and the food, not just being able to go to the loo when you want to without waking anyone, and having to stand in a queue....well i could go on and on. it was bloody magic!
i am a very lucky girl indeed!
heatwave down the south coast. its 37degrees. damn, we have had to go to some fantastic beaches for the sea breeze, and for a dip in the pacific. watching the sun come up from my bed is one of the real treats of being here...though, go outside and the flies are up your nose, in your ears and eyes, and even get in your armpits...its a double edged sword, i tells ya! can i just say how much i think i have underestimated the beauty of australia. its not that i havent noticed it before, its just that every other time i have been here, it has been too short....long flight, tired for 3 days....have a week and then think about that long flight home. never enough time. this time...i do have enough....and i just have to rave about how fantastic it is. and, while obviously they are amazing, its not just about the beaches....its the bush, the ocean, the birds, the hills...and i suppose the natural sense of it all. love it love it love it. look up tuross head on google maps...
IT WONT REACH MOST OF YOU FOR AT LEAST 10 HOURS...BUT HAVE FUN ALL. GOD KNOWS WE HAVE.
having such a great time. cant tells ya.
Uluru, omg, what a place! on arrival, on the free shuttle from the airport, we were told that we had arrived at a really great time, as the weather was going through a 'cool snap'. so it was 'only' 40 degrees C, and not 49!!!!! thought i think that during the late afternoon, when the red sand just seemed baking to me, and if i made the mistake of touching a bus window, or a metal railing i felt like i had 3rd degree burns, it got over 50 easily. however....being in the desert, overnight the temperature went down to a very comfortable 25, and the mornings were just perfect.
you may all be amazed to hear that someone who flew business class slummed it in a bunk dorm with 3 other people, and had to go to the toilet block in the middle of the night with my torch, but the hotels in yalara are just stupidly expensive, especially considering that you are going to be getting up at 03;30 to see the sunrise, and not getting back till about 11pm, when it is just time for bed. so instead of $700AUS, i spent $75 on 2 nights, and spent the rest on paintings, food and beer!!! woo hoo!
on the flight on the way up, i had to laugh at the other europeans, of which the plane, and in fact yalara, was full. all of them had jackets on, and some even had scarves and were carrying cardigans! believe me, i understand the impulse, and to be honest it was the first time i had ever flown so naked, but when i asked kim if i should take a hoodie, she said 'what the fuck will you need that for?' good point! so for me it was sandals, shorts and a tshirt....flying with no jacket...god, i felt a bit australian i did! when i come home i will probably be saying 'g'day, what ya doing this arvo?' and asking shop assistants if i can 'grabba snag on a roll'! and if they dont have that saying 'no worries, i'll grabba cheese and beetroot sarnie'.
anyway. really great trip, uluru is just magical, and got to do a quick trail through kata tjuta which was so windy it was really cool. fab with a capital F! also had dinner under the stars, though the southern cross was below the horizon, so we couldnt see it...damn..with as much free food, salad and wine as you could shove into your face. thats my kind of dinner!
now back in binni and kims, where it is considerably cooler, and in fact it has rained quite a lot, so everything is beautifully green. been up to mogo today to eat ice cream and have a browse round the shops, which were just full of the same kind of indonesian stuff that incense-smelling shops in edinburgh are.
have also followed donald trump, and had a wall project, and it is a beautiful wall, even if it isnt made of concrete, or even steel!!!! pics included.
hope everyone is fine. id like to say that im missing you, but that would be a total lie. im so glad i dont have to hear about brexit, i cant tell you.
syl!
before i forget, gareth, indeed, we have been to mimosa winery where i took the photo of the ripped kangaroo, which, of course being directionally challenged, i said was on the right, when he was, of course, on the left. we had been to mimosa rocks, and saw a sign saying 'tapas. 3pm'. as it was 15:05 we pulled in. the winery was on a hill surrounded by a really beautiful valley of vineyards, and had a terrace where we sat in the shade and ate lunch. there was no viognier, but all the vines i saw were about 2 or 3 years old, so maybe its a future project. instead we had the savignin, which, as i suppose you would expect, was really crisp and refreshng, but not overburdened with character. it was $48 (about £30), so we didnt exactly bulk buy, but it was very pleasant indeed.
apart from our local trips to mogo, tilba, tuross head, bega, bingie, bermagui and, my favourite, cobargo, we have also been to one of the plethora of beautiful beaches down this coast every few days...some for walks, as the rip tides are too strong, sometimes for a dip in the ocean. yesterday, we all got haircuts so went for a dip to get rid of the annoying hair clippings which drive me demented! god, what a hard life!
well, actually, it is for binni and kim, who spend all day mowing, weeding, pruning, picking, protecting, planting and painting...and boy, thats a lot of Ps! they have fruit and veggies i have never even heard of before....plumcots (as im sure you might guess, a cross of a plum and an apricot), tiny little paradise pears, which actually have the texture of an apple, and another thing which look like water melons the size of grapes and taste like cucumbers. crivens!
they also have a pond with water lilies, and gold fish, and to our surprise, even the fish have multiplied, and they are now parents to 9 fishlets! or is that fishkins? fishlings? whatever. on top of all this cornucopia of nature, there are zillions of birds...bell birds, book book owls, wattle birds, the giggling kookaburras, and the other day i was rudely awakened by a very noisy mob of rainbow lorikeets, who have beautiful plumage, but are akin to the juvenile delinquents of the parrot family! kim always just says...'god, they are such stupid birds....!'
anyway....today is a cloudy, cool day, a mere 25 degrees. i see that there has been snow in scotland, and boy do i miss that....NOT! take care all.....sys!
so, we got up at 05:30 and left at 6am to drive up to pebbly beach, just north of batemans bay so we would get there early, and we were so lucky to see kangaroos on the beach. driving in the dark is dangerous outside of cities in australia, as kangas are most active then, and you really dont want to knock down a big red. if you dont kill him, you will do terrible damage to your car, and he will probably punch your lights out, or kick you to death with his last energy. male kangas are ripped, and have pecs like arnold schwartzenegger, use their tails as a third leg, or a seat, and can kill a person with one kick. these ones we saw, are small grey roos, and they were so tame that they just came bounding right up to you, sat quite happily on peoples lawns, and bounced around down the middle of the road. totally magic! round pebbly beach, depot beach and the others in that area is beautiful spotted gum rain forest, with giant ferns and a plethora of bird calls through the trees, drowned out only by the sound of the ocean. many of the cabins and shacks you can rent round this area dont even have electricity, there is no shop, and you have to boil the water to be able to drink it. it is a really amazing, beautiful isolated place, and as the schools have just gone back after the summer/christmas holidays, it was really, really quiet! heaven! zillions of sydneysiders, and canberrans come down here, to the sapphire coast for the holidays, and it is packed with families. now the only tourists are retired RV owners, making the most of the solitude, as they have handed their grand-kids back to the parents and the education system, and now have oodles of time to themselves! just like me...except without the grandchildren,.....or indeed the grown up children...or the husband...or the RV.....HA!
another real feature of my time here, apart from beaches and kangaroos, has been the unbelievable electric storms...and not only the one that blew the telephone across the kitchen. we have had big storms most nights, but most notable was on tuesday, when i woke up at 02:45 dreaming that someone was shining a torch into my face! the lightning was so constant and bright, its was like someone switching the light on and off every 10 seconds, and it went on for over an hour. the thunder was deafening, and the cats were hiding under the bed in the spare room. what larks!
and...i have painted yet another fence, which i have to say, i loved doing, and i think its the best thing ive ever done. what a time ive had.
so i leave on tuesday, back in the luxury of the etihad pod for 15 hours, when i intend to eat and drink as much as i possibly can, though i might have to leave some room for the fantastic service on KLM from abu dhabi. then back to a very cold uk. it is a sobering thought that i will have to put on proper socks and shoes, as i have not worn anything but sandals and flip flops since the beginning of december, and nor have i worn long trousers, or, even once, had to think about carrying, never mind wearing, a jacket.
the only other thing i need to do, is to thank binni and kim for putting up with me for so long, in what has been a really horrible, difficult time for me. im sure they have had many moments when they just wondered why the hell they had allowed me to invade their space and lives for such a long time, but they have done nothing but make me feel welcome, even when i have, yet again, melted into tears and near hysterical anxiety! i honestly dont know what the fuck i have done to deserve such friends!
thank you from the bottom of what is left of my heart! love you both!
i would win every championship known to humankind!
since i got back, i have slept for at least 12 hours a day, often more, and i have started to think that all im doing is getting back all those missed hours from over 40 years of working! but also realising that i am turning into a teenage dirtbag (though, in my defense, one of the very, very few things i have done since my return, is laundry!) oh, and speak to my lawyer to arrange a payment that, if it was leaving my account, would go in 2 minutes, but from theirs to mine, takes 3 days! whoddathought?
anyoldhoo....i blame this narcolepsy on etihad! ok...the flight on the way was fine, but because i didnt know what to expect, and there are no trolleys going up and down...you just have to buzz, i dont think i really got my full dollar! i have buzzed the stewards on all the myriad of flights i have done in economy, around 3 times, normally because i thought i would die if i didnt get a drink of water, when waking 10 hours into a 15 hour flight, and having drempt i was landing. (the horror, the horror!) anyway....etihad...omg its like a luxury hotel in the sky.
so....not only do you not have anyone beside you (hallelujah), have total control of the remote for the plethora of movies and tv boxed sets available on the entertainment system, and have a toilet with no queue within 4 steps, which, when the door opens, there is a waft of lavender, not sewage, you can have anything you want from the extensive menu of food and drinks, at any time, and as many as you can swallie down your swanky business traveller throat!
so here is the menu.... without the additions, our time is limited now.
starters...meze, poached prawns, cauliflower pesto floret soup.
mains....braised beef, pan fried barramundi, chicken machboos, sauteed gnocchi.
desert...cheese plate, banoffee tart, bread and butter pudding, haagen dazs icecream with fresh fruit.
snacks available throughout the flight..steak sandwich, bread and pastries, cereal and yoghurt, lamb and rosemary pie, baked egg breakfast (see above photo), crisps, baklava, cookies, madeleines.
wine list: bellini, piper heidsieck champers, rhinofields durbanville chardonnay 2016, jade cove marlborough sauvignon 2016, ch pontet renadud graves 2015, tscharke barossa shiraz 2016, ch bastor lamontagne sauternes 2015, quinta do noval 10 yo tawny.
just the best flight ive ever done. i would just go and live upstairs on the A380 if i could....do you think they would notice?
Ok, let's be honest...while the setting is spectacular, surrounded by mountains, and the weather is perfect, Bilbao is just not a beautiful city, unless you like brutalist, 30 storey tower blocks littering the whole skyline. But it has its compensations! The Guggenheim is just one of the most amazing buildings I've ever seen, even if the art inside is pure pretentious wank. Still, it's an improvement on the NYC Guggenheim....there was one giant installation I thought was fab..the matter of time by Richard Serra.... enormous steel sheets that you walk through their curling patterns. The experience was a bit like climbing the leaning tower of Pisa, but without the fear of falling to your death on slippery marble. Or the view. Ha!But, talking of views...the hotel I'm staying in has a roof terrace bar bloody magic, as it means I don't have to scare myself to death going into the streets at night., And it is actually a really trendy hangout for young Bilbaonos....to the point they have to have tables reserved for hotel guests or you would never get a seat. The best seats too. Dancer! Funny things about Bilbao.....it's 20°C and I'm in a t-shirt and sandals The locals still, apparently, think it's winter, and look ready for a trip to the Arctic!The bars are full of middle aged women guzzling wine! At lunchtime they spill out onto the pavement with huge goblets in their hands, and throng around the hole in the wall vino kiosks. They are so well dressed, and stylish, but nothing quite says you are a local once you have left this nirvana of female bonding like a scowling face! I might be the right age, but, apparently, not wearing Chanel suits and fur jackets excludes me from their sisterhood! And then I don't speak euskara! But I do know the unique Basque letter TX, is pronounced Ch! Obviously that really helps! So I'm back home tomorrow, but still have the whole day here...who knows I might even get out of bed before lunchtime, but I doubt it.
its the spring! i love this time of year, but this year it is just a trial. easter monday...the hottest ever easter day on record, mog and i spent all day taking beds and furniture apart, taping them up, and carrying them down the stairs from the attic, for an uplift by charity! we have now boxed up the entire house, and the attic is now empty. but, god, its just so hellish! the only think that is better now, is that there is nothing of sentimental value...but god anna did so many paintings...and had so many china figures. it is so hard to throw away 3 lives, but i think we have, almost, got through it. it still breaks my heart...but we have to do it. hopefully next week, the whole house will be totally empty and then we can move on. however....i did do a deal with the guys who did the uplift for british heart foundation today. they wouldnt take some of the things...said they wont sell...fair enough...but we didnt know what to do with bills huge tv attatched to a unit, that is half the size of my couch.. so i haggled and got £100...another thing out of the house. i know its worth 5 times that...but this is what we have come down to...begging someone to come and take away things we grew up with, and getting pennies. honestly, its not the money....its bill and annas things being worth nothing....
so to move on, as this upsets me....yes derek, i have 3 trips booked. off to turkey with mel in 3 weeks to spread bill and roses ashes, then france for a weekend with jo in ambershviller...flying to baden baden in germany this time. and then what i was meant to do last year....going to jordan, turkey and egypt with jo...we are celebrating being friends for 41 years....so we have 6 days in jordan...petra mainly, one whole day in istanbul to see hagia sofia, topkapi and a whirling dervish show, and then we are off to luxor for a few days and going to abu simbel. life is really hard right now, but it has its compensations....leisure being one. mmm....what are the others...not worth it...thats what!
so...eventually, merchi is totally empty, bar 2 chairs, a side table, 2 mugs, plates and knives, and the kettle, coffee and cleaning stuff. it looks HUGE...well, because it is! huge and tatty without furniture, you can see all the peeling paper, moth holes in the carpet, damp spots and cracks. however, now its only 2 weeks till the new owners get the keys, its done, and none of us will probably ever walk along merchiston crescent again. it is the end of an era....but hopefully, for all of us, the start of a new one!
fingers crossed.
so in my plans to change things....i have revamped my living room, got rid of my oh-so-uncomfy futon couch and beanbag which just took up far too much room. taking the couch apart practically broke me...and then i had to drag all of it down the stairs into the yard to get it picked up all of which was such a challenge. the futon blocked up the entire stairwell, and the frame got stuck where the ceiling was too low, and, fuck me dead, if i had had a sledge hammer or a chainsaw i probably would have gone mental! however, i didnt, and i managed, singlehandedly to get rid of all of it, and get the futon into a huge mattress bag so it didnt get wet and become a dead weight. after doing all this, i cant tell you how hard it was to stand up, as the backs of my thighs had just had enough, but god, it made me feel good. so now i have the ottoman lounge i always wanted....id like to say the tiles are real, and i grouted them myself, but my walls are totally skewiff, and there is the bump from where the fire used to be, as this is the chimney wall, so, cant deny, they are just stickers. but i think they look really good, and as i am probably the only person who will ever see them, thats all that matters. and now i dont have a huge bean bag chair, the room looks so much bigger, and my view sitting here opposite the yellow wall is so different, i feel like im in another room entirely. hoorah!
another different thing is that i have met cousins i hadnt seen for over 30 years, and i also met laura, my cousin on my mothers side. we met for lunch on the saturday of the mayday weekend...big mistake, half of europe was in the grassmarket, so we went to mariachi, a mexican half way up victoria street, and spent so long talking that when i ordered the bill, the waiter brought us a free round of beers, as he said, we had spent more time in the restaurant than any other customers ever. we met at 1:30 pm, and left, eventually, at 9:45 pm.....we had spent over 8 hours sitting talking in a restaurant....that must be a record, even for a blether like me! and they didnt even charge us rent!!!! what larks.
and then, on monday im off down to london, to fly on to turkey, to stay in the beautiful apartment in kas bill and rose and i stayed in for the last 4 years. im taking some of their ashes ( i cant possibly take them all, they are enormous...especially roses, for such a tiny person), and am going to spread them through the wooden platform in the bar we always sat on cushions in. i will also put some of them into the sea, but i dont want to pollute, so it will probably just be a handful. i thought i would be dreading it, as it will probably be the last time i ever go there, but in fact, im so excited about staying in the wonderful flat. it will make me think of them so much, but not in a horrible way....i just want to remember how happy we all were there. its the place i think especially rose, but also bill, was at their happiest, and most chilled! its a very special place!
so i better go over to tesco now to but some food and wine, as its saturday night. ru pauls drag race is on tonight, but unfortunately for ru, while not on the same night, he is vying with game of thrones, which i think is possibly the best tv experience ever. hollywood is now slagging it for its treatment of women...despite the fact, that apart from jon snow, all the contenders are women, they are paid the same as men (which is not the case in hollywood), and murder and torture is so common, it is not even slighty restricted to women. ned lost his head, the red wedding, ramsay got eaten by dogs, and theon got his penis cut off! my take is the hollywood is suffering from sour grapes...im sure it wrankles hugely that a hbo series is the biggest thing ever...and had anyone thought of it, it would have made millions at the box office, but its on tv!!!!
there is a GoT themed bar in edinburgh, the only one in the world at the moment, apparently, that sells dornish wine. i going...perhaps in november when half of korea, the whole of italys teenagers, and everyone getting married in rochdale in the next 2 weeks, and on a hen night, arent here.
cant deny, going back to the place that bill and rose and i went for so many years was a little scarey....i didnt really know how i would feel...but i knew it was, really, for both of them, the most beautiful, chilled place, and i do believe that both of them were possibly happier here, in turkey, than at any other time in their latter life. amazing as it may seem. even bill and rose were a little 'hum,haw, not sure' when i suggested turkey...but this turned into our narnia. and even now, after so many years, with so many changes, it really still is the most charming, sweet, relaxing place ive ever been, i just love it.
i took bill and roses ashes, and got stopped, kinda like i thought i would, going through security...but it was funny, when i was asked by the security woman what was in the bottle, i told her...and she said...'god, thats so, not what i thought you were going to say, im so sorry...' snigger....
anyway...mel and i went to the bar bill, rose and i had always gone to, and it had totally changed....no more bean bags, huge restaurant area, awnings over the whole area...and, cant deny, i really like the fact that it had changed...so much easier to accept...so mel sat and had a drink, and i sat on the side of the deck and poured the ashes into the sea. it made me cry, but i cant deny, it was actually very cathartic, and i loved the fact i poured them into the sea they loved. some of them both is in the placce they loved above all others. i know its idiotic, they are just gone, but i loved doing it.
and then we went to greece for lunch, we walked a lot, we ate really healthy food, we watched game of thrones, we went shopping, we watched the moon rise, we just had a really nice time.
i thought this might be the last time i ever went to kas....but, maybe not...i hope not...i still love it.
derek, you are so right. i have just looked up how to travel with human cremation remains on a plane, and realised i did everything wrong. for a start, i didnt carry any paperwork...i should at least have had the cremation certificate. i carried them in a metal water bottle, while they should have been in something xrays can see through, paper, plastic, cloth, you name it. i should have notified the airline. i should have had them carried on as special cargo, and above all, i should not have allowed a customs person to open them. but...i didnt do any of the above, and it was fine. apparently i didnt realise the implications of carrying remains, somehow, that is just so me! it just didnt occur to me that carrying human ash could be an issue! doh! anyway, the security staff, both at edinburgh, and gatwick, were totally lovely about it, and no one even seemed to think it was strange. well, except mel....i hadnt told her, and when my tray got pulled out at gatwick, and i told the security woman what was in the water bottle, mel was a little surprised! i probably should have asked her about it as she works for british airways....but, hell, that is just so me!so the reason im doing this post, is that this time in 2017 was the time that bill and i had just arrived in kas, for what was, unbeknownst to us, the last time.sorry the internet just jumped out, and i had to reboot....anyway, crap technology apart, we had a lovely time, but the water, not having had a whole summer of sunshine on it, was really cold, and bill got really freezing. it didnt stop him, but i found another place, a wee cove with a pebble beach by the new marina, where the water was much more shallow, therefore warmer. he swam, i read, and drank efes beer....the ideal compromise. we had a really lovely time, but bill decided that he didnt want to go back so early in the year, so we booked for october instead, do the sea would be warmer. sadly, bill died when we should have been in kas, and somehow, that seems fitting, but i just wish we could have had one more time. but then...that's what we always want....
so, we no longer own Merchiston! it belongs to someone else, and we have all hugely financially benefited from the sale! but it just breaks my heart that i will never sit in the sun in the garden eating a tuna melt with bill ever again! in some ways (actually in every way...lets not pretend) im so glad that i have given up work, as i dont have the routine anymore that has a huge hole on a sunday evening, when i always went up to merchi so bill could have the pleasure of cooking me dinner. we binge watched the whole of game of thrones (except the last season, of course), we played playstation VR, we endlessly looked, often in vain, for yet another horror movie that was good, and we hadnt seen. bill streamed judge judy, bondai rescue and pawn starts, and we became addicted to all of them. (the cases are REAL, the people are REAL, the rulings are FINAL!) but now its not just the rulings.
so now we have cleared, totally emptied, given up and passed on the stage of our teenage theatre. it is a very strange feeling, and i doubt i will walk around merchiston crescent ever again...i have no need to. it doesnt lead anywhere. done and dusted...though, have to admit, joyce did most of the dusting. seeing it totally empty was just so strange. it was no longer bills home, or even A home. it was just a house. a huge, empty, tatty, echoing house. really weird after 40 years!
so this is where we are now! i need a holiday, so next week im going up to pitlochry to see my friend alison, who runs the barley bree in muthill with fabrice, her french chef husband. (you can look it up on the web...its pretty renowned). and then i thought i might just go on a cirybreak, but found a fantastic hotel in the mountains north of tirana in Albania with a fantastic swimming pool and beautiful views, so im off there for a few days. they have arranged me a whole day trip, with personal taxi around the highlights of tirana, caves, waterfalls and beaches for a mere 50euro!!!! way to go. then off to france to see my friend jo at the end of july. and then....well who knows....watch this space.....
this week i went to auchterarder to see my friends alison and fabrice, and their kids, the oldest of which i havent seen since she was 4 days old. she is now 14! they run the Barley Bree restaurant with rooms in muthill (its pronounced moo-thill, not mutt-hill) and have had a pretty interesting work life before this. alison was house keeper to liam neeson and natasha richardson when he was filming rob roy, and even went on holiday with them to france. fabrice has worked in many renowned restaurants, before meeting alison, and together they worked as servants for a couple who appear in forbes list and he has just been given a knighthood. fabrice was their chef, and they still brag about it, apparently, but despite all this poncey shit, they are two of the most down-to-earth people, well...until you find out what alison does on her days off. ha!
she asked me if i would bring my cozzie incase we wanted to go swimming, and i was, obviously thinking, the local council pool...not a fucking bit of it. alison is a member of the fitness center at the Gleneagles Hotel, and OMG, you should have seen this joint. ive put a pic on of the lap-pool which is adults only, but you can look up the website for all the other amenities. there is an outside hot pool, which was just heaven, and you couldnt really want for anything here. there is even an automatic drum spinner to get the water out of your costume, as, god forbid, you would have to wring it yourself and ruin your nails! then after this pampering we walked round the shopping arcade which, as im sure you can imagine, involved hermes, prada, really amazing whisky shops, really bloody amazing bars and restaurants, and, funnily enough, a whole lot of wanky golf memorabilia. but the hotel is just fantastic, amazing location with lots of walking paths leading to the glen, really friendly staff, despite my disheveled appearance, and chilled water machines everwhere full of citrus slices, and using bamboo 'glasses' which are 100% biodegradable. what a hard life!
on top of this, fabrice remembered that i had always wanted to have a souffle which he makes to perfection. its funny as i said to binni and kim that i was hoping he would make one, but i wasnt going to ask, but i didnt have to. the ramekins were a little small, but fuck me dead, this was delish with a capital D! nom nom nom de nom! delicious wine with this too....
and then, im off to albania on monday night, and have put on, just for you derek, a picture of the place im staying. they have arranged a taxi trip for me to take in all the main sights of tirana, plus waterfalls, beaches and mountains, and the rest of the time, im just going to swim in their fantastic pool and drink cocktails. damn! the hotel also has a winery joined to it...bugger!
then...at the moment, im home for most of july, till i gadd off to france to see Jo to arrange the final points of our trip to jordan and egypt.
life is pretty hard for me right now, so i wont mention the injections im having to have into my eyeball once a month. tbh not as hellish as you would think, but not exactly a joy ride so i try not to dwell.
im out....
so, unbeknownst to me, you or anyone else i have ever met...albania is called shqiperia (pronounced sch-ky-peria) by those who live there, who have 36 letters in their alphabet, and use umlauts more than any other language ive ever seen...tirana has 2!!!! they also have water called PUKE (which also has an umlaut, so im guessing its actually pooka) and gas stations called Kastrati...i swear! but that is another story....
it was just lovely....the vila leonard was one of the most welcoming places ive ever stayed, mainly, i suppose, because they dont get any foreign tourists, so i was a bit of a celebrity. it only has 4 rooms, and there was no one else staying there, so in the morning i had the beautiful 20metre infinity pool overlooking vineyards and olive groves to myself. about lunchtime, rich tirana middle aged women, and their daughters and grand daughters came to use the pool. i knew they were rich as it costs 10euros for a day...for an albanian that is a treat out of most peoples reach, unlike cigarettes or beer which are not as cheap as, but cheaper than, chips here!
anyway....tirana...well, im glad i decided not to stay in the city, for a start, its in a really flat valley surrounded by ranges of pretty high mountains...it was 36degrees in the shade, and not a breath of breeze. second....its pretty ugly with loads of traffic driving round streets that are far too small...well, just like most european cities. but i suppose i thought it might have some semblance of an old town, however no such luck. im guessing that under hoxha all the old buildings were demolished, and a disturban city of ugly soviet style blocks arose kinda like bucharest or ashkabat! skanderbag square is so immense...gigantic, empty and hot as hell! but the coffee shops were full, everyone smokes, and millenials wear the same torn jeans and shorts as they do everywhere.
however...i stayed in up in the mountains, where there was a breeze, swallows and dragonflys swooped down to drink out of the pool, the food was deliciously fresh and the wine was under a Euro a glass! the staff were just delightful, the hotel manager, lori, came with me into tirana, as no one else spoke english, get better service.
and i had a meal out of a fairy tale...i dont mean its the most delicious pasta ever, though it was bloody magic, but when it came it looked tiny, and i though, god, i will scoff that in about 3 minutes! it was tortellini in such a fab 4 cheese sauce, that i thought, fuck that isnt enough...i couldnt have been more wrong! it was in one of those huge italian deep bowls, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger. the more i ate, the more there was...till i was defeated, though, cant deny, i did mop up the sauce with bread and leave the pasta. with this meal, what a lightweight, i had 3 glasses of wine and a bottle of water...and it came to 6 Euro!!!!! albania...bloody magic!
But it's lovely. People, weather, food, location all perfect. What I wasn't expecting was 3 humougous cruise ships to sail into the bay, spilling out around a thousand people between them! The horror! So...since you couldn't move on the cutsey cobbled streets or the old town, I jumped into a speed boat and got a local to take me down the fjord for a couple of hours. Bloody magic!! Now it's 5pm and they are all now leaving in gigantic groups back to their floating cities to go to yet another place that is smaller than the ship. Hoorah. Tomorrow I'm going to get up early, and walk around town, as it's the only time I will get the place to myself, and it is really fantastic It still has walls all the way round....and up to the fort on the mountain top...it's really like a mini Dubrovnik, and I really love it here. It was a great choice. The other good news is that air serbia let you bid for an upgrade to business if it's not full, and I won with a bid of 90€! That means, not only will I get free food and drink, but I will be able to use the lounge in Belgrade where I have a 2 hour stop...whoopee! I fully intend to get my money's worth! And another great thing....my hotel has really good WiFi, so I can sit out here in the square drinking a beer, and doing this! Bloody magic. Having a great time....Only other thing...Gareth, I don't know what's happened, but every email I've sent to.you has been sent back to me saying there is an error. I will call you when I get home.
did you know that OK has become the normal word for impassive agreement, not only because it was an acronism from 1820s boston, popularised by the growth of the telegraph, because it was quick to tap in morse, but because it had a capital K. seemingly because so few words start with the letter k (though i can think of several...but i do crosswords), lots of american products decided to adopt the letter...krispy kreme, kraft, kool aid etc, because it stood out to the eye of the purchaser. maybe that is why i, and so many people are now drawn to Kotor...but some might say too fuckin many! given that montenegro is hardly the destination tripping off the boarding passes of most tourists, who would have thought they were all coming by floating city cruise ships from venice, dubrovnik or split, or usually all three. however....jammy bitch that i am, it only happens once every 2 weeks, but my 2nd day in kotor, there were no liners. halle-bloody-lullajh!!!
so most of these photos were taken at about 6:30 am, when i decided to wander around the town before breakfast, when the only people i saw, if any, were locals going to work. because the cruise thang is such a huge part of kotor, most of the shops dont open till 10am, so no one bothers getting up. as its also cool at that time...just perfect strolling down cobbled streets, where the cats are your only companions.
really great restaurants, and, omg, i even found a jazz bar dedicated to tom waites (could it get better?), quirky souvenirs, really beautiful jewellery, and actually, lots of turkish lamps and kilims, make it just such a great place to dander around.
the other thing is that montenegro is just so fucking beautiful, just layers and layers of mountain ranges plunging down into indigo ocean. lakes, forests, islands off the coast, tunnels vineyards, olives, and well...those mountains, really stunning. the one bit that is not eye-candy is round podgoricia, the capital. its flat, huge polytunnel plantations of tomatoes, and houses abandoned after the collapse of yugoslavia and the enormous tourism it enjoyed then.
and, derek, air serbia (who are allied with etihad) were totally fine and dandy, and i won a bid for a business class upgrade on the way home, for 90euro...so got to go to the lounge in belgrade! hoorah! id forgotten that the other good thing about montenegro is that they have never had their own currency and use the Euro. just so much easier in every way.
so now, im off to france to visit my friend Jo in aberschviller in alsace on monday, close to strasbourg...but im flying to baden-baden in germany, have flown to basel in switzerland before, but the flights are just too early in the morning...europe youve got to love it.
and given that we now have bojo as our prime minister, i thought i might have to go to some other european destinations, while i can just swoop through on an EU passport. so...sighiosara in romania (sigioschwara) is my next quick trip....followed swifty by a few days in ohrid in north macedonia! really worth looking these places up, they are just stunning! im just so fuckingly unlucky that it has made me lucky. horrible, but true. all us coventrys (browns) know that right now....
i no longer want to live here in edinburgh....didnt really want to move back in the late 90s, but just had to. now, i feel like i dont even know why im here, the only one of us living here, a city i left, and didnt miss. however...while i have my passport, im going places ive never been....i kinda want to visit every country in europe....i only have about 3 to go...but i cant, for the life of me, find a single thing to make me want to go to moldova....if you know something, let me know! bahahaha!
Bugger....flight delayed by an hour, but after 5 days in France, I had totally forgotten that I'm now in Germany. Europe.....it rocks!
They are different sizes.....and I've had the left up all night so this is better than it was.
well, i have to say, see this getting older...its totally shite with a capital ESS! my doctor has decided, amongst other things, that i have high blood pressure, and i have been put on tablets, where one of the side effects is swollen ankles. so when i arrived in france my left leg was up like a balloon, about 3 times the size of the right, and climbing down the plane steps, i tore the muscle at the back of my knee as i stupidly kept bending my elephantine leg. bang goes any walks we were planning to do round abreschviller, where there are beautiful forests, hiking paths and rock formations. bugger, bugger, buggers! we did, as you can see, go on the narrow gage steam train, which used to be used for logging, and manage to limp round sarreboug to see the chagall window, but that was about the totallity of my capabitity in an ambulatory sense, so we just sat in the garden, in the sun and played with Jo's new puppy Lottie. what a cutie she is...she doesnt lick, she doesnt bark, but she goes all wiggle-bum when excited, and leaps about chasing shoes, gloves, butterflys and the wheels of skateboards! what larks. had a really lovely time, and the weather was just perfect...not too hot, nor too cold...so i never wore the jacket i had hung up on my arrival. in fact, i didnt think about it at all, until i was climbing the steps onto the plane home, and i saw others wearing said garments....and remembered that i had left it in france when i was in germany, getting on a plane to the UK.
some might think this would not be a big deal, after all, i do have lots of jackets...but, call me stupid, i had not removed them from the pocket and put them in my bag, and had left my house keys in the jacket!!!! sadly, i always kept a spare set at merchi, in case of emergency, but since bill died, i dont have anyone in the city centre with them. in this case, i thought, oh well, i will just book into a cheap hotel for the night...there is one in haymarket, and sort this out tomorrow.....WRONG! omg....friday was the first night of the festival...and, fuck me stupid, i dont think i have ever seen the city so packed, to the point that people were walking on the road, because the pavement was full to bursting. i went into the 'cheap' hotel and they wanted £200 for a single room!!!!!
limping all the way up to fountainbridge, and the teasing view of the windows of my flat, i couldnt decide what to do. no one i know lives in the city anymore....falkirk, musselburgh, port seton, inverkeithing, portobello....you name it...so i did the only thing i could think of. i called Jo's mum who lives on merchi avenue and begged her to let me sleep on the couch, and, bless her, i finally wasnt homeless. what a life saver.
in the morning, i decided the best thing would be to get a lock smith, but it was difficult, because of the communal bottom street door, which if the lock had to be changed i would have to get 8 copies of the key, and try to get them to the whole stair...however!
i had give my beloved brother my spare set after we sold merchi, and despite the fact that he and joyce were away for the weekend, luckily for me, they were only in north berwick, about 10 mins drive from prestonpans railway station where i met mog on the platform, having fought my way through about a gazillion tourists in waverly station.
so, after only about 28 hours, i finally got back into my own flat. bloody hell. i was so exhausted i slept for 18 hours!
so the lesson....if you live alone, never leave your keys in a jacket pocket. that and keep a set hidden in the city centre!!!! what a pickle!!!!
It's just wonderful here.....and if I was going to shoot a horror movie this would be my choice.
yeah...well, dont even get me started on the political situation here in the UK right now after having been in a country where, it is just so obvious, everyone sees being in the EU as a total blessing, there are new houses going up all over the place, and an enormous road project happening from Cluj napoca north into transylvania which is being made possible because of EU finance. here, just when we have been laughing at the US for 2 years, we have such a farcical situation ourselves, with BoJo suspending parliament, and dragging the queen into it, when she has no power to refuse. at this moment we dont know if we are having a snap election in a few weeks, having another delay till next year, being dragged out of europe without any kind of deal of any kind, or just keeping calm and carrying on, as is the british want! what a fucking mess.
however....i have just been in the cutest, wee gothic town, the birthplace of Vlad tepes...the impaler to you and i, and the inspiration for bram stokers dracula. it was a bit of a hike getting there...the taxi from Cluj took longer than the flight from luton, but OMG it was worth it, and it was really relaxing. for a start, there are not gazillions of tourists...yes, there are tour parties of americans, and german biker couples, but having been somewhere that cruise ships spewed out thousands of people at the same time, it was just so chilled. it was also cheap as chips, warm as toast and bright as a button. cobbly streets, colourful houses, pretty narrow streets and very low-key traffic. beer came in china mugs, soup came in a loaf of bread, and wine, for me, came by the bottleful. just magic.
there was also a really fantastic gothic graveyard that was on 3 levels, had over 5000 people buried in it, and went back to the founding of the town in the 14th century. as i have taphophilia, i was just entranced with that, despite the over 600 steps up to the church on the hill infront of said burial ground. that knocked the wind out of me a little, but, you will all be happy to hear, my legs held up, didnt hurt, and my ankles didnt swell up till i flew home...but that is another story.
had a really great time....have to say the service was not the most friendly ive ever encountered, but as long as they brought me wine, and deep fried cheese, that was fine. really enjoyed every moment. now im home for 3 weeks till i go to Tbilisi in georgia, yet another medieval citadel surrounded by a modern town. something of a theme there....
and derek...the only thing that bit my neck was a midge....bloody everywhere they were. no mozzies, no bats, no vampires....just the tiny suckers!
and....as to the bear-eating in finland...well, i think its a bit like whale, puffin or shark-eating in iceland. its not everyone who does it, and i dont think you should judge a whole country by the culinary desires of a minority of the population. bear is also on the menu in some places in estonia, and i cant deny, while you would never be able to find it on a menu in the UK, i have eaten the most delicious horse steak...in those days when i ate steak! and congrats on your nuptuals...i know you did it before, and it doesnt really change anything, but good for you.
so thats it....another trip over....another 4 to go this year. woo hoo!
so just got home after being evacuated from my flat for 2 days....there was a gas explosion which killed one person, and caused a huge fire, in the tenement right across the road. the school, businesses, community centre and road are closed until further notice. i was home. you might think i would have heard something given that a metre of wall got blown out onto the street...but i was watching a film, and while i cant deny, i could smell smoke, it wasnt until my brother called me to find out if i was ok that i realised something was going on. i went to bed...then got rudely roused by the police smashing my door in, and was given 5 minutes to pack a bag and then got hussled off the premises by a very polite police dude. while it was a bit of a problem to me that he just walked into my bedroom (they have to make sure there are no other people inside), when i was picking underwear out of my drawers, and he was asking me my phone number and date of birth. i shoved a toothbrush, change of clothes and my phone into a bag while the cop was telling me how fab he thought my flat was, and how much he liked the murals i have done on the walls. i did ask him where was i supposed to go, and he said that the salvation army had set up a shelter round the corner. hahaha
my days of staying in a hostel for the homeless are over, so i did what any girl would do....jumped into a taxi for an hour journey down to stay with my brother and sister in law in the swanky house next to the sea in port seton! god, i even got a free dinner!!! now im back home. will life ever just be boring????
i am so sick of edinburgh, living in a slum because the rubbish cant be picked up due to the street closure, but everyone still dumping their shite in the lane. having to get more fucking eye injections. having zillions of stubborn mice who are just refusing to die quickly enough, and when they do, leave their bodies right infront of the hot water switch, so i step on them in bare feet. just fucking everything...so im just going down to see mel for the weekend, in a place which always looks to me like cuddleston, but isnt.
i am only back for a day, and then im off to Tblisi.
just as well, as you have no idea how much of a indolent hermit i have become. i often dont speak to anyone for days, rarely leave the house, and cant be bothered with a single thing in this city. i really am considering leaving, but i have become so lazy i cant even get round to using a hoover, let alone packing up all my shite. however, i am still very active in the sleeping department, the one thing i have no problem having the energy to do, so thank god i have that fantastic bed! too fantastic some might say, if they found out that i can all too easily spend 18 or 20 hours there at a time.
anyway, enough about my exciting life, as i have to find out where the airport bus goes, since this part of fountainbridge is still closed to all traffic.
happy happy joy joy!!!!!!
It might be a little late, as it's 2pm here, but I didn't arrive till 6am, but I've just woken up in Georgia. This is the view from my room! Fucking magic or what!!!!!
Tbilisi, honestly, one of the most interesting, lovely, picturesque cities I've ever been to, in a totally unexpected way! How does no one ever go on about it. Still, that works in my favour, yes, there are tourists, but usually in the unbrella-following huge group- thang. So, yes you have to wade through them occasionally, but they only go to bars and restaurants on their tour, unlike Kotor!However, let me moan a bit to compensate for all this happiness! I had booked a taxi and an early check in with the hotel, as my flight got in at 5am. Arrived at the airport.... No taxi! Called the hotel and they told me I didn't have a booking, despite paying already on Expedia! Got my own taxi, for double the price I was quoted, and when I arrived, the girl, who was so tired she could hardly keep her eyes open, told me that check-in wasn't till 2pm so I would have to pay for an extra night. I was so tired I only haggled for a bit....after all the extra night was only £45! Just needed to sleep. So I just paid. Oh serendipity! Maybe I would have had this room anyway, but I think she gave me it to shut me up, and she said I might have to move today....ha, no fucking way! There are only 2 rooms, apart from suites with this view! 🥰! Today went up on the funicular to the fortress in a car with 5 Iranian men in high spirits. The weather is perfect, about 21° with a nice breeze. The wine is really good, and cheap, and I'm off to 'tits and dragons', a game of thrones bar and restaurant. I will let you know if it was better than the last episode..
so here i am back in a wet and chilly edinburgh, boo hiss!!!! however....not for long!
so tbilisi....what a brilliant place! beautiful, interesting, lovely people, great food, cheap, one of the cradles of wine production and just the most perfect weather. it was between 21 and 24 degrees, with a lovely river breeze, just perfect for strolling, and evenings cool enough not to require AC! strolled along the river, up to the parliament, along the posh designer-shop-laden downtown, and all round the wee cutsey old town. got the cable car that you have to leap into, as it doesnt stop up to the citadel, and found 'Tits and dragons' the game of thrones theme bar, though, sadly there was no one else in there. however, that gave the bead-encrusted beardy barman a chance to give me a tasting of some just fucking delicious wines, including a typical georgian thang.....orange, or amber wine. this does not include citrus fruit, but rather is named after the colour, as its the only white wine that is macerated on its skins, so gets a lovely deep amber hue! it was delish!
and i have put on a photo of my delicious typical georgian lunch, including a cheese filled baked cross between a pizza and a pretzel with a runny egg on top. the idea, of course, is that you break off the crust and dip it, and i did not have to be shown this, it came naturally. i had a margarita, 2 courses, 2 glasses of wine, 2 espressos and a cointreau all for bout $25...though just as well i didnt have to question the bill given that it was all in georgian....i can translate the russian and greek alphabets for words like wine, vodka, cheese, bread and coffee... but georgian, while very pretty, is a total mystery....and not just to me, i imagine.
really loved it, and will definitely go back to georgia. naturally, one of the things i loved that it was not stowed with tourists, and i realise that this is completely hypocritical, being one myself, but i just cant stand being crushed with zillions of other people. in the words of sartre...'l'enfer c'est les autres'!!!!! although i have never thought of pushing a knife through my hand at a dinner out just to prove the point!
so now i have a week until i go to ohrid in macedonia....and then 2 weeks after that Jo and i are off to jordan, egypt and a whole day in istanbul.
edinburgh....who needs it?
amusingly, while i was in north macedonia, i read an article about the 10 places in europe you will never want to visit...and, yes you guessed it, macedonia was on the list. (but so were albania and montenegro, and if you want to know, something i totally agree with...vatican city was No1!) anyway...i cant vouch for the whole of the country, but, honestly ohrid was just lovely in every way. the lake is really clean, full of swans, moor hens and cormorants, and only tiny boats. its kinda surprising, as its an international border, albania is on the other side, but there are no big ferries, and its just so bloody peaceful. the weather was just perfect...about 22-24C during the day with a lake breeze, and cooler in the evening, not a cloud in the sky, and beautiful dawns and sunsets visible from my bed!!! and it was just so old fashioned and sweet...it pretty much felt like being back in yugoslavia in 1989, a lot of the souvenirs were exactly the same, and so were the prices! my penthouse apartment with living room with windows all the way round, 2 of which pulled open and slid back, kingsize bed, fab bathroom and totally equipped kitchen with an oven and dishwasher that had never been used was $70US a night, the most expensive meal i had, including drinks and coffee was $15 and the taxi to the airport was $8!!! way to go ohrid!
the other interesting thing, which reminded me of going to yugoslavia, is that there is still a large muslim population, the mosques still have the call to prayer, and it still had that ottoman, turkish connection that i thought had gone forever after the war. men still sit drinking turkish coffee in cafes next to the mosque all day, they have turkish flags, jewellery and sweets, little boys on bicycles delivering trays of coffee and tea to all the businesses and quite a lot of women in headscarves. totally fascinating.
on top of this, there are the really beautiful orthodox churches...including the famous one on the side of the lake, built in the 13th century...and as you see from the photo, totally overtouristed!!! as you go there along the wooden walk-way there are a few little cutsey bars with swans on the beach and kittens playing in the pebbly sand. its just so sweet and unsophisticated. i loved every moment.
one funny thing....when i walked into bars or restaurants, the waiters said BRAVO....like, well done, congratulations for choosing us to eat in. woo hoo. i looked it up, and, of course, its not bravo...its zdravo, and it just means hello! silly me.haha
then the journey home...dont want to go on about this...but fuck me dead there was a general strike in italy which delayed my ohrid flight by 2 hours. however, me not having the luck of the irish, it did not delay my onward flight on aer lingus, so i arrived in milan 25 minutes before my onward connection left. did i make it....did i fuck....was still on a bus going to the terminal...so spent the night in milan airport. what larks. however, i did find a bar that was open, and hallellulaha, wine was only 2.50 euros a glass!!!! thank god, as i had several.
spent 2 hours looking up flights home....all the cheapies were full, so finally got one on lufthansa....ok, it cost me £250, but at least it left at 7am, had free food...and even more important, free wine!!!! on the down side, someone on that flight gave me a cold, and i have had such a bad cough since, just when i was congratulating myself on not ever getting ill since i left work, as i dont have to touch others money, or have them sneeze into my face. buggers. in the words of ned kelly...such is life!!!! and mine is bloody magic!
we went through the new istanbul airport, the biggest in the world, that has flights going out every 5 minutes 24/7, and just opened in may. in fact we traversed it 4 times on this trip. it is just immense, busy at all times of night and day, and is, in fact, like a small city. everything, but everything is open 24 hours a day. if your flight from luxor leaves at 04:45 you can bet it is on turkish via istanbul!
in amman we went to a hidden pub up a back street called the petrobar, which was open all night, was tiny and dark, where you could buy a bottle of spirits and just sit and drink the whole lot, and had a very friendly bedouin guy who wanted us to smoke with him. the local beer they had was petra beer, but they only stocked the 10%ABV version! really fun night.
we didnt get stabbed at jerash, but did get hit with a £11.50 bill for two lemonades!! (the JD is one of the few currencies in the world that is worth more than sterling....1dinar is worth 85p). we also had turkish coffees in aqaba which set us back more than a tenner, and set us both off leaking at both ends, but that is another story!
the dead sea has shrunk by such a huge extent that its now a 10 minute walk from any of the resort hotels that used to be right on the banks. it has now turned into 2 seas, as there is a huge area in the middle that has dried up altogether, and this has only happened in the last 12 years. now it is even more difficult to get in and out....you float to such an extent that it is almost impossible to get your feet back down and be vertical once you have lain down. its kinda like trying to force a balloon underwater, especially in my case. i stupidly wore my sandals into it, they have now crystallised into something akin to knives and i will have to throw them away! buggers.
petra is still wonderful, like finding narnia at the end of an hour long march, which due to the wonders you see, you forget you have to do all over again to get back out. Jo loved it, and no wonder, but for me it was kinda ruined, and if you want to go i suggest you do it soon. for a start, the whole of the main 'street' has a huge water channel down the middle because there has been so much flooding. that was never there before. nor were the hundreds of tat stalls that have sprung up everywhere in the site, because the bedouin live there, and need to make a living. but it has totally detracted, for me, from the experience of isolation. we forced our poor driver to get out of his bed and take us at 6am when it opens, and im so glad we did, as it was to only time, of the 3 we went, that it was like discovering it, and it was not full of french moaners, huge korean groups, or vloggers! Jo is responsible for the frencher comment....everywhere we went there were les francais, they were moaning. Jo says they always moan...i thought that was the brits, but hoorah, someone else is just as bad. what larks.
after walking round petra for 7 miles according to jos phone, we went and got scrubbed clean as a whistle in a hamam. it was really interesting as men and women were in there together, the guys running it threw water over us, took us to the really hot steam room, covered our faces in what looked like washing up liquid, and eventually lead us to a room where we got scrubbed, lathered, massaged and pummelled by two nigerian girls who never, for one minute, stopped chatting in igbo. it was just heaven, and we were so clean we didnt have to wash for 3 days after! probably could have done with it after 3 days...as we were just sandblasted in wadi rum!
staying in the desert was just magic! wadi rum now has many eco-villages, and the silence, the stars, the sunset and sunrise, and the brilliant food they cooked for us was just fantastic. we went on camels for about an hour through the red sand, which was wonderful as they are so quiet, it seems like something that is eternal, the swing of the camels legs that causes the wave backwards and forwards of the rider. getting up and down on a camel, when they kinda fold down like a deck chair can be a challenge, but if you go with the flow, and get in the rhythm it is just fab! we also had a jeep adventure, driving all through the wadi with asif our wee driver who made us lunch in a slot canyon, lighting the fire with dried branches, and warming the flat bread in the embers. it was just great. our wee tent was really cosy and bijou, but something was living in the bed, and it wasnt just me!
i got rudely bumped out by my wifi at the end of the last post...but its a good place to have a hiatus. our desert trip was just wonderful....i didnt, but Jo got up to watch the sunrise in the silence, and the power is solar, so it goes off about 4am...no distractions. to be honest i was thinking it was going to be below zero at night, but it was a very balmy 9degrees, and i had no problem going to the toilet block in bare feet. on the other hand, driving around the desert in a jeep was a little on the chilly side, but we were forced by our driver to take bedouin coats, aka fur blankets with sleeves, and omg, what a god send. the other jeepster tourists we occasionally saw all looked totally freezing, especially the women, a lot of whom were just wearing sandals and knee length leggings. we were smug in out toastiness, even if we did trip on the bottom of the coats all the time, and you could just see the jealousy in the others eyes. no one else had the benefit of a bedouin coat....we were blessed by allah! or at least by asif, who made us take them.
after our lawrence of arabia experience, we got in one of our many hybrid electric taxis, and swaned down to aqaba, which i have to say was about 10 times bigger than it was in 1997. it is a really peculiar place, and we actually only went because turkish airlines, in their wisdom, changed the schedule of our flight....by 2 DAYS! so instead of 4 days in luxor, where i had planned to fly down to abu simbel, we spent 2 nights in the booze smuggling capital of the near east. aqaba does not have many obvious bars, but what it does have is giant liquor stores on every street, full of premium spirits like johnnie walker blue label, chivas regal royal salute, and brandies so expensive they come in crystal decanters. why, oh why is this? well...just guessing, but could it be the juxtaposition of the saudi border, and the fact that aqaba is a duty free zone? mmm...then there are the enormous 5 star hotels, half of which are huge apartments, and require security akin to the average airport to get into. we had to go through metal detectors, get a bag search, and get our passports photocopied just to go and have a drink at the bar!
so we chose the doubletree because it had a rooftop bar overlooking the red sea, and was cool AF...just like us! because we had had a dry 2 days in the desert, we celebrated our sobriety by having a couple of cocktails, and 2 bottles of wine, with a fantastic meal, lovely service, great view, and pretty cheap for jordan. the reviews on trip advisor said that the cocktails were really expensive...but they were only about £7...these reviewers quite obviously dont ever go for a drink on george street here, (about $15 at least), or buy lemonade at jerash! so it was a lovely night, but i wouldnt bother with aqaba unless you have to....the public beach is small pebbly and full of fag ends and litter, (a recurring theme in jordan and egypt is smoking....you are still allowed to do it just about everywhere, including inside luxor airport! how old fashioned is that?). still it was fun despite the £5 coffees that made us run into a nargile bar in urgency to the squatter toilet, much to the alarm and amusement of the guys lying about in there. what larks!
so after our 4 hour drive back to amman, a few hours kip in a hotel, we hopped, skipped and jumped, back to istanbul, which, strangely is an hour ahead of amman, and egypt, despite being further west, for a whirlwind 15 hour stopover...it involved going to hagia sofia, the spice market, a bit of shopping, 2 rooftop bars, a tuna pizza, getting lost not once but 3 times, the guys in the hotel i booked for £47 thinking we were just crazy as we arrived at 11am and left at 10pm, and going to see the whirling dervish sema at hodjipasha where some of the audience were so rude and walked out in the middle. then...yes, you guessed it, we jumped back in a taxi and ran back to the airport for our 1am flight to luxor. and OMG....the luxor hilton resort and spa!
i have to say our hotel in petra...the Grand View 4 star was really nice, and did have what it said on the tin...but it was not a patch on the hilton! if i could have imagined a view of the nile from a luxury hotel it would be this one...the staff were lovely, it was just luxurions with 3 pools and a spa (which of course we didnt use), right on the river, 1and....god, im good at picking hotels....only 15 minutes walk to karnak temple!
talking of which....we went early in the morning, and it was relatively quiet, and what a place! it is, well maybe apart from angkor wat, which is much more spread out, still, the largest religious complex building in the world, and it still had the original paint...i was so excited! on top of this, we swam every day, drank mango daquiris and spent our last sunset sailing down the nile in a felucca...well, i use the term sailing loosely!
there wasnt a breath of wind, and our poor driver, had to get our a pair of huge oars, and a punt and manhaul the boat upstream. we barely made it past our hotel...but what the hell, it was brilliant.
then back to the airport for our 03:45 flight, an hour and a bit in istanbul, during which you just walk, and walk, and walk, our next flight, another breakfast, a quick snooze, and back to a very dank, misty,wet and miserable edinburgh.
i just slept for about 2 days.
god this travelling is harder than it used to be when i was young!!!!!
but.....hallelulah...i can still stand the pace, and so can Jo! HOORAH!
derek, cant deny your message struck a cord, and so here is the post about all the ailments we suffered.
i am on tablets for high blood pressure, and one of the side affects is a dry cough. bloody hell, after amman, but particularly istanbul, a city of 20 million people all of whom drive, and the smog is chest-tightening, i had paroxyms of barking. sometimes i couldnt sleep because i was hacking up all night. on top of this another thing these pills cause is vomiting....wont go into it, but just not good. i carried airplane sick bags around with me.
in the bedouin tent i got eaten alive....on my lip, my fingers, my arms, my legs. wasnt mosquitos, im guessing fleas, but might have been bed bugs. the one on my lip is just going away now.
when i have been to petra before, sandals were fine, but now the floods have changed the surface and its pebbly, little sharp stones. i wore sandals. wrong choice. my feet were bleeding. the day we went at 6am, i had to bandage my feet and wear socks and sneakers. i had a blister so big i had to cut it with scissors! jo was delighted!
after our debacle with the turkish coffee in aqaba, jo almost passed out by the beach, and we had to go and lie down in a darkened room. we didnt eat or drink anything but water, and fruit juice for almost 48 hours. and yet still our insides complained. see this getting near 60...its shite!
and im so with you on the hardship of going back to places you loved in...mmm...the 80s and 90s. cities are different....they change, get better, build, expand, clean up. sites dont....they just get more and more over-touristed and ruined. i feel a bit hypocritical saying this, as its kinda like, it was ok for us to go to these places, but now they have become sullied by too many people. but what can you do? its not just the amount of tourists, its the mind-set of the mobile phone generation. they never stop talking, they dont have any respect for history, they are just there to take selfies, and then just want to leave. it is just so disappointing. this is why i have been to the lesser visited countries of europe this year. and i will continue to do so. still so many fantastic places to go where there are really few tourists. thank the lord.
we might be old, but, my god we are lucky!
the second time i went to bangkok, mandy and i were taken around by a thai guide who was a psychology student. this was in the analogue days, and she said that you could tell the origin of tourists by how they took photos. far eastern asians always just wanted photos of themselves in front of whatever famous building they were near regardless of how many other people were there, americans wanted photos of themselves infront of the landmark, but they were prepared to wait for a certain amount of time to get it with only them, but europeans wanted photos of just the building with no one in front of it and were prepared to wait almost all day to get this!
obviously things have now changed dramatically on the photo opportunity front. as i have spent lots of time in several countries this year (dont mean to brag but its australia, spain, turkey (twice), france, albania, georgia, montenegro, north macedonia, egypt, jordan and romania), many of them alone, i have had lots of time to observe the selfie generation in their natural habitiat which shows, unlike that of many species, no signs of endangerment...quite the opposite!
most girls now, not only take at least 10 photos every time, but have to adopt certain poses...looking behind with the hair swishing, one foot behind lifted at the heel taken from side on, hands on hips with one foot way in front of the other from an angle, fuck me dead, not that i know for sure, but im blaming the kardashians for this!!!!
and then there is me....years behind my time...still taking pictures of buildings with no one in front of them, rocks, other people i dont even know and just views. i fucking hate photos of myself, and only get them at all because im with friends. on my singular travels, i do not have even one shot of myself, and have only ever taken one other selfie other than the delightful one on here, because my hair had, after 6 months reverted to its pre-greggs hats curl. woo hoo!!!
and on the digestive problems, derek, we were lucky as it did not get in the way of our trip, and i dont mean to brag twice in one post, but women are just so much more resiliant when it comes to plumbing! jo has had 5 children...she can deal with any
yep...i know who they are, who doesnt, and even which are kardashians, and which are jenners, and which ridiculously named child belongs to which, but, like most of the people reading this, i have never, ever watched their show. EVER!
i think it says something about the world right now, that we all know about them, with out even wanting to, or being interested, to the point that i know that girls are taking selfies in a kardashian pose, and we are all immersed in celeb-culture whether we like it or not. hell, i even know who jeffree star is...and if you dont, you are not really missing anything..but sufice to say, he is an instagram 'influencer' who has become a millionaire because of it. and lets not even mention george charles, who has lost a million followers in a few weeks. blimey!!!!
do you know someone i kinda respect at the moment who is an internet sensation...its billie eilish....because, whatever you think of her music, and her weird fashion sense, at least she is herself, and not following idiots like kim or khloe. she is only one year older than greta thunberg....another person you might be sick of hearing about, but at least she is not conforming to the 'normal' life for girls. on the other hand, greta has been slagged for having got home, and been reunited with her dogs, which, not only are a total no-no for a climate activist, but the ones her family have are pure bred labs. bahahaha! tbh, im not sure how a 16 year old causes such fury...but she seems to have even pissed off the german rail network due to a photo of her sitting on the floor....these things just make me laugh!! in this world of trump and bojo, you either laugh till you are sick, or cry till your eyes are raw...there is no longer a place for middle ground.
so much bad news. elections, impeachment, climate, poverty, irresponsible billionaires, and i dont know if you have read this, but the UK is the corruption capital of the world. not for politics, police, or legislation...but for money laundering. there are more off-shore funds out of the UK than any other country in the world...the caymans, and the channel islands being the favourites. who'd a thunk it...well, me for one!
anyway...enough of the shite in the world....here are some nice photos of scotland! enjoy.
HNY to everyone! Last year I would have been in bed at this time! This year I have only been up for 3 hours and have 9 hours till midnight. Derek and Marty will be the last people reading this to see 2020 arrive. In Edinburgh it's only 4 hours to go. What a very divers group spread out over the world we are. Thank you all for being my friends. Can you believe it's been two decades since the millennium...fuck me dead!Happiness to you all...it's all that matters!
Just a quickie to say that I'm in the north of the island, to the east of san Juan, so totally no chance of a disaster here. On the other hand the whole island was without power, including the airport, and the traffic lights which made the drive here something of an adventure. Just woken up actually being able to see the surroundings, which were only visible last night due to the brightness of the 🌒 moon. BandK, so so glad you are ok and pigs survived the inferno. I was just hysterical the day we looked it up after Gareth's message, and poor Chris had to try and calm me down, as I just couldn't reach you. Fingers crossed the worst is over! Love to all.
Fab, fab, fab place! Lovely weather, pretty wee streets, great bars, good food, and just such friendly, polite people! Not to mention a fantastic cemetery, what more could I want! Well, not to be bitten all over by sand fleas, or to feel my bed moving during a tremor!!! Haha! What larks!
its pretty hard to write anything good right now! binni and kim are going through the worst fires known in history, half the world has so much snow they cant even get out of their houses, the other half has earthquakes, tornados and drought. you would almost think that the earth was trying to shake us off!!! in the light of such horror, i realise that leaving the EU is small fry, non-life threatening, and no one is going to die....but on this, the day before it happens, i am in mourning!
so to help my misery, im off down to port seton tomorrow, to spend the weekend with mog and joyce and probably go for a wander in mogs wood...which is called mercat wood in east lothian, in case anyone wants to look it up on googlemaps. and then im going on a lightning fast trip to budapest, mainly due to the fact that i found a flight for £40...so much for the good news.
bak, chris sent me terrifying footage of the fires south of canberra....jeeuz....it actually made me just want to curl up into a ball...but i know you wouldnt do that even if you could. just hope the worst is over. let me know.
and derek and marty, congrats on your nuptuals...i realise you have done it before...but lets hope its lasting this time.
and sadly, another piece of news...gareths father, who made it to his 100th last year, died in his own bed last week. way to go fitz!
Views from my fantastic room in the hotel Clark Tomorrow is going to be sunny and 6°C. Fab!
OMG...I'm bloody knackered. Walked for 5 hours round the city today, and didn't even sit down...blimey!!! While it was beautiful and sunny, fmd walking over the bridges, and along the river was totally arctic....wind so cold, it was just like being in Scotland. I really like Budapest, much more than Prague which I think is the most overrated city in Europe, but possibly that is because it's February, and tourists are few and far between here, whereas half of Europe and almost the entire population of Korea was in Prague when I went in may. Anyway.....is the Danube blue? Well, not in the morning, but it is in the late afternoon, apparently! Da da da DA, da dum, da dum etc!
so, as someone who has barely left the house for over a week, you may not think i really have anything to tell you...but you would be so, so wrong! but first....THE WEATHER! jeezuz god!!!! we have had two storms back to back, the first brought huge amounts of snow, freezing temperatures and darkness at 2pm. the second brought wales 2 months of rain in 2 hours, and so much wind i suggest you look up the etihad flight landing sideways at heathrow, or the arran ferry docking in ardrossan. as a fifty something woman, i have to sleep with a window open, even in adverse condidions, and last night it was so wild, i had to move my glass of water as i thought it was going to go over. now, please dont confuse this with what others have, or are still going through weather wise....i realise that we are pretty lucky, in a very miserable way that only scots can appreciate, with our weather. we have no bush fires, earthquakes, tornados, tsunamis, mud slides or volcanic erruptions, but OMG do we know about gales, and gusts of over 100 mph! we have to learn how to walk bent almost double while still being able to see where we are going, while horizontal rain drenches you down to your underwear on the front, but your back is bone dry, or getting home 15 minutes faster that normal, because the wind just blows you along till you start running. its the human equvalent of the plane that just made it over the atlantic in less than 5 hours because it was travelling at the fastest subsonic speed ever recorded. its an ill wind that blows no body any good! i never used to understand that adage when i was a child, but i think ive got it now.
so much for the silver lining, no mixed metaphors intended, dont get me started on the corona virus...oh, ok, if you insist! going to budapest, there were quite a few people, practically all millenial girls, wearing face masks, a few of them the wrong way round. (the things you learn, the blue side does not go next to your mouth). it seemed a bit weird as these do not prevent you getting it in any way, all they do is prevent you spreading it to others if you sneeze or cough. however, when we arrived in the airport, and i was sauntering through customs with my tiny bag on my shoulder, all the customs guys were wearing proper charcoal masks because a flight from doha had just come in that was full of chinese people. apparently, no where else in the world has anything edible, as chinese people seem to travel with nothing in their luggage but food, most of which is not permitted to be brought into the EU. there was a guy having an enormous polystrene box of food confiscated, including several melons, fish, parts of chickens and other unknown items. stangely, no one was the least interested in me or my luggage..stroll on!!!
i hate staying in edinburgh for too long, so one day after i got back from hungary, i went all the way on the train to presonpans, and met mog and joyce for a weekend in port seton. i love going down to their swanky house, and, before the storm hit, we went to dunbar for a bracing walk around the harbour, followed by a fab dinner at home, and a couple of korean revenge movies. for a change jason statham did not feature in any of our viewing, but as usual, we did have time for some judge judy, cant pay, we'll take it away and ru pauls drag race. good food, and such entertainment, what more could a girl want!
this weekend, i was meeting my cousin laura for lunch, and being the lady of leisure that i am, i decided to set an alarm for the disturbingly early time of 11am! imagine my annoyance when it went off, and i stupidly, instead of picking it up, knocked it down the back of the bed. so i got face down and stuck my arm down where the metal frame is, and imagine my hilarity when i tried to pull my arm back out, and just couldnt! ummmm....i lay there for a while reviewing my situation, in the words of fagin, and then tried to pull my arm back up again, but no....it wouldnt budge! mmm....maybe i will call someone...well, no, i cant, because my mobile is on the ground, and im face down with my land line phone behind me out of reach. and if i keep pulling, my arm is just going to start swelling up....hum! and given my recent year of almost total inactivity, im not the most supple of people, however i did manage to stretch enough to get my leg and shoulder kinda against the wall, and finally freed myself like someone squeezing a black head! it is pretty hard to express my relief at being released, but i did have to have a very stiff margarita or 4 when i met laura! very, very single-living problems! doh!
and if that isnt enough news....try this. im doing my last 2 EU countries together, as i found a flight from malta to cyprus, and back, for 22Euro! thats end of this month. then im going to brussels for BANAD which you could look up, but i just so want to go inside the hotel tassel! cant wait. then im going to chisinau in moldova (its kishinev) as its claim to fame is that its the ugliest city in the world, and there is a disputed country within moldova called transnistria where everyone speaks russian, and there are still statues of lenin. and to top it all off, i have found a flight to armenia for £140 via berlin, where i have never been, so am spending a couple of days there too. icing...im going to japan in september with laura and staying with cousin simon.
someone slap me so i can believe this is all my life!
i realise that anyone might think this is weird, but it probably is!
i carry a little tin that once held mints everywhere i go with some of roses ashes.
so here are the places some of rose is blowing about.
off the chain bridge in Budapest into the danube. in a bar in transylvania where i ate deep fried cheese and potato balls (rose would have loved that food),, in the hodjapasha in istanbul when jo and i went to see the whirling dervishes. rose just was entranced by that. next to the treasury at petra. in a margarita i didnt drink at new year in raleigh. on the beach at grand rio in puerto rico. in a bar next to the lake in ohrid north macedonia where i stopped for a beer on a hot day. into the sea at kas where she used to go swimming from our favourite bar. into the desert at wadi rum in jordan. into the nile at luxor. in the huge victory square in tirana albania, up one of the tiny winding back streets in kotor montenegro. in the 'tits and dragons' bar toilet, a game of thrones themed bar in tbilisi, a little smidgeon having moussaka on meis, the greek island off the coast of turkey and some on the beach at port seton where my brother lives.
she is always with me. and tomorrow, im taking some of her to malta, and then to cyprus. she is probably the best travelled dead person in the world.
i just wish she knew!
yep, malta and cyprus, islands of contrast for many reasons, but my last two EU countries i had to visit to complete the set of 28, and as the flight between them was only 22Euro, call me promiscuious, but i thought i would just do both at the same time!
so, flew to malta, spent the first night near the airport, as i was flying to paphos the next morning, and stayed in an airbnb, which, according to google maps, was only 20 mins walk to the airport, and i only had a tiny bag. wayhey i thought. WRONG! got up at 5am, and off i went, only to find out that there was no bloody way to walk, despite the fact that i could see the planes, and the terminal. so, i saw 3 old guys sitting by a van with 'shuttle' on the side, and asked them where i could get a taxi. they told me to jump in, well in maltese, and whisked me off to the terminal in a mere 7 minutes, what larks. bit of a lifesaver!
however, its fair to say, i wasnt really taken with paphos, it just seemed so old fashioned and tacky, and tbh, i thought it was a bit of a dump. this was not helped by, on my arrival at my accommodation the owner asking me where the rest of my party was, and when i told him it was just me, he said, rather crossly 'but you have booked a 2 bedroom villa!!!!!' yes, indeed i had, and paid for it too, so 1 person, 4 people, what did he care! and it carried on...he told me that the hot water was a switch on the wall, and that i had better only have it on for an hour a day, as it cost a lot of money, and that the pump in my private pool would be switched off at 5pm for the same reason.
however, the villa was really nice, despite having the worst equipped kitchen ive ever known. it didnt even have a dish towel, ffs, and the kettle had a european bathroom plug, when cyprus has 3 pin UK style, there were no condiments, no pan scrubbers, a microwave, but no dishes suitable to put in it and wine glasses from 1973 not to mention a fridge that froze solid everything you put in it. however, it did have its compensations. its own pool, the size of a puddle, a view down to the dump that is paphos, and several villa complexes round about that had been started, but never finished, and a tiled floor that was so cold i wished i had brought slippers. what larks.
so much for the bad news.....my trip to the turkish republic of northern cyprus was a real adventure, and travelling through the checkpoints where they took your passports away was so cold war, checkpoint charlie, it was a hoot. crossing into the trnc, which is called kibris in turkish, was like going to a different country, in every way, and there are so many ruined buildings by the road, full of turkish patrol guards with machine guns! however Famagusta was calm, sweet, pretty and welcoming, and had fab turkish cafes and restaurants. at one time, it was one of the most famous ports in the mediterranean, and was ruled at different times by venetians, greeks, turks and norman french, who built the gothic cathedral in the 12th C which is now a mosque. the only change they made, apart from the mihrab inside is building a minaret, so it still looks a bit like notre dame, surrounded by nargile lounges and kebab shops.
equally as interesting, though tourists are not allowed to get out of their vehicles, is the resort of varosha, at one time a very exclusive beach area, when the rich and chic went to hang out and be seen. now its a ghost town, abandoned by the greeks in 1974, and never re-inhabited. there are still roads closed off with oil drums, empty luxury hotels, and deliapidated schools, government buildings, shops and churches. it was really sad and depressing, and for greeks it is a poinant symbol of turkish aggression. i was fascinated.
so that was cyprus. the best thing about paphos was the brilliant taxi company i found, who, even better than uber, i just messaged on facebook, and he came and picked me up in a couple of minutes. and the olive pie....Yummmmm! it was like a huge scone (or biscuit for those of us from the US), just baked by a cypriot granny, still warm, melt-in-the-mouth texture, and full of sweet black olives. delish.
cyprus..meh! i will not be going back!
so.....i flew back to malta from cyprus for the exorbitant price of 12Euro, when the flight there cost only 10!!! imagine! and these were not really short flights either, about 2 hours there, and 2;20 on the way back, and, not that cyprus gave a shit, but it did get an infrared screen entering malta again. after that palaver, jumped into yet another taxi (i actually spent more money on taxis than anything else, the taxi to mdina was more than my return flight!), and crossed into the middle of the island. it actually looks a long way on a map, even by UK standards, but of course malta is only about 10kms across, and from high points of mdina, you could see both coasts! so i got dropped outside the gate and crossed into the town, which, of course, was one of the places they filmed some of game of thrones.
the whole of malta seems to be made of cream coloured local stone, and all the houses are made of this, square and with flat roofs. its all very assassins creed, and my apartment was no exception, except that it had been a tower, and so was on 3 floors with a really large, secluded roof terrace where i had my coffee every morning to the sound of the sparrows who lived in the upper part of the wall. however, despite its cuteness all was not well when i arrived, as the owner hadnt notified the person looking after the apartment that i was coming, so when i found it, there was no one there, and i waited around for 2 hours not really sure what to do. i called and texted the owner, but got no reply, and was starting to wonder why i hadnt just booked a fucking hotel which does not have this problem, when i saw a woman walking across the square with keys in her hand.
it was nathalie, the woman who looks after the apartment, who had just decided to turn up that day to check it was all ok, and she was so sorry for me. she took me inside and made me a coffee, as i 'must be really cold' after my wait (it was 22 degrees). she ascribed her deciding to visit that day, after 2 weeks, as the work of the almighty, and while i didnt disagree, as i now believe that it is pointless to debate with the devout, it just seemed that god might have a little more on his plate. given wars, climate change, mass extinction and, naturally, covid 19, than whether of not some stoopd old dame, only visiting to complete her EU countries, got into an apartment she had booked in malta. however, they do say he moves in mysterious ways, who am i to question!
so....i got into my castle of an apartment, and imediately wished that i had brought slippers, as the tiled floors, and stone staircases were bloody chilly on the old tootsies. and, additionally, you had to be so careful going up and down the stairs, no skipping between floors here, or getting pissed on the roof. but i loved it...it was really quiet, i loved all the stairs, and just being in the middle of the cutesy wee town. every time i went in, or out, of the double doors onto the little windy street, someone would ask me a question, as they thought i was a local...i liked that.
i had the most delicious pizza ever, bought wine for 3Euro with a 25c deposit on the bottle, always knew which way the traffic was coming as they drive on the left, and didnt need an adaptor to charge as they have UK 3 pin plugs. there were red phone boxes and pillar boxes, and i always thought it was only old british people who went to malta to die, but apparently not. it was not the most beautiful landscape, but it was really green, with flowers, vines, olives, oranges...and the ubiquitous maltese creamy stone which every building is made of. amazing as it may seem, given that it has always seemed like on of the most boring places in mediterranean, i really loved malta. everything moved at a really slow pace, and it had a real charm that seemed really old fashioned in a good way. i cant believe im saying this, but i would even go back to this sweet wee island...maybe i am getting old, i like malta..
jings, crivens and help ma boab!
yep, no kidding!
i wrote a large post yesterday, and was going to finish it today, but it is already out of date. the world really is bizarre right now, and im taking one day at a time. my trip to the art noveau and deco festival in brussels, which i was supposed to be going to tomorrow is suspended, and i may never get inside the hotel tassel!
i have also cancelled my hotel in moldova, as i just dont think that is going to happen.
at the moment, i only go out of the house to buy food, and of course...wine.
its fair to say...not only am i socially distanced, im self isolated.
but then, i have been for over a year!
first, can i say thanks to everyone for checking in here. as you know, im sure, i have no problem with self-isolating, and at present, im only going out of my flat to shop, or go for a quick walk, but i also like to hear about everyone elses experiences during this very weird time. i know that most people who read these havers, dont have social media as such...but right now im so dependent of facebook just for local news, and that of my friends, many of whom are still at work, that, as i said, i have started sleeping with my phone on my pillow. the only person who ever calls me on my landline now, is gareth, and i have stopped answering all calls if i dont know the number since i almost got scammed, and my mobile filters all spam calls. i now depend so much on facebook messenger for getting in touch with people, and even for sending messages to the council or the gas board, i really dont know how i managed without a smart phone for so many years. can i just say here, that you do not have to be friends on facebook to be able to message someone, but they do have to accept your message, or can decline it. if my phone pings in the middle of the night, i know its either louis in haiti, who just doesnt seem to be able to understand the time difference, no matter how many times i tell him, (and yes, covid 19 has now arrived in haiti, and particularly the north, round cap hatien, because that is the main driving route to the dominican republic, the streets are empty, and even churches are closed!!!), or eli playing trivia games, and its my turn, or, worst scenario, its bad news. sometimes my heart just pounds when my landline goes, and i just go into meltdown if it wakes me up....even if it is at 1pm,,,not that i ever stay in bed till that time, you understand!!!
just went out to the supermarket, and though there is so much less traffic, and pedestrians than normal, the co-op, my favourite store, was open, was pretty full of most things you could want, had water, cheese, bread, squash...and most importantly...WINE! hallelulah! the things i have stocked up on the most, although as anyone who has been in my flat knows, i cant hoard, i just dont have the storage, are dried noodles, cans of soup and beans, and oatcakes. believe me...this is not a change to my diet! my idea of cooking is heating a can of something and toasting bread! now that covid 19 is upon us, i can actually revert to the life of a teenage dirtbag! its what ive always wanted!
ok, i know this is all flippant nonsense, but you have to laugh still, or you go bonkers. hilariously, as the highlands, most of the western isles, and orkney have no cases so far, lots of scottish city dwellers have driven up there in rvs because they will be safer. naturally, it is just so possible, nae likely, that some of them have taken it with them, and, voila, there are cases in the local population where there were none. oh, im getting annoyed with these people, and today, i gave a lecture to a romanian woman begging on the street! she pretened that she didnt understand i word, but i see these women grouping in the underpass just next to the conference center, and believe me, they understand english just fine! she should be at home, like the rest of us, not sitting on the pavement! about as stupid as all the people who went to the beaches in england yesterday, or the US kids partying in miami on spring break.
all i can say is....trust in allah, but wash your hands as soon as you come home, disinfect your door handles, phones, and keys. im not kidding!
Well, as normal as can be expected in these abnormal times. I sauntered straight across Lothian road today, after taking my bottles to the, who'd a thought, crammed full bottle bank, and got food in an almost empty co-op. The Roma woman was still sitting outside, and she totally blanked me! Bahaha! Even the Jakie who normally sits outside Tesco has socially distanced himself! Anyway.....there is a drunk guy shouting outside about how everyone is being so horrible to him, as he is running up to the very few passers-by trying to talk and shake hands. Normally I would not be able to hear his rants, but it's so bloody quiet the whole building can hear him. Lucky for him he didn't cross my path today....😜😷😱
i went out for a walk today, over the meadows, and up to George IV bridge, where, for the first time in as long as i can remember there was no one taking selfies with Greyfriars Bobby...maybe his nose will go back to the same colour as the rest of his body, as no one is daring to touch it these days! there is a good chance as now the Edinburgh Festival, film festival, jazz festival, the tattoo and the Fringe have all be cancelled for the first time ever since it started in 1947! strange times indeed!
have to say the meadows, given that it is surrounded by tennements, was packed with people, but as you see in one of these notices, you can walk, cycle, jog, rollerblade or scoot, but you cant sit down and eat or drink...not a big deal right now, its only april, and not exactly picnic weather, but come june, who knows what will happen. well...no one knows what is going to happen, how long this is going to last, whether we will just go back to same shit, different day, or if things will never be the same again. this really is the weirdest time in my life. in the south of england, they are already suspecting there will be power cuts, as the national grid is totally overburdened with everyone staying at home watching netflix all day. i doubt that will happen here, scotland has, in fact, too much electricity, but if it does, i will just restore to my default condition....going to bed and staying there till its over, watching judge judy or 90 day fiance.
i have become totally hypnotised by terrible tv shows, and have just started 'the tiger king', not to mention 'say yes to the dress', 'dont tell the bride', '1000 lb sisters', and of course Ru Pauls drag race. on the other end of the spectrum...i watched a spanish film last night called 'the platform' which is an allegory of capitialism, featuring a vertical prison with cordon bleu chefs on the top floor cooking a fantastic banquet every day, which then goes down through the levels on a platform, only stopping for 5 minutes on each. funnily enough the bottom levels get nothing....you get where this is going! really enjoyed that. and 'afterlife' with ricky gervais, who is not someone ive ever really watched before...but it was good too.
well...this and eating, sleeping and doing crosswords again after months not bothering, is all i have to report. hell...i hardly even need to do washing, as all i ever wear is rompers and slippers, so the only things that go in the washing machine are sheets and towels, a tshirt, and a pair of joggy bottoms. i havent needed to wash a pair of socks for weeks, as i have just dispensed with wearing them. though, cant deny, i do have a lot more dishes than before...and wine glasses...cant think why!
as many of you who read this dont do instagram, facebook or any social media, in the absence of anything else to post, as i have been leading the life of a cat, i thought i would share some of the memes. some of the films, which i cant post here, have made me snigger, nae, probably guffaw, in a time of very little to smile about. as the entire population, bar essential workers, are now at home, twiddling their fingers, the input onto facebook has just exploded. not only posts of your bread baking, book reading, binge netflix watching, house decorating, gardening, thinking you can sing, act or dance, acting out holidays you should have been on or doing jigsaw puzzles, you can now learn hundreds of foreign languages, learn to crochet, knit, paint, make whipped iced coffee, cook like gordon ramsey, do cryptic crosswords excercise at home you fucking name it. at the request of one of my ex staff members, i have joined a group called the unofficial greggs family, which has been funny for a week, but i will obviously leave it soon, as its getting annoying. however, my point is, most of the greggs employees are getting jittery, and are all saying they are just desperate to get back to work. as they were, when i worked with them, possibly the most moaney people ive ever come across, im guessing it will be about a week back into work before they start complaining about working.
being scottish, we are just a load of miserable bastards, who are never happy!
but at least we can laugh....
yep...another day of isolation, but yesterday, as it was such a beautiful day, i went for a walk down to princes street, and into the gardens. i was going to say that i have never seen the city centre like this, but that isnt really true. if i delve deeply into the far back recesses of my mind, to the 1960s and 70s, in a world before plastic bags, the internet, mobile phones, and supermarkets, it was like this on a sunday. nothing was open. being the bizzarely presbyterian country we are, shops were not allowed to open, the swings were chained up on the meadows, and even now, fishmongers traditionally dont open on monday, as no boats go out on the sabbath.
however there are still a few shops open...marks &spencer foodhall (which, amusingly, gets auto-corrected to goofball!!!), boots the chemist, superdrug, and, interestingly, poundland! im not really sure why, as it is totally deserted...as you can see, and it was just great strolling around empty streets, and down into the gardens, on a lovely sunny day. however...dont misunderstand me, i did not sit in the sun, stop anywhere, speak to anyone, or touch anything apart from my phone. luckily given the absence of traffic, you dont have to use pedestrian crossings, and i only went into one shop, which has automatic doors, used the self-scanner, paid by contactless and had my own bag. on returning home i disinfected my door handles, phone, bottles of wine i had bought, and fridge openings, and then, it goes without saying, i washed my hands...i just knew all that greggs training about how to do it properly would come in handy (no pun intended) one day.
i cant deny, i miss my short breaks abroad, and i should be in moldova as we speak. bugger. now my berlin and armenia trip has been cancelled, and my flight to turkey in june has also gone. im just hoping that i get to japan in september...if im stuck in scotland for that long...i might just go bat-soup-crazy!!!
BAHAHAHAHAHSHITE!
Gorgeous day on the meadows....with the cops moving on anyone sitting on the grass or throwing frisbee in groups! What strange times we are in....but nature continues regardless! I'm wondering if Greta thunberg invented the virus, just to confirm what we all know....the earth is much better off without us..just my own conspiracy theory!On a tangential note... did you see that right wing American pastors are slagging the Catholic church for not having Easter mass in st Peter's Square..god those bleeding heart liberal European namby-pamby heathens!!! 🤔🤔😷😷🤪🤪🤯🤯☠️☠️
so this being the contrary country of scotland, and all, the weather before all this strangness happened was bloody awful, and now that we are not allowed to sit on the grass, or seats, picnic or bbq in any park, the sun has got his fucking hat on, and it has been just such wonderful blue sky weather. buggers!!!! in the words of kurt cobain, and eli brown, 'nevermind'! at least we are still allowed outside, though i think we are probably going to have to wear masks to go on public transport. i realise they can stop you coughing or sneezing (though that is not a symptom of covid) on others, but they dont stop the virus getting to you, and you need a new one every day. i hesitate to use the word lipservice, but, honestly, no pun intended! however, being the law-abiding citizen i am, i will wear one if im told to, despite the fact that i will not be able to see for my specks steaming up! the joys. the joys.g>so let me tell you, i have become so idle, its actually hard to fathom how little a person can accomplish in 24 hours. i spend half the night watching youtube political videos, posting ridiculous things onto facebook, watching 'lost' again, and just waiting to see what total idiocy trump can come up with next. i also listen to audio books, though i practically always fall asleep and wake up 5 chapters ahead, play virtual cards, and do crosswords. i eat drink sleep and go out once a day.
hi fellow prisoners, how are you all?
as someone who has just realised they are the spitting image of boris johnson when he has died his hair the wrong colour during the hairdressing crisis, i have to say, ive had better days, fuck lets face it, ive had better weeks, no months...actually years! still, at least we no longer have a toilet paper or pasta crisis, things could be worse....
i thought i had deleted the plots i had put on my map, but apparently not, as according to this blog i am currently in berlin, and flying to yerevan tomorrow...I FUCKING WISH! so instead, im stuck in edinburgh, and have been out exploring places ive not been for years. its all very well going to the meadows, they are beautiful right now, but there are just too many people there. my brother and i have been bemoaning the fact that, as natural social distancers, we are just so, so pissed that our normal quiet walks are now full of couples holding hands, but tutting if you even walk past, people with 5 kids on bikes taking up the entire path and, most annoying of all, the boy-racer cyclists now have the roads to themselves and so have reverted to zooming everwhere, brushing pedestrians instead of cars! mog is pissed of he has not been to his wood, as being the law-abiding citizens they are, joyce has not been driving anywhere, and im sick of the bloody annoying people taking photos of the blossom on the meadows, as, in every other year before, i have been the only person doing that...why dont they just fuck right off!
so, as tuesday was such a gorgeous sunny day, i went out for a walk into town instead, and, hoorah, there were so few people, i felt like i had stumbled onto the first scene in '28 days later', but without the blood everywhere! i think i said this on some other pointless ramble, but when we were kids, on sundays, the city was totally empty, everything was closed, and of course, there were so, so fewer cars in those days. i went up to the castle, which is closed, of course, (just dont know how they are managing without that £20 entrance fee from a thousand tourists a day!) and wandered around the esplanade, which, on a normal april sunny day would have been mobbed. there were 6 people....SIX! happy happy joy joy! you could see over the forth to fife, fredrick street and 1 bus on it, and the mound was totally empty. i just loved every moment! wandered down the high street past st giles, to john knox's house, and saw about 10 people, like me, just strolling. it was bloody heaven. like most edinburgers, i never, never go into the old town in the summer, the only ones who do work there, and i had actually forgotten what a beautiful city edinburgh is, when not totally clogged up with bumper to bumper traffic and tourists. i scattered another handful of rose's ashes in lady stairs close which is never normally silent...but was now! rose and i once walked through it in the winter, and it was so icy, and its on such a slope, that we just kept sliding back down to the steps at the bottom. obviously we were in convulsions of giggles, which didnt make it easier, it was just one of those really memorable things out of many. how we did laugh....literally!
so...tbh, if it wasnt for the loss of going abroad, i really like this lockdown schtik as long as i stick to walking around streets and not parks.
i actually cant remember the last time i felt awed by my own city that i know so well.
bill would say...'its an ill wind, george'. i never used to understand that saying, but i do now. even if the wind isnt just ill, but chronic...
welcome all fellow inmates, i hope your lockdown is going as well as can be expected.
Derek, so bloody sorry to hear about your shingles...had to google it, but i knew it was related in some way to chickenpox. hope you are feeling better...at least its not the Rona, though im sure that doesnt help given how painful it is! yikes! my heart goes out to you! hope marty is looking after you.
things in the UK are just weird! on one hand we have Baw Jaw opening up england, while scotland, wales and NI remain in lockdown, so he has, for the moment, just turned into the PM of england, as no one else is bound by his baloney. english people are now lot allowed to cross the borders of the union, while they are free to infect each other on brighton beach or the tube in london! wales has for the first time ever, as it has the power, banned english people from visiting their welsh holiday homes, and the Sturge has just laid down the law...no one is allowed to cross the border, unless it is an emergency! very, very strange times indeed! there probably has never been a time where the union is more likely to break down, and westminster seems surprised by how strong the devolved governments have become! never have our differences been more obvious, and if Gill Scott Heron was still alive, im sure he could have written a brilliant song about this oh, so strange period of our lives here! 'this aint really your life, aint really your life, aint really, aint nothin' but a movie!' if only it was, then i would put it off and try something else....no such luck!
i wish i had something interesting, entertaining or heart-warming to tell, but as the only people i have non-virtual contact with are assistants in shops, where we try to have as little contact as possible, there is not much to report. i have started watching so much rubbish tv, with recent favourites being (still) 90 day fiance, about americans dating foreigners online and deciding to meet up and get married!!!!, just tattoo of us, where couples or friends design tattoos for each other...strangely there is a lot of hidden resentment there! my 600 lb life, just in case in the near future i will need the help and advice of Dr Now, and of course Judge Judy. apart from this and horror movies, the only thing i really do for any time is sleep...and i dont mean lie in a bed, i mean sleep. and such dreams...i cant tells ya!
so far, not only has my cat who has been dead for over 20 years turned up regularly (the first thing i always think is...who has been feeding her for all these years?), so has rose who i have lost in airports and cities around the world, my mother who has been dead longer than my cat, but apparently has been feeding her, and scarily zombies...
for no reason whatsoever bojo declared on the news one night that the UK was going to start driving on the right, and i went out to the shops the next day, and had no fucking idea which direction the traffic was going to come from, as there are so many one way streets round my flat, and i was terrified. then i got a rash on my leg, which turned into huge blisters and spread all over my body (derek, i think that was your news...sorry), and then the world became flooded, totally, everywhere, and i couldnt decide whether it was worth trying to climb onto a boat that i found, because what the hell was i going to do.
and i keep dreaming i have started smoking again....
anxiety dreams or what.....
and why is that.....
or is this starting to get a bit on the tedious side! i mean, dont get me wrong, as one of the most idle people in the world, all this lying in bed and sitting on the couch is fine...its just that i would like to be doing it in another country. and i now realise that, apart from assistants in shops, and nurses, i havent spoken to another person face to face for 3 months! thank god for having a land line, skype, link. whatsapp and messenger, as no one i know seems to conform to the same format. as well as this, i have been posting a load of rubbish on facebook, my favourite albums, books, films blah blah...and have finally got the hang of instagram for my photos. please dont think i am on this to follow idiotic celebs or 'influencers'.....bahaha...my days of being influenced are over...but i love the photographic aspect, and i suppose its a bit like pinterest, just more involved. anyway....such is my life.
as well as all this stimulation, i have still had the real, absolute pleasure of getting a needle stuck into my eye...though, tbh, i think that is really working, and having virtual physio! imagine. there i was, standing on one leg in my kitchen, with my eyes shut, pointing at the ceiling while being watched on my laptop! how i did laugh! now i have to brush my teeth with my feet together, march on the spot for 5 minutes a day, and stand still looking over my shoulder from left to right. i also have to keep a fatigue diary, carry on doing crossword, sudokus, lumosity and any other puzzles, try to eat 3 small meals a day, instead of just one big one, and go out for a walk every day, even if i feel scared. when the anne rowling center said i should get physio, i honestly thought it was going to be a waste of time, just about walking and posture...god, i couldnt have been more wrong. my physio, katie, is just fucking brilliant, asked me about really every aspect of my life, and has come up with solutions to try and help. hoorah...some good news.....
and more good news....and not a moment too soon!
edinburgh airport is open again this week, although only for domestic flights. on the 15th july international flights start again...easyjet is working up to a 75% of normal rate...and one of my turkish facebook friends has just posted that restaurants and bars are open again in Kas this week!!!! so...yep...of course...i have just booked a flight back to turkey....i thought maybe july was a bit early, so ive chosen mid august...and the flight was less than half what i normally pay....RESULT!!! given that the lira is at an all time low...almost 10TL to the £, im sure they are just desperate for foreign currency...and the 2 hour taxi from dalaman airport is down from about £75 to just under £50! yep....happy days. and hopefully my japan trip in september will still happen....though, of course, it comes with free self-distancing, as im going Business class!
do i look like i travel economy????
hahahaha!
yep, a whole new month to waste watching garbage shows, and videos of pets being 'kyoot', singing huskies, screaming karens, people falling over and the antics of dj trump....god what a lot to look forward to!
having just finished my weekly virtual physio with my nurse Katie, standing in the kitchen with the laptop on the floor allowing her to watch me standing on one leg with my eyes shut, and then moving my other leg to 12, 3 and 6, i am, naturally, exhausted and will probably spend the rest of the day vegging on the couch. especially as, of course, its the summer in scotland, so it is lashing with rain outside. when binni and kim told me that they never went out in the rain, i just laughed at the concept of not having to go out, regardless of the elements, as i was working then. now im not. i dont go out in the rain either.....well, not unless i need to get essentials....ok, probably just wine! bahahaha!
anyway...last week it was not lashing with rain, in fact it was about 28 degrees (thats 82 for you imperialists in the US), about as warm as it ever gets in scotland....so i did what i havent done for over 3 months....left edinburgh. Hoorah! got the train over to see my cousin laura in the kingdom of fife, which includes a really beautiful vista of the other 2 bridges from the oldest cantilever in the world. we sat in her garden eating fajitas, and drinking dark and stormies and margaritas in the sun...oh happy day! it honestly felt like going abroad, on an empty train, an entire carriage to myself, masked, no contact with anyone else, everything automated so you dont have to touch anything and such a gorgeous day...just fab.
bloody hell...i wrote this days ago, and i still havent finished it...the story of my life at the moment! i have become such a lollygagger, and have started cleaning, books, films, tv series, learning BSL, cooking, audible books...shit..you name it...and i will be lucky if i have finished a single one. in the words of prince...its a sign of the times, and who am i to argue against zietgeist! however i have checked that qatar still has food and alcohol on its flights, in the unlikely event that i get to take my trip to japan in september. (in fact, you dont even have to wear a mask in business, as you are already distanced from other passengers! hoorah), have booked in a bag for turkey, and keeping a sharp eye on flights to other places i have missed this year. and not usually being a moaner, can i just grumble about how much i hate wearing a mask. not only does it make my temperature go up so much i will probably fail the covid temperature test at the airport, but, i have had to take off my glasses, as what ever i do, spit, soap, cucumber etc, nothing will seem to stop my glasses from steaming up! however, masks are compulsory in shops here from monday, on public transport and in airports and planes, so i will just have to grin and bear it. such is our life in 2020!
still we have made it half way through the year.....lets hope the latter months are better.
and mel told me that my avatar failed because i never wear green, and i dont wear jumpers. so i have changed my outfit. what do you think? bahahahaha!
rose would have been 53 today. normally i dont think about it, but sometimes it still breaks my heart.
today is one of those times!
yep....possibly one of the worst years in our life time...but interesting that the last pandemic was just over 100 years ago, and was pretty much the same, except of course, people didnt travel in those days like we do. however its not just covid....
derek i know you had shingles, but i now know 2 other people who have the same thing. gareth has had his lymph nodes in his neck swell up, i have eczema really, really badly in my oxters, (thats armpits for those of you who dont speak scots), and eli has just spent a week in hospital with not only a kidney stone that they should have take out when she got her gall bladder removed, but also with c diff. yep...we have all had to look it up, but its a bacterial infection...buggers!
dark and stormys seem appropriate, derek, but they are just moscow mule cocktails, but with rum. ie...lime and ginger beer. one of my many favourite flavour mixes. yuuuumm!
however....i have, at fucking last, got an appointment for a hair cut, mariachi, my favourite restaurant is open again tomorrow, im going down to port seton to visit my brother, only the second time i have visited, seen or spoken to a friend since april, my virtual physio is finished, as i have done so well, hahahaha, and im going to turkey in less than a month. scotland has had no new cases for 6 out of the last 10 days, and only 3 deaths. halle-fucking-lulah!
however, we have had to postpone japan, i cant fly to most of the places i missed going to already this year, and at this moment life will just not be the same. i know that fete nationale, what les francais all bastille day, was cancelled, the edinburgh festival, the tour de france, wimbledon, and....the wrestling festival in mongolia...the first time it has been cancelled for 800 years! strange times.
hope everyone is ok....we really are living in the most bizarre times...keep the heid! as we say!
i was going to use lock-up....but thats not really the opposite of lock-down, in fact, i think its further down the lock chart, but we are actually now allowed to unlock somewhat, for now anyway.
so....as if this is a video game, here is my unlocked activity.
i finally, after 4 months got my hair cut! halle-fucking-lullah! but what an experience. masks, throw away plastic gowns, no drinks or biscotti biscuits, plastic screens between each seat, grips to hold your mask to get cut behind your ears, no coats, bags or magazines allowed and limited chit chat. i have also been to my lawyer...have to ring a door bell, mask up, hand sanitise, and take your own pen to sign documents. however, you will astounded to hear, a mere 23 years since i bought my own piece of edinburgh, i finally have a will! blimey! strange times indeed!
i have also got a train to longniddry, and spend the afternoon in my brothers wood...and what a lot of work he and joyce have done. talking of bucking the trend, while i have put on enough weight to make me look like a weeble, mog and joyce look slim, fit and oh-so-healthy. they have walked most of the John Muir way, put in wooden walkways all round the muddy parts of the wood, built a hobbit house with moss walls, forded several ditches, and built a fire pit. and that is just in the wood. their garden is just beautiful, and they are growing potatoes, celery and a host of soft fruits, from which joyce has made about 12 jars of jam! yummmmmmm! we walked round smeaton pond, where there are trees including redwoods and lebanon cedars that were brought over in the 19th century, and ancient lime, yew and chestnut trees. we visited preston mill, though it wasnt open, and walked round fab fields of wild flowers, and coasted round saltcoats castle. i spent 2 nights out of my flat for the first time for 4 months, and we ate, drank and watched rubbish jason statham films. what larks!
and more good news...i have actually been out for lunch with laura to our favourite restaurant, Mariachi, and it was just lovely to be there again. its the place we usually stay from lunchtime till laura's last train home, and we did that again, but, due to revised train times, only till 9pm! all the same staff, same great fajitas, same gorge margaritas and dark and stormiez....it was a great day. jings, life almost felt normal!
and another normal thing, but not really so terrific, was yet another eye injection, this time with a scan too, so i will hear if they decided i need more jabs...please lord let it be no....but apart from masking up, getting my temperature taken, and enforced hand sanitiser on entry, it was pretty much business as usual. i suppose its pretty hard to socially distance an ocular needle! id be so bloody happy if they said that i didnt need anymore, and then i might go and get laser eye surgery, which was what started all this in the first place, as the scan i got for that showed fluid behind my eye. i think this whole masking-up thang has really got me wishing i didnt have to wear specks, though, cant deny, i am better about non-condensing my glasses. so you can teach an old bitch new tricks after all!
talking of social distancing, this would normally be the first weekend of the festival, so i have put on a picture of my way home from work 2 years ago, going down middle meadow walk. how quickly you forget the particular hell that was the festival for edinburgers. always remember that great tshirt i saw someone wearing that said 'and you can just stick that fucking flier right up your arse!'. bahahaha! however, they do have a laser show over the meadows tonight, to make up for it....im not sure that the many restaurants and bars will be thankful for the loss of 3million extra wallets in the city, but im sure some coloured lights will be welcome compensation!!! have to say, im part of a neighbourhood internet group and the unexpected lights on the meadows during practice, have added some very welcome relief from people moaning about sea gulls screaming all night, when they are supposed to shut up and sleep. now its 'what are those fucking lights in the sky over the meadows at night?'....neither bother me...though, cant deny, the gulls do seem to be extra loud this year. pshaw i say! see this being retired....it ROCKS!
what doesnt rock, however, is that Eli is back in hospital, and has been there all week. the infection, c diff, that she has hasnt gone away, and apparently after an entire week on a drip, she is still dehydrated! of course these days being what they are, mike is not allowed to visit her, and though i feel helpless as i cant fly over because of the Rona, it wouldnt make any difference anyway. as im sure you are not surprised to hear my trip to japan has also been cancelled, but not just because of quarantine, but because my cousin simon who i was going to see while i was there has, strangely, (derek, and he is not the only person i know who has as well as you) had shingles, and is now in hospital with suspected covid. its possible that one of his kids also has it, as she suddenly has a terrible cough, but right now, so laura says, the protocol in japan is not to test unless you have all the symptoms.
so there you have it......the good and the bad.
but the best is, of course, im off to turkey on tuesday! if i get stuck there, or have to go into isolation on my return, that is just fine.
cant wait!
it is so lovely, not only to be able to travel again, but to come here, to the place with so much grip on my heart. as i sit here writing this, overlooking the familiar, but never underwhelming view of the turquoise bay surrounded by mountains, and scattered with white houses covered in purple bouganvilla im so happy i could cry. when bill and rose were here, every morning we did this really stewpid thing with bills 'weather finger', as im sure everyone reading this knows bill had sea lore. bill would lick his finger, and hold it up into the air, and decree that the weather was going to be sunny and hot. and every morning we laughed, as we knew it was true. it never rains in kas at this time of the year, only in january and february, and, as scottish people, where even in august you can have at least 3 seasons in a day, it always seemed so strange that you never needed to carry a jacket when you left home. not now!
however, what is strange now is going through the airport....omg....you have to walk in single file for miles, wear a mask at all times unless you are drinking or eating, fill in forms for tracing, get your temperature taken everywhere, and not get too close to others....well, that is until you get on the plane. OMG...on my flight was a hen night, and a party celebrating a wedding anniversary who, strangely, got really pissed, started blethers, swamped the aisle, and werent masked up. the cabin crew had their hands full, and they had to get the captain to tell them to sit down, shut up and mask those gobs. the absolute joy of an easyjet flight from scotland to dalaman! bahahaha!
one thing i have learned from the oh-so-many times i have had my temperature taken, more than ever in my life, as in every bar and restaurant here, they zap you with the temp gun is that, despite the fact that i am hot all the time, im not. even at the airport and since, they always show me the figure...having looked at what is normal...37C, i realise why...my body temperature is usually 35.9! i walked all around kas in 40C heat, and when i sat down in a bar for a welcome libation, you know, as you do, my temperature was still only 36.7! so...its official....im cool!!!! HAHAHA!!!!! yeah, right!
anyway.....being here is an absolute joy....ive met so many of the people ive known before, and its just delightful. despite having to wear masks in every shop, just like at home, i havent seen a single Karen or Ken...and so many people are just masked up at all times, well, apart from when eating ice cream, smoking, talking on phones, drinking raki, and trying to look cool. then, as a turkish man, it is important to put your mask over your mouth, but not your nose, just hang it under your chin in readiness, hang it from one ear while smoking...or the most popular...wear it round your wrist or elbow...paying lip-service to masks (no pun intended).
its still such a wonderful place....makes me so happy to be here!
for a single good reason for me to return home? nope thought not. so im still here!
changed my flight till the 29th! woo hoo!
btw, my tan is coming along beautifully!
ok thats it...im off the swim in the turquoise sea!
Kas seviyorum!
am I fuck! Bahaha! I'm still in kas till next saturday...at the earliest, as, who knows I might extend for the 4 th time. 😁 tomorrow is Victory Day...the biggest public holiday celebration in turkey, and, tbh, it just seemed stupid to go home the day before....any excuse eh! So now I'm in my 4th apartment too....after having been brought on a moped, bags and all, twice....I'm sure the driver was a little concerned. Kas is on the side of mountains, and my last apartment was up on the opposite side of town from the one before. Doing a hill start on a scooter with probably the biggest weight he has ever had on the back, was something of a challenge, and it was lucky he had my bag between his legs upfront as a counterweight. However, we made it, and I loved every moment.
so I have now stayed in both sides of kas, and I'm now right in the centre. It's lucky the apartments all have washing machines, as, of course, I only brought enough clothes for a week, and am now staying almost a month! Or course I also only brought enough of my pills for a week too...but, luckily Turkey is one of the places you can just buy over the counter, and my fluoxitine was only £2!!! Oh happy days.
so what have I done in the time I've been here you may ask, and, naturally, the answer is, bugger all! I've lain around on sunloungers a lot, eaten lots of pasta, including what is the best carbonara I've ever had, with fresh tiny linguine and, wow, real bacon! In Turkey! On which point, derek, I had that total anathema....a Hawaiian pizza, and let me tells ya, the pineapple was not the problem....it was the 'ham'! It looked like spam, but I think it was turkey formed to look like ham. (And of course turkey in Turkey is called india...you know, as it would be!). Still loved it though. I have also swam in the, oh, so clear, turquoise sea, sat around in cool bars, and blethered with the many people I know here....perfect.
have to say, I'm one of the very few Europeans here....but omg, so many istanbullers, so much smoking, so many beautiful twenty something couples, but not during the day. The whole harbour empties at 10am, and if you want to take photos, you pretty much have the entire town to yourself. But OMG come 9pm the entire place is swamped by people all dressed up...it is mayhem, and almost impossible to get a table anywhere as a single diner, when they could double the bill by getting a couple... most places are still buzzing at midnight, and many restaurants stay open till 2am, or maybe just when the last person goes home. Good old Turkey!
I may be home next week, I may not, not decided. Just love it here too much!
Yesterday was Victory Day the biggest holiday in the Turkish calendar...equal to July 4th. It was a great party, and there were still groups of guys singing what I presume was supposed to be the national anthem at 4am. What larks. I, of course, was in bed just after midnight, as I have become such a lightweight....and did hear the call to prayer at 5am. I'm guessing not too many people were there for that😂🤢
should have been home a month ago...but, why? and more importantly...WHY? i honestly couldnt think of a single thing to go home for...so here i am still in paradise.
so, given that i have extended my ticket, again, (for a mere £35 i might add!), i decided to try a villa down on the peninsula that sticks out on the left of the greek island meis, as in all the years i have been coming here, i have never come down to this place. and OMG its pretty tough here! my villa has 3 floors...you can see how shite it is in the photos...and though it shares the pool with another villa, there is a russian family there, and they never go in swimming. kas is full of russians and ukranians right now, because they did away with the visa, so its one of the easiest places to go...and of course there are so few other europeans that its really noticable. its actually made a real change in kas, as it used to be full of turkish restaurants to cater to the foreigners...but now 90% of the tourists are turkish, so all kinds of 'exotic' places have sprung up...especially burger, pizza and italian places, but there is even a mexican and a frido khalo cocktail bar. hence the photo of the worlds best turkish lasagne...i would never buy this in edinburgh, in fact i rarely go to italians, as i always think they are quite expensive for what you get, and tbh you could generally make something just as good at home...but i saw this huge slab being brought to another diner, and i couldnt resist...it was soooooo good!
so here are some pointless facts about turkey i have learned from being here for a month....
turkish people always take their shoes off before they enter the house, and leave them outside the front door..most people do not lock their houses or cars...no turkish kitchen would be complete without a double decker kettle, and they always have two controls...one to boil, and one to just simmer so you keep your coffee hot on top. turkish girls, and even fat old dames like me always wear bikinis at the beach bars, and never come without at least 3. one to swim in, which they immediately change out of into their dry one, and they change into another to leave...you have never seen so much beachwear changing...and they all wear teensy tiny strappy ones like we wore in the 80s, so that they just put on the dry one over the wet one, and then remove the wet one from underneath. i have never seen such ingenious swimwear...or so much hair fuss...but that is another story. the inside of every turkish home ive ever been in has white walls, both inside and out, and a fantastic water cooler, which you just phone up and get a huge 10lt bottle delivered in 30 mins on a moped. it is now compulsory to wear a mask everywhere outside in turkey since monday, and you can be fined for not wearing one. on the other hand you can ride a motorbike or scooter without a helmet...as i cant deny, i have done several times myself, with no fine. the government does not like beards, and men shave them off to get passport photos, and everyone...i mean everyone smokes! you forget. in the villa im staying in now there are 6 ashtrays...!! just as well there are 2 washing machines! and...for me the godsend...there is a small fridge upstairs so i dont have to go down 2 floors to get more wine...hoorah!
so...unbelievable as it may seem, given im away, i have been doing more exercise here than i ever do at home.,partly because of the hilly nature of the place, but mainly because of the swimming. ok, now i have a 20 metre pool, and have swum at least 50 lengths every day ive been here...but i have also swum in the sea every day...and its a total joy. just along from my villa and down steps, there is a ladder into the clearest turquoise water i think ive ever been in. its beautiful by the town..dont get me wrong, but here is out into deep water, and there is so little garbage or sewage. when i was out swimming it made me cry to think how much bill would have loved it if only we had ever come here. but hey ho....its hard to swim in choppy salt water and sob at the same time, so i stopped pretty fast before i drowned. have to say climbing in and out of really deep water while waves and crashing onto the rock cliffs is not for the faint hearted....you especially have to time your exit so you dont get smashed onto the rocks....but bill would have been in and out like a flash...so i have to do it now cos he cant. i might go again today.....who knows....
so im going back to town tomorrow, to stay in an apartment im thinking of buying. did you read that right....yes you read that correctly. ive looked at a couple of places down here, and they are really beautiful...but as both Mel and Mog said to me....if i lived down here i would need transport. i dont mean i couldnt get taxis, but they are right....and i know loads of people in town, whereas this is a tourist haven with only one store on the entire area. so.....im thinking of this 2 bedroom apartment just slightly up on the hill...and its 650kTL....which you just divide by 10 to get £. anyway...seeing my hero on the white vespa tomorrow to discuss it.
so...at the moment im flying home on the 19th....at the moment. we'll see.
and can i just say that im so brown everyone thinks im turkish...to the point that when i was out walking yesterday i guy stopped in his car to ask me directions...and i knew where he was looking for too....so we managed!
god life is good. after all the shite this year i feel like the luckiest woman in the world...and with those words im off for a swim in my pool....
hope everyone is ok.
XXXX
HELL YEAH! 🥰😎❤️🌞Here till Tuesday 29th, but then will have to go home as I have a check up at the Anne Rowling center...But then might just come back. This year is the centenary of the foundation of Turkey and I would really like to be here for the party on the 29th October. It's not like I have a reason to stay in Scotland! I'm so happy here, and feel like the luckiest woman in the world!
Eli died this morning. I don't really know what else to say...
I'm going tomorrow at 6am. Just dreading it😢😥
yes, despite sending so much paperwork to the US embassy, a total inquisition in each airport, almost having a panic attack arriving in Boston when I was escorted into a locked room and told that I had to leave by 14th november, when I have booked my ticket till the end of december....., hallelujah, they finally let me in, and I'm here with mike and the animals on this wet October sunday.
and omg, what a lot we have got done. i spoke to 3 lawyers, and decided on the one that told us we didnt really need a lawyer and could do the probate ourselves, which im sure is true...but what a hassle. the system here is so different from anything i have done before, it is just so much easier to have someone else to check and submit the paper work. for a start we have to apply to the county court for articles of administration, set up a bank account for the estate and place a death notice in public so that anyone who feels they are entitled can claim against elis estate. mike is going to be the administrator, as if the estate is done by a non-resident of Wake county we have to pay a $5000 bond to the court! on top of this, mog and i have to sign papers to allow mike to administrate, as we are next of kin, and he isnt. we cant do anything else until we have these steps completed, and even the bank wont suspend the mortgage until we have this done....blimey!
in the mean time, we have had to look through all elis papers to find her bank account details, mortgage statements, pension arrangements, you name it......hell, i even found her canadian passport! it has been a bit of a headfuck, but the lawyer has already been really helpful, and speedy af at replying to our mails. so i think we are pretty well organised for the moment...and it has been really great not to have to think about it over the weekend. yesterday it was a lovely day so we sat out all day on the deck, and then had filet mignon for dinner with an argentinan malbec. today it has been raining all day, but we have been out to the strangely named Harris Teeter supermarket, and are having fish pie and a washington state riesling called Kung Fu Girl! on top of this we watched the presidential debate and sat up in disbelief till 4am discussing the ridiculous nature of american politics. it is now only 9 days till the election, and in the very strange voting system they have here, a third of the population has voted already, as they have early voting! the other bizarre thing is, of course, as you have to be registered with a party to vote, they have a pretty good idea what the count is already. its a very strange experience, but im glad there is the distraction.
mike is doing really well, considering, but it is just so weird being here in elis house, without her. of course the whole neighbourhood is covered in halloween decorations, which eli loved....its just so sad, the whole thing. however.....i am soldiering on, and we will get there....wherever that is.
we have a groomer coming for anna, the dog, on tuesday, as she needs shampooed and her nails cut....i'll do anything for mike...but i wont do that! bahahaha!
love to all.
Yessiree! things are looking up here across the pond! not only was it a beautiful sunny day, and 25degrees....i found out, as soon as i got up, that trump was being evicted from pennsylvania avenue! of course, he hasnt conceded the presidency yet, but, in fact, there is nothing in the constitution to say he has to. he can literally have bailiffs knocking on his door come january 20th! what larks!
on top of this election winning bigly stuff, we have also got so much done. got all the paperwork sent to the lawyer except the forms mog has to sign, so that mike can be the administrator so we dont have to pay a bond for being non-resident. we have cancelled the credit cards, her phone contract, called her pension provider, cleaned the whole house, emptied the fridge and pantry, and spent hours sitting out in the sun, and glued to the tv watching trumps demise. ya fucking dancer!!!!
i have learnt so much about the us electoral system, the north carolina probate system, and how to think in farenheit, MM/DD//YYYY, and that a broiler is a grill, dish soap is washing up liquid, and biscuits are scones!
but...isnt it funny how quickly trump has disappeared from our lives. i know he is still sitting nursing his wrath in the oval office, and because he is so self-obsessed, he still thinks people care, and he matters....but he is gone already! i realise the very thick 70 million who voted for him probably dont agree...but most of america, and, certainly, the rest of the world have already moved on to the new arrangement.
at last....some good news in 2020!!!!!
about time....
mike is 67 today!!! blimey!!!
obviously, having been born in a whole different decade, im still a mere youngster, not yet even reaching my 6th decade this year, and while im not expecting 2021 to be the best year of my life, it, surely, cant be as bad as 2020! please, please let it be so!!!
things here are just continuing as you would expect in the most covid infected country on the planet...our lawyer is in isolation as his son has covid, and the court house that we are waiting to get the letters of administration from has been closed for a week for the same reason. 15 million people here are infected, and im wondering if given the reluctance of the people here to follow proper advice from doctors, that the death toll will eventually end up greater than the 675 000 that died of spanish flu. and then you watch dj Trump ranting for almost 3 hours at a, mostly maskless, cheek-by-jowl MAGA crowd about how he won georgia, despite the counts showing he lost not once, but 3 times, and you cant help find it pretty hard to feel any sympathy for such arseholes! even when we went to the lawyers office, though it was halloween, and john was wearing a sexy kitty costume (!) no one was masked except mike and i. it was a far cry from going to see nicola in edinburgh, where i had to ring a bell and wait, masked the whole time, and even sign papers with my own pen, after hand sanitising. oh these amerikans! there are still students here in raleigh playing basket ball in a public court, partying and back-yard kegging! i ask you! and Derek, i hope you are not thinking im involving you in this american idocy....but here, daaawn sauf people are not being sensible...and i have as little contact as i can. no fucking covid for me matey!
so...not much else has been happening in NC. we are going through one room at a time, and have pretty much finished in the room i sleep in. we have emptied about 10 huge bin bags of food out of the kitchen, including flour, tins of soup and cake ingredients dating back to 2013. quite how 2 people who eat like birds have a pantry with enough to feed the 5000, and not just with fish and bread, is totally beyond me, but there it is! and lets not even start talking about the shoes at elis work, never mind in the house. emelda marcos would be so proud! jings, crivens and help ma boab!!!!!
so im going to go and get lunch now....take care all in these dark times. and lets hope next year is at least a little better....because dj Trump will be resigned to history. hip hip hoorah!!!!
at least some good tidings from the angels of democracy....
i am leaving here in a week, and i just cant wait to sleep in my own bed. i had to walk a dog the day before yesterday...she ran off, almost made me fall, bruised my hand and leg, and i will never, ever do that again. i am still waiting for the bond so we can open the estate, which i just thought would be done 6 weeks ago. to say im frustrated is the understatement of 2020! and i will have to go into quarantine when i get home.
happy happy, joy joy!
as im guessing everyone surmised, i got stuck in the USA! got an email on sunday from KLM telling me i needed a PCR covid test...tried all day monday to get one, but couldnt possibly get one for tuesday morning, as it has to go to a lab. went out to the airport anyway, and, funnily enough, i wasnt allowed to fly, not even my first leg to detroit where they have a covid screening centre in the airport. ho hum!!! so got a test sent out to me from US drug test centres, arrived the next day, spat into the tube, sent it off by fedex on 30th december, thinking the result would arrive on the monday or tuesday, given that friday was new years day holiday.
but NO! this was literally operation warp speed! the result arrived 5 hours after the lab received the sample..ie 8pm on hogmanay!!!! given that you only have 72 hours to travel after getting a negative result, that gave me till sunday night to get on a plane and fly to amsterdam, so i called KLM! imagine my joy when they told me that sunday 3rd was the busiest day of the year, and to change my flight to that day would cost me $2000!!!!!!! i was so upset the woman i was talking to apologised profusely, and called me 'sweetheart', but, obviously all the endearments in the world wouldnt pay for a flight home, and i had forgotten to pack my ruby slippers....ergo.... back to the drawing board with all my luggage in an uber!
so here i still am, marooned in raleigh. i feel a bit like Pi in the lifeboat, if any of my avid readers have ever read the Yann Martel novel. there is no tiger, but there is a dog who is so obsessed with food, she comes crashing like a hippo into the kitchen everytime you open the fridge and has had me shutting myself into my bedroom in order to eat lunch in peace. then there is the one-eyed, deaf cat who is the proof that the world cannot possibly be flat, as, if it was, she would have knocked everything off it by now. no only has she smashed an entire set of wine glasses while i have been here, soaked my passport by spilling water all over it and had us searching for the pepper grinder under the cupboards, she has thrown my toothbrush down the toilet not once, but twice!!!!!! i will not even mention the fact that both animals have had fleas constantly and just like mosquitos they love my blood! not only do i have an entire set of cuban dominos round my waist and up my back that are so itchy i have had to sleep with a fork under my pillow, i have the map of the constellations of the northern hemisphere on my legs, arms, hands, in my hair, hell ive even got the pole star on the sole of my foot!!!! the other member of the menagerie defies description here....some other time perhaps, as this is a short story not a tome!
so, finally, inshallah, i will be flying home tomorrow, via dublin, back to lockdown in my wee flat. the thought of the self-isolation i will have to do for 10 days seems like heaven to me, and i can go back to my hermetic ways! i feel i have just achieved nothing in my time here, and should have just stayed in Turkey. we do not even have the bond arranged for the estate to be administered...what a fucking waste of 3 months! however...trump is out, and i was delighted to hear today that he has been banned from entering scotland because of covid. tonight we have the result of the georgia runoff elections which could swing the senate to democrat. god, i would love to see Mitch Maconnels face if it happens.....and perhaps i will since im here. what larks!
even if it is a snowy edinburgh, and i have had to self-isolate for 2 weeks! after spending 3 months in a magnolia and grey house, with no artwork on the walls, coming back into my cosy wee flat felt a bit like dorothy entering Oz, from black and white into colour, and sleeping in my own fantastic bed was just orgasmic. so i stayed there for about 50 hours!
flying home was actually a total doddle, after all the drama about covid tests. i flew RDU-Boston-Dublin-Edinburgh and having gone through security in raleigh, i didnt have to do it again, nor go through passport control entering either ROI or Scotland. i was asked in every airport, at the gate, if i had filled in a track and trace form and submitted it to the UK government, because i would have to show the registration on entry....HA! no such thing! breezed through the green channel, as the blue one no longer exists (dont even get me started on brexit), and was home in a jiffy, as due to lockdown, there is no traffic. but, going through such empty airports was just so weird...at least in RDU and boston there was at least a few shops, and bars open, even if you did have to buy food in order to have a drink, but dublin was deserted. there were only 3 flights going before mine in the 4 hours i was there, nothing was open and no wonder as there were no people. it was freezing, all the seats were metal, and i felt like i had entered a post-apocalyptic movie....so i went and sat in the toilet where i could, after hours and hours, unmask!
in the days after i came home, i kept dreaming of covid related things....i was in an abandoned department store with lots of others all escaping something i cant remember, when it started snowing, inside. some people started dancing in the snow because it was so beautiful, but i went into a store, picked up an umbrella with a crook handle, put it up and tucked the crook into the belt of my jeans. and, god, i was right, before long, everyone started dying because they breathed in the snow, so i slept with the umbrella over my head. these are the dreams you have when you have had to sleep on a plane wearing a mask! even if you did have the three seats next to the emergency exit all to yourself.
so, what have i done since i got back to the UK....hahaha...totally nothing, well, except the joy of having another eye injection, oh, happy days! still only another 6 weeks till i get another one, so that is something to look forward to.
watched the inaugeration...loved gaga, the poet and, most of all, bernie sanders, who seems to have become one of the biggest memes in history, hell, even i have made a meme out of it. yep...im proud of my old, un-tech self that i was able to!
so, happy 2021. im not sure its going to be better that 2020...in fact, i think it will be worse...
is the glass half full or half empty....i dont really care. i have the rest of the bottle in my fridge!
I am in London today, attending yet another funeral. My friend Mel's mum! First it's birthday parties, then weddings. Then it's kids birthday party, divorce parties and second weddings. Now it's just funerals, and more funerals. 😥😥😥
and in the words of nina simone....im feeling good....
i think i might have forgotten how to do this writing a blog schtick, as its so long since i had anything to relate...but here goes...
1. we are still sorting out eli's estate, but mike has left the house with almost everything in it, so we are having to do a clearance. im glad i went over, but i really could have thought of something better to do with not only the money, but the time. i think its safe to say that mike and i will not keep in touch after it is over.
2. ive had to have more eye injections, oh joy, and another mri scan, which was a real doddle. ive always been a bit scared of them because im so claustrophobic, but it was fine....and, as you can see i got to wear peach scrubs, not the gown split up the back to show your bum off. hoorah!
3. i went over the river on the new bridge to fife to stay with my wee cousin laura, who i call babette, and her boyfriend in their new house in kelty. am i the only person who gets excited about bridges....i crossed the rail bridge every day for about 2 years when i worked in dunfermline, and i never tired of it. and i wouldnt tire of the new one either, though, derek, as im sure you would agree, bridges are better in a convertable! going home over the middle, old road bridge, was the first time i have gone upstairs on a double decker since you were allowed to smoke there! but...omg, the views. old cantilever on one side, fab new double suspension on the other....bloody magic. loved every minute.
4. i have started flirting with several men on the internet, especially carlos, who is 35. but.....really, its only a 25 year age gap....like that matters. bahahaha. dont worry im not planning to even give him my watsapp let alone pick out curtains.
5. i dont know about those of you in the rest of the world, but, gareth and i have discussed this, and something that is just mindfucking right now is dreams. i think ive mentioned before that i had one that it was snowing inside a shopping center full of refugees and everyone was dancing in the snow, while i was going to get an umbrella that i ended up sleeping with over my face to protect me. the reason i put on the juno photo of the spot on jupiter is because i had a dream that i was on a flight that had to make an emergency landing there. we were allowed to get off the plane and look at the planet, and despite the fact that only 4000 people lived there and had only landed there 20 years previously, they had fucked the entire place....all there was to see was giant slurry pits, open cast mining that had wrecked everything, and and caused volcanic action and fires to be burning everywere. then we were all herded back onto the plane as we had to make an emergency take off...not sure such a thing exists...but we were rushing down the runway trying to outrun a gigantic mud slide which was full of broken trees. strange because there were no trees on jupiter. then everything was really calm....i was flying business, all cosy in my pod, and it was all fine, even if i did wonder how i would return if we couldnt land on jupiter, but it didnt seem to matter...until i woke up and the whole of economy had been told to move up to the front to business class because there was something wrong with the plane, and the whole area was full of people, in the aisles, the galleys, the toilets....hell, i had a whole family lying round me in my pod....all i could think was.....we are all going to die.....the very next day on the news there was the pictures of how gregs spot had changed. bizarre.
6. and finally....in the absence of foreign travel....ive got so claustrophobic that im just going...well to the western isles. im flying to stornoway on tuesday....im pretty excited.
and....gareth...the woman in the photo was not wanting money, i remember that day so well....she just thought we were idiotic tourists wanting our photo with a copper...and he loved it. dont know about the guy on the other side...but....cubans dont really work really hard, so im sure it wasnt a problem.
it is impossible to explain how much rain we have had in the past 4 days...but i think the photos speak for themselves. something like 50 olympic swimming pools fell on the centre of edinburgh in 10 minutes, and so....there was flash flooding, the st james centre which had just opened on friday was totally awash, and basement flats in stockbridge are uninhabitable. even in my own small first floor flat, with not fear of water rising from the street, the rain was so heavy, my rones overflowed in a cascade over my window causing me to have to put pans under the frame, which filled in about 10 mins. bloody amazing.
sorry I have become so tardy.....I think it's writers block, not extreme laziness! 😂 I'm off back out to the airport in an hour, as I'm flying up to kirkwall on Orkney till Monday as I have decided, in the absence of foreign travel, I should go all the places I have been meaning to visit in the UK, but was always too busy with going abroad. Next I may fly up to lerwick on shetland...but in the mean time it's skara brae and the ring of brodgar, as, unfortunately, maeshowe is closed. But, that's ok. Just being away from Edinburgh is fine. And of course....the nights are even longer....in stornoway it didn't get dark till midnight, and was light again at 02:30! I'm expecting the same in orkney.
and so....I need to go and put a t-shirt and several electronic devices, and their many charging cables into a bag.
glad you liked the new bridge derek...and sad to say, Carlos and i , while still in touch, have stopped flirting. Perhaps it was because i, stupidly, told him my real age, when, according to my Facebook profile, I was born in 1987...., and he has discovered in old enough to be his mother.....bahahaha😂😂😂😂
i have not been abroad for 7 months, which is probably the longest ive been in the UK continuously since i was in my 20s! scary! but....in the absence of other countries, as you know, i have been discovering my own...and, tbh, its fucking fantastic! the islands are just so varied, and going from lewis and harris, to orkney in a couple of weeks was just so interesting in every way.
the western isle of lewis and harris, which is really just one island is mainly calvinist, so no ferries, fishing or in fact anything at all on a sunday. people speak gaelic, love hardship, feel god is closer if life is a complete struggle, and, god forbid, anyone would praise anything, as they would be struck down by fire and brimstone. children are not allowed to play outside on the lord's day!
orkney, on the other hand, has no such hang ups, and in some ways seems less foreign. no one speaks a minority, scottish lingo, no one doesnt shave, cook, watch tv or drive on sunday. orkney, as an archipelago, has its own mainland, and outlying islands, where the further from kirkwall you are, the more hickey! its also amazingly fertile with lots of agriculture and huge cattle farms, rolling hills, beautiful plants, gardens, fantastic air and millions of birds. on lewis there is...well...sheep...and peat...and more sheep....and more peat. you get the picture.
but....and here is the rub...on both places i had very meaningful, inspirational interaction with locals. on orkney with a man i used to work with in oddbins, and his wife, who i havent seen since the early 90s...and on lewis with a cockney cabbie who drove me around for a day, and had been living in a village near stornoway for over 20 years! ok...im dealing with graeme and noreen in kirkwall first.
for people i have not seen for around 30 years, they were the most hospitable, friendly, helpful couple in scotland. they drove me all round the island, brodgar, scapa floe, skara brae, broch of gurness, cliffs looking over to Hoy..and then took me back to their amazing house where my dinner was cooked, we drank some fantastic reds, and then watched the Euro final with the sound turned down, as there were 2 women in the house! i was leaving the next day, but graeme met me for a pint at the harbour before the exhausting 5 minute taxi ride the the airport 25 mins before my flight! it doesnt really get better with people you havent seen for so long.
and then the stornoway cockney cabby who had a white mullet, i hope was older than me, and wore beads round his wrist! he was just so into the neolithic stones...he told me that they were everywhere, and all connected, its just that they had fallen down and no one saw them. (tbh...he could be right...there are so many standing stones round callanish). he asked me if i could imagine the allignment of the callanish stones from above as it was really important, and it was a pattern i must have seen before. i couldnt imagine it...actually i thought it might be a spiral...and asked him if it was like the golden ratio...but he chuckled at that...so so much older he said. he told me had seen it in the sky...and i asked him if it was about the stars and the moon...but he said that i had to find it for myself, if i didnt recognise the pattern, he couldnt teach me. i know this sound like a whole lot of new age baloney....but this was coming from an old london wide boy who lived on the islands. it was just such a contradiction. really added to the whole thing. what larks!
so both trips were just brilliant...and derek, if i had to choose, i think it would be callanish...but i was on my own. at brodgar, i was with other people who...well, bless em, but just talked and talked. i sprinkled some of roses ashes at both...that made me feel good. it felt the right places to do that...though, of course, she is all over the world.
and, skara brae, meh! broch of durness....fantastic. on the other hand...everything is closed, but you can still just walk in ...tomb of the eagles, maes howe, not so much.
so..had such a great time....and on the 2nd august im off to my next place...put a pic where im staying on here...its not shetland....the flights were cheaper...any guesses????
well.....derek,you were nowhere close to my abortive plans to leave the UK....but im not surprised that you didnt guess, as its probably somewhere you would love to go, so therefore think im averse to such places. i noticed that there were flights direct from edinburgh to Torshavn on Atlanic airlines, and cheap too, so booked flight and that wee house, only to be told, 3 days later, that denmark had put the UK on the red list, so all the flights were cancelled...to the Faroe islands! they are an autonomous region, like greenland, but still abide by danish regulations for travel, so that all fell through....and, god was i disappointed. ok, i realise that they are really expensive, probably equivalent to norway, but they are so bloody spectacular...waterfalls that drop from the top of huge cliffs into the ocean, lakes at the top of cliffs, puffins on cliffs, a football pitch...you guessed it, at the top of cliffs...something of a theme. they also have helecopter 'bus' services doing routes round all the remote villages, which are subsidised by the government, and so pretty cheap...and well...good for views of all those cliffs. i wasgoing to pack my hold bag with wine and food, as i had a really cool kitchen in the wee house...it actually looked very like something in iceland, to save money so that i could spend it on helecopters...but, hey, maybe some other time. might see if i could go next year for the solstice...its about half way to iceland, so im guessing it probably gets dark for about 45 mins....oh well...c'est la vie!
so in place of the faroes, i am, funnily enough, going...yep, you guessed it...to shetland. staying in a really old harbour building in lerwick converted into a hotel, called the Queens...if anyone is interested you can look it up on booking.com and, as just getting a taxi to drive me around the mainland. i havent really had much time to look at things to do, because i had got so transfixed by torshavn, and shetland doesnt really have the fantastic neolithic sites of lewis or orkney, but as long as its out of my normal zone it will be fine and dandy. and then, in self-compensation for covid travel mishaps, i also decided to go to another place in the UK that i have never been....northern ireland! im staying in belfast and am going to do a taxi tour of the places during 'the troubles' like the shankill road, etc. my friend jayne, whose maiden name is pollock, and was born in belfast, told me that i was lucky that i had a non-sectarian surname, so no one would know which side i was on. if you dont understand what that last sentence even means, nor realise why i would not want to be there on 12th July, you are very lucky indeed. it is a can of worms that its hard to get away from, even in scotland, though particularly on the west coast, and glasgow. on a completely different note of obsession, im also a bit tempted to do a 'game of thrones' tour involving the giants causeway....
after that...who knows. i did think of going back to malta, as i didnt spend any time in valletta, but the covid regulations are changing so quickly, and its now all about testing, before, when you arrive, during your stay, and then again when you get home...just too much trouble if you ask me...so i might go to the isle of man or the channel islands. god...imagine....i always used to laugh at people who went to jersey as it seemed like the most boring place in the world, except the falklands, but now, im considering it. how the mighty have fallen..bahahaha!
but...you know, things here have their compensations. we are having such a wonderful summer, beautiful sunny warm days, 24 C, gorgeous sunsets, clear blue skies, thats what make everyone happy right! WRONG! being scottish, its imperative to be miserable whatever the weather, nothing says being scottish ike a scowl on a gorgeous summers day because its too hot! facebook is full of scottish memes saying lets change the name of our country to 'hotland', 'gingers will die' and 'we werent built for this'. apparently its not just scottish people....also feeling the heat, are pets. yes, despite being able to live in almost every country in the world regardless of heat or cold, scottish pets are dying because their selfish owners are allowing them to go outisde into the sunshine. dogs are particularly vunerable, apparently...and im not talking about them being left in cars...different story. this is just...its too hot to let dogs go out! and everyone i know who has house cats, has bought them a fan incase they 'overheat'. look, i know we dont have AC...but really!!! luckily, being me, i dont even own a house plant. so no worries here! yep...im a self-satisfied bitch, and proud of it.!
and then...another good thing...after over 2 years, gareth and i met up in edinburgh and went to look at some of the new buildings. actually i just noticed another one yesterday when i was going to the hairdresser. remember the carpark we used to walk through, gareth, when walking down town between morrison street, and festival square where the sheraton hotel is. that is now another erection i had never noticed...and, god, thats not like me, i can tell you!
pun intended!
yep...i know most of the thousands of people reading this, will be shocked to their core to hear this, i know i am, but OMG...i really, really loved shetland! i liked lewis, really enjoyed orkney, but shetland, well lerwick, just had that feeling for me that was like being at home. it felt like a teeny wee aberdeen, but at the ends of the earth, its grey, it was foggy for 2 of the 3 days i was there, so much so, that i couldnt go to any of the places i wanted to see, but i just loved it and felt so bloody happy there! life really is strange!
when i flew up to sumburgh, the pilot did that Loganair thing, where he said 'ummm, well the visibility is terrible because of low fog, so we may not be able to land...but, well, we will fly up anyway, and give it a shot!'. how very scottish islands. we had to circle the airport for 30 mins...but, woop, i heard the landing gear go down..and saw the north sea...and, of course, me being the jammy cow i am, we made it. im surprised that everyone didnt thank me instead of clapping the pilot...but hey ho! guess they didnt know that 'as if' it would return to edinburgh with me on board being the luckiest woman in the world! ha! so i walked out of the shed that is sumburgh international, jumped into my taxi, and did that thing that the only other place in the world it happens is gibraltar...yep...drive over the runway...and it amused me that the cabbie looked both ways before he crossed!
so after a £50 taxi ride that took me a little by surprise...didnt really understand how far it is from sumburgh to lerwick, nor why they have the airport in the most fog ridden place in the whole archipelago...not to mention the narrowest penninsular, so taking off is a little like male airport in the maldives...or so far from the capital...but my name is not IK Brunel so what the fuck do i know about engineering! just crossed my mind that airports probably dont count as engineering, like bridges..but..lets move on....
after being in stornoway, and kirkwall, where there just are no cool, hip, trendy places to eat, i had no expectation of anything else in the most northerly town in the uk...but was i wrong or what. when i met up with Graeme in orkney, he bemoaned the fact that there are no seafood places in kirkwall, or restaurants that do local dishes from orkney produce. because we both worked in oddbins, and supplied wine to restaurants all the time, we were very involved in that side of things, and wine and food, as everyone knows goes together like love and marriage....bahahaha!
but...lerwick...bloody hell...i had some of the best food, particularly fish, that ive ever had anywhere. whod a thunk? that fish platter...pickled herring, smoked mackerel pate and huge chunk of smoked salmon steak was just lunch heaven, and i had such delish smoked haddock fish cakes, i had to send gareth a pic by email. lovely beer, tasty cheese, great staff...honestly...loved every moment.
so on tuesday im off to belfast for 3 days, to complete my tour of the UK. but when i come back...you will be amazed to discover that im just going back up to shetland...to hopefully go to all the places i couldnt...
who needs to go abroad....
ive already booked to go back to shetland...this time for a week....might look at property....
now...um...let me think!
ok, ok, thats a bit unfair...its trying its best, bustling with shoppers, tourists akimbo, great public transport, easy to find your way around, and small enough to walk everywhere. really friendly people, nice bars and restaurants, and well, they built the titanic, and it was ok when it left. but...it is just a city that cannot give up the past. and this past is just hellish!
for a start...i have never seen so many flags....even in the US! it is 'marching season' which goes on from the 12th of july, the anniversary of the battle of the boyne in 1690 when william of orange defeated the irish, for a whole, long month. nowhere in the UK do people put out flags like this....on every lampost, telegraph pole, even in residents gardens, outside pubs, harbours, you fucking name it....you cant be in any doubt about the loyalty of any town...not just belfast areas...its pretty scary! and this year is the centenary of the creation of Northern Ireland, which of course was originally going to be 9 counties, but was cut down to 6, so there are more union flags and red hands than ever before. sometimes i think we should get rid of flags altogether....love of one, always seems to imply hatred of another. it is interesting the juxtaposition of team GB in Tokyo bathed in the glory of the red white and blue...and where i have just been where it means something deeper, uglier and far more ingrained! belfast also has 4 distinct accents, visitors can tell they are different, but dont tell me that locals can tell exactly which part of the city you are from by the way you speak, and therefore, which side of the orange/green boundary your roots and loyalties lie. the city centre is totally integrated, and there are no flags, or murals of the queen (!), but as soon as you leave the harmony of the titanic, cathedral, market and library and linen quarters..you enter the queens and the gaeltacht areas.....aye...there is the rub! i knew there was still a wall in west belfast between the falls and shankhill roads...and i knew it was called the peace wall, and people wrote on it, but i had no idea it was still an absolute boundary, has been heightened 3 times, and still has gates at either end that get closed and locked at night. i thought it was a memorial, not a necessity.
and it is not just in belfast either...
on my trip up the coast, past gorgeous wee beach towns, stunning sand and surfing waves, ice cream parlours and cutsey cottages overlooking the irish sea, to the giants causeway, you could still not get away from the flag issue. never, ever have i been anywhere in the uk that the picture of the queen was a political, sectarian statement. i actually, for the first time in my life, felt a little sorry for her, if she is even aware of it, but the poor old bitch is used as a symbol of division and hatred. it always strikes me that protestants are still protesting, while catholics are submissive to jesus, mary and joseph and the wee donkey. the green memorials are about the cause, martyrs, suffering and discrimination. the orange are about anger, hatred, slaughter and superiority. as we always say....loyalists are staunch, republicans are devout. apparently things do not change...or at least not in northern ireland.
however...as i think is quite obvious, i found it fascinating, and i seem to have become something of a 'dark tourist'.
but....on a lighter note, the apartment i stayed in next to the river lagan, was really great and was bigger than my flat...though as gareth pointed out...most apartments are!! bahahaha! and it was doubly great as it rained every evening, so i just cooked (i use the term loosely, what i mean is, i heated up soup in the microwave) and watched Sex/Life on netflix on the 50 inch tv. woof! the shower scene in episode 3 made me glad the tv was so big!
i also really enjoyed the giants causeway, and though the heavens opened, after a beautiful day, as soon as i got there, in some ways it was good as there were hundreds of people who all left the causeway to seek shelter...ha...no chance matey. and...despite being soaked to my skin and a bit unsure afoot, as it was a bit slippy, i got it almost to myself, with just a few other stragglers who also didnt give a shit. i mean....there is only so wet you can get...once you reach saturation, why go shelter?
so...my trip to northern ireland in a nutshell. it was interesting, and certainly powerful, but im just so glad i dont live there...and, no chance will i ever go back.
so...its not shetland...where im flying to on tuesday...again!
hoorah!
And here's why. It's like a teeny wee Scotland, but so much has it's own shite! It's 60°north but it's familiar. It's safe as houses...but omg, it's wild. I want to go to all of the other islands in the archipelago. And I feel so at home here in lerwick in my wee one bedroom apartment. 🥰
Just love, love, love it. Sitting on the beach, in the rain was just so reminiscent of summer when I was a kid. Happy days😍😁
Friday! Friday.....it's a will I, won't I time of the week! And as of now it's in the hands of the gods! As it's Shetland....those would be Odin and Thor! 🤞🤞🤞
when i was scratching my head, trying to find something else in the UK that would make up for the total impossibility of travelling abroad, even to the Faroes, and i was even thinking of going to Douglas on the Isle of Man (which looks like something your granny would have loved in 1970) Mog suggested Avebury in Wiltshire. having been to Callanish and Brodgar, not to mention so many without names in aberdeenshire (which, as a small area, actually has more stone circles than anywhere else in the world), my brother said i should go to the largest henge, and stones in the world...and no, its not Stonehenge!
so...off i went on easyjet down to bristol...jumped in my taxi (in which i left my phone...bugger!) and sped through wiltshire fields dotted with old fashioned, rectangular hay bales to the cutesy, thatched cottage village of Avebury...the only village in the world inside a henge!
now...as the pedant i am, i think i have to define a henge....most people think its the ring of stones...but its not. a henge is a levelled flat circle of land surrounded by a ditch, which may or may not have stones. stonehenge, funnily enough, is a henge as are avebury and brodgar...but callanish is not. and Avebury....is such a large henge it is almost impossible to take in and has a village, several roads, and, thank the gods, a pub inside...my thanks to the gods of beer hand fasting.
the weather was beautiful, the grass was lush, and i walked all the way down the ceremonial stone corridor and crossed fields, went through farms, got stung by nettles for the first time in about 40 years, and got to the barrow at west kennet just as everyone else was leaving. i scattered some of roses ashes in there. it seemed like the right place and sat on the top overlooking silbury hill. ok...dont worry, im not becoming a new age druid, but i loved that place...just as well, as the walk all the way there and back took me 4 hours....god did i enjoy a pint when i got back to the red lion or what?
next morning i was awake at first light...so got up and strolled around the stones at dawn. there was no one else there, and not even a sound of traffic or people. it was really fantastic, in the true sense. and then i went to stonehenge, which i know everyone says is really underwhelming...but...I LOVED LOVED LOVED IT! maybe i got some energy from the stones...i did see some people bowing to them. bahaha....
so when i woke up on the day i was leaving there was something fluttering round my window. when i went for a shower, i realise there was a monarch butterfly hiding in there. i tried to cup it in my hands, but couldnt without breaking it, so got a glass and a piece of paper...you know the drill...
so i saved a butterfly.
the next day i found out i had got the little blue house and was going to live in shetland!
obviously its to do with the butterfly and not money...we all know that right.
at this moment, i cant really believe i own this....but i do! coming back to my teeny wee, peerie (as they would say in shetland) flat is a bit of a let down.
i just cant wait to move back north...who would have thought i would ever say those words!
yes....i was going to put on some photos of my flat here, but tbh, it just looks like i have been burgled, except for a pile of boxes in the window bay blocking the light. ive done the living room, you will be amazed to hear, and have just bought huge laundry bags for my clothes. the only furniture im taking, other than my fantastic smith mattress, are a couple of side tables, a chest of drawers and a wee filing cabinet with all my papers. not surprising really, as i dont actually own a single chair, table or couch. such things i will buy when i get up north, which is going to be on the 4/5th november. i have got the guy who helped us empty merchiston to do the haulage, which is great as he has been here before, so knows the challenges of moving stuff from my flat down the stairs and along the lane. however...moving into unicorn view will be a doddle by comparison....it is detatched, has 2 parking bays and is a mere 10 mins drive from the aberdeen ferry terminus. woo hoo i say!
i cant deny, derek, i was a little surprised that you hadnt mentioned the unlikely move north before now, but, you are not alone in being gobsmacked! most of my friends thought, as i did myself, that when i moved it would be south...but life is a very wily mistress and im not sure i even planned it...it just happened. gareth and i had discussed property in lerwick, in a superficial, what-if kind of way, and it was him who found the wee blue house. he sent me the link when i was there on a monday, i saw it on the tuesday, flew home and on the wednesday put in an offer through my lawyer. it closed the following friday, just after i returned from avebury, and i found out it was mine at lunchtime. i got the key on the 2nd of october....so all in all, it took a month. done and dusted.
so now i own that most unusual of all dwellings outside of cabins in the woods....a detatched, one bedroom house...and to say i have up-sized is the understatement of the year. the living room itself is about the size of my whole flat, and i have a huge utility room, a kitchen with so much storage i dont really know what i will put in it, and the upstairs is only the bathroom and bedroom...so, as you can imagine, they are just, oh, so, slightly bigger than what im used to here. there is no gas power in shetland, so i have an induction hob, which it has taken me a while to get used to, as the rings dont go red, nor do they get hot...only the pan gets hot, and electric heating. i have not really worked out how to use the storage heaters, but, i have to say the house is toasty. probably just as well as freezing gusts of 100 mph are not unusual in shetland....something to look forward to...but...i can play music at full volume to cover the howling wind. after so long in flats where you can hear everything, from every flat, i cant really believe i have my own wee house...but there it is. hallelujah!
and, before i move north, i took a cheeky wee week in kas to bathe in the hear of the sun in case i dont see it for some time. it was just lovely, as ever, and i may still buy an apartment there. especially as the turkish lira has gone into free fall, and is currently 13.25 to the £. the first time i went to turkey to meet binni and kim, i think we got about 4.5 TL to the £....amazing!
so...im off north in a couple of weeks, but i will not be taking the ferry. murray will go up with the van containing my shit...i will be taking a plane.
in the meantime, i have had another needle in my eye, done a required covid test for my passenger locator form, got my eyes tested again and bought two new pairs of specs, and had time to go to the IMAX to see the new film of Dune. the worms are the highlight!
exciting times all round....cant wait to live in my wee blue house full time.
life is not like a box of chocolates. not even slightly!
all my shit has already been shifted to shetland.
tomorrow, im going up, but, obviously, not on a 12 hour ferry....no danger. its a hour long flight for me, on which im allowed 30 kilos of hold luggage, and 3 carry on.
just cant contain my excitement...
in the words of nina simone....Im feeling good!
but i just love it! strange but true.
i am sitting at my window overlooking the sound of bressay, with the horizontal rain and howling wind swirling all around in the dark, november evening....and, i just could not be more content. to say i love my little blue house is an understatement....when i wake up in the morning, or whenever....i actually cannot, for one moment, believe i own this! im guessing, a little like pickled herring, living in shetland is not everyones cup of tea...but it definitely is my large glass of viognier! ok...enough with the mixed metaphors.
moving up here has been a doddle....if you are ever moving in scotland i recommend murraymoves....a local guy who charged me less than half of some of the other quotes. he and one other young guy emptied my flat in less than an hour...and he brought it all in here on the ferry...arrived at 08:30 and was away by 10. not a single problem, breakage or hitch. woop woop!
before i got here i had already arranged my council tax, my change of address, my electricity and...most importantly my broadband. and....OMG....broadband here is fibre....i dont even need a landline, and it is so much better than the wifi in edinburgh i cant even tells ya! plugged in the router....everything worked, online asap and not a single drop. fucking dancer! and...here is the really strange thing.....you would, i expect think of shetland as something of a backwater....everything moving so much slower than the mainland. weeks to get anything delivered from amazon, terrible reception on mobile phones, really basic selection in supermarkets and wifi at a snails pace.
Bahahaha...not a bit like that! shetland actually seems like its own little country...way more than orkney or the hebrides. its a bit like going to live abroad, but within your own country except 450 miles from anywhere else in the north sea.
i just love it here.
but, things change so quickly.
last night was so wild, my little house was singing. there is a little loft at the top of the stairs, and the wind was whistling through there so melodically it woke me up because i thought someone was singing in my dreams. that and the battering of rain on the windows....im guessing window cleaners dont get very much work in lerwick. who needs them when we have such precipitation!
but when i woke up this morning just before dawn at 7am, it was just silent! no wind! no rain! IMAGINE! so i walked into town. i dont mean for one minute i did that at 7am....that would be foolish....far more sensible to stay in bed till 10:30, sit and have a coffee overlooking the beautiful sky, and then go about lunch time. and my new routine is now to go into the co op and do my shopping on the way down the hill, dander around lerwick, go for another coffee, and possibly a cointreau with some amuse bouche of a cake, pick up parcels from the post office, enjoy the lovely twilight at 4pm, and then hop in a taxi next to the harbour to get back up the hill to unicorn court for a mere fiver just in time for an aperitif before dinner. perfecto!
im sure all of my zillions of avid readers of this blog will get really sick of my harping on about shetland, and 237 pictures a week of the sky...but it really is totally fantastic, and im just in love with lerwick, my little blue house, and the light and space. nothing has ever made me realise how claustrophobic and hemmed in i felt in edinburgh till i came up here...it, literally, has changed my life. the funny thing is i was a bit worried about the shorter winter days, as it barely seemed to be possible that there could be more darkness, except maybe in iceland! and, of course the days are darker for longer. but the weird thing is, i actually find it lighter here! there are no high rise offices, there are no tenements , double decker buses, or narrow dark streets round me. no one can see in my windows as they are sitting working at desks. (although the neighbours in the green house opposite this window, where i sit writing this, can see me apparently...more about that later). what i can see mostly is the sky...the sky! from every window except in my utility room, which incidentally is bigger than the kitchen and bog put together at chalmers buildings!!
yes...the sky, which today, is a little on the grey side as its torrentially raining after the beautiful windless, dry day yesterday! but i dont have to go out today so who cares! the sky is so big here, and i can see it every direction i look....i know my flat was light for a tenement in edinburgh, being south facing an all....but not like this! it makes me feel free in the way travel does! perhaps in 6 months i will not feel this, be sick of the smallness of lerwick, the same people, the parochial nature of living in such a northern archipelago..but i doubt it. in 6 months we will be coming up to the longest days of the year, the simmer dims, as they call them here. i could go to the beach at 11pm....the water will still be so cold your extremeties will be numb in 30 seconds, but you cant have everything in life! i will also not be seeing Up Helly Aa next year as it has been cancelled again...but im not intending to be anywhere on the second tuesday of 2023...i can wait!
so here are some facts about lerwick that may or may not be interesting....i have a lot of time on my hands while im putting off assembling my vacuum, shoe rack and wardrobe, not to mention hoovering the perles de mousse off the floor that didnt make it into the pouf!
its the windiest place ive ever been....i can feel my house being buffeted when im in bed, and its the only place you can really see rain just dripping out of the clouds, that is if you happen to be inside. if outside, you will not be able to see anything for rain in your eyes.
all the postmen are polish, except my regular postie, mike, who is on holiday this week. he is from um.....yorkshire i would say...tbh you are hard pressed to meet a shetland native except in a pub as they have all gone somewhere else, and we have all come here. and the post comes at 8am....
there are public toilets everywhere, including in the co op and tesco. i realise this is not unusual elsewhere, but in edinburgh there are none, and pubs get annoyed if you come in just to use the loo!
everyone still uses cash, and commercial street has more banks on it than i have seen in years. you can, of course, pay by card, but cash is preferred, especially in taxis and on buses.
there are still taxi offices where you wait for your cab. i dont think i have seen one for about 30 years. the 690069 office has a price list of cigarettes on the wall, but warns potential buyers that they can only purchase said items if they are getting a cab from the office and cant just 'drop in for fags'!
lerwick has several working traditional red telephone boxes.
neighbours talk to you....in fact even recognise you when they dont know you. there i was minding my own business at my favourite table in the window of the dowry with my double espresso, cointreau and the most delicious little biscuit custard cream....melt in your mouth gorgeous...when in walked a woman i had never seen before. she said 'oh, have you just moved into no. 20? im sheila, i live in the green house opposite'. i might have to start pulling my curtains! ha! just kidding...they can only see me when its dark and i have lights on! though only their front door and utility room window face my living room window...dont know how they knew who i was...but she asked me to go round for a coffee! that doesnt happen in chalmers buildings! i will, obviously, never go, but it was nice to be asked!
so...shetland life in a nutshell....i suppose i should go now and do something boris johnson seems to have to failed to do....assemble a cabinet properly!!!!
BAHAHAHA!
the days are just so changeable here, it is all about timing. yesterday it was blowing a hooley with a torrential downpour when i got up, so i just carried on with my eternal construction projects, finished the chairs, and the bottom of the tv unit...and sat down for a breather at my spot overlooking the beauties of gremista industrial area, with the sound off in the distance. and, to my amazement, there was blue sky....hallelulajah! so out i went down the hill past the aberdeen ferry along holmsgarth to the co op...my favourite supermarket. not only does it have a great range of wine, local produce from the waas bakery, thats walls for you who dont speak scotlandish, customer toilets and a taxi rank, i found out yesterday, it has complimentary wifi! now, thats my kind of shop!
so having stocked up on macaroni pies, a totally necessary chocolate and orange cake, cans of all kinds to hunker down on unicorn court, a block of mature cheddar with caramelised onion infused through it, and, that one product which make you not have to answer the great philosophical carbohydrate question...bread or potatoes....a tattie loaf...i decided to forgo the hourly bus up the hill, and...imagine...walk!
this entire adventure took me an hour....and i realise most of you have no idea how totally paralised i have become in the 2 years since i gave up work...but in edinburgh i rarely got out of bed before 2 pm, and sometimes not at all....i have to say i have spent over 48 hours in bed because i just couldnt think of a single good reason to get up. but, omg, not here. you have to get out while the sky is clement...and get what you need done before the wind starts blowing rain into your eyes at 90 miles an hour and you are walking up the north road! there and back, jammy cow, without rain.
it started 4 minutes after i got back inside my wee blue house.
and can i say its not just unicorns up here....i have seen rainbows practically everyday!
when i googled the word unicorn today the number one search that came up was...i kid you not...'do unicorns exist?'!!!! i mean....obviously they do...i live amongst these elusive beings, and managed to get my camera out in time to capture them next to my wee blue house. as we all know...the camera doesnt lie!
but mythical creatures aside, and rainbows also, as i saw 4 today, but all so ephemeral they were only there for about 15 seconds as the rain clouds blew over, i have almost completed assemblage of all my new furniture. i have only a bathroom unit to go, which has not arrived yet....oh and a bed frame but im guessing that will not be half as fucking fussy as my tv unit, which i have to say...i got out a hammer and drove nails into it, because it just wouldnt co operate, and they hadnt provided enough connecting parts. that will teach it!!!! thank god for my cordless screwdriver....which is my new boyfriend. gareth says im a bit 'guy' because i love a power tool....but, honestly, i did manage step away from that power drill that i wanted! mainly because in all my, 52 years of life, i really have not for one moment thought...god i could do that if only i had a power drill. in fact, i have never done a single job that required a drill.....but, you just never know what is round the corner! or indeed up north....until you do the mad thing of coming to live here....
i have to say that one of the things that really amuses me, is my facebook friends, and almost exclusively women, keep asking me if i have met people, joined groups, or had any contact with my neighbours. little do they seem to realise that the reason i moved here was to get away from the human race, not to re-join it after covid lockdown.
what...in these shoes....
jings, crivens and help ma boab, its wild here!
its just as well we have our bins tied down with bungee cords or they would be off to orkney, or faroe!
and...who in their right minds would think this was a good day to get their hair done....well, naturally...ME! bahahaha! i decided to avoid the horizontal sleet, afterwards, by having a cheeky wee coffee menage a trois, and then thought it would be a really good idea to have a bracing stroll along the esplanade....
honestly...i thought i was going to be blown over...and lets me tells ya...it has to a a wind and a half to make me feel like a plastic bag! i got totally soaked by the spray from the harbour, which is usually so calm...hence the word 'harbour', and my god, it was wild! all the ferries and flights have been cancelled, and the schools closed early in case they were unable to run buses to outlying areas...so i am marooned on mainland shetland! HOORAH!
so in case i have to hunker down till the weekend...i got a taxi to the co op....got the driver to wait while i did my emergency shop, stocked up on soup, bread, cheese, potatoes and coffee, and then drive me up to unicorn court....so now....i barely have to go out till i fly back down to edinburgh on the 10th!
now im watching the storm from inside my cozy wee house. ya dancer!
i just dandered down the hill (stoorie brae...) into town yesterday, only to be confronted by the whole of lerwick, and perhaps even most of mainland, yell and unst round the harbour. i have never seen so many people in town, especially not on a freezing, blustery saturday in december, so i thought i better investigate! and...lo and behold, not 10 minutes later, surrounded by hysterical children waving and calling his name, santa was escorted into lerwick by the coastguard. not quite a sleigh and reindeer, but the kids didnt seem to care and were whipped up into a state of high dudgeon i have not witnessed since i went to see duran duran at roses request back in the 80s. after several attempts at landing, and almost losing his beard in the windy harbour, santa then led a procession down commercial street, accompanied by a goat(?), 2 shetland ponies, several floats with elves on the shelves, and a squad (i believe that is the correct term for up helli ya) of vikings, switching on the christmas lights as he went. the children were mesmerised, the adults were freezing as it started to snow, and i was thirsty so went into my sit at my favourite table in town to watch everything pass by from the warmth and comfort of having a beer in my hand. what larks indeed.
so santa came, saw and conquered the hearts of shetlander kids by high fiving them! i heard a breathless wee boy telling his mum that santa had done so, not once but three times, and im guessing he might not have washed his hands before dinner last night! oh, the innocence and gullability of bairns. anyway...before i braved the climb back up the hill...or more likely, got in a taxi from the harbour, i dedcided to drop in to the bar at the Grand hotel to see harvey, the farmer from lancashire who decided to buy 2 hotels in shetland at auction and change his life forever. i had promised him i would paint over his abysmal blackboard to announce to passers-by that the 'bar is open', so in i went just for one pint and a small blether. little did i know, then, that i wouldnt get home till 5am, in a taxi that i can only describe as fast and furious due to the lack of traffic, or indeed, traffic lights all the way home. i gave him a large tip as a donation to the gods of safe journeys, whoever they are now that st christopher has been defrocked, or whatever it is that happens to ex-saints.
so...amazing as it may seem...i actually have made friends....and proper shetlander friends...not that white settler type, which i will actually have to include myself in as use 'wee' and not 'peerie'...and know that 'u' is pronounced as 'you' and not as 'i'. though, on the other hand there is no 'i' in team, as motivational speeches at meetings always attest. yep....no 'i'...but there is a 'me' in team. bugger....forgive my tangential comments, and lets just get on with the story.
i started talking to a couple in the bar....they asked me to have dinner with them...we went back to their house, we had a chinese takeaway, their 16 year old daughter went out to a party, we got hammered, blethered, ate prawn crackers, im guessing crumbs all over the place and i had to get kathleen to help me get my boots back on before i got afore mentioned taxi.
i did not come here to make friends, but i actually think that is what i may have done unintentionally.
shetland....land of wonder! hahaha!
HOME!
i remember when i stayed in canada for 6 months, i babysat to get some extra cash. one of the kids i looked after (yes...i know....how did any parents ever allow me to be responsible for their kids? god, they must have been desperate af!) was a 7 year old boy called Trevor...and he was, what we in scotland would call 'slow'. (or was it just because his parents had tarred him with the brush of that name...??? we will never know). i looked after him the night before i was flying back to scotland, and said to him that he had to go to bed, as i was tired and tomorrow i was going home. he said...oh, arent you going home tonight...so i had to explain the 2 home phenomenon...home, and home home!
now, more years later than i care to calculate, i am faced with the same predicament....which is home, and which is home home?
well...i got a real slap in the face answer this week. it was lovely to see my cousins and mates on my birthday...not to mention a phone call from sausalito, which i hope didnt cost an arm and a leg, while stuffing my face with chimichanga, guacamole, chorros and over £100 worth of margaritas!!! but...in no way, whatsoever did edinburgh feel like home...it was actually really depressing staying in my flat, and had any of the hotels round me offered rooms for less than £200 i would just have gone and stayed there.
i will never, ever, live in edinburgh again. i will be selling my flat asap, and it would be on the market already if it wasnt christmas. it may be the most wonderful time of the year, but its the worst possible time to be selling a house...and as it is not urgent...it will go on the market at the end of january,,ironically the same time of year as i bought it in 1997!
i was, in fact, going to stay for another week....and go and see mog and joyce, but i just couldnt stay dahn sauf...well, not until after gareth and i had been to see the harryhausen exhibition. something i had been meaning to do for over a year! that was just brilliant, and im just impressed that we managed to get to an exhibit at all, and appauled that gareth has never seen jason and the argonauts, the golden voyage of sinbad, and clash of the titans. poor dear!
so there it is....flying back up on thursday at 7:30 am i was just so elated...and walking into my wee blue house almost made me want to cry with joy.
home is where the heart is...but also where the fibre broadband is. my wifi in edinburgh was so rubbish compared to up here, i just phoned up and cancelled it, and my landline. i have also changed my facebook profile to living here, in lerwick.
so that is final then....this is not just home...its home home.
hallelulajha!
CHRISTMAS!
possibly not the most wonderful time of the year with chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and god resting merry gentlemen but the most over-rated, commercial, drunken arguemental family getogether known to the modern world. dont get me wrong, i have always enjoyed christmas, especially as i have never, ever cooked the food, thereby not had the stress of getting everything ready at the same time. but this year, in the absence of close family, except my brother, who has the misfortune not to live in shetland, i had my first ever solo christmas in my 60th year! and it was just so delicious!
when i looked out at dawn on the feast of stephen, it may not have been deep and thick and even, pouthery more like, but we had snow....i cant even remember my last white christmas, but it was long, long ago! and on top of the delight of a dusting of snow, it was a beautiful, crystal clear, sunny, blue skied day. just gorgeous, if a little on the chilly side. happy happy joy joy!
so i did not have turkey and all the trimmings. one of the great things about only having yourself to think about...eat whatever you want...and when you want. now in my remote location, i have as much food, drink, condiments and toiletries as the average bunker to survive the eschaton, so, i have a huge selection, and chose a ham piece in sticky honey glaze with home made spicy, baked, potato wedges and chestnut mushrooms in white sauce YUM! on top of all this deliciousness i had mrs bridges christmas chutney which was so good, i got through half the jar!
i went for a walk, skyped 2 friends, spoke to gareth, and ate and drank so much cheese and port i had to go and have a nap. on top of all this, i watched 2 episodes of Versailles...sex, intrigue and fantastic costumes in the court of the sun king....3 of my favourites. get a better day!
hope you all had a day that was as peaceful and relaxing.
and coming soon....2022...jings, crivens and help ma boab!
but i still walked all the way down to the beach, back around town, into the co op and then all the way back up staney hill....but, on the way back, it was definitely a dander, not a hurl! i think you can only hurl down stoorie brae or staney hill....if i hurled back up i think i would have a heart attack.
however, hurling apart, even to dander this far is something i have not done for so long, apart from my short trips around the UK this year. in edinburgh i was knackered even walking to Mariachi on victoria street, and was so inactive sometimes even going to the tesco 2 minutes from my flat seemed exhausting. most days i couldnt be bothered getting out of bed before 2pm...talk about hemmed in! of course now, for the first time in over 20 years, i have a stairs inside my house...and that has also been good for me, but, honestly, moving here has just changed my life in every way. i love the sea, the birds, seals, sheep, even the darkness because i do not have office lights pouring in through my windows. i love the remoteness, the sky, the quiet...i even love the wind, which is not quiet and has torn off one of my bin lids, never to be seen again. probably out in the mid atlantic by now....if any of you see a blue bin lid flying about, you know its mine.
so....new year, new life for me. unfortunately though, derek, there is no Up Helly Aa happening next year, because of covid, even hogmanay in edinburgh has been cancelled, so no torching of viking ships on the second tuesday of january!!! im a bit disappointed, but i think we have all got used to that feeling in the past 2 years...we keep saying this...but maybe 2023 will be better. fingers crossed.
in the mean time...have a great hogmanay and may, please god, next year bring peace and good cheer. for me its a clean slate....
and im feeling good!
well, hell! i have just been so busy constructing furniture, i have had neither the time, nor the fortitude to do the same with a sentence, let alone an entire blog entry! im not even sure this will be any different, but, as a realise there are so many people who hang on my every word, i will persevere to make every effort to pass on the totally fascinating minutae of my life in the sprawling, urban jungle that is the northern-most hood of lerwick!
today was that most shetlander of all days....beautiful, if a little on the chilly side, with blue sky and glorious sunshine lighting up the sheep that i can see from my bedroom window. then, before you know it, the wind has blown in cloud so thick you cant even see the sound of bressay, and horizontal snow/hail while it is still sunny looking south. sadly, unlike with rain, you do not get snowbows, but if you did they would be visible from shetland, and would probably be the best in the world!
you dont see one for ages, and then two come at once!
not that i have anything at all to report, except that i finally registered with a new GP, have totally sussed out the buses to and from unicorn view, got the documents for the sale of Elis house in Raleigh....well, i would like to say signed, sealed and delivered...but like everything to do with Eli, both in her life, and after it...nothing is ever that simple and it has been a total head-fuck! more about that later.
i have also, as you can see, got most of my shit sorted in shetland. i have had to make a lot of adjustments i can tell you, especially as i am used to walls that are a metre thick and are stone covered in plaster. this house was built in 2009, is wooden and the walls are kinda like hardboard...you can hit a nail in in 2 seconds, and take it out again with your fingers! ollie the octopus, for example, is just too heavy and would just pull out a huge hole in the wall...so i have had to stand him on the floor instead. i have also kinda got used to magnolia walls...but i might change that later...in the summer when it will be light till almost midnight and the paint will dry in an hour, and, of course, i have no fire place to be the focus of my room. i am leaving the one in chalmers buildings i created and tiled, because, well, its just not fitting here in the land of electric storage heaters and low ceilings. the only thing similar i could imagine in any of these nordic houses is a wood stove, but there are no chimneys, and obviously, being the lazy bitch i am, i just couldnt be bothered with the hassle even if there were. so i have fallen on my feet, so to speak, though horizontal might be a more fitting description, as all i need to do to heat, cook, get hot water, defrost, you name it... is flick a switch...it could not possibly get better for a lazy person!!! land of non-opportunty...just the way i like it if it means i dont have to get out of bed before 11am!!
however, i did have to get up at 07:30 on friday, as i had a UPS pick-up between 8am and 6pm! that is some window! the sale of latta street in Raleigh was scheduled for the 16th....on the 9th Mog and i received email documents from the buyers attorney at 10pm and our realtor also emailed to say we had to return them by the closing date. they had to have wet signatures (the terms you learn), be notarised by a lawyer, and returned in 4 working days....bahahahahahahahahaha!!!!! in the US apparently, they have drop in attorneys offices, instead of having to beg for an appointment within the next week, and a postal service that delivers tomorrow on demand! Rachel, our realtor actually sent us a mail informing us that if we didnt get the paperwork there (on a monday night at 10pm, for the following monday) that the sale would fall through, and we would have to start all over again. so.....no pressure then.
funny the different things people do.
my brother did get an appointment with his lawyer on the wednesday, and arranged for the pick up on thursday which was supposedly guarenteed to arrive on the monday. done and dusted!
i emailed rachel and told her that it wasnt possible and we needed to extend the time line. i got a notary in lerwick, but couldnt get an appointment for 4 working days, so i let rachel know. when i saw jenni, my new shetland lawyer, i got her to scan the documents, to make sure we had filled them in properly before i sent them off because she also was unsure and asked me what i thought! i mailed them to rachel. my point is...women always have to have approval in case we have done the wrong thing. men have no such problems. it is one of the things i admire about men. they dont need anyone to look over things to confirm what they really know already! anyway, enough amateur psychology, lets get down to the nitty gritty.
the documents have gone. while i was assured they would be there by wednesday, i now think they will arrive on the 31st, the following monday. from shetland...it only cost £10 more to get them picked up and delivered than mog paid from edinburgh.
so....fingers crossed....by february, we will have completed Elis estate, and can just move on.
and then...i will fly down to edinburgh to sell Chalmers Buildings....
THE HORROR!
no.1....go to the lighthouse and cliffs at the southernmost point of shetland, having driven over the runway easily as all the flights were cancelled due to the wind. you will not be able to get out of the car, as the doors will not open!
no.2...go to st ninians beach, the biggest tombolo in europe, where you will be soaked by spray, sandblasted and have difficulty remaining vertical, but luckily will manage to get out of the car. please remember that you may have to go and rescue one of your party who has got stuck on the beach and cant manage to wrestle against the 90 mph gusts. lock arms, bend forward and push. you will be finding sand it your hair and pockets for days afterwards, if you are strong enough to leave!
no.3....even better than sumburgh head.....go to the lighthouse at eshaness where there is only the atlantic between you and canada, enormous cliffs, rock islands and crashing waves like you wouldnt believe. not a chance in hell of getting the car doors open, and if you are stupid enough to open your window to take a photo, you will get a faceful of spray, despite the fact that you are really not that near the sea!. the car will be rocking about, and if it wasnt that you were with a local, who thinks its just normal, you might be a peerie bit anxious.
no.4...get back to the urban jungle, go for a curry, and end up in a local pub that has a karaoke night, is packed to the gunnels, has no social distancing or mask wearing that you walk in and think....naaaah....oh, well, maybe, ok lets just have one drink, yeah, ok another....and before you know it your two partners in crime are up singing 'im just a teenage dirtbag baby'! the last song of the night is bohemian rhapsody....the pub goes mad...who needs karaoke when you have a little silhouetto of a man and have spent your day with thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening, scaramouch, fandangos and beelzebub!
no. 5...you go to that place that no longer exists, you thought, except in your memory of teenage years....the taxi office. you wait in the queue with all the other steaming people who have just got out of the same pub, but are obviously more sober than you, as they were not the last ones out, and therefore, before you in the taxi line! you get home at almost 2am, but decide to put music videos from youtube onto your new smart tv and sound bar system. luckily you live in a detatched house, so the neighbours cant hear you singing 'so you think you can stop me and spit in my eye?' for the second time in one night.
the day ends with the most shetland of all lines....
'.....any way the wind blows......'
apparently its march already, and much as february is my least favourite month of the year, it seems to have sneaked past without my noticing, and i feel that the year is already passing too quickly. i realise, presently, that there are hellish things going on in the world, but i really have nothing to say which has not already been said. i know that we are all feeling the same about what is happening, so i am choosing not to mention it, and just dwell on the positive in my life. call it opting out if you like, but one of the reasons i moved here, to a remote archipelago in the sub-arctic that most people have never heard of, let alone could point out on a map, and has a Z postcode is to get away from...well, actually, everything, maybe even reality.
having said that, i did have to face the reality of getting down to edinburgh with 2 empty bags and stay in a hotel..oh, poor me, to totally empty my flat. i stayed in the moxy just across the road, which was in the block that miraculously appeared like a mirage when i was in a taxi returning from the US last year. it is just astounding how quickly they can build things....it was just foundations in the ground when i left 3 months prior....and now its a really quirky, cool hotel where the reception is one end of the bar. my kinda hotel or what? and...can i tell you the best thing about it, in fact, one of the best things ive ever seen in any hotel....the bed had a motion sensitive strip light under the end which came on when ever your feet touched the floor and turned itself off after 30 seconds! no searching for the light switch in the middle of the night, or stubbing your toe on your way back from the bog, or knocking over your glass of water turning off the light. it was actually so useful, i thought of getting one for my own bed. loved the moxy!
but what i didnt love, any more, was my flat in chalmers buildings....it felt a bit sad really, poor wee empty, unloved flat, which has been painted white and has no personality..id like to say, im sure someone will buy it, and love living there, but i bet you it will be bought to rent out, like all the others in the stair. oh well....not kansas anymore toto, not now i live with unicorns and rainbows on a daily basis.
so, up i flew back up to what has become my home so quickly, and i bought the fully flex ticket as i wanted to take advantage of the fully changeable ticket, 30kilo checked baggage, and 6 kilos, with 3 pieces allowed, carry on! now, the flights are not cheap....the fully flex ticket is £275 one way for what is an hour and 10 minute flight....but.....not only do you get the words most generous luggage allowance, you get to fast track security, and...joy, oh joy, free entry to the executive lounge. yes....ok, the first perk of the lounge is free drinks....but, i hadnt had time for lunch, so the food was so bloody welcome, and....really the best thing about the lounge is that they are so peaceful, there are no kids, and you get free wifi with a protected password. there were crackers with 3 kinds of cheese, and scones with cream and jam after the salad bar, and curry main course, and of course the coffee machine. oh happy day!
and today was another....as it was just a beautiful sunny, spring day. so i walked all the way from my northern unicorn hood down to the knab, and then went for a late lunch at my favourite bar in town. the knab has always been strategically important for lerwick, as it overlooks what is known in shetlandish as the soothy mooth. now if i was knapping...meaning talking out of dialect, and toning down the shetland accent, (and you pronounce the 'k'), i would call it the southern mouth...the entrance to the sound of bressay....(which incidentally, is pronounced bressa....) but omg...soothy mooth is so much cooler....or is it just the ooooooo!
and on a final note....derek...i so, so get what you mean about companies....but omg....now you are considered a genius if you know the difference between there, their, and they're...and dont get me started on to and too, your and you're, and even the use of a fucking full stop, never mind a comma! we have the greatest font of information in the history of the world, but, for some reason, most posts now seem to be written in the style of james joyce...and i dont mean in a good way. streams of consciousness, (i use the term loosely) with no punctuation, and just making up your own spelling. i have seen the word sosij (sic) and i despair!
roll on the ides of march!
And, as if a unicorn view isn't enough, I also live in the land of vertical neon rainbows.🦄🌈
im waiting for my new, boho chic couch to arrive, though it was, in fact, supposed to arrive first on friday, and then from 15:38 - 17:38 yesterday! but, you cant really depend on a company in Sutton Coalfied to understand how far it is when Shetland is usually depicted on maps of the UK as being off the coast of Aberdeen, akin to an eastern Hebrides, when it is a 12 hour ferry at the mercy of the north sea. however, everything i have ordered to be delivered here has, eventually, arrived...even my NEC my national entitlement card...ie...free buses, trains and even ferries for anyone who has managed to attain the ripe old age of 60, and they make sure everyone knows this by making you look as old and decrepit as possible in the photo. though having said that, i got the photos in a booth at waverly station where you have to take off your glasses and try to line your eyes up into a window on the screen. i couldnt get the seat to lower, so i ended up crushed down to get my eyes in the right place, while not actually being able to see properly. what a lark being old is...
and talking of larks...or at least birds..well, actually geese...a bit of a tangent, i realise, but bear with me. a real feature of this time of year here is geese flying south. now...obviously, im not oblivious to these obliques, and have seen scenes of skiens regularly. but always at the opposite end of the seasonal chart. they spend the winter here, in almost perpetual darkness, and then, just as spring with its longer, life-affirming light evenings kicks in, they fly south, to the sub-antarctic to they can get back to darkness. when i moved here, as i think i said before, the dark nights were one of the things i was a little apprehensive about, as i actually thought that Edinburgh had enough blackness and didnt really want to be somewhere with more. but, as i think i have demonstrated, shetland has more than enough sky and while it got dark an hour earlier than the capital, the space, lack of buildings, and even trees make it seem lighter. the other thing, as we rush towards the equinox, is that this far north, days get longer by 2 minutes each end, every day. from the 21st december when it gets dark at 14:30 we have gained over 3 hours of light....and...things will only get lighter! barbara, the previous owner, had black-out curtains! not me matey!
and getting back to the birds we werent talking about....at the summer solstice, when my friend Carol Anderson is over from canada, we are going on the nightime trip to the broch of mousa to watch the storm petrels waking up and going out for the night. i still havent been there, but the broch, which is the most complete one in scotland, and therefore, the world, has all 3 original storeys still after over a thousand years, and is now inhabited by nocturnal petrels. during midsummer they run trips to the island to see them because, of course, it doesnt really get properly dark, so it is the ideal time to view their rise, at around 23:30 and you come back to the mainland at 1am. the great thing is that my shetlander freend, Kathleen Anderson, has also never been to see this, so she is coming too. Andersons akimbo!
and talking of Andersons, Derek, how you do make me chortle! ideal sunset at 17:40....pshaw! anyone who lives this far north, at this time of year, is just so excited by the lengthening days, and dusk at 7, 8, 10 you name it...we cant wait. it is the nightime equivalent of seeing the first daffodills of the year. yes...snowdrops are out sometimes in january, and crocus and bluebells have been out for a couple of weeks...but daffies are the proper harbinger of spring, and its not really until you see loads of them that you know the seasons are really doing what they should. but then there are the geese leaving here to go south to keep things dark. they are your avain equivalent Derek.
while i now live where, lets face it, like unicum or the spanish inquisition, no one expected, one of the fantatstic advantages is the long, long nights. woop woop!
perhaps i should have kept those black-out curtains in my utility room, Derek, just in case you ever come to visit.
or you could just come in the winter....
you know you would be welcome any time of year in the land of unicorns and rainbows....
derek...i remember you told me this before....and, can i just say that i think the person running the boat should know how many people are on the island and want to go back. i realise that you are allowed to stay for the night, but you have to let the boatman know...and the fact that they didnt realise you were missing is...well...a little amiss!!!!! and, much i love the wildness and elemental nature of shetland...i dont want to spend a night in the broch of mousa, or even on the island...at our age sleeping in a bed with a mattress topper, the worlds best pillows and egyptian cotton high counts sheets is essential. or is that just me....
bugger...im supposed to be flying down to the mainland tomorrow...but my flight has just been delayed....must be weather....need to check....
well, you wouldnt think its spring looking out my windows this morning....we have such a heavy haar that gremista has disappeared, and even the sheep on the hills are blending into the mist. but what do i care, im waiting in for amazon parcels anyway which, despite my front door being open the whole time, even when i have been in town, still havent arrived. and we have what i would call smirr.....rain that is so fine you can hardly see it, but you get drenched to your underwear anyway...safe to say...its not a day to go out.
so i thought i would regale my avid readers with my amazing tales of living the life of a spawny get in the urban jungle of lerwick. you know, as i do! so here goes...
for a start my NEC, my national entitlement card, or old age bus pass to you, has been just fab. going down to scotland (as shetlanders call the main-mainland (as i live on the mainland...ie shetland mainland)...oh, its all so complicated and requires double parentheses!)i saved myself what is the most expensive taxi fare ive ever paid for a 40 minute ride. that is the lerwick - sumburgh trip....a snip at between £50 and £60 depending on the weather and the traffic though you do get to drive over the runway....but you do in the bus too come to think of it...or you can walk as well....so not really part of the taxi fare then! i also got the bus both ways to, and from, edinburgh airport....so, and i might start doing that oap thing that bill and i used to joke about with his bus pass, working out how much you have saved every day...so far for me its about £150 so far. way to go being 60!!!!
on top of this sextigenarian excitement, i now am in possesion of an ADS card. i realise that i put a photo of the wrong page onto the blog last time, as i had to scan and email the pages. thought i had sent the first photo to upload, but sent the last by mistake. whatever. the upshot is that, as an island resident, i get at least 40% discount on airfares in and out of sumburgh, which is good, as just like the taxi, the flights are not cheap. i have paid less for a flight from edinburgh to havana via paris than the cost of a loganair hour long jaunt both ways from EDI to LSI. on the other hand....the premium fare is £285 and includes unlimited date and time changes, 30 kilos of checked and 6 kilos of cabin luggage, fast track security, a free tea/coffee/water and a tunnocks caramel wafer on the plane (bahahaha!), and....woop woop....free entry to the executive lounge at edinburgh. funnily enough, as sumburgh only has 1 gate (except for charter flights), and you can get off the plane and out of the airport in 5 minutes, there is no lounge! but coming back up home the last time the lounge was a bloody godsend, as, of course, i now have nothing in chalmers buildings, and even the fridge is switched off. happy happy joy joy when there were 6 different salads, a jackfruit curry main, 4 kinds of cheese with 3 types of crackers and to put the icing on the cake...scones with jam and cream. i wished i had taken more of the plastic sealable bags from security for snacks on the hour long bus trip!! however, given that i have enough canned and packet goods in unicorn court to sit out a nuclear apocalypse with ease, i dont suppose i need any more food....not to mention the fact that not only does tesco, down at the south end of lerwick, deliver, the co op 20 mins away has just started doing the same. because it is just new they can deliver anything, free of charge, within 2 hours....OMG! thank god i have a 48 bottle wine rack and a full size freezer! though i am still thinking of getting a big american style fridge.....and a chaise longue....
as to chalmers buildings...the photos and the rest are being done next week, and i think it will be on sale the first week of april. im hoping for £170 000....but if i only get £150 will will have broken even with buying unicorn court, so nae bother....but considering i paid £32 000 for it, its all just fine and dandy. i did really think that i would feel something about leaving the place i lived for over 20 years....but actually it is already not mine...blah blah bland magnolia, it just has a sad, empty, 'i used to be so gorge, and now im just dull and boring' feeling. poor wee 8/3...i hope it gets someone else who will love it, but im afraid it will just get buy to rent owners like every other one in the stair.
and talking of stairs....see this living in a detatched house.....how bloody magic is that. every day i actually cant believe i get to live here with all this space, being able to play music so loud and have no one living through the wall. i spoke to my right hand side neighbour for the first time yesterday...and i told her how fab it was living away from everyone else, and she said..yes im a bit jealous. and i hadnt really noticed...but the whole of Unicorn View is semi-detatched....its only us three buggers on unicorn court who have the entire house to ourselves.....how bloody fortunate am i? in a very unlucky way, as i have lost so much...too much in too short a time....but in the words of ned kelly 'such is life'.....
and for me, right now, and i hope for everyone else reading this, it is good....lets hope it lasts.....
i just never tire of it, and the neighbours who can see me at the window where i usually sit when they are in their kitchen, who asked me if i was writing a book, (bahahaha!) quite obviously do not understand the attraction. even the black sunset was just beautiful and i dont think i have ever taken so many photos of clouds. for some reason im reminded that the ancient greeks, in literature, always referred to the sky as bronze, or gold. most peculiar as the sky here can, in fact, look sort of bronzy....like now when its about to sleet, whereas....the greek sky...lets face it....is just...well...blue!
and, what is true of spring weather in the UK as a whole is doubly true here. in beautiful sunny skies, you sit down on yet another amazing beach to eat your sandwich and before you can say ham, cheese and pickle, there is hail so sharp and ferocious it makes you glad you wear specks. and to jump off at a tangent.....
im sure no one will be surprised, given its location and surroundings that there has been a lot of interest in my flat, and i have already been offered the ridiculous sum of £165 000. if you want to take a look at what it looks like without me....its on ESPC and other sites you can access on google or safari if you are apple-inclined. it is the cheapest rated property in the city centre...
and....the puffins are returning to sumburgh head this week....about 100 have already been seen checking out the burrow situation round the lighthouse. for those of you not familiar with puffin life, they are black and white in winter (like most of us in the north), and spend their entire time out at sea. they only come in to land, and get colourful beaks...well....now, as its mating season. because they dont have any contact with people during the winter, and dont nest in trees, or on cliffs, but in earthen burrows, they are really unafraid, and, therefore, easy to see. so damoarn...thats tomorrow to you sooth moothers, im going to get the bus down, with my free pass, to see if i can see them. woop woop.
in the mean time i have been out to pubs in lerwick...and when i say pubs...i mean pubs not bars. they are just so traditional here, it makes me feel nostalgic. been to the dump...by which i mean recycling all the cardboard from my amazon purchases and having the most smashing time of my life with 7 bags of wine bottles. there is something so cathartic about bottle banks.
and walked....on beaches, on viking streets at jarlshof, over the bridges between mainland, burra and tronda, over the runway at sumburgh airport, and many times to the co op supermarket.
there are only 2 supermarkets in shetland, both in lerwick. one is the co op, at the north end...and the other is tesco, at the south end of the town...really in sound.
other than that there are just wee local stores. shetland has no macdonalds, starbucks, kfc, costa coffee, ikea, lidl, burger king, asda or wallmart, pizzaland or hut, sainsburys, superdrug, uber, deliveroo or dollarstores of any kind.
but it does have PUFFINS....woop woop!
just lovely here...daffodills akimbo, puffy little clouds, and fab beaches. still havent seen any lambs yet...but tomorrow im going to go and walk round st ninians island next to europes biggest tombolo...so who knows. hopefully it wont start snowing while im there.
before i start blethering on about my fantastic life in shetland...Derek, i meant to ask you how your spring break went back, on the east coast...and actually maybe we could set up that zoom call we were going to do back in february. i remember when there were buses over the golden gate, as rose and i got the last one back after a night out in north beach...a meal at the stinking rose, followed by drinkies at the tosca cafe, where, at the end of the night the barman had not picked up his pile of dollar bill tips..and we only had enough money for the bus...so, naturally, we spent the tip on another round as otherwise we would have had to wait at the bus stop. i always tip well to waitresses who bring food or drinks to the table, but, to this day i dont understand why you tip a bartender when all he, or she, does is pour. one of the great mysteries of american life for a european...but i digress...as always....
so, shetland life....thursday was such a gorgeous day, i decided to just nip down to st ninians, but bloody missed the no 6 sumburgh bus, and the next one didnt go for an hour, and didnt connect with the exaboe feeder, so..and call me impulsive...but i just jumped into a taxi for the exorbitant price of £40! now....ive been thinking about why are shetland taxis so expensive...but i suppose its because the distance, while not really large is one remote place to another, and...more importantly, unlike city cabs, they are not going to be picking up another fare on the way back. but, what the hell...i went and OMG what a fab day i had. i did the whole island walk avoiding sheep, and, more importantly, being really really careful not to break and ankle, or plunge head first over one of the many cliffs due to getting your foot caught in one of the gazillion rabbit holes. then i went onto the beach, and, as you can see it was mobbed, and it took me a while to find a spot to sit to eat lunch...and as my feeder from bigton didnt go till 17;25 according to my Z shetland travel app, i had the beach totally to myself until the evening crowd (of about 8) turned up with blankets and cooler boxes. then i had to find the bus stop...so i dropped into the bigton community shop and asked where the feeder to the junction stopped. the woman behind the counter of the only shop, post office, phone box and coffee shop for 20 miles just laughed at me being such a sooth moother....naturally, there was no stop...you just waved the bus down...and it connects with the No 6 coming north on a bend on the road called the Junction. the junction between a tiny single track with passing places only, to that mega highway...the one with a lane on each side. you have to wait on the bus, so that the northbound bus rounding the bend knows that there is a passenger and pulls in. oh....what larks. of course, i didnt get back to lerwick till 18;30, so i had missed the last town circle bus...so had to walk up staney hill...and omg, that was no dander, i can tell you. my body had siezed up on the 25 minute bus journey, and i had what shetlanders would call spaegie...
on top of that, when i got home, a parcel had arrived which was a self-assembly unit that weighed a ton, and the postie had left it right against my front door, so that i had to drag it out of the way to get in....and then drag it in....sheesht! strangely when i cooked dinner and sat down to watch yet another rubbish horror movie, i was asleep in minutes after i had eaten. the next morning i had to go to hospital....bahahah...not for spaegie...i have finally managed to move my eye injections up here and had a review appointment...i didnt get a jab, but they did put drops in both my eyes to do scans, and when i got outside i was so glad it was really misty, though even then i had to put on sunglasses. luckily i have turned into that bonkers old dame who wears sandals to the beach when its snowing, so i didnt give a shit that i was wearing shades on a foggy day! when got back on the No 1 bus.... there were several people i recognised, and wondered if they were crazies who just spent their whole time riding the town circle...then...OMG...i realised the only reason i knew who they were was because...i was one of them. the old people who ride the bus....jings, crivens and help ma boab. LOLLLLLLL!
hell, yeah, a beautiful sunny day, so i decided to jump on the ferry over the sound to bressay. shetlanders do not pronounce 'y' at the end of places...so its bressa, and scalloway is skal-wa. in whalsay you dont pronounce the y, but you do do so with the 'h'...why the whistling 'wh'...who knows when there are shetland dialects that prononuce it as 'qu'....so not who and where but quoo and quare. but enough about moothing....
on my walk to the lighthouse, i stopped at the only cafe on bressay for lunch, breaking my journey in half, and then continued my dander, past all the lambs and daffodills down to what is now holiday accommodation, as the light has been changed to a electronic small unit right at the end of the island. on this journey it was so quiet, i think i can only describe it by saying that i could hear the swoosh of the wings of a herring gull flying up behind me, before i even knew it was there. i think i saw about 4 cars and 2 cyclists on the entire 2 hour walk....it was sunny and really still, but about 9 degrees....perfect weather for a lovely stroll down the coast.
however...naturally..being me, i spent far too long watching ferries pass, lambs gambolling and just walking with my mind wandering off....and realised that if i didnt get a move on, i would miss the 18:45 ferry, and have to wait till 20:30 on an island with no coffee shops or bars to pass the time. so the last 2 miles was a bit of a root march when i had already been walking, apart from having lunch, for 5 hours. but i made the ferry with 4 minutes to spare and got back to unicorn court at 7;30 when i had left at 11am. i was so puggled i went to bed at 9pm and couldnt even be bothered eating, never mind making, dinner. i never did that in edinburgh, i can tells ya!!!
and derek....its funny you mention the car thang. i cant get a moped or anything with 2 wheels, as i dont actually know how to ride one, and my balance is so rubbish i just dont think i could learn now. but i have thought about getting a quad bike, which, unlike some places, you are allowed to drive anywhere in shetland...even into town. however, given the winter, i have also thought of getting a tiny wee car instead...like a smart car, or something else peerie. its funny as gareth and i have discussed this several times, and we are all thinking the same thing. i would have to get refresher lessons, as i havent driven for...em....omg....about 35 years....but it would be so much easier. the buses are actually pretty good for a rural place, but they are for people going shopping, or to the airport or health centres...they are not really sensible for going around as a tourist, though, tbh, i have managed pretty well getting the lerwick buses and then onto the feeders. its fine going south....as thats where the airport is, and all the big schools and health centres...but i want to go north, and that is far more difficult. even getting to eshaness is a bit of a tricky one, and then you have to walk for 45 minutes to the lighthouse. if you miss the last feeder, well...you are stuck, literally, in the middle of nowhere. but, then nowadays, my whole life is being stuck in the middle of nowhere....and....i LOVE it!!!
and...i think i forgot to say...ive sold my flat!!!! woop woop!
im just so happy here.....who would have thought life would end up this way.
And it's as lovely as ever.The only disappointment....the apartment I stayed in and thought of buying back in 2020, which was priced in TL at the equivalent of £75k sold last week for €195k😲😱🤯. Much as I liked it, its just so,so not worth that...talk about negative equity! So that frees up my finances for buying some more rugs and jewellery😆.It's just so relaxing and sweet here, I find it hard to be pissed off. Off for lunch now. Yuuuum.
this being shetland, and all, you cant possibly pronounce a vowel as others do...so summer is simmer..and this time of year is the dims, because, well, obviously, it never gets dark, the sky just goes dim for an hour or so around 1am. im guessing this is why the former owner had black-out curtains...things i took down and put in the recycling imediately, and now i never even bother shutting my new ones. for me they are things that are for keeping my house private, and are therefore, only needed in the winter when i have lights on and people can see in, not for keeping the place dark.
i know i was only away for a week...but it was a little disorientating first arriving in turkey, where it gets dark at about 9pm and is still that way till about 6am, and then coming home when i woke into daylight at 3am, thinking it must be about 7, and i hadnt even heard the call to prayer. on that (flat) note, i think i should mention that the muezzin in kas is, famously, a terrible singer, and, hilariously, at the first prayer call at 04:45 all the stray dogs howl along with him. how we did laugh....the first day.....
so interesting times in turkey....though not if you are turkish im sure. gareth googled the reason for the rise in property prices...and, who would have guessed its those pesky russians, buying up anything at top dollar. owning £250k of turkey comes with the added benefit of citizenship....no longer will you have to travel on that difficult rusky passport when you can have a relatively clean, new, shiny turkish one. it has, however, put holidaying in a relatively, by local standards, expensive place like Kas out of the range of all but the wealthiest istanbullers, so the town was really quiet indeed. strangely the most recent 'new' group of tourists, the Ukranians, werent there either, so it was britishers cheek by jowl with each other. germans are not unknown, but the lack of beaches where you can get your kit off probably keeps them in Croatia, so cockinese was the most common language heard. the horror...the horror....
my journey home was long and protracted...and, to be honest, i could have flown to australia in the time it took. both my flights were over an hour late, it took me 45 minutes to get through passport control, and i didnt get to my airport hotel till 02:30 where i had a bit of a stooshie with the receptionist about a late checkout. we did manage to sort it out, and i paid only £10 for an extra 3 hours...but at 11;30 a maid came into my room when i was still asleep. then at 12;30 another knock at the door, and another woman asking my name, and saying there had been a mix up. then again at 1pm...the same woman telling me i shouldnt be in the room and should have checked out at 11. so much for my extra 3 hours relaxation. at that point i just got up and thought i might as well go to the fooking airport...only to find my flight north was delayed as well. so i missed my bus, and had to get a £60 taxi....bugger and double bugger...
however...i cant deny, coming into my wee blue house, dumping my bags, and sleeping in my own super, super comfy bed was just total heaven...i love my friend Mel dearly, but waking up alone, with just myself to think about was just magic. and i sure as hell didnt miss the bloody call to prayer.....
and some great walks....pity is going to rain for the rest of the summer....
the only foreign place we can fly to from sumburgh is bergen, and as i still got my 50% ADS discount as an islander, i decided that the £140 flight would outweigh the norwegian prices on arrival...so off i went on a beautiful sunny shetland day. the flight was actually shorter than the one to edinburgh, and the flight path was, obviously different, as its the first time i havent been just going south, so fab views of my archipelago all the way up to lerwick in the sun. little did i know that was the last time i would see sunshine for the whole weekend!
yep....just like home it was wet, cold and more like october than june, but, of course, that didnt stop me getting a ferry up the fjords, or walking the cute little streets of bergen. when i arrived at the airport, all the norwegians on the flight headed straight to the arrival duty free shop where they bought, literally, cases of wine and spirits. well...when in rome etc, so i bought 4 bottles of wine, you know, just in case. glad i did as, not only did i not see a wine shop (only beer is available in supermarkets), the prices of drinks in bars and restaurants are amongst the highest in the world. so, i cant deny, i didnt go out carousing norwegian bars. instead i stole rolls from the breakfast, bought fillings in the supermarket, and sat in my room drinking wine while watching norwegian tv with swedish subtitles...and the rain pouring down outside.
i also didnt bother going up the mountain on the funicular, as, again just like here, it was foggy the entire time, and you couldnt even see the top from my hotel window, with its really great view..of the rain and fog. but i still had a really nice, relaxing time and strolled over the road from the hotel for the tram out to the airport. i really liked bergen, but, you know, so many other places to go.
Norway....tick!
so after just having warmed up and dried myself after being in a soggy norway, off i went on another trip, up to the northern isles, and the most northerly point in the UK over the summer solstice. carol, who is another anderson, and i worked with in aberdeen, but now lives in canada, arrived on a beautiful sunny day on which we went straight to sumburgh head lighthouse, and saw puffins within 2 minutes of arrival, when it took me 4 trips down from lerwick. pah! anyway...we went to beaches, harbours, the knab, did a coastal walk, and of course, ate and drank deliciousness both in my little blue house, and at the dowry, my favourite bar. then off we went up north to yell and unst, via eshaness with its plunging cliffs and amazing sea stacks, wild flower covered walks and sea birds galore. (though i have to report that shetland, and elsewhere are, sadly, experiencing a terrible outbreak of avain flu which has hit fair isle, whalsay and the northern isles particularly, though i have also seen dead birds at st ninians isle, sumburgh, on levenwick beach, and on breakon sands. gannets have been particularly affected because they nest so close together and there are so many of them, but it has also affected razor bill, skuas (they call them bonxies here), guillemots and...well...all the others, though, as yet, the puffins do not seem to be dying...fingers crossed).
so we went up via eshaness, which, i have to say, looked a little different from the last time i was there during storm arwen, when we couldnt get out of the car because the doors wouldnt open due to the wind....this time it was lovely sunshine, and wild flowers everywhere...just gorgeous and we could even walk along part of the cliffs without getting a faceful of spray, despite the sea actually being 2 hundred feet down the cliffs! then off we went up to toft and were the very last car onto the yell ferry...woop woop...and, behind everyone else on the ferry, we just drove up the two lane (what a luxury) road straight to gutcher to get the ferry to unst. then things started to go wrong!
one of the unst ferries had broken down, so the back log was piled all the way up the road to the jetty, and it was obvious that we just werent going to get on the first, or even the second sailing. this continued to haunt us, as on the way back, one of the yell ferries had done the same...but it was always going north that there were cars waiting. we couldnt find anywhere to stay on unst as we had left it too late, so we stayed in a b&b on yell beside west sandwick beach where we spent midnight on the solstice, and getting on the ferry going south was easy peasy. though, i cant deny, as the ferry only takes 12 cars, and some of them had booked, it was always a bit frought, counting the cars to see if you would be able to get on. when we finally went for the ferry back to mainland, there were scores of cars which had, obviously, just been abandoned, as the owners had just walked on to save them waiting 2 hours, and we got on the first crossing with only 2 other vehicles...jammy gits.
but...enough about ferries...we had a fab time...got all the way up to overlook muckle flugga lighthouse with no one else there, got on the viking ship with no one else there, and were the only people on any of the beautiful beaches we went to. unfortunately, the weather changed the second day, and the fog rolled in deep, and thick and even, which made driving on the tiny single track roads a bit of a challenge if you met anything going in the opposite direction, and it was as cold as bloody november. sadly that meant that the nightime mousa boat trip to see the storm petrels swarming out of the broch was cancelled as well, and carol was leaving the next day. bugger.
however, today is beautiful, and the forecast is the same till tomorrow morning, with the temperature only going down one degree from during the day...so, kathleen, who is a shetlander, but has never been to mousa, and i, re-scheduled the boat, and we are going tonight at 10.30pm. im so excited....
lets just hope we dont get locked inside....hahahaha!
some things i have learned this week.
storm petrels are the size of a sparrows and, like swallows and swifts, they only go to land to mate. the rest of the time, these, the smallest of all sea birds are flying over the atlantic between shetland and south africa. they used to be considered bad luck because they alledgedly brought storms, and the petrel part comes from st peter, who, alledgedly, walked on water, because they feed by slurping off the top of the ocean. however they also scavange on carcasses which is causing concern because of the avian flu epidemic here (which has led to the isle of Noss being declared out of bounds to visitors) but so far, like puffins, they seem unaffected. they are monogamous, and while they dont spend all the time together, the same pairs meet up every year to make petrelettes,or is it petrelings, usually in the same nesting site, unless someone else is there first. when i say nesting site...i mean that...they dont build, or use any nesting material, the eggs are just laid on bare stone, and the pair take turns at sitting on it. if both of them are away, because one didnt return, and the other had to go out to eat, the egg can survive for 4 or 5 days without any incubation, and the chicks are the same, and go into a kind of torpor until a parent returns. just as well, as from mousa, their feeding grounds are about 200 miles away, up in the north sea. no one knows how long they have been nesting in, and around the broch of mousa, which was a thousand years old even when the vikings came here, and is mentioned in two Norse sagas, but the broch is ideal as it has two layers of walls with steps inbetween, and with the stony beach beside it, it is the biggest colony in europe, housing about 3% of all the storm petrels in the world.
so, when kathleen and i drove down to sandwick, from where the boat leaves, about 25 minutes from the urban jungle of lerwick, we were a little concerned, as huge banks of cloud and fog had rolled in, as happens often when it has been a warm, sunny day, but we were fine and dandy. mousa was totally clear, and actually it was such a bright clear night, the petrels were late coming in, as they only return at dusk, and it was after midnight when they came speeding in. i think if i had just seen film of their acrobatic flight round the broch, i would have thought they were bats, and its almost impossible to get photos of them, or even focus on one bird, but within 20 minutes the whole broch was full of them, and their sussurating call, which sounds a bit like chains running through pipes, as in when ships drop anchor. we stayed in and around the broch till 1am, and this being shetland and all, despite the fact it had only been 13 degrees during the day....at night the temperature had only dropped one degree, and we didnt, after all, need that flask of coffee i had prepared in case it was really cold. so...then back on the boat, and home...
what a brilliant experience. though, i have to say derek, how i did think of you when we left and they closed up the broch....much as i loved it, i certainly wouldnt want to spend the night locked inside with all those birds....
gareth and i always do that, oh so scottish of things on the summer solstice...and that is already decide the best of the year is over, and from now on it is just a downhill race back into darkness and despair. despite actually being very optimistic about my future, i cant help this depressing thought, so i thought i better just jump on a plane and go somewhere else. so tomorrow im off back down to edinburgh...again...
my oldest friend, Jo, the one who lives in france, and has the 5, now grown up children, (the oldest of whom is now 33!!!!), who i met at college sitting at a manual typewriter, with tippex, tabulations and learning shorthand when we were 16, is turning 60 this weekend. so im going over to celebrate with her in abereschviller, the town she lives in alsace, but strasbourg is not the nearest, and certainly not the cheapest, airport nearby, so im flying to basel - mulhouse, and spending 2 days in a swanky hotel in switzerland first, overlooking the rhine. what larks.
yep, just when i was getting all stoopidly sure of myself that i was immune, and would never fall prey...since i returned from france and switzerland i have not even been out of the house, and have been almost entirely horizontal, because i brought with me the most unwelcome of bedfellows...fooking covid! i went to the hospital for an eye scan on thursday, and as soon as i got home, i could feel it coming on. sore throat, cough, sinusy headache, and then, boom.....fever from hell. i went to bed fully clothed, slept under a downie and 3 blankets, but was still cold, and had to get up, shiverrrrrring in the middle of the night to put on a second pair of socks! however...that certainly broke the fever...now its just coughing and feeling pathetically worn out....and getting a bit bored with the whole experience...its just tedious being ill! btw the woman who checked my eyes in hospital is fine, i spoke to her today, and she has not succumbed to the lurgy from me, thank the lord.
anyway, apart from annoying infections, i had a really great time in france and also in switzerland, a place i swore to eli i would never go, as being eli, she had a 'thing' about neutrality. luckily promises to the dead only have a year before they expire, and it was really interesting going out with colin, a guy i used to work with in oddbins, who i think i havent seen for about 15 years. i must say, the swiss are a bit bonkers...square flags, 3 pin plugs, deckchairs outside pubs, swimming in the river in the middle of a city, smoking everywhere like going back 20 years, cargo containers just dropped in parks and serving beers, and, i cant deny, possibly the best snacks ive ever seen in a train station in my life. easy peasy zipping up to strasbourg, and then just changed onto a train to sarrebourg....tbh, i could have done the entire journey without even paying...no one came to check tickets....
and it was lovely to see Jo, who has just about recouperated from breaking both her wrists, but, like the rest of us, will never recover from becoming the ripe old age of 60! some things just cant be solved with wine! though, hell, they are few and far between!
so now i have no trips booked...my passport expires in november, and i will have to get one of the new 'blue' ones...fuuuuuk! however my wee cousin laura is coming up next week, and im looking at taking the ferry to fair isle next month. it goes tuesday and thursday...so its a question of how long you want to stay on an island of 7 kms square.
and derek, talking of temperatures....fair isle reported its warmest ever day on tuesday....i have no idea of the heat in london, and i dont care, but it was over 30 degrees in edinburgh, and while lerwick recorded 19....it was 24 degrees in the sun trap that is my 'garden'. fair isle was 18....WOW!!!! but last night it was dark for the first time in 6 weeks...so, as i said, all downhill into darkness and despair....
so, derek, i hope you have a really great time in greenland....and, of course, if you ever need to escape climate change, WWWIII or just life in general, shetland is always here. fair isle and all.
its just the best place in the world, and i love, love, love living here. how weird is life?
of course, i suppose i shouldnt generalise, as the french cantons would probably not agree with any of it, but, why change the habits of a lifetime at this late stage. so here are a few more strange swiss things. first the smoking.....the only place i have seen so much open smoking is in turkey....but when Colin and i went for dinner on an outside terrace we were the only people not partaking. there was a table of 8 middle aged women behind us, all of whom smoked, and most of them even while they were eating. even seeing cigarettes packets on sale was a bit weird, though, of course, france is the same, as is turkey. but, a huge contrast to norway, or even here, where you just never see people smoking, as it makes you such a pariah, you hide it away inside your own home. no such badly regarded behaviour in basel. everyone smokes, actually, especially women, or maybe i just saw more of them lunching.
no one anywhere, edinburgh or basel airport, railway stations, bars, restaurants, supermarkets, you name it, wears masks anymore. and basel was just as stupidly busy as edinburgh, i was just scared to take photos as there were people with guns walking around. when i was in one of the endless queues, actually it was the one to go through exit passport control...something we just dont have here, but switzerland does (actually so does norway), and there was something of a stooshie going on. in the queue, cheek by jowl, were hasidic jews flying on easyjet to tel aviv, and moroccan moslems, flying to agadir at the same time. the jews were called out of the queue to go through ahead of everyone else, so they didnt miss their flight, but people on the agadir flight werent, and were pretty disgruntled. there was a lot of arguing in german, and arabic, of which the hasids seemed to be totally oblivious as they skipped through with their huge bags of hand luggage. im guessing that their bags must be full of books, as its hard to imagine that they can really need anything else except a change of black garb, and perhaps a couple of hair curlers. fascinating times in basel mulhouse.
and, indeed, even before i flew back to blighty, i had in interesting time, as i got the bus out to the airport where i had booked a really cheap hotel for 45euro as my flight was at 7am, and while i knew it was only 10 mins walk, i couldnt find where to go so went to the taxi rank. the driver, spoke to me in german, of which i only know 3 words, and kept pointing at the airport eventually saying 'FRANCE'....of course silly me. as france is so much cheaper than switzerland, i booked a hotel there, but was at a swiss taxi rank...so i had to go back to the airport, in through the swiss door, and out through the french one, what larks. the hotel was one of these capsule places, and while the room was clean, and the bed comfy, it was tiny and baking hot, and the bogs and showers were down the hall, and you had to rent towels for 3 euro....no fooking way jose. so sweaty and unwashed, i arrived back at the airport at 04;30 with the people going to agadir and tel aviv. just as well, as it took me till 15 minutes before my flight to get through all the queues, and then...omg, just had to do it all over again at edinburgh.
at this precise moment im not planning to go anywhere else this year, except around my home archipelago, but who knows.....i might decide to go away over christmas, as now i have no ties and can do whatever i want. we will see....
for now, im happily stuck at home...
just cant believe i wrote that last sentence.....
and its now dark again during the night, soon i will have to put on lights and heating and my winter bedding. looks like gareth and i were right...the summer is over too soon...doh! but talking of heating....bahahah....if you ever live in a place with electric storage heating, my advice is, dont leave the control box switches on 24 hours a day for 5 months. you might not be putting on lights or any heating, but let me tells ya...you are still using electricity, and will end up with a bill equivalent to treble what you paid for a year in edinburgh!!!!! how i did laugh when i got the email informing me my monthly direct debit was going up to double the price of my mortgage, when i had one, in chalmers buildings. what larks i say, what larks!!! just as well i just sold my flat hahahaha!
the worlds highest power bills aside, i have been busy recently with guests, road trips and puffin watching galore. my wee cousin laura came up for a week, though she ended up staying longer, as loganair, in their unique way, decided to cancel her flight for god knows what reason, on friday, and i had just gone to bed, totally exhausted, when she called me to let me know she was getting a taxi back to unicorn court. which leads me to a couple of archetypal shetland things in the same vein. one is that lerwick gets cruise ships, ususally at least one a day, but sometimes more. a huge one with over 2000 people on board came in on sunday, but, of course, shetland is very old fashioned, and nothing is open. did the shops open to make money from the cruise people with cash burning holes in their pockets....did they fuck! only the wine shop opened, and one bar....ONE!!!! not even the cafes are open. just makes me laugh. and even more shetland.....2 weeks ago an aberdeen flight was really delayed, by about 3 hours, but did eventually leave at 9pm on its way up here. the flight takes 40 minutes. sumburgh airport closes at 9.30pm. did they stay open to let the aberdeen flight land....no fucking danger. they closed as usual. the flight had to just turn round and fly back to aberdeen! i realise that these things would drive you bloody mad if you were on the cruise ship or the loganair flight, but, omg, these are some of the things i just love about living here. the first time i went up to eshaness in the storm, kathleen said that people dont shape the nature of shetland, it shapes them...and its so true. dont come here expecting anything to bend to consumer, driver, mobile reception or indeed any kind of needs....it is the way it is, probably has been for as long as anyone can remember and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. i love its contraryness. why is that i wonder???
well...jings, crivens and help ma boab, ive been so busy day-tripping, socialising and working out art projects to fill the long winter nights that i just havent had a moment to write on here. apparently i fooled myself that i came up here for solitude and remoteness in order to become a hermit, as i actually have a fantastic bunch of friends, a great social life, if i choose to partake, and some new friends who dont even have the priviledge to live here, but have been kind enough to take me on some of their travels around the archipelago. what a brilliant summer i have had!
Its already the third of september, the day the temptations will always remember, and there are no cruise ships in lerwick today. on the 7th, and again on the 16th, there are 2 giant ones visiting with over 5000 people between them...almost the population of the entire town. interestingly, some of the cruise ships have just been to greenland and iceland, and stop for an afternoon in lerwick before going up to svalbard or touring the fjords in norway. these are the people that i want to entice with my trinkets, shells and beads in exchange for their obvious spare cash. no one can have that much brand new Helly Hansen rain wear without having a tad of disposable income. however, i have a lot of things to work out before i put my prices up depending which ship is in...most importantly an app to allow them to pay with a card, as they are only here for a few hours, and im guessing are not going to be carrying cash, i will also need to source wrapping and paper bags for packaging, especcially if i branch out into things with names that they order and pay for before they go on their bus trip to sumburgh head light house, and pick up on their return to town. anyway...i have all winter to work these things out, as well as whether to take a stall in Loose Ends craft room, or pay for a street trading licence...the latter only being £65 which would give me the freedom to solicit my wears around the harbour for the cruise ship people, of which there are many, who can barely walk to commercial street, let alone up the steps to the craft market. so enough about my winter projects.
now....my exciting flight down to Fair Isle on a 6 seater plane. what larks. i was going to to go on the ferry and stay for a couple of nights, but all the accommodation is currently filled up with people rebuilding the bird observatory, which burned down in 2019, so i cancelled the good shepherd. instead i spontaneously decided just o jump on the inter-island flight from Tingwall international (hahahaha) which takes 30 minutes instead of 3 hours on what is reputedly a very rough ferry crossing...so off i went, and what a day! the weather was beautiful after 2 days of haar so thick all flights on and off the archipelago were cancelled, and the cruise ships didnt bother coming either. and....i loved fair isle. there were fab walks, there was a shop (hoorah), the phone box still had a phone book (!!) and there were sheep...loads of sheep. i spoke to everone i met, one of whom was shearing her sheep, but couldnt tell me if they liked it, or felt happy and cool after the fleece was gone. obviously i would know if they were my sheep! so i walked from one end of the island to the other, almost, i didnt make it to the north lighthouse as i had to return to the airstrip for my lear jet home...but what a day. and in the unlikely event anyone ever comes to visit...we will go down there. even the two twitcher dudes who flew over on my flight seemed happy. when i asked on of them if all the puffins had left, he said, with a sigh 'theres more things to see than puffins!!'...well excuuuuuuse me for trying to make conversation with a man i saw shaking bushes making bird noises with a camera lens so gigantic he can hardly walk properly. ok, he might have seen me pick up hentilagets, but so what? bahahaha....the things you do in shetland.
it will just be so difficult for people to remember when singing the national anthem that the person for god to save has changed gender. obviously i wont affect me, or anyone i know, as we dont sing it. ever, but im sure it will take time to sink in. another thing which, as scots, doesnt affect us, but all the bank of england notes will have to change, not to mention the stamps. what with that, the funeral, the added public holiday and the coronation, im guessing the country will be bankrupt by christmas. not that that will really have any effect up here....they did put up a union flag, at half mast, over the city chambers, but that is about as much as it is even noticable. and, in agreement with everyone else, i think her maj was about as ok as a head of state could be, even if she and her pesky family cost the country more than any other democratic monarchy in the world. i follow an american woman who has lived in the UK for 8 years, on instagram, and has just found out that the commonwealth exists, because she had to look up why canada, new zealand and australia are also having a public holiday on the 19th. one of the things that surprised her the most was that, of course the USA might have been getting it too, had it not been for what is celebrated on 4th july. the other thing that has amused me is people putting messages of condolance onto Facebook or instagram, as if the queen will be looking down from heaven, or her offspring will be reading social media for consolation. much as i love the internet, it really is idiotic sometimes....says the woman who is writing a pointless blog no one is really that interested in reading....bahahahaha!
do i regret moving to my fantastic, peerie blue house on the northern edge of the urban jungle of Lerwick. on saturday, my weather app said it was going to be a beautiful day, so i checked bus times on my shetland travel app....though, tbh, Google maps plots your course, tells you which buses to get, and how much time between each one, so off i went at 08;30 with my picnic and enough water for 3 people. 3 buses later i reached papil on burra at 10am, and walked along what, for me, is the most beautiful beach in shetland. dont get me wrong, St Ninians is gorge, but there are usually about 10 people on it....waaaay too many. not so on MInn, i was there for about 2 hours...5 people max!!! way to go. there was no feeder bus (no5 to blydoit beside Scalloway) till 3pm, so i decided to walk to meal beach through Papil as i knew it had a graveyard i wanted to visit, and home of the Papil stone of which the original is in the museum on Chambers Street. for a village of its size, the whole island of burra only has 700 people, the cemetery is huge, and is one of the oldest on shetland. people have been buried here for over 1000 years. fab, fab, fab.
the walk to meal beach, beside Hamnavoe took me about an hour...but omg, so many uphills. by the time i arrived i had worn my feet down to my ankles, but still had enough sole to make it down onto the most beautiful white sand beach, sadly, so covered in feathers and bones of all the thousands of sea birds that have died of flu this year. and i still had enough time before the bus home for a bletherette with a couple from Northumberland. what larks.
for a start, the man asked me where all the big beaches were....em...matey, you are in shetland...there is no Bamburgh here...though you could try west voe waaaay down near the airport. then the woman asked me if there were lots of norwegians living here, because there are scandic style houses everywhere. i said i live in one of those houses. she said...are your neighbours norwegian. now...let me think. NO, i dont know a single norwegian. oh...so why the houses? bahahaha...
so apparently, shetland is being colonised by house-building norwegians. who knew?
life is just bloody magic in every way.
yep...the air definitely has an autumnal feel to it, and that wind is picking up already. shetland is known for gales that start in october, presumably the tale end of hurricanes, which i see have started already in the caribbean, and it is no wonder there are no pylons or telegraph poles here. at least one thing we dont have to worry about is trees getting blown over, though i have been asked on instagram how we know its autumn when there are no leaves to turn. trust me, matey, you just know.
you start to crave red wine, instead of that chilled riesling you have been sipping all summer, and this week i ordered hot chocolate with my online co op delivery, as well as a heap of soup. i have also cooked enormous pots of bolognese, curry and macncheese which are packed in portion sizes into my oh, so well stocked freezer, and my pull out pantry is full of dried noodles, pasta, canned goods, part baked baguettes that last for 6 months, long life milk and every sauce, spice, chutney and condiment known to mankind. i also have tequila, rum, coconut rum, amarula cream, port, cointreau, angostura bitters and some spicy estonian liqueur i have yet to taste despite it being in my cupboard for months. oh and i have that akvavit i bought in norway for you, gareth. maybe you will get it next year. the only thing i have to fill, before i baton down my hatches for the long, dark winter is my 48 bottle wine rack. i dont mean its empty, god forbid, but i might just fill it right up so i dont need to worry if there are no ferries or flights in and out for days. annnnnd...thanks to my magic utility room storage, i also have enough bog paper, kitchen towel, washing powder, washing-up liquid and every eco household cleaner in christendom to last me till next summer. gone is the hand-to-mouth existence of chalmers buildings. welcome, the shiny new, shetland, winter-ready planner me. apparently, a leopard can change her spots after all.
but in the mean time, before the darkness and wind fill the sky, and my life, we have had some sunny days and i have been out and about. i spent the day in scalloway (might just as well call it skal-wa) on the day of the royal funeral. sadly, however, despite its many advantages (on such a sheltered bay, lovely cute coloured houses, a huge castle, good places to eat, a really well stocked butcher/grocers shop, public toilets and a myriad of picnic tables to sit at and that, oh, so unusual of shetland features, a park full of TREES), i am always just underwhelmed by it, and its possibly my least favourite village on mainland. so i will not be buying my peerie second home there. i want it near a beach and really close to the sea. and under £75k. there was one down in levenwick just next to the beach, but it had 3 outbuildings, and just required too much work. im not going to foula, yell, fetlar or skerries, but i would definitely consider burra, tronda, bressay, brae or anywhere on the south mainland near st ninians. plans for next year i think.
in the mean time...i have hundreds, literally, of wooden discs, mini canvasses, peg people, magnets, keychains, air-dry bags of coloured clay, clumps of wool picked off fences and thistles on fair isle and foula, mini base-ball caps and varnish so the long winter nights will fly by. i cant wait.....
people here still use the old word 'hairst' for autumn, and, did you know that the festival at the end of said season...the hairst fest, has given us the word harvest. call me a google nerd if you like. that apart...a guy i follow on instagram, who is polish, but lives in edinburgh and puts on really beautiful photos of the city, asked me how those of us foolish enough to live at 60degrees north even knew it was autumn, given the lack of any trees. despite the logic, and the fact that it could never be called 'fall' here, trust me, you just know. as i already said, the gales start, and we have already had our first proper storm...thanks hurricane fiona which has resulted in sea weed being all over the pavement on the way to tesco...i guess there was some serious swell then. i have, 3 times, had to get up and shut my windows in the middle of the night incase they ended up in the sound of bressay, and we are expecting another storm on friday as ian is on his way over the atlantic. god those scots...always causing trouble!!
i have, however, still managed to get out and about on my shetland discovery tour, and this time made in all the way down to the bay of quendale, where the braer ran aground and almost polluted the entire archipelago with crude oil, and as far as spiggie loch on the beautiful west coast, south of st ninians isle. i was on perfect time for my feeder bus home from quendale, but, sadly, missed it leaving scousburgh sands, and had to walk 5 miles back to where the single track meets the 'freeway' of mainland that is the A970, to connect with the no6 bus at what is imaginatively called 'the junction'. by the time i got home, not only was i totally worn out, but i was 2 inches shorter, due to natural erosion, and fell asleep for so long the entire season 7 of 'shetland' was over and i have no idea where or when i started. some things never change....
there have been so many rainbows these last few days that im getting totally underwhelmed by them....today is already a 3 bow day, and its only 2pm! common as sheep they are! and the unicorn comes and goes, but i do have a view of it right now as the rain clouds part for a flash of sunlight, causing, yes you guessed it, another bow. meh!
strangely said optical phenomenon does not often feature in the TV detective series imaginately called 'Shetland', but despite not really being into crime drama as a genre, ive started watching some of it, especially as i saw them filming bits of it when i first moved up here, and here is a conversation that made me giggle. 2 guys driving in a car, down the stunningly beautiful south west coast of mainland. one says to the other: 'do you think you could live here?'. the other replies 'God no! there is just too much horizon!'. no kidding.
and in each series, not are there always at least 2 murders, but lots of other shenanigans, beatings, drugs, domestic violence, terrorism, family vendettas and vandalism. dont get me wrong, i dont mean these things never happen here, but the worst things the police have had to deal with since ive been here, according the The Shetland Times, are a shed being broken into and tools stolen, 2 words of graffitti in norse runes written on the bank of scotland on commercial street, several drunk and disorderlies, and a man on yell driving a non-licenced quad bike on the road for a couple of miles to get home to his croft, (though the last one was a set up by the police according to neighbours. hummmm...Yell/neighbours. bit of an oxymoron to me, but whatever.) another thing that just amazes me is just how quickly bodies are found in remote places..one man fell off cliffs at the holes of scraada, along the coast from eshaness....lets face it, in real life, he could be lying there for weeks, at least until another walker came along, and if he went into the sea...he would probably never be found unless his bones washed up somewhere. so here are the two things that no one would be in the least interested in watching on tv but are totally brilliant in my eyes....there is hardly any major crime, to the point you can leave your door open all the time. and if you go anywhere off the main road (there is only one) you will be alone almost everywhere on shetland if you are walking, lerwick aside.
so that leaves me with the ultimate philosophical question.
if you fall off a cliff in shetland, do you make a noise? because, as sure as eggs is eggs, you can be sure, there will be no one there to hear you scream.
news in shetland usually revolves around the 3 F's (fishing, farming and ferries), the demise of Loganair (who are up for sale), opinions on the viking energy plant, (which will be the largest onland wind farm in europe) or when the first satellite will be blasting off from the saxavord space port on unst (supposedly next year)...but this week, there was NO NEWS at all! shetland and Faroe were totally off the grid, apparently due to the cutting of an underwater cable, the internet, mobile phone service and even some landlines were all not only disrupted, but non-existant and we had no contact with the outside world after the aberdeen ferry docked at 7am. the SIC flew up some extra police from aberdeen, (not sure if they expected a riot or a crime wave due to the blackout), and put up a wifi hub in Tesco carpark. in other places you might think ummm....why ffs put it in a supermarket carpark, but in fact the road, and roundabout next to Tesco are the busiest in the whole archipelago, and most cars, and buses go round it at least once a day. so there we are.
so in the face of being off-grid, in virtual darkness, with no contact with the outside world, i and two friends decided to do the only sensible thing in the circumstances with a car and a blue tooth speaker, do a road trip to Yell and Unst. hell, when life throws you a wifi black-spot fill it with really loud, pumping music. woo hoo.
so off we went....we nearly ran over a huuuuge otter at sullem next to the oil refinery, climbed into viking boats, went to the UKs most northerly tea room, visited beaches, cemetries, bus shelters, cake fridges and gin distilleries. it was such a great day, and coming back into town...omg, hallelujah, the mobile service came back on with all our phones pinging over and over. what larks.
bad to the bone. george thorogood. song of the day.
this week...the ness of Hillswick, which sticks out into the atlantic just below eshaness, and what a cute wee village hillswick is too. it has a shop, public toilets and a hotel, unlike any other ive ever seen. it was created from wooden flat packs sent from norway, over 100 years ago and is the only hotel of its kind in the UK. these things are all on the isthmus, and the ness spreads out with huge cliffs on one side and quite flat easy coastal walks on the other, but what i didnt quite realise is just how boggy it would be inbetween the two!! bahaha....so off i went.
i have a book of shetland walks, which advises you to walk the flat part first, but, naturally, being me, i decided to do it the other way, as i wanted to see the cemetery, and i could hear the waves crashing onto the beach i knew was there..so thats what i did. and, it was just beautiful. a little on the muddy side, but nothing i couldnt handle, and i got down to the stacks on the west side where the cliffs start. i had followed the sheep trails, but from then on they went straight up, and i was worried that they would go too close to the edge of the cliff, as sheep are as nimble as goats, even if they cant climb trees. so i decided to go down and round the first part of the cliffs....BIIIIIG MISTAKE!
to cut a long story short, i ended up ankle deep in water, and almost lost a boot. it gets a bit scarey, as, if you dont keep moving, you just sink down further and further into the bog, so you dont really have time to plan a route as you are practically wading as fast as you can, desperately trying to find solid ground. eventually i made it onto the ruins of a broch, or some kind of ancient dwelling, and had a breather, but looking around, i knew i was going to have to brave splashing through the muddy water again, and i pictured myself being found rotting and bloated, next spring when tourists return. in the TV series, bodies are found within a few hours, even in really remote areas. in real life, you fall into the holes of scraada, off the cliffs at sumburgh head, or get stuck in a bog on the ness of hillswick, when you are alone, havent seen a single other person all day, and havent told anyone where you are going, you wont be found for weeks. the only person who knew i had gone there was the bus driver, and they change every 2 hours......the things you start to consider when you are wading through a peat bog. however...as im writing this, im sure you can guess that i conquered the terrain, made it back the way i had come and still had time to go into the shop before the last bus to lerwick. the rest of the ness will just have to wait till next year.
on a similar note...Derek, its completely possible to do a day trip up to Yell and Unst, over to Foula or down to Fair Isle, and you dont even have to tell anyone! next time you come over, just download the shetland travel app. it has buses, ferries and inter-island flights, and you can set up and save a journey on it. ive done yell and unst daytrips twice, and even had time to walk part of hermaness. you get the ferry from toft at 9am....and back from unst at 2pm....both of those give you ample time to drive between ferries, so you get about 5 hours on those islands. some of my friends here drive up to whalsay just to go to the charity shops....honestly! Archipelago life!
and, last year, today was the last day i spent living off-archipelago. my flat in chalmers buildings was emptied, my stuff was heading up to aberdeen, and it spent the night on a ferry. i flew up in the morning and changed my whole life. hoorah for me!
i dont even miss trees.
i cant believe that its december at the weekend....what....already? but november has certainly been a very interesting month. the first week of the month, when i went to the ness of hillswick and other walks, those beautiful sunny, light breezy days lulled me into a false sense of security....talk about the calm before the storm....
yes...in true shetland fashion, one night it started blowing a hoolie, the aberdeen boat came in sideways, being our last connection with the mainland, and we didnt have ferries at all for 6 days, not even between the islands. no mail, no food deliveries, and no fish being picked up to be taken south. flights were also grounded for 3 days, so...hell we were totally isolated in our remote archipelago. and did i go hungry, after 25 years of a hand to mouth existance...did i hell! the only thing i need on a hand to mouth way is bread....and while tesco and the coop had mother hubbards cupboard, there are lots of local shops here that have fruit and veg, bread, fish, butter and milk all locally made, grown or caught. you just have to know where they are...and there is the rub.
im a member, amongst other things, of a facebook group called Sooth Moothers...ie imigrants to shetland who, regardless of where they come from (except norwegians, obviously), speak with southern accents, and those new members, who had not survived a shetland winter with its 100km per hour winds, were in panic mode.
I had forgotten how busy, dirty, noisy and polluted cities are. was reminded very quickly in Glasgow! however, had a fab lunch at the Ubiquitous Chip with Gareth, then met up with my cousin Laura and we went to see The Cure at the Hydro. it was a fantastic night, they played for 3 hours, and did all our favourites...really enjoyed it. then we hoofed it back to the Kingdom of Fife where Laura was reunited with her puppy, we went over to Edinburgh to the Christmas markets and then met another 3 cousins, and one 2nd one, for dinner and margaritas in Mariachi. God I'm so busy, I don't even have time to write...
it's called Hayastan. the language and the people are called Hay. Armenia, like many of the names for countries we use in English, is due to the Romans. another thing they did for us, apparently.
when i went off on loganair on the 3rd of december, i wore my winter boots, as it looked like it was going to be really cold and snowy in both Vienna and Armenia. they are a bit of a pain to fly with, as they are all in one piece, if you know what i mean, and have no laces or tongue, they just fold in with elastic laces joined on. so if i have to take them off, to go through security, it can be a bit of a nightmare to get them back on, but i decided they were essential, so i fought them back on in edinburgh, and to get on my Wizz flight to Yerevan after a night, such as it was, in the resting pods in the airport in Vienna. what a bloody waste of effort that was, as it didnt snow, or even rain once all the time i was away, and while it was really cold, especially in Vienna where it was -4, not a patch on what happened here while i was away. scotland in general, and Shetland in particular, had the coldest, most snowy weather there has been since the 90s. frozen lines on the few telegraph poles on the archipelago pulled them over, and 2500 people were without power or heating. i know that doesnt sound a lot...but its over 10% of the population, and i pictured the contents of my freezer thawing all over my kitchen floor, while i stomped around the dry, un-icy streets of Yerevan in my fur lined, waterproof boots! however...on returning home on flights that didnt require me to remove said footwear, i need not have worried, as, of course, while i am right on the edge, i still live in the urban jungle of shetland, and so no power outages here, as our cables are underground...but...FUUUUUUUUK my house was so, so, so cold you could see your breath inside. its the first time ive been away for so long in winter, and while living in a detached house is wonderful, you do not have the benefit of other peoples heating as you do in a tenement flat. i literally put on the off peak storage heaters and went to bed with socks and a tshirt on, as soon as i got inside, as it was the only sensible thing to do. i was really cold anyway, as, thanks to the really late arrival of my Ryanair flight from Vienna....and when i say late, i mean we got back to Edinburgh at 03:45 when my Sumburgh one was at 7am, i couldnt see the point of going to the hotel i had booked for only an hour and a half, so i just stayed up all night in the airport. I had the indignity, in such circumstances, of having to go to Starbucks, which i would never, ever, ever go to normally, because it was the only place open.....and when the guy asked me my name to write on the cup of what must have been the easiest drink he had had to make for hours, (no...strangely i do not drink extra shot, extra-hot, latte with oat milk and vegan chocolate sprinkles...just plain black coffee) he just looked at me, and said...nah, dont worry. i looked afterwards to see if he had put RBF on my cup, but no, apparently my resting bitch face was so effective he was too scared to go there. bahah.
so....despite all this....and staying in those pods in vienna airport, which were so badly set up that no one who had booked them could get in, and had to call a dude in italy to get access. when i got into mine after 40 mins, none of the buttons worked, so i had to call the italian back and get him to screen the door and turn out the light, which meant i had only the torch on my phone for illumination, and the 'bed' was a little like being on the doctors examination couch in a gynecologists. not only that, you could hear people in the other pods turning over on them, which if you are not a 20 year old skinny person was a little on the difficult side...and you could hear every time yet another person had to call italy. not really conducive to sleep, but, lets face it, preferable to spending the night in a Starbucks. so..yes...despite all the cons...i had a really fantastic time, loved the churches in armenia, the elegance of vienna, and the total contrast between the two.
Armenia was an experience...best things....the rock monastery, the roman temple, shopping on matshots avenue, finding pineapple flavoured bounty bars, the spa room in the hotel, which you just shut yourself in and shuffled from steam room to cold pool totally naked, driving around in the Volga 21 car and having espresso martini, armenian style at mother armenia, the guy chopping my fooking delish caesar salad at my table in the restaurant with one of the most stylish loos in the world, the faces of old armenian women, who stare at each other, in that....ummmm...what you are wearing is just faaaaar too young for you, while wearing faux leather leggings and a fur jacket....i havent had anyone look at me for so long, i found it fantastic. and....just the thing of being pretty much the only foreign person...a rare feeling these days...it was interesting...but not somewhere i will go back to. if i was going to do any of the caucaus countries i would do Georgia again, where i felt i hadnt seen enough. with armenia, i felt that i had seen all i wanted to see. they are a victim area...surrounded by a religion they dont share, and dont like, and by people who have tried to destroy them in every way.
on the other hand...Vienna was so much more than i had thought...and i loved it. been to austria before, but never to Wien, and thank god i wasnt staying in those fooking pods again, instead in a fab building with one of the glass elevators of murder mysteries from the thirties. i ate wurst, drank schnapps, went to see Hundertwasser buildings, at which they had coasters and other tat featuring Klimts, the kiss....oooh la la. so off i went to the belvedere gallery and saw the real thing....and omg...i know its become a cliche because everyone had a poster of it in the 90s, but...its just so so beautiful, it was worth the 18 Euro entrance fee just to set eyes on it...and not one to hang around...i then strolled in my winter boots back up to st stephens cathedral. then went and had wiener schnitzel and bier in a traditional place and still had enough money to get some pastries on my way home/to the airport.
what a great trip....but...omg...its just so so fab to be home. im off out tonight to meet some friends for a few drinks. life is good.
Happy new year and lang may yer lum reek!
so thats it for all of you. all over. and my neighbours have already taken down their christmas lights, which was a blessing last night as the moon and stars, and particularly Mars were so bright because they were uncluttered by fairy lights. obviously im waiting till the 6th to take my decorations down, as its such a huge job i have to work up to it. alternatively, i might just leave them up all year round as it will save me sooooo much time and effort next year. putting all 4 of them, and a piece of tinsel, into a small carrier bag and carrying it through to my utility room makes me exhausted just thinking about it.
However....this is hjaltland, it is not over for us....not even slightly.
For a start, some places in shetland, notably Foula, but not just there, celebrate what they call Old Christmas, as they do in Armenia, because they follow the Julian calendar. so when i was in yerevan the festive messages read 'Happy new year, and a merry christmas' because the navity isnt until the 6th of January.
But what im most excited about, as ive never seen it, and it hasnt been celebrated since 2019 is UP HELLY AA! woop woop! and there is more than one fire procession...in fact most villages have one, and while the Lerwick one it the biggest by a mile...im also going to Scalloway, not only because my NYC friends, Alan and Barbara have won a competition to be torch bearers in one of the jarls squads, but its the only place on mainland that they push the viking galley out to sea once it has been set alight. i meeeean....torchlight procession, men dressed as vikings, chanting in the darkness aaaaand a wooden boat that they have taken months to build and paint being pushed out to sea aflame....whats not to like??? the scalloway one is on the 13th...and then the lerwick one is the last of the season on the 31st. the next day of both is a public holiday here....woop woop.
i just cant bloody wait!
went to my first fire festival...and it was FANTASTIC, if a little on the damp side.
by damp, i mean it rained torrentially for the entire evening, and its actually amazing that the ship burned. we went to one of the halls for the entertainment, and when i put my waterproof jacket back on, at 2am, it weighed about 20 times the normal. i had to drip dry it over towels, and it wasnt dry for 4 days. and dont even get me started on my shoes, which are not even dry yet a week later. what larks.
so, now that im a settled islander, i have done something i just never thought i would ever, ever do. i have ordered a pair of waterproof overtrousers, heavy weight hiking boots, and, OMG, im ashamed to admit..but my footing is so uncoordinated at times...walking poles!!!! i find it so scary to walk downhill through mud, especially here, where there are no trees or bushes to hold onto, i have decided if i dont have poles, i will never go anywhere in the winter. that would be such a shame, as the sky, and light of these months are just so beautiful, so im giving in to wankiness and going for safety. before you know it i will be giving up dying my hair, getting 5 cats and taking classes to learn to use a knitting belt. btw, a knitting belt is a cajigger that allows you to knit with one hand, presumably while holding a babby or makking reestit mutton soup, as, god forbit, you wouldnt be able to plain or purl fair isle patterns at all times.
yep...its official! im not a city gal anymore!
OMG im so excited. Tuesday 31st is Up Helly Aa for real!
there are actually 12 fire festivals and the one i went to in Scalloway is the first. they happen in Unst, Yell, north roe, down south mainland, and west mainland...Buuuuut the Lerwick UHA is the biggest...not just in Shetland, but on the planet. some shetlanders hate it because they think its too touristy and not authentic, but what tf do i care. over 1000 burly men carrying flaming torches and being strong enough to throw them onto a giant galley which burns to ash on a dark winters night when everyone else is just glad it has reached january payday...WOOP WOOP! and i have managed to get tickets to the hall in gilbertson park just next to the bonfire because of a woman i met at the scalloway hall...proving, yet again, its not what, but who, you know. not only that...its BYOB but the food is free.. and the entertainment goes on till 3am...i dont think life could get much better. February 1st is a public holiday here funnily enough...nothing will be open...even Tesco supermarket is closed, and the town circle bus isnt running. what larks.
but enough about arson....
Last year i met a couple, Alan and Barbara, from NYC and they won a bid in an auction to be torch bearers at the scalloway UHA, so they came for a month, you know, as you do.Then they asked if i would like to go on a day trip to Fetlar with them. Now Derek, i remember you were not sure if you can get to Yell and Unst and back in a day..well, you can, and get to Fetlar, the garden island of shetland, with ample time for an ice cream on the way home, as well. having done some research about Fetlar, i was totally amazed to learn that the population in 1841 was 800 people, and the Laird who conducted the highland clearances,and lived in the gothic mansion house, now up for sale for £30 000, halved that in 10 years. that is where the boat skeleton still moored is located...and of course, the folly. now Fetlar has 60 people, but the evidence of the lost population is everywhere you drive. whole deserted villages. i dont think ive ever been anywhere where the clearances are so apparent...there are abandoned houses all over shetland, but not like on Fetlar, and i wasnt even aware that the clearances reached this far north. somehow it seems fitting that that gothic mansion is now in the same state. i think its called Hubris.
I honestly dont think i have ever experienced anything quite like Up Helly Aa, and, a little like the bull run in pamplona, and other spanish festivals, its something that you have to almost pinch yourself to believe that they still allow, in these days of H&S. However, apparently here, 1000 people marching with flaming torches, around really narrow streets in which all the lights have been turned off and on a night with 50kmph wind illuminating the whole area in a sea of sparks, is just not a cause for concern for public safety. hallelulajha for SIC. however...you are probably safer in the inferno of the streets because the risk of being set on fire is paultry compared to what will happen to your ears, throat, feet and, above all, liver once you get to the halls after the burning...it is mayhem of the most fantastic, loud, jubilant, enthusiatic drunken way imaginable. i imagine valhalla would be similar, except you died before you got there....with the halls at up helly aa, you survive all night till 9am, sleep all of wednesday, and wake up on thursday..thors day...being hit by that humugeous hammer, and you may not be dead...but omg, you feel like it!!! what a day...i went into town at 9am on tuesday...and got home at 9am on wednesday....now thats what i call a celebration.
so now that excitement is over...i decided i better go off somewhere else.....so i found a really cheap flight to Baku in Azerbaijan via Budapest...you know as you do. so im off on tuesday. and guess the most expensive part of the trip...yep....
getting off shetland....
Well the things you learn!!!
If, like me, you thought Azerbaijan was a relatively new country created by the discovery of oil, and designed now just to attract tourism, well...think again buster!!!
Azerbaijan means land of fire, and until this century had 3 mountains that burned constantly, due to methane under the ground, like the Gate to Hell in Turkmenistan. the three huge Flame Towers in Baku, visible from everywhere in the city, and looking so out of kilter when you see them from inside the old town, like aliens have just landed, represent this, and are the eternal symbol of Baku, and the whole country.
As a city, Baku is just totally bonkers. its like Bukhara, rolled into classic Istanbul, with a smidgeon of Dubai, and a marinade of Las Vegas, sprinkled with the windy, wintery weather of shetland, dished up on the side of the Caspian Sea and totally drenched in oil. The city boasts the oldest oil wells in the world, from which huge numbers of europeans became rich as croesus, and so, in the 1850s and 60s, Baku grew from a tiny turkic old town, to a city of beautiful european squares and terraces that wouldnt look out of place in Vienna or Budapest. What amazes me is that these werent destroyed to build huge ugly soviet blocks, as happened in so many of the other parts of the USSR, and now despite being in the Cacausus, Baku has a distinctly middle European feeling. Yep...mad as a box of frogs.
Baku has fantastic architecture spanning millenia, a huge boulevard along the side of the Caspian, if you can stand the wind, a really cutesy old town of winding cobbled streets, mosques, towers and walls, spacious parks and squares with trees, benches and urban sculpture, a really cool bar scene, amazing shopping (if that is your bag) including every designer label you can think of, even Chanel and Gucci for kids and babies (!) and car dealerships on the main shopping avenue, including Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bentley and (ffs) Lamborghini!!!! it also has a modern art gallery which, if you read reviews, is criticized for it all just being a large higgledy piggeldy space with no classification, chronology or styles. no fooking kidding.
Just like the entire city then.
so anyoldhoo....i didnt spend all my time in the crazy capital, but went to other bonkers things in a taxi minibus with a stereo-typical russian guy, two turkish women who were of Azerbaijani descent but had never been before because they lived in Amsterdam, and a Moroccan couple. the 'guide' was a 20 something 'dude', really skinny, dirty blonde, unkempt hair under the, permanently up, hood of his black sweat top. bad teeth, smoked rollies constantly and was a bit of a Kurt Cobain look-alike. on top of this no one ever, ever wears a seat belt in azerbaijan (the taxi driver from the airport to my hotel looked at me like i had insulted him when i put one on), and, as im sure you can imagine, the traffic is just fooking mad. so, really not promising when i arrived at the old town gates, and got in next to the russian man, who, strangely, was first into the car, as he was everywhere and at everything, and had to sit in the middle of the bench, inbetween the rusky and the moroccan. however...as with everything in the strange little country of Azerbaijan, not everything is as it seems.
for a start, my seat was the best in the taxi. ok, had we crashed, i would have gone head first out the windscreen, but since that didnt happen, i had the best view of any of the passengers, inbetween the driver and shotgun. aaand...Adil the grunge dude of Baku turned out to be a really interesting and informative guide, who spoke 5 languages. now, as im sure you all know, im not really a person who likes to be guided, and how tall buildings are, how long they took to build, how many litres of water go over falls, or through dams, how many tons of rock were used or how tall the architect was is, in my opinion, unimportant and tedious. if you wanted that info, you would just google it. but i did learn a lot about azerbaijan from the very soft spoken and unassuming Adil, and things he said actually made me consider theories all of my own. IMAGINE! me/opinions! whod a thought....
so here are the things we did.
we went to a gigantic cave system, called Gobustan, most of which has crashed down the hills because of earthquakes, which boasts huge rocks totally covered in petroglyphs of people and animals. as with these things all over the world its difficult to date them...but we are talking between 5000 to 20 000 years old, and im sure the caves were probably occupied over a really long period, as there are not many other places to shelter in the flat, low area around Baku. its the lowest lying capital city in the world, and the weather is fierce.
we went to mud 'volcano's which bubble constantly, though they are not hot, and naturally, as it was snowing, the mud round them was frozen. alongside these features, they are, funnily enough, building a giant complex of huts and showers, apparently for the millions of tourists that will arrive when the dead sea dries up completely and the rich and entitled need to go and roll in mud somewhere else.
we went to the one remaining fire mountain. and god it was lovely. the temperature was about -8C and standing next to the burning rocks was just toasty. ive seen similar places in turkey, but, ummmm, that got me thinking....
then we went to a caravanserai at Atashgah, which also has a fire temple from the 12C which was there first...the rest grew up later.
so here is my opinion as a student of history....Zoroastrianism is regarded as being Persian, the first 'religion' recorded, and while it has gods of good and evil, the main essence, is fire temples, carrying on into the Parsi population of India. i think it started here...and turkmenistan. fire must have been such a precious thing...the fact that there were mountains just burning, and yet not burning, with no kindling, and no spread to anything round about, is still amazing. no wonder ancient people thought it was a sign of the existence of god.
that is my postulation for today.
next week....why shetland has so many rainbows....
so arriving back in blighty, i spent one night in an airport hotel after a 05:30 flight to budapest, a whole day there, and a 9pm flight to edinburgh. slept like a baby, and one of the great things about having got used to a +4 hour time difference, is that getting up for my 10;30 train to Aberdeen felt like it was the afternoon...woop woop.
so i got my train, arrived at real UK afternoon, but still had time to have a pint in each of the famous Aberdonian pubs, buy a bottle of wine and some snacks for the journey north in M&S, get a shower gel im partial to in Lush and spend a fooking fortune in Superdrug, because we have none of these stores in shetland. when i said as such to the assistant ringing up a years supply of their products, she said, indignantly...'but there is one in Kirkwall, isnt that near by?'. emmmmmm....its an 8 hour ferry....or you could fly, but that does seem a little excessive just to buy toiletries, even for me. still....i wouldnt rule it out....
so, off i went north at 7pm on what shetlanders call 'the boat', had a really cheap dinner, as its all subsidised, drank my wine, and crashed out on a huge couch in one of the lounges, as there were so few people. it did roll around a bit, but i found it quite comforting, like being rocked, and before i knew it, there was the 06:30 announcement that breakfast was being served. as i live a £5 taxi fare from the ferry terminal, i didnt bother with that, or a shower...just strolled off and was home by 8am.
just so as you know....this is one of the cheapest trips ive ever done. my flight to edinburgh was free, because i had enough miles. return to Budapest was 60 Euro, and the onward to Baku and back was 120 Euros. i stayed in a suite in a 5 star hotel in baku, which was £22 a night!!! bus into budapest city and back was 4 Euro, minibus taxi in azerbaijan was £20 for the whole day, and included a free night taxi round the city. train to Aberdeen was £12.50, and, bargain of the century...the 12 hour ferry to lerwick cost me the exorbitant price of £20!!! so even taking food and drinks into consideration, i think the whole thing cost me less than £500.
and today i applied to SIC..thats shetland islands council, to have my consessionary over 60 bus pass moved up here from edinburgh...that means i get 4 free ferry trips a year and that includes a cabin!!
life over 60 is pretty good....
I'm currently in serbia 🇷🇸 where it is 14° and sunny...but that is another story. I walked Kettla ness before the snaa came. it was still there when I left on my European trip. I've already spent 3 days in Vienna, which has become one of my favourite European cities, and have so much else to do, though the Moldova part of my trip has been cancelled...who knows where I will end up next.🤔😉🤩
I'm currently in serbia 🇷🇸 where it is 14° and sunny...but that is another story. I walked Kettla ness before the snaa came. it was still there when I left on my European trip. I've already spent 3 days in Vienna, which has become one of my favourite European cities, and have so much else to do, though the Moldova part of my trip has been cancelled...who knows where I will end up next.🤔😉🤩
so....this trip started out as a few days in Serbia but grew into a trek round middle Europe. I flew from Edinburgh to Vienna and decided to spend a couple of days there, as I have become totally entranced by it. Not only is Vienna beautiful, with fantastic museums and galleries, architecture and huge green spaces, it has the lowest carbon footprint in Europe, and, to me, seems like a city run for the people who live there, unlike, say, London or Edinburgh. it's a bit like looking up books on amazon, versus the dewey library system. Anyways....finally saw the spittelau incinerator designed by Hundertwasser, and the frieze Klimt did to accompany a recital of Beethovens 9th. 🤩🤩. then hopped on my short flight to Niš in Serbia, which could hardly be a bigger contrast to Vienna.....buuuut that is another story, coming soon.. ..how quickly things escalate to visiting Austria, Serbia, France, Switzerland and Kosovo with a journey through Germany....Europe...you've just gotta love it...
No. 1.....call a taxi. this might be a problem when you are staying in an apartment on the other side of a car park, and have no idea how to describe this to the driver.
No. 2...get the driver to take you to the airport. if he cant find your apartment, maybe just start walking...its only 10 mins from town. but if you do get the taxi remember you will need serbian cash...taxis dont take cards....
No.3....just get on a plane and go somewhere else. anywhere else will do...its got to be better that Nis.
that might seem a little harsh, but i cant deny, it was a dump. what Nis reminded me of, more than anything was Prypiat, the town beside Chernobyl, but without the lakeside cafes, swanky hotels and cool bars and restaurants. Obviously, it hasnt had the nuclear apocalypse either, but has similar hellish 70s buildings that are falling apart, half built houses where people are living, tree lined boulevards where all the trees have been cut to nubs, and crumbling roads and pavements, and, lets not forget, scowling old women reminiscent of Armenia. in one grocers shop i was followed round the entire building by one of said women, who, despite my age and friendly demeanour, had decided that i was a shoplifter...maybe the migros in Basel had got in touch with her about that sandwich i stole last year because i needed to get on the bus and no one came to take my money. or was it the fact that i got the bus out to the airport without paying as i couldnt find out how to use the ticket machine...or...um...actually i did that in Vienna going between stations as well. then there was the mini bible fridge magnet in Yerevan airport...actually...no wonder she suspected me..as it appears i have become a tea leaf in my dotage. but i digress...
i pretty much exhausted the things to see in Nis on the first day, the citadel gate and walls, which has nothing inside except one mosque, and lots of parkland, and the skull tower built by the ottomans, and no doubt with the heads of their vanquished enemies, but even that was disappointing as it had all the holes for the skulls, but only about 12 are still there. im guessing every house in town probably has one of them being used as a lamp or a drinking mug. so i went shopping...well, i use the term loosely...i went into depressing shops, malls and grocers and stared at the paulty and unappealing goods on sale. i had to take out £50 of serbian dinar at the airport to pay for the taxi, so, omg, i had money to burn, and thought i might find something to buy, as i try to find one thing in each place i go. serependipitously i did manage to find a fantastic clay replica of the skull tower for 200 sd....about £1.50...and that is all its worth, let me tell you andddd.., naturally, wine and beer...so off i scurried to my, actually, really plush and comfy apartment across the car park, and watched serbian tv for about 5 minutes before resorting to spotify.
as i was just saying to Gareth...ex soviet countries do seem to be one of two types. the modern, forward-looking, happy to be free ones which have espoused national pride in their own language, culture, customs and positivity about their future. and the dark, depressing ones with broken infrastructure, no social programmes, rubbish housing, roads and scowling old people, who would probably rather be living under the old system.
interestingly, after being in Azerbaijan and Armenia, i now have just been in the same juxtaposition of Kosovo and Serbia.
guess which one i liked more.....
and coming next....and overnight train from vienna to strasbourg, a week in france, and then a short visit to switzerland....
so....having taken my own advice, and got a taxi to Nis airport, i flew back to Vienna, and spent the day getting on and off various trains i didnt pay for, until i managed to find the right station for my overnight ride to strasbourg, where i had to change to get to Sarrebourg. what with all the protests going on just now, i wasnt surprised that my connection onto SNCF was cancelled, but was amazed to find the next one, an hour later was going as normal. aaaand, even better, though i had to wait an hour, my original train was 20Euro, which was refunded, and the later one was only 5...5EURO. oh happy day. so off i went.
The OBB austrian train was one of the ones with compartments down the side of a corridor the like of which, we just do not have in the UK. the compartment had 6 seats which all folded down to make a bed which filled the entire space, and i have to say, was pretty comfy, even if it did make me sneeze like buggery. all fine and good until we stopped in the middle of nowhere on the German border, and the cops got on and knocked on every compartment door....my first thought was, thank god i have some clothes on....i hate sleeping wearing anything, but i did think an overnight train required some compromise. just as well! however, they were not interested in seeing passports, just what, or more likely, who, was inside and it was all very peculiar. thats when i, having been very politely awakened by knocking policemen, went to the bog and realised that the women in the next compartment, who i had spoken to on the platform, were sitting in total darkness with the door open, not speaking, but totally awake. when i got back from the loo, i looked for a snib on my door incase i had walked into a horror movie by mistake, but no such luck. when i got off at 5am in Strasbourg, the train was going on to Paris, and the women were still sitting straight backed in total darkness. WEIRD!
long story short....got to Sarrebourg, met Jo, had a lovely time. walked, talked, ate, drank...it was just magic. we met when we were 16 learning typing, and dont see each other all that often, but when we do its just continuing that last conversation we were having. really great week in France...but, of course, im always on the move...so before i knew it, i was on yet another train to Basel in Switzerland...so i could fly out of the EuroPort to Pristina in Kosovo. strangely, i wasnt fingered by the cops for the last time i was in the Migros in the station and pinched that oh, so welcome sandwich, but i did manage to continue my crime wave by getting the bus to the airport for free. woop woop.
and just one more thing...now that we are not in the EU and i have to go through the 'other passport' line i cant tell you what strange questions ive been asked, apart from the fact that i already have about 20 stamps, they asked me why i was coming into austria from serbia..when i said to travel to France, he just looked at me like i was mad. This time it was 'so...you are on the Edinburgh flight?' 'um...no...im flying to Pristina'. 'Why???' well, good question...but given that im leaving Switzerland, im not sure its any of you fucking business lady. hahaha....quite obviously not what i said. but with our old, fantastic EU passports, no one ever asked you anything. i have always understood the priviledge, but nothing can quite rub it in your face that you are now a secondary citizen like not being able to swan through EU auto gates. how the mighty have fallen.
next....cute little pristina. the place i went to when i should have just been flying home....
so, where was i...oh yes...on my way from Basel having been asked by the Passport exit woman why i wasnt just flying to Edinburgh....and a mere 2 hours later i landed in the shiny new, and very well equipped, Prisina airport. what a change from the tiny, cramped, half built Constantine the Great airport in Nis with its duty free corner with a scowling serbian granny on a till selling cartons of $15 cigarettes and rubbish perfumes, crushed in next to the only gate. however, pristina airport is waaaaay on the other side of the valley from the town, and the traffic was horrendous. pristina is a ottoman town of winding cobbled streets and mosques, suited for horses and carts, not audis and bmws. there is no where to park in this packed space, so everyone parks on the pavement, meaning that pedestrians have to walk on the road, through the traffic...however, the volume of cars means no one can go very fast. not a patch, then, on the viennese male boomers on electric scooters who swear at you and swoop towards you if you dare to stray into their lane. As a directionally-challenged person, it did sometimes scare me walking in Vienna, but in Pristina it was fine...there are zebra crossings everywhere, and amazingly, drivers stop. however it was ramadan so tempers could flare, and it was a horn heavy place at times.
so Kosovo, or Kosova it doesnt really seem to matter....what a positive, thankful, forward-looking place and sooooo interesting. for a start, Derek i know i said i thought it was about 30% moslem, but i think that was just because that was about the size of the obviously islamic population..women in hijab etc. infact thanks to professor Google, i have discovered that between 75 and 90% of the population is moslem, so, presumably the only predominantly islamic country in Europe, but in a very Turkish way. supermarkets sell booze, including alco-pops, young girls are wearing teensy wee tops as they are everywhere, and Burger KIng sells beer!!! (in my defense, i only went in to use the loo, and the wifi, as kosovo is another of the places with ridiculous roaming charges, and i needed to look at google maps online, but then i saw beer....the rest is history). its the only place ive ever been in Europe that has several streets named after George Bush, BJ (Bush Junior), and mother Teresa, who, i have realised was from there, and car number plates with the acronym RKS, in case you forget that its a republic, and not part of Serbia. as a taxi driver said to me, about the serbians 'we dont care about them...but they just will not stop caring about us'.
to me it seems like its doing fine on its own. the use of the euro, while they are not 'part' of it, is just so sensible, as its not going to crash, and its pretty much a place under construction, the cost of which does not seem to be an issue. really interesting modern buildings, like the University library, cheek by jowl with Ottoman mosques, red tiled roofs and cobbled streets. and, boy, did i miss those scowling old women!!!
But i didnt realise they were talking about the beds!!!! Bahahaha! however, despite the rocking and rolling i slept like a baby...and heres why.
I spent all day walking round Pristina, and then one of the guys in reception at my amazing hotel that cost 50Euro a night for a suite on the 5th floor, drove me to the airport for half the price of a taxi, bless him. then i flew back to Basel Mulhouse Europort, and this time remembered to exit through the french door to crash in a hotel for a few hours. then up at 4am, flight at 6, back to Edinburgh, bus from the airport into town. Strolled around the new Haymarket area for a while, and then had lunch in the new, rennovated Ryrie's on the corner next to the train station, where i headed at 2pm for my journey to Aberdeen. Then a brisk walk through the abysmal North Eastern weather from the train station to the docks, which in Aberdeen only takes about 10 minutes, until i caught sight of the most gorgeous man, who i had been looking forward to seeing all day, and couldnt wait to sleep with...yes...the viking on the side of the Northlink ferry to Lerwick. woop woop.
So....got on the boat, dumped my bag, and my beautiful carpet in my free cabin, (as an islander of a certain age, i get 4 free ferry journeys a year...and that includes a cabin all to yourself), and off we went...Northwards.....had my subsidised gigantic dinner, and one pint...and then into the arms of morpheus....zzzzzz
On the way up, the sea was fine, until about 5am, when we hit the coast of shetland, and i was rudley awakened by everything falling off shelves, and rolling up down, including myself. I actually find a rolling ferry quite catharitic, like being rocked as a baby, but once my head had hit the wall more than 20 times, i decided i might as well get up, as it was 5.30 am and you get the ferry wake up call at 6am anyway...so i went and had what is probably the most hilarious shower ive ever had. Actually washing on a pitching ferry isnt too bad, but trying to dry yourself with one hand, while rocking from side to side is just too funny, but, i have to say, they do have bars everywhere to hold onto, and the cabins are so teeny. still....even though i live here, it is still a bit of an adventure...as was going out onto the back deck...fook...did i have to hold on...what larks....
so now...im back home for the next 2 weeks....then im off again to the Faroe Islands amongst other places.....life is pretty good.....
SO....who would have thought it...we have had 3 days of brilliant sunshine and cloudless skies...though naturally, this being shetland and all, you might mistake the beaches and colour of the sea for the Caribbean, but not the temperature. However, i did take off my jacket and ramble along the coastal walk to the lighthouse in just a tshirt, so...tropical by local standards then, and in the total absense of puffins, or tammy noories as they are called here, i climbed Compass hill. Really stunning views of the airport and the beaches on each side, and even Quendale in the distance, which, in fact, are apparently so fantastic, my photo of them has almost 800 likes on Shetland on Camera facebook group. woop woop. its been so good that i have even pegged washing out for the first time in 5 months. happy days.
So we had our 4 days of beautiful sunshine, and, heaven forfend, i even spoke to my neighbours at no 8, and went into their garden for a glass of wine and a blether. i also had a nosey round their house with Shirley, and discovered that, while they call my wee hoose 'the dolls house', as all the houses on Unicorn View are semi-detatched, and of the 3 (posh) detatched, ones on Unicorn Court, mine is the only one bedroom. I have to admit, it does look peerie mootie from the outside. (bahah.... shetlandic for teeny weeny). That is an illusion, let me tells ya, and it is like the tardis inside, something that was really brought home to me being in their miniscule green half-of-a-house. they have 2 bedrooms, but all on one floor, with just a loft in the roof space, and god...i dont know how on earth they manage, as, faint, they dont even have a utility room and have the washing machine standing in the hall as the kitchen is too small. their whole house is crushed into the size of my downstairs, and...well, just IMAGINE! how could one live in a space that small???? jajajaja as they hables en Espagne.
But, obviously, im not one to brag about size, so i didnt invite them inside the dolls house, and came home and sat out on my picnic table in the evening sun, of which, neither they, nor my other neighbours at no 18, get, due to houses in the way. neither couple, therefore, were able to view the carpet of fog creeping up the hill from the sound...when i say creeping, it was more like Lia Thomas in comparison to other swimmers, rushing ahead so quickly and effortlessly, you might even suspect she had a natural advantage. if my grandparents were Shetlanders, i might have wondered if they had scuttled a ship full of lepers and hidden a gold cross inside the walls, but my house wasnt built till 2009 so i wasnt really concerned about the dead coming to wreak revenge.
Instead i just went inside and put the heating on. well, i use that term loosely, i have electric storage heaters, which it has taken me about a year to learn how to use properly, and if you havent stored into the panels during the night, there is no turning on unless you use the 'boost' button on the control panel, which is red for a reason. the trials of living without gas! however, upshot of the fog....it has been freezing ever since, we have had snow, hail and gales so strong the ferry was delayed on sunday, and so i have had no more rambles in sandals. Yep, a shetland horror story, so instead i have been to the pool everyday, have already swum 4 miles this week, and have vases full of daffodils which are blowing around everywhere, stems broken by the wind. not an ill wind apparently.
so, to go off at a tangent, you may wonder why there are photos on here of a bosnian mosque that i visited in 1989 in Banja Luka with, then boyfriend and boy racer, Stephen Pringle on our whistle stop fly drive from lubjiana in Slovenia to Dubrovnik and back in what was then Yugoslavia. well....the mosque, the first i had every been in, was built originally in 1579, and considered the finest example of Ottoman architecture in Bosnia. It survived all kinds of social changes, but not, sadly, the Bosnia war, and it was destroyed in 1993 on the orders of the authorities....however, like the phoenix from the flames, it was rebuilt and is almost identical. apart from the faded grain of my 34 year old photo, and the white yugo car sitting outside, you could hardly tell which was the one Derek has just taken on his trip to Banja Luka last month. pretty amazing huh? i have also included photos of a garden of remembrance which featured lots of National Heros, but, for some reason, i have never forgotten the names, or faces, of Franjo and Rade, and at the time it really affected me. That trip was the first independent road trip i had ever done, and i have to say, it was a real adventure, of which i remember so much, even though it was so long ago. of course it was before the internet, and we just got in the hire car and went, drove to different places with paper maps, no accommodation booked, no grasp of the language, no proper guide book and had to get to grips with a currency that had six zeros on the bank notes. we also caught a ferry to Venice from Pula, and had a day trip to Klagenfurt in Austria from Bled in Slovenia, where the beautiful lake is, and Stephen was terrified in a rowing boat, which bugged me because i had to trust his driving, but he didnt trust my rowing, despite the fact that i have been doing it since i was old enough to walk, and have never, ever fallen overboard. funny what you remember. i also had one of the most powerful dreams of my life on that trip, which, sadly, did not involve me finding my spirit animal, like Marty, but that is a tale for another time.
In the mean time...im away again next week to the Faroe islands, which i tried to visit in 2021, but covid took it from me. as their weather is pretty much the same as here, im hoping that the snow will be over....and...god i hope i can swing that £35 helecopter return from mykines island. the flights dont go on sale till a week before, and im getting the ferry over, so fingers crossed for the way back. i must say, ok, it is much, much more dramatic, and mountanous, but the set up, the public transport, the services and almost everything else, does seem so like shetland....even if we dont have undersea roundabouts between islands. im really excited....
So...tomorrow im off to Torshavn. Irritatingly its one of the very, very few places that is really close to Shetland, but, naturally, Loganair dont fly from Sumburgh, so i have to go via Edinburgh. I do on the positive side, however, miss the coronation of King Charlie, and wont have to make the oh, so agonising decision whether or not to pledge allegiance to him, his horse faced wife, and entitled issue. Interestingly in a recent poll, not only did only 14% of scots say they were really interested in it, with 85% of under 25s being 'not interested at all', 54% of the UK do not intend to take part in the pledge. Just too funny. Pierce Morgan says it should unite people and make us all proud of our country and heritage, but i dont really know which country and heritage he is talking about, as it seems to me that the UK is more splintered than ever. Or is that just because i live in the most remote part of the British Isles and worrying about lambing, ferries and the Viking wind farm are so much more at the front of residents minds. Whatever....i wont be watching all that trumpet-blowing, golden coach riding, elitist white parasitic pomp. i will be flying in a local transport helicopter, seeing puffins, waterfalls, lighthouses and driving round the only sub-sea round-a-bout in the world. i will probably also be partaking of some of the worlds most expensive food and drink, though, the tiny bowls of pasta and wine Gareth and i had for lunch in Helsinki will be hard to out-do, not to mention the £12 pint of beer in Bergen. but what the hell...i cant deny, as im staying in an apartment, im taking some of the food out of my fridge and pantry, as i wont get to Torshavn till about 8pm and i dont know if i will want to go out tomorrow. Yep...apparently now im the kind of person who takes their own food on trips....though i did do that before when Rose and I went to Cuba in the heady days when you could carry liquids, pastes and tubes of cream cheese.
and now, given that im going to be doon sooth anyway, i have added a small additional trip onto my intinerary....Yep....im flying to Tobago via Amsterdam, and have a day in Panama on the way back, where i have booked a ferry trip through the canal.
WHAT LARKS.
What an amazing place. It's like Shetland on acid👀💥😱
Yep....a bit of a change from Torshavn, (which, incidentally, is pronounced Tor-Shawn. the 'v' is a 'w' in Faroese), I'm now just off the coast of Venezuela on the cute wee ex-british island of tobago. they speak English drive on the left and still sell cans of corned beef with a key for opening. It's just Horrid....😁
And its just so good to sleep in my own bed, im finding it difficult to get up, not that that is unsual! however, this was a bit of a gruelling journey, not least because i was carrying clothes for 2 different climate zones, and while the bag started off fine and dandy, by the time i was pounding the streets of Aberdeen, buying all the essentials for my kitchen and bathroom out of bargain shops that we just do not have in shetland, it had become so fooking heavy, i took it to a left luggage place, and then got a taxi to the ferry terminal. I slept in a bed on a saturday night in tobago, and didnt see another one till monday night in Aberdeen...inbetween travelled round the whole island of Tobago, slept on 3 different flights, ate and drank in 4 different airports and got a boat through the lower part of the Panama canal.....however that is a story for a different post. So, derek, when you said that i am still travelling like a young person...you are not kidding. When i went through passport control into Panama, the woman on the desk obviously thought i was bonkers, and asked me what i was doing going into the city when i was just flying on to Amsterdam later that day, and then gave me a lecture about what time i would have to be back so as not to miss my flight like she was my mum. when i told her i had 10 hours, she just shrugged...like...well, if you think you will make it back in time, good luck to you. But, of course....i did!
so i have put on some more photos of Faroe islands because i was talking to gareth about the parliament, which i went to before i got the bus to the airport, and realised that i hadnt put pics on of the Logting, which is reputed to be the oldest in the world, though the Icelanders say that about their parliament too, so who knows. However....you just could not get more cute government offices, and for the 33 MPs life must be pretty tough in their wee, red, turfed roof buildings. life was also tough for me, as i had to wait in a queue outside the irish pub before it opened, and OMG once 11.30 came it was just mobbed by scores of starving men coming off nightshift, or fishing boats. i dont think i have ever, ever been in a pub that was so packed on a monday morning. What larks! and so Faroese.
next stop panama....
What a place! panama city was just totally fab....had a taxi pick me up at the airport, after the inquisition by the passport staff, zoomed off to the amazing modern city....woop woop. but then...i went into the cute wee old town, so like havana, but without the isolation from the modern world, and then got on a boat through the lower reaches of the canal, which was just full of lizards, monkeys, birds and gigantic boats moving reeeeeally slowly...just so amazing. and pelicans...i just have never seen so many pelicans...literally thousands...they always make me think of dinosaurs when you see them in the air...and the air was electric with stormy thunder, i started to expect giant dragonflies...but no... omg it just rained, and rained...all the way out into the mid atlantic after i finished my panama beers in the bar and got on the klm flight where i had booked my seat. i always pick that pair right down at the very back of a big plane...the rest is 3-5-3 but in the row at the very back there is just 2 on each side, and you just cross your fingers that no one else will book the other seat. on this flight, i got my wish...so i spread out...fan-fooking-tastic. slept almost the whole way.
Amsterdam...best airport in the world. shops full of wine and cheese. arrived in Edinburgh...got on a bus...then a train. by this point hadnt slept in a bed for 2 nights. Aberdeen shopping, bought so much i had to get a taxi to the northlink ferry terminal...and omg....i slept so well on the 12 hour journey being rocked by the north sea. then...HOME to my wee hoose....bloody magic.
i just love being transient...but in the world of dorothy gale...theres no place like home....
yes, i realise it may not be a feature on the tourist trail, but one of the things that has always struck me about particular streets in Lerwick, is the proliferation of beautiful art deco iron gates and railings. Now, i know at some point, most British cities must have had something similar, but, Edinburgh, for example has not a single original example of street iron work, as im sure you will remember Derek, and i have never even seen photographs of what they used to look like. They were all cut down in a pointless public sacrifice for The War Effort in the 40s. Pointless because the wrought iron they were made from was, in fact, useless, and i wonder if it was just dumped into the sea with all the other unwanted shite during, and after, the war, given that the UK is hardly big enough to have a secret 'railing dump'. Though people do try that with rubber tyres, apparently, but i go off at a tangent....
so here are a few of the beautiful lacy railing fences and gates of Shetland, which only a British person would recognise as being original, as they do not have that feature of practically every city wall...the circles of cement from where the first lot were, inbetween the uprights of the new ones. Stornoway has them too, but at the time i was there i was too overwhelmed by the stones at Callenish to care.
and...yes i have put on pictures of food...one is a burger i had in a place called 5 guys in Aberdeen, which was just fab, and, what i imagine mcdonalds must have been like when ronald's dad opened his first little outlet. the other is typical Tobago food from the busiest BBQ place in Scarborough...and i think you can see why tobagans are big people. the square thing at the bottom is 'pie', and the square thing on the top is 'meat pie'. kinda lasagne, with potato and cheese pie on a pastry base. get more carbs why dont you.
and then there is my fab glass puffin from the Faroe Islands...i wanted an oyster catcher...but they had really long striped legs, and i wasnt sure they would weather the journey across the pond and back.
to be honest...im amazed i weathered the journey... but i did easily, so now im looking at going to Mexico for dia de los muertos in October with another side trip....im thinking Paraguay....
Yep....call me mad....
Today is hazy here, but omg, it has been totally tropical weather this week, in a very shetland way. Of course it is not getting dark at all here at the moment...twilight from midnight till 2am then sun up again...im sure it must be getting tired of being on call for 23 hours a day, but i suppose it comes with the territory. anyoldhoo...it has been 20 degrees, and in my wee sitooterie which gets full sun from 2pm, it was 28 at 5pm....in Shetland...IMAGINE!!!
however....with all this fantastic weather, i have put my swimming on the back burner, though i still swam 2 miles this week, and been out gallavanting, on 4 different nesses. First, managed, finally, the whole of Ness of Hillswick, which, you may remember, i almost got sucked into a peat bog in the middle on my last attempt, and might have had to be discovered by Jimmy Perez in years to come. it was still a little boggy in places, but, just fantastic, and out of all the 4 ive done...it is the most wild, remote and challenging. although, i did see 6 other people, so it wasnt that remote, but the amazing sea stacks did make up for the swarms of tourists. then..OMG the ness of Burgi, which, for anyone familiar with this northerly archipelago, is just south of the road where you drive, or walk, over the airport runway. not only does it have an iron age longhouse,(brochs are only in scotland, and this is built in the same way as one, but in a totally different formation, and is, apparently, unique in the world), the views and wild flowers were almost as fab. It also involves a chain walk over a rocky ridge from one part of the Ness to another, which was such fun i thought of crossing it again. Unfortunately, if was a bit crowded, as there were 2 other people there. how dare they?
Then...one ive done half of before..the Ness of Sound which is just down from Tesco, and has loads of WWII gun emplacements, as Shetland was one of the most heavily fortified places at the time. I think we all forget that Norway was invaded by the Nazis, and at only 130 miles from here, is one of the closest places to the UK. Shetland was bombed by Germany, there was a thing called the Norway Bus, which you can look up if you are interested, and practically every cemetery here has what are called 'commonwealth graves'. Who Knew? It was a bit less crowded than the others, but i did see one other person, luckily walking it the other way round.
and then...on thursday i did No Ness....a misdenomer if ever i hear one. Every time you think you are at Noness head...there is another bit, then another, on and on. Finally, on reaching the head, i got swooped by what here are called Bonxies...brown skuas...fucking huge, silent, scavenger birds. i was walking along minding my own business, thinking, wow...that giant bird flying away from me is really low..like waist height...oh, hang on, its circling back...OMG its coming right for me.SHIT, SHIT, SHIT. i dont think i have moved so quickly since before lockdown, and i was on cliffs. SCAREE!! however, it didnt prevent me from making it all the way round the Ness to the the broch of burraland, right across the sound from Mousa, with its almost complete one, where you can still climb up inside to the top, and Marty and Derek got locked inside once. Sadly the one on mainland has not been so fortunate, as of course, people raided the broch and buildings round it for the stones, and there lots of buildings round the area built from the same stone, now, also all ruins. i have to say, they must have been so, so impressive, one on either side of the sound when they were built, and apparently for centuries later, as the Mousa one is mentioned in Norse sagas from the 9th century, when it was already, at least, a thousand years old. But even now, the burraland one is worth visiting, and i heard the noise of storm petrels inside the entrance walls. Reassuring given the death of so many birds last year due to avian flu, and certainly the Skua population is down by about 75% as they scavange, including dead birds, though, you will be happy to hear, that puffins seem to be ok. Interestingly, Gannets who have had flu, but survived, now have large black spots in their eyes. I wonder if that will become popular with the Gannettes, ensuring the survivors might go on to rear chicks with some immunity. fingers crossed. So this walk...OMG, i arrived in Sandwick at 11.30 and got the bus back to Lerwick at 17.45....i sat for about 30 mins on the top of the burranland broch having lunch, but apart from that, was just walking all day. In all that time...i didnt see a single other person! Now thats what i call a great day!
On the other hand, on saturday night, i went out on a pub crawl with my girls, and ended up, after 4 bars, and too many coctails to remember, with too many people, in my neighbours house, where Richie passed out on the couch, and their really evil little dog, came running over to me and bit me. he is called Buddy...but, he is no ones buddy, let me tells ya.
Oh and did i tell you im going to Oaxaca for dia de los muertos....
its good being me....
When i said it was 28 degrees, i didnt really mean that that was the temperature over the whole archipelago, just in a teensy wee area next to my porch and front door where i have a picnic table, and have actually thought of getting a summer house/shed thingy. (imagine..me...thinking of getting a shed!!!!). The south wall of my house is on a hill, and i have a very substantial boulder wall supporting the road up to Pegasus place, and Wista, on the edge of my propertay, so its really sheltered there. Hence it gets really sunkissed in the summer when we actually have very little wind. So that is how it can get up to high twenties, and give me what i actually consider to be a pretty good tan. (yeah, yeah...ok so i was also in the Caribbean last month...but this is a Shetland tan right!)
And today, the solstice, it most certainly is not 28 degrees, its about 11, feels like 9, with really low misty cloud rolling up off the north sea, and sporadic torrential showers...no outdoor simmer dims parties tonight thats for sure. This weather, however, was forecast, so yesterday, when i woke up in glorious sunshine, i got up in time to catch the first town circle bus to connect with the No 6 and, thanks to my free oldsters bus pass, was down in Sumburgh by 10am, before i am usually even finished my first coffee of the day. See this being retired and just deciding to do things on a whim, with a 4am glance at the weather...fucking fantastic. So....off i went to see puffins! yay!
Did you do the coastal walk Derek that starts opposite the visitor centre of Jarlshof, which i know you would have visited? Though it, by no means, is the most beautiful, exciting or challenging in Shetland, i think i have a bit of a love for it as it was the first i ever did outside of Lerwick, and it just introduced me to the wild, free, totally solitary nature of shetlands fantastic coastline where there are no health and safety regulations, no cctv, no rules, and no one to come and save you. It reminds me of being in that halcyon period of childhood we all had in the 60s and 70s where we just went away for a whole day, and had adventures of our own that our parents never knew about, as they had no idea where we were. I have actually thought several times, as i get swooped, almost break my ankle down yet another rabbit hole on a cliff, or slip in mud next to a sheer drop how much this is what i did and loved as i teenager and now, i am probably living the life i always wanted. Who needs to go to space, or get lost in a submersible tube to see the titanic? But..
Im havering on....so, yes....lots of puffins, probably more than ive ever seen, and more sea pinks, so i dug some up and brought them home to see if i can get them to grow in my boulder wall. thats the flowers, obviously, not the birds.
tomorrow is also meant to be fine, so im planning a trip down to the isle of Mousa...ive only ever been there at night. fingers crossed this fog lifts.
but if it doesnt...there will be another day....
It has now been light for so long, im getting a bit confused when i wake up. I never set an alarm, god forbid, unless i have to get up to go to the airport, and im usually pretty good at just knowing the time...from all those years getting up at 4am i think. But recently, ive noticed that when i wake and think its 5am, its actually 3, or sometimes i think its 7am, but its actually 9. Not that i matters what time it is, unless i need to get a bus, but im quite obviously getting spoiled by too much daylight, and the thought that it will be getting dark at night seems a bit weird. I know ive said this before, but Barbara who lived here before me, had black-out curtains, and some people find it hard to sleep during daylight but I am NOT one of them. i love the simmer dims, to the point that, on a lovely night, i will get up and walk up to the top of Staney hill at midnight, and would walk down into town too, if it didnt involve a hike back up the hill the lower part of which is a 1:3 road. i would love to walk down to the sands of sound at that time, but i just know it would be wonderful until i had the hour hill walk back, as the first bus here is at 08.30. things do not start early in the urban jungle that is Lerwick, and im now and old dame who lives her days by bus times.
Talking of which....on the last really beautiful day we had, before i fell onto an upside stool, the leg of which bruised my ribs so badly, a couldnt move for 2 days, i went back down to sandwick, (thats sannik....and ive discovered that scousburgh is not liverpudlian, its scoosburgh, and channerwick junction is shannerick, but i digress), and got on the Mousa boat. you could tell i was the only local, as, you can only pay in cash, and not only did i have the exact amout ready, i also had the £8 in coins, in case they needed it for all those who are no longer able to do basic transactions with paper. So off we went.
Derek, im sure you remember, that when you get off the boat, they just leave you at the landing site, and pull away pretty quickly, so it takes people some time to decide where to go. But not me!. i was so fucking determined to be in the broch on my own, and as i knew where i was going, i went striding off full speed, while most people did the walk round the island the other way. so...hell yeah...i was the first one there, and all alone for about 15 minutes during which time i just sat inside, and then climbed the ancient narrow stairs inside the walls to the top. in hindsight, i should have climbed down before anyone else arrived, as, naturally, the builders of said structure were quite obviously peerie mootie. Present day humans are just far too large to pass each other on the 2 storey staircase, so i was stuck up there until others had climbed, and as someone who is used to having things all to themselves, call me greedy if you like, im not really into sharing my space. so i went down and out, walked around some of the island, and then went back when everyone else had pretty much 'done' the broch, and had lunch inside.
One thing that really struck me about watching tourists when you are as nosy as i am, and alone, so can hear everything, is how much more pleasure and wonder older people have in everything around them, and i would include myself in this. when you are young, you are just so wanting to see everything, you dont really pay proper attention as you are just thinking of the next thing, and always in a rush without any precautions or proper gear. in your 30s and 40s, you definitely slow down, and get all serious about gear and precautions, but on the other hand are probably also dabbling in dangerous persuits like rafting, diving, paragliding and jumping out of planes because, apart from anything else, you have the money to do so that you didnt have at 20. but...omg in your 60s, while the speed of the world turning has got so fast, last week when you looked in the mirror you were 47, it has also slowed down. you take the time to smell the air, look around properly, touch the flowers, watch the waves hit the beach, take pleasure in just the beauty of the sky, lambs leaping in joy and just being there in that moment, being alive has never felt so alive as it does to me now here. I suppose one of the things you really do, when you no longer work, and know that you have found your place and are never going to move, is just live in the present. the future is obviously so, so much shorter than the past, but neither really exist or matter. i find it really easy, and just so magic to just live for now.
that said...im, finally, after years since i read 'The tomb of the inflatable pig', going to paraguay...and given that im going to be in south america, thought i might as well add on the other 'guay' so im spending a few days in Montevideo.
Do i look like someone who is flying economy???
Oooops...what happened to July??? its almost time to enter another electricity meter reading and, well, bugger, its started getting almost dark at night to the point i had to re-charge the motion sensitive light magnetically attached to my bed. I know its always downhill from the solstice, but, holy hell, how fast it starts passing. Still, ive had a fantastical summer....not only all the walking, swimming and puffin-watching, but Laura, my maternal cousin, came up with her partner and her peerie mootie pupster. now...dont get me wrong...i dont mind dogs, not for one moment would i have one, but watching a wee dog being allowed to run and dig, and chew and get so excited by all said actvities is just infectious. And Laura and Stuart are so entranced by shetland they have already booked for next year less than a week after going home. I dont mean for one minuite i need validation for my choices, but seeing other people feeling the same freedom, and just delight in seeing it in the way i do, makes me so happy.
And this week the tall ships will be here...from wednesday till saturday. it a HUGE deal for Shetland....and hopefully the weather will be clement so i can see them sail out of the sooth mooth from the top of staney hill.
fingers crossed.
Well....in between the last diary entry and this one, i have been felled and bedbound, by a really annoying lurgy which starts off as a slight fever, and a ticklish throat. obviously, i have as much patience for these things as i do for children and queueing , so after a couple of days of being unable to breathe nasaly, or survive without pouring liquid down my irritated pipework for relief, i decided i was better on monday, only to be sorely mistaken. Tuesday morning i woke when it got light at 2am and coughed for....oh, i would say, 4 hours almost without stopping. in the moments of reprieve, i wheezed so badly that i would start off coughing again...well...you get the picture. Obviously having sustained a stool leg injury the week before didnt help, and the cough exacerbated the chest pain, which had only just subsided, to difficulty moving proportions....what larks!!
So that put paid to my attending the tall ships parade on Wednesday, or, indeed, anything at all, other than lying in bed feeling sorry for myself, and using and entire pack of tissues to blow my nose. BUUUT.....hallelulajha...on thursday morning i woke up, not only to golden sunshine, but to actually being able to breathe normally, and only having to hack every 15 or so minutes. so, woop woop, i got up, showered, dressed and off i went over the hill so see what all the fuss was about.
And...omg...what a fantastic day i had. not only was it beautiful, clear and sunny all day, everyone was in such a great mood, there was a real carnival vibe about the whole thing and the queue for the ice cream van was waaaaay longer than the one for the bar. I had seen the tall ships once before in Canada in the early 80s...but they were way out in the St Lawrence, and while it was really great to see these giant sailing ships, i didnt get to go onto them, watch polish sailors buying 5 trolleys of food in the co op and push them up the gang plank, or see indonesian navy officers in full uniform getting their photo taken with Jack Sparrow. what larks indeed.
If getting to go onto these giant ships wasnt good enough, i also met a girl i used to work with in Oddbins, and hadnt seen for at least 20 years, 3 groups of people who i know here, two of which i didnt know knew each other, 2 people i follow in instagram, one of whom is an artist, and the other an all year round open water swimmer (and quite obviously totally bonkers), and finally my friend Kathleen, who i went to dinner with, along side her husband, friend Nicole, daughters rebecca and natasha and their 2 friends.
What a fabulous day.
ok....an Oor Wullie reference...i just cant help myself.
so, hell yeah...a monday in august, whats not to like about a walking trip over to Papa Stour, with the exorbitant ferry price of £2 brought down to £1.60 for me thanks to my magic NEC (national entitlement card), the one thing i have no qualms about demanding, even if it is for 40p, and you can call me Karen if you like... Unilke the main ferry routes in shetland, you have to call to book this one, as, im guessing, if no one is going it doesnt run...and, no wonder, Papa Stour has only 7 permanent residents now that, sadly, the king of Forewick, a self proclaimed kingdom on one of the several minor islands, has had to leave his realm, in his 70s, because of his health, but still refuses to pay tax to inland revenue. so like foula and fair isle sheep outnumber people by 2000 to 1. good news part one.
when we left mainland omg the haar was thick as thick could be, and it was a little worrying, as we were spending 5 hours walking on an island with no shop, no cafe, well...no anything. However....the ferry 'terminal' on Papa Stour was one of the most well equiped remote island places ive ever been. coffee, tea, kettle, microwave, heater, binoculars you could borrow, wifi, maps, you fooking name it. totally fab. so as we sat and dipped biscuits into our coffee, the fog miraculously lifted, and...off we went. good news part 2.
Totally fantastic day, beautiful sunshine, seals in every bay, minke whales on the way over, the Atlantic flat as a pancake, just heaven...and it kinda felt like being abroad on holiday. As i think you can see from the photos...just a lovely, lovely day. good news part 3.
and alternatively... bad news part 1. after years of never really getting bitten by anything very much, i have just been savaged by midges which are having their best ever year for decades. yes, thanks to really warm weather, with huge downpours inbetween, the whole of the scottish highlands and islands are fooking awash with the wee beasties, even here, a place with no tree shade for them to lurk in. so...i have over 50 bites on my face, ears, eyelids, neck, shoulders, in my hair, and most aggravatingly, on my lips, which is especially annoying, as they are so rarely immobile for long, even when on my own.
and..bad news part 2. Em...hang on...nope...its official. there is no bad news part 2.
so...lets get back to the good news....in the past 2 weeks ive swum 5 miles, walked papa stour, whalsay and the ness of Burgi, and still had enough change to have a biscoff ice cream on the way home. Ive also been to a Hamefarin...a peculiarly shetland event in which a bride and groom recreate their wedding with the same outfits and bridespeople. for all the folk who couldnt attend the original event. Im guessing it comes from the fact that so many shetlanders marry sooth moothers, and have weddings off island with no family there. The foolish couple have not yet had time to regret their decision, so lead a march into the hall followed by the bridesmaids and groomsmen, family and then everyone else circling the hall. then the band fire up the gay gordons, and everone dances with the person next to them in the same march formation. What larks. dancing, food, copious amount of subsidised drinks, and then finally, everyone again forms a circle round the hall to sing Auld lang sine..and the bride and groom are lifted up on the shoulders of the groomsmen and paraded out of the hall. As both the groom, and the groomsmen were burly men in their 50s, it wasnt exactly a easy undertaking, nor a graceful exit, but no one broke a bone, so all was right and good, and the night ended on a high (no pun intended).
tomorrow im going for lunch with a Ukranian woman called Irina who i met at the bus stop, another shetland phenomenon. As im sure you can imagine, living here, for most, requires at least one car, if not one for each member of the household, and therefore most locals miss out on one of the great social events...the bus journey. If i tell you the story of the bressay feeder you will get the picture.
Bressay (pronounced, as everything in shetland, without the 'y') the island just over the sound from Lerwick, is a large place with no shop, one cafe that only opens for lunch and no taxi service...However there is a 'shopping feeder bus' that goes twice a week, but you have to call up to book a seat. if no one calls of course the bus doesnt go, but im guessing most people, and of course, im sure, as you can imagine,by people, i mean women maybe just slightly older than me, with maybe a couple of men, go on the same day. the bus (an 18 seater) picks people up from all over bressay, takes them over on the ferry, round the biggest roundabout on sheland and stops right outside Tesco. they go in together and do their shopping while the bus waits outside. once everyone is done, it takes them back to the ferry and over the sound, and drives them home. for most of them, who live in isolated houses on a large island, im guessing this is the social event of the week, and the No 6 bus going down to sumburgh from lerwick, ie the whole of south mainland, is the same. Here in the urban jungle, the town bus has the same people during the day, every day, and some time ago, i realised i was one of said people, so i gave up the city conditioning of a lifetime and started making eye contact, which has finally led to blethers, and now, amazingly, going for lunch.
i can honestly say, in Edinburgh, there is no a chance in hell i would even chat to a person on a bus, never mind meet them off-bus!
How life changes!!!
Maybe officially, after almost 2 years, i have become an islander....woop woop.
So....as im sure everyone is aware, i live on Unicorn View, and having looked up google maps, and found a rock out in the sound called The Unicorn, i just presumed it was the one i can always see, well, haar permitting, where a ship ran aground in the 90s. However...i have just found out that this sea stack, in one of the photos posted here at sunset, is, in fact Hoo Stack, and that Hoofields just behind my house, are called after it. So... where and what is The Unicorn, you ask, as im sure those who confuse legend, and fantasy with reality, have googled over a million times. Well...its only taken me 2 years, and talking to locals to find out the Unicorn rock is, in fact, completely underwater, and, therefore, never visible even with rose-tinted horn-rimmed glasses. I cant decide whether to smirk at the amusing cleverness of SIC's allegory, or send them a strongly worded letter demanding an apology, and perhaps monetary compensation, for the 'misleading' street name. You know, as you do, apparently, in these days of entitlement, taking offense at things which just dont matter, and having a public meltdown, as an adult, because a stranger doesnt use your preferred pronoun, or your local tesco doesnt have the sandwich you want. Although, said behaviour rarely happens here. Shetlanders are so 'dont give a fuck' that they just think everyone should be able to do, and go wherever they want, but at the same time, trust everyone to the point most people dont lock their front door. its just one of the many, many things i love about living here. So lets move on....
another thing i have learnt recently, which i have, at the age of 61, apparently been doing wrong my entire life, is rinsing my teeth after brushing. For the toothpaste to work properly protecting your enamel, you should just spit out the extra and not sloosh round your mouth with water. Who knew? Well...maybe everyone...but not me. the things you learn. other recent discoveries include, though in no particular order: the hole in a spaghetti server kitchen utensil is in fact a measure for one portion of said pasta, the sphinx is way older than the pyramids, as it has eroded through water damage, and it hasnt rained enough Giza for about 10 000 years. modern thought is that the pharoah head is a later carving as it is totally out of proportion, and that it was originally a lions head. The noise of the thermoneuclear explosion that is our sun is so loud that, if there was anything to bring the noise to us, we would be deafened by it. The rings of Saturn do not spin horozonally, even at an angle, they move vertically round the planet. Jacuzzi is a brand name, like Biro or Hoover. Pangolins are the most trafficked mammals in the world, when most people have never even heard of them, and the 'coup' in NIger is actually the removal of a US and Europe backed government which allowed a gas pipeline to transverse the country to avoid dependece on Russia, but without any benefits to the people who live there. And finally, whilst mentioning West Africa, Nigeria is set to become the third most populous country in the world, overtaking the US within 20 years. Well, i suppose they will need lots of people to man those internet centres conning the divorced and widowed out of millions. Either posing as men working on oil rigs, or in the military, who are millionaires, but strangely need amazon gift cards to pay their staff, get stranded in Amsterdam because of Tax issues, or need $150 000 to release that 6 million out of the Cayman islands. Alternatively those women who look like 22 year old onlyfans models, but have fallen in love with, and want to marry a 65 year old, toothless, man called Dan who lives in Burnt Mattress, Arkansas, despite, or perhaps, because of, never having met them. Ah, the world....youve gotta love it!!!
And now....in hommage to the posts i used to do about the acts appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, here are some of the winning jokes at this years comedyfest. This is the funniest (sic); I started dating a zoo keeper, but it turned out he was a cheetah. (btw, this cant even be considered a pun if you have a Scottish accent, but whatever). here is one, that actually did make me vaguely smile...'This is the most British thing ive ever heard...."I'm sorry, but i never apologise".
When women gossip its called bitching. when men do it its called a podcast.
Last year i had a great joke about inflation, but its hardly worth doing now.
I wont insult you with any of the others....yep...comedy is just not funny anymore.
But just before i bemoan our existence in the first couple of decades of the 21st century...lets look at the beginning of the 20th. 14 years in...WW1 followed by the spanish flu pandemic..60 million deaths. then the Wall Street crash...a couple of years of restructuring before WWII... rationing, post war movement of population, the creation of israel, partition of India, another couple of years of rebuilding until Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War. But at the same time...us. I dont think there is a single one of us who grew up in pre-internet times who doesnt appreciate both the freedom that we had without it, and the sheer incredible possibilities it has given us.
So lets look on the bright side. Maybe those born between 40 to 60 years in the future in this century will have a really great time growing up, and enjoy things, like us, for about 30 years before it all gets totally fucked again.
Here's hoping.
Holy hell, its already a month that ends in burrrrrr, if you are scottishly accented anyway.
A bit like turning 60, how did this happen so quickly without me really noticing my life passing me by, and how tf has it suddenly started getting dark at night. i realise for most people lights are essential all year round, but not here they arent, and...there is just that one night, after 6 weeks of almost total daylight, that you finish watching a film and wonder why you cant see anything looking around your usually bright room. Um....fuck me dead... because its dark...and it actually seems a bit freaky and even slightly sinister that nature does this, so i better switch on lights so i can actually see the steps when climbing the stairs. However, just as in the exam dream where you remember that you actually have a degree, so therefore dont even have to pass the paper you have either been 2 hours late arriving for, or slept through until 15 minutes before submission, i just realised that i dont have to care.
Because im flying to Paraguay on tuesday...you know, as you do.
It's the only landlocked, and least visited Spanish speaking, country in South America.Over 60% of the population are of indigenous heritage, and 40% don't speak Spanish.Paraguay is pronounced with a soft 'g' a little like the Scottish 'wh'... so is the local language, and name of the money...guarani. there are no licencing laws for alcohol. Paraguay drinks as much yerba mate as Argentina, and in the same iconic cups....but here they also drink it cold.Even today the effects of what is called here the Great War, and for others the War of the triple alliance, is felt. It is the most catastrophic war in human history, only went on for 4 years, and is generally unknown, but 90% of the men in the Paraguayan army were killed. it ended in 1870. Paraguay became known as the country 'of women', and was inundated with Scottish and Irish men. Unlike WWI, its not just a generation missing..its all of them....all the men....no one has a great grandfather....well...they obviously did but you know what I mean🤣.Asuncion has some of the most fantastic supermarket hot takeaway food I've ever seen, so many uniquely Paraguayan snacks, drinks and desserts, I mean....who knew🤔.
Yep, cant deny i had the red and black poster of Korda's famous Che Guevara photo on my wall in my late teens, and read a biography of said revolutionary, you know as you did before social media. One of the things that really struck me about it was not that he was put in charge of the bank in Cuba and outlawed cash in favour of barter, or that his children cried when he hugged them for the last time before heading to Bolivia, because he had had all the hair on his head tweezed out to conceal his identity, and they had no idea who he was...... but that he was never seen without a cup of yerba mate. I mean....tea drinking is a huge thing in the UK.. probably more dawn sauth where everything is solved by putting on the kettle, and having a cuppa, but even so. It is also a thing in Turkey, where there are constantly little boys running around the streets with trays of black tea in the iconic tulip shaped glasses, and when Mike let me know Eli was dying, my neighbours in Kas saw i was crying, and despite having no language in common, they knocked on the door of my apartment with a cup of said beverage, bless em. and dont even get me started on china or india. But all that aside....i dont think i have ever, ever, seen such addiction to a drink that was not just plain water in my life. you might think that it was scottish people with bevvy...but omg no. Yerba Mate. its a drug!!!
Its not just Argentina, as i thought,but in Paraguay, and in fact, in Uruguay too, people carrying around flasks of hot water with the iconic yerba mate cup and metal straw...everywhere. i just dont think i could be bothered, these days i dont even carry a bag, but then im not a yerba addict. anyway... enough...paraguay its not all about drinking tea.....
when i was in Asuncion i did something ive never done before...and its a long time since that happened i can tells ya. I booked a city dander with Localify. Now i dont know if you know about this...but its just really meeting a local person who takes you to things you are interested in..no tour guide shite, or other people, just really talking and walking around a city with someone who lives there. So i met a 30 year old chica with the unfortunate shortened name of Fany, and we walked, talked and had lunch in the most popular lunch spot in Asuncion overlooking Palacio de los Lopez. It was just great...she played professional football, the viola and was training to be a commerical pilot. she took me to the tomb of the unknown soldier, the house of independence, shopping, and got me the paraguayan equivalent of an uber home, which cost me £1,50. i think the most amazing thing i said to her was 'why are white people called ex pats, when everyone else is called an immigrant?' the most amazing thing she said to me was 'im paraguyan...and a woman...but im going to be a commerical pilot'
So first....Derek..no i havent been to every country in South America. Im missing the places i think i will never go...Venezuela, the Guyanas, Surinam and Ecuador. Venezuela for obvious reasons, the 3 small ones at the top ive looked at several times, but they are just no longer my bag. they are jungle, when i cant stand humidity, and allergic to mosquitos to the point ive had to go to hospital. the capital cities are really dangerous, and tbh, call me a spoilt bitch, but they dont really have anything to offer that i havent seen somewhere else. They dont have many roads, nor tourist infrastructure, and are places that it is really difficult, and expensive to travel alone. while at one time in my life, that was a huge draw, i didnt mind going on small group tours, and loved roughing it, now i just cant be doing with those shenanigans. i think im just too old. And i have no interest in going to Ecuador, due to the fact that i just imagine it full of wankers that are only there to go to the Galapagos Islands, a place i just dont think cruise ships should be allowed to go. Or anyone pretty much. Bird flu has been a gigantic thing here in shetland, last year more so than this, but its now in the Farne islands, and has really badly hit the worlds biggest colony of gannets on the Bass Rock off Edinburgh. Tell me that someone will not take it, eventually, on their feet, to the Galapagos, when they are most likely the same people who have toured Greenland on a cruise ship that then comes here to shetland. Anyway....enough getting on my high horse..and back to the Guays....
So Paraguay....or at least Asuncion, was really pretty much as i thought it would be. Hot as hades and mad as a jar of flies. I think at this point, i should say that my bag went missing. It didnt even make it onto the flight from CDG in Paris, so i had to wear what i put on at 6am in shetland, when i arrived in 37degree heat, in a very humid Asuncion that had gigantic storms every night i was there. washing underwear in the sink at night, and drip drying it for the next day was something of a feature of this trip, and while i had to go shopping for clothes, paraguayan women, like most South Americans are teensy weensy people, and even the mens tshirts were a little on the small side for my gigantic chest proportions. What larks. Im surprised that i didnt become a size 10 due to evaporation, but, apparently not....bugger. anyway....here are my thoughts on Asuncion....
Its actually quite an attractive city, on the side of the Paraguay river, but while it has really gorgeous old buildings, most of them are empty and either for sale or just abandoned. the old town is run down, broken pavements, delapidated buildings, feral dogs etc...but not once did i feel threatened or scared, and to compensate, it had some of the best supermarkets ive ever seen...honestly! Having said that, i got a taxi to take me to a modern shopping mall, and it was just fucking hellish...kinda like an airport with the type and price of clothes etc, many of which were in US$, but the journey there was through an area of art deco buildings, and, obviously, as someone who suffers from taphophilia, we passed Ricotela cemetery, so, despite the torrential rain, i walked back there...and there was a funeral going on...it was hard not to intrude. and then i found a taxi place on the other side of the road...happy happy joy joy to take me back to somewhere I think i have also forgotten to mention. I stayed in the Gran hotel Del Paraguay, which is somewhere tourists come just to look at as it is one of the most classic old paraguayan buildings (though when i say tourists, obviously we are not talking coach parties). To stay there cost $70 a night! and everywhere in Asuncion has indigeos selling stuff on blankets....in town, outside the hotel, even inside the airport terminal at check in....no one hassles these people which is something i have never seen. no fooking way a hotel in most cities would allow street traders to set up outside their foyer. ooooh Paraguay...really interesting place.
Next time....Uruguay...one of the most underrated places ive ever been. stay tuned.
Aside from their serious yerba mate habit, and being in South America, you couldnt really get two more different places within a 3 hour flight of each other...but 3 hours in Europe will take you from Amsterdam to Albania, or Budapest to Baku so why should any other continent be different. The first major, and very apparent, contrast is the weather. Leaving Asuncion, 5 hours late (sigh), it was 29 degrees with 100% humidity at midnight. Driving the ocean road to the city in Montevideo, it was 11 degrees, and only 30% humidity at just after 3am. happy happy joy joy. In Paraguay, there are no distinct seasons...it is just hot and humid as hell all year round, whereas it was distinctly still winter coming into spring in Uruguay, and everyone was bundled up in scarves and hats, many still wearing winter boots, which just made me laugh. I suppose its a little like travelling from Cordoba in Andalucia to Bilbao in the Basque north of Spain, and its very apparent that the cooler climate places have waaaaay more disposable income. In Montevideo there was a complete upheaval due to road works and redoing the pavements in the old town. No fooking chance of that happening in Asuncion, where the pavements are just broken apart because of the heat, and, whod a guessed, there are no tree lined pedestrian streets with benches and cool little stalls selling books, art and yerba mate accessories. Dont get me wrong, Asuncion does have a lot of squares, and green areas with kids playgrounds and dog walkers galore, but Montevideo has that really, well, i suppose what i think of as European thing, streets that are made for strolling, have cute cafes with tables outside, interesting quirky shops and art galleries..on which subject, more later.
Yep, you guessed it, i loved Montevideo, but i knew that Paraguay was a one time stop and it was really pretty much as i expected, though i think i thought there would be way more scary people. When Fany told me that i must be very careful picking my place if i went down to the riverside, and avoid the port area at all times, i just laughed. Being land-locked, Paraguay has no outside trade, and a little like Puno in Peru on the banks of Lake Titicaca, creates most of its wealth by smuggling between other South American countries. There is no way in hell i would have gone and hung around the port, well, its not really something you would do in any city really, never mind in a country built on contraband, but apparently you can get anything in the port in Asuncion...and i mean anything... if you have the right connections and enough ready dosh.
In fact, the port in Mondevideo is also a no go area, despite the fact that there are cruise ships coming in and out, so therefore tourist restaurants and souvenir shops just outside one of the main entrances called, inspirationally, el mercado del Puerto. There are also lots and lots of street dwellers round this area...people that in Scotland would be called Jakeys, who, while not obviously dangerous, are people you just avoid making eye contact with, in case they come and sit beside you, especially when they can see that you have a bottle of wine in your bag. Despite this, however, the streets round here are all full of hip restaurants and bars, with tables outside, so cool, in fact, that when i tried to sit at one of them, the waitress told me, in no uncertain terms, that they were too busy to give a table to a singleton like me, when they could get 4 people on it. quite obviously, she didnt realise that i probably drink more than your average quartet of Uruguayan millenials, but hey ho. Just like Lerwick then...
I arrived on a sunday, hence the lunchtime revellers, as it was a lovely day, and was really supposed to be going on a trip to Punta de L'este, but i didnt get into the hotel till 03.20, the taxi was picking me up at 8am in independence square, 20 minutes away, and all my beach stuff was in my missing bag...so i just cancelled. I have to say, it looks beautiful there, almost on the Brazilian border, with just gorgeous beaches, but, given the beautiful weather, and on a sunday, it also would have been packed, and, now i live in such a remote place, honestly, my patience level with crowds has reached almost negative figures. Navigating a city I can do, especially one full of wide streets and squares, during working hours, but not going to beaches hotching with people. Even going through Sao Paulo, and Amsterdam airports drove me crazy, though no such trouble in Montevideo where there were only 6 flights going out, (mine was to San Pablo, which disconcerted me for a couple of seconds), and only 2 leaving Asuncion.
Next time on Lushblog....Colonia del Sacrimento, cattle ranches, and Gurvich. im sure you can hardly contain your excitement.....
So, having overcome my drowsiness after arriving after 3am, and got my bearings in the city, i strolled at 7am up to Independence Square to get the bus down to Uruguays oldest town, Colonia del Sacramento, which is directly over the Rio Plata from Buenos Aires, and was founded by the Portuguese in 1680. The return journey, which took over 2 hours each way on a fancy bus with a toilet on board cost $20US, and it was a really beautiful cool, clear day....ideal for a trip through country side and a stroll round cobbled streets. So here are some interesting facts about Uruguay.
It is only slightly larger than Surinam, South Americas smallest country, and is totally flat, like Kansas, or a pancake depending on your preference. Due to this, it is huge ranch country, with mainly cattle, but also sheep, everwhere...think High Chaparral, but more like a bungalow, and is not only a huge beef producer, but also every type of dairy. Amazingly, Uruguyans consume more dairy products than anywhere else in the Americas, and while milk, yogurt and dolce de leche are popular, the major product produced in every possible form is...yes, my favourite CHEESE!!!! oh happy day then, that round Colonia is the heart of Cheese production, and every ranch, house and street end has said product for tasting and sale. The bus pulls into a ranch for people to try cheese....honestly, i had no idea...this trip was just made for me, despite being the only English speaker on the bus, and everyone bought huge slabs that they ate just out of the paper washed down by beer and wine. Annoyingly, being used to bus day-trips in Shetland where shops are few and far apart, i had brought a packed lunch and drinks with me, and already had enough cheese to last me till i left. As i had no bag to carry anything home in, i didnt buy any....but, omg, did i taste every type available or what. I should also mention, that the owner of this particular ranch is in the the Guiness book of records for having the biggest collections of keyrings, pencils and what Americans call bobby pins. If anyone is interested, i have photos of rooms of said items, not one of them used, obviously, and just totally pointless in every way..especially as with what he spent on these items, he could have bought my house several times over, but whatever floats your boat. It was certainly different from a stop in a UK service station and cafe, and where i learned that no one else could understand a word i said..just fine by me.
Another thing that really struck me is that there seemed to be, well, just werent, any indigenous forests, and most of the trees we passed were date palms, which i read later were introduced from the canary islands, and huge amounts of eucalypts which were planted in totally straight lines everywhere. since coming home i have looked it up, and 60% of Uruguay is eucalyptus and cattle rough land, though planting of the trees didnt start till 1990! Seeing this you can totally understand why reforestation often involves these trees....they are only 30 years old, and are already tall as tall can be, and once they are established, you can bring in other species that will take around 100 years to grow to the same height and maturity. It just so makes me laugh that when the British first colonised Australia, they had no interest in indigenous fauna, and wanted to cut them down and grow oaks, and yew. yeah...well, you know those huge lush oak forests in New South Wales...bahahaha. nope, me neither.
So much blethers and i havent even mentioned the town of Colonia yet, which was picture perfect pretty, and really quiet. Due to its World Heritage status, it gets cruise ships and can be filled to the fooking gunnels, not even to mention the ferry that brings Argentinain tourists over from BA, but not on a tuesday in September apparently. I had a lovely dander round the town, bought tat from the tourist shops masquerading as 'artists', walked some of the really fabulous beaches, and still had enough change for some pasta and a beer on the way back to the bus stop.
Beautful sunsets coming back north into Montevideo, and a quick stop at the Frog supermarket for some wine and snacks, by the time i got back to my really cool room in the Fauna hotel it was 8.30pm, and i just couldnt be bothered going out again.
Bahaha...how times have changed. Party till dawn...nah...just chilled music on spotify, two glasses of wine, some crackers and uruguyan cheese and snoozing by 10pm.
Well...after having to sink wash my socks, naturally. who needs to go out when they have nothing clean to wear, and hope their underwear will dry in time to wear tomorrow. What larks.
So, on my street in Montevideo there was a gallery of an artist called Gurvich, never heard of him, didnt think that much about it, well, until it started pouring rain one day, and i decided to get out of the deluge, so in i went paid the $200 entrance. This might seem a little extravagant, and you would be right in thinking, OMG that girl has let this travelling business go to her head, but, let me reassure you. The sign for Urugyan Peso, as in many countries of the Americas, is the same as in the US, but, funnily enough, has less value. BTW British currency is a bit of a pain in the ass...my first go to is under 'U' for UK, but if its a US site, more likely under 'G' for GBP, and...just when you are tearing out your hair on sites of other countries, you find it under 'P', for Pound Sterling, next to Polish Zloty. However, i digress. Paying my £4, i went into the Gurvich gallery.
Ok, i have never known a single person in the world who has ever mentioned this Lithuanian, Uruguyan artist, but, omg, i loved this stuff. He painted, he potted, he sewed, he etched, he made carpets, embroidery, ceramic figures..you name it. i realise he took so much from Picasso, Mondrian, Chagal....i could go on and on....but there is also something just so South American about his art. He drew something, then painted it, then wove it into a carpet, and then made it into a diaorama with clay figures. Just another amazing thing i learnt in Uruguay.
and then...turning up unannounced like a thief in the night, just when i had given up all hope, and ordered replacements on Amazon, which had already arrived, my errant bag turned up at 11pm on Wednesday night. woop woop.
Coming soon...Dia de los Muertos in Oxaca.
The reason i became interested in, and eventually went to Paraguay, is all because of a book, with a title almost as bonkers at the country itself...At the tomb of the inflatable Pig. Written by someone called John Gimlette, it is a story of his travels, interlaced with the history of this little known country, and is full of characters that would not look out of place in the later Roman Empire, or a play by Aristophanes.
One of these is, indeed, the man on the 10000 note...Jose Gaspar Rodrigues de Francia...know more commonly as, simply, El Supremo. Following Paraguayan independence from the Spanish Viceroyship in 1811, he became the first dictator, and stayed that way until his death in 1840. Four years later, Carlos Antonio Lopez became the first President and began a policy of internationalisation and modernisation which brought the coutry into deep dispute with other states. He is remembered on the 5000 note, and it is his coffin draped with the flag. Strangely his son, Francisco Solano Lopez is not featured on any bank notes, and im sure most people would prefer to forget he ever existed. He is the one who, as president, siezed a Brazilian steamer, intiating what is not only the most important war on South American soil, but also one of the most catastrophic conflicts in human history, as i have already mentioned. He was also afraid of dogs, so decreed that every canine in the country be destroyed.
So...enough of the History lesson....except to say that despite the Lopez' total craziness, they were also great builders, and most of the palacial buildings in Asuncion were built by either father or son. The Pantheon of the Heroes was amongst them, started as a church, by Lopez the younger, it was left unfinished at the end of the War of the Triple Alliance, and was only completed as a memorial to the dead over 70 years later. Both Lopez' their wives and children are buried here...but the wee coffins on display are to comemorated the kids who died in the many ridiculous wars. Boys as young as 8 were conscripted.
Sadly, Eliza Lynch is not remembered on bank notes, or anywhere. The ladies on the 2000 are sisters called Speratti who started the education system. Another thing that is not very often remembered is why over 4% of the Paraguyan population is of German descent, and there are towns, most notably Colonia Independencia, that are 100% german populated, speak German, and have a very large group of blonde haired blue eyed people. Just saying.....
Well, fuck me dead, since i came back from South America i have been yet again struck down by lurgy of a deadly coughing kind...couldnt sleep, couldnt go out, couldnt stop fooking coughing. Had to drink every 30 seconds, suck throat pastiles, swallow an entire bottle of cough syrup and blow my way through an entire box of tissues. I stupidly, the friday i came back, decided i was well enough to go swimming...bahahaha...Then despite feeling like death, went down to Sumburgh for the end of the season foghorn blowing, free coffee and cake, and a visit to the crofthouse museum. Monday i didnt even get out of bed...oh the irony of living away from people. In my normal life, in this remote archipelago with so few people, i never get ill. I go to a city, through airports, do the things i used to do every day, i get infected. Still....at least it waits till i get home, just like my bag. happy happy joy joy. still, i am now rejuvinated, been swimming twice this week, and ready to go through another airport to get ill yet again in 10 days. its what Jesus would do.
So, in reply Derek, while i cant really see myself living in South America, if i was going to, i would definitately pick Uruguay. for a start the climate is almost perfect, except a bit of a hot time in January, it has lovely lush countryside, dairy in every form, they make wine, and no one gives a fuck about Uruguay. I doubt the majority of the planets population couldnt even pick it out on a map, know it exists, or care. Montevideo is the safest capital city on the continent, it has beautiful beaches and really good food and drink, and compared to here, or especially California its cheap as chips. Whats not to like? for me, living here in the hidden north of the Uk, i could really see why Uruguay would be really appealing to retire to... and definitately worth a vacation. You could even swing over to Buenos Aires as its less than 3 hours on a ferry.
So Uruguay aside...in 10 days im going down to Fife to spend some time with my brother and his wife in Aberdour, the village we used to go to as children. Im really looking forward to it, as i havent really seen Mog properly since i moved up to Shetland, but, going back to places you loved as a kid is always hard, as, lets face it, it will not be the same, or have changed for the better. Still, first Aberdour, then Mexico...im off for the Dia de los Mueros arriving the next day...couple of days in Mexico city, and then down to Oaxaca where i have just booked a nighttime graveyard tour...
Then im flying down to the Pacific coast of El Salvador to spend 4 days luxuriating in a beach spa resort.
Poor me.
And by the end of this year, while i have not been to every country in South America, i will complete visiting every one in Central America.
So stay tuned for Honduras and Belize in December....
Before my flight to Mexico City, which was not only late, incredibly turbulent and diverted to Merida because a passenger had a heart attack...I had a lovely few days in the Kingdom of Fife with my brother and sister in law. We stayed in Aberdour, where Bill and Anna had friends we stayed with when we were kids, but also went to Culross, and to all the villages of the East Neuk. We had really great weather, considering my ferry and all trains were cancelled on Thursday and Friday due to storm Babet.
Never let anyone tell you that Mexico takes it's festivals half-heartedly. they even have false eyelashes to match your face crystals. What larks. Can't deny being in the crowds buying all this tat in Mexico City was a bit intimidating....its SO, SO fooking busy, noisy, smelly and hot🥵🥵...and its always a joy to get back to the peace of my hotel room. No wonder the city is sinking under the weight of all the people and cars...so much traffic round streets teeming with people, where you could walk in half the time. and you can actually see its sinking...whole streets have 6 inch steps down to enter buildings lower than the pavement. However...no time to chat. I'm in Oaxaca now, and about to get a bus up to Monte Alban...ancient cities and home of mezcal. my kinda place then😍🤩
Strictly speaking, ddlm is not on Halloween, but today 1st Nov...and lasts till tomorrow, when I'm flying back to Mexico City to spend the night in a sleeping pod before my flight down to San Salvador.But what a faaaab time I've had here in Oaxaca
Well, I seem to have been very lax with my blog writing, as its now Guy Fawkes day, I'm sitting watching surfers trying to pick the perfect wave in the Pacific swell, and I haven't even finished with Day of the Dead in Mexico, when I'm now in El Salvador! oh well! 🙄🤣.What a faaaaab time I had in Oaxaca, which is just such a pretty little town of painted houses and cobbled streets, where there were almost constant fireworks and parades, boy those Mexicanos know how to party. So, yes, I drank mezcal, hot chocolate, tejate and corona beer, ate tamales, tacos and pan de Los Muertos, went to churches, graveyards, Street parties...annnd...of course, I just had to get my face painted🤪.though, I can't deny I did feel a little like an aging member of Kiss. 🤣🤡.I have also slept in a pod, and in a bed so big you can sleep horizontally. got savaged by mozzies, as, yet again I had my insect repellent confiscated by airport security as its 'toxico', and bought so much stuff I can hardly get my bag zipped..thank god I didn't buy that rug🙃. I am now the only gringo in the hotel vista Las oslas in the cutesy beach town of El Cuco almost on the Honduran border.but that is another story....
So, naturally, im back home but my journey was so exhausting and extended that it has taken me several days to recover, sometimes i think i forget that i am not in my 30s anymore. For a start, my return flight involved a connection in Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson which, while i had plenty of time, and didnt need to worry about missing my onward flight, was just such a head-fuck i dont even know what to say. What I do know what to say, however, is that is it actually easier and quicker to gain entry to the US than it is to transfer to a flight leaving to go somewhere else. In the airport there are recorded messages extolling it's virtues, including one informing the passengers that it is the busiest, most modern and most efficient hub on the planet.!!! Oh i beg to fucking differ!!! Ok, yes, i came in on a flight from San Salvador, and i was sitting in row 47 so, naturally at the very end of the line of foreigners from a questionable country...but considering the number of people, and the 100 passport desks, there were about 20 open for US and Canadian citizens...and 1...yes i will write that out in letters...ONE...ONE DESK for the rest of the world. If you can actually survive the passport queue, which is constantly being shouted at to get in a proper line one after the other by officious staff who obviously have nothing else to do as its taking so long to get us 'aliens' through, then you have the luggage farce. Try and find your luggage which has been taken off the carousel because it has taken you almost 2 hours to get through to this stage of the process, and then determine where to check it back in. What bloody larks..NOT! Finally you have to back through security...but, if you are expecting a gigantic xray hall think again...there are 3 machines....3!!!
And...after all that carry-on, you get through, imagine a luxurious airside full of brilliant sandwich shops, cool bars, helpful staff on every corner, really comfortable seats and toilets with chanel no 5 soap and real linen hand towels. Ha dream on. Its one of the most downmarket airports ive ever been in....all the food places are rubbish chains with rude, bored staff, the prices of, well, just about anything is astronomical, i bought a sandwich meal deal and a pack of smints and it was $17, and then i had a $13 pint of Sam Adams in the only bar i could find in 30 mins of walking. Getting back to Schipol was just so great, and has my 'Best airport in the world' award for the 25th year running, great shops which do not cost and arm and a leg, friendly staff, cheese for sale galore, wine and beer for reasonable prices, good bars, easy to navigate and chanel no 5 soap in the toilets...oh, hang on...i imagined that bit. bahaha....
well..that was wordy for someone who doesnt know what to say....
moving on...things i did in Mexico that did not involve face paint and skulls...Well i was going to go to Teotihuacan but decided as it was so far away, and i only had 2 days in the City, that i would go to Monte Alban in Oaxaca instead. Fantastic site, loved it, and really glad i made that choice, as i spent a day in Mexico city going to see Diego Rivera murals, churches, art deco houses, and shopping. I cant deny, mexico city is not one of my favourite cities...such as they are. Its just too big, dirty, polluted and too busy with cars, and people, and i wont be going back anytime soon. One of those..glad i went, but never again. Oaxaca on the other hand is delightful, has agave growing everywhere round it, which can only mean one thing, (Mezcal), beautiful mountain scenery, and a population about the size of Edinburgh. Perfecto. When i was at Monte Alban...which incidentally, was not damaged by the Spanish, and so is just faaab...i met a french woman called Sandrine who was a midwife doing research. So we went to a couple of the parades together, met for hot chocolate(sooooo delish), and went up into the mountains together...hence the pics of the mezcal distilleries, and the rock formations. There is a place here like Pamukkale in Turkey...but depressingly, it is just the same...the water has been diverted and its dying. in the words of Prince...sign of the times.
So...hell yeah....great food, lovely people, really beautiful scenery and the best hot chocolate ive ever had. Mexico...i love it.
Coming soon...and far too late....El Salvador....
So When i got the boat back home it was a bit bumpy, and i know some people just hate it...12 hours of hell. To me, however, its a bit like being rocked like a baby, and i dont even care about the huge crashing waves that you can hear smacking the ferry and soaking it all the way onto the top deck, which, strangely, was not accessible on this journey. That was small fry by Northlink standards though, and this week, they have cancelled the mainland link for 2 days due to 90 km per hour winds, and enormous swell out in the North Sea, and here we have had gusts of 70 kmph which made my wee house move around during the night, and, cant deny, i did at some moments during the hail storms think of taping my windows with Xs as i have seen people do before a hurricane. As i stay right on the very edge of Lerwick, in a cul-de-sac of the last 3 houses at the North end, and half way up a hill with nothing between here and the sea, it can be pretty windy. But it is one of the things about living here...you just have to go with the flow...we are constrained by the weather, and by nature, and that is what rules us, whatever we may think about it. So my Amazon packages didnt arrive, and Tesco was empty today....but...not to worry. I did my panic shopping on Wednesday when i heard about the weather....so now im eating salad till i go away next saturday...Ha ha!!
So....moving on...well actually back....El Salvador...what a beautiful wee country it is. The airport is 35k east of San Salvador, and i went right down to the very Eastern coast almost at the Honduras/Nicaragua border, so drove almost the entire country without going to the capital..probably a good thing. It is incrediably fertile, its so, so green, and the central area is just full of volcanoes covered in clouds. The main road leaving San Salvador is only 3 lanes each side for a very, very short time....then a dual carriageway, and then just a normal one lane each side for most of the way south with stalls by the side selling bananas and corn. There are no tourists...or at least, not that i heard or saw...no real tourist infrastructure, no souvenirs to buy, and no one speaks anything but the strangest Espagnol ive ever heard. There are beautiful beaches all the way up the coast and it was my first time on volcanic black sand which while not scorching on the feet, seemed to absorb the heat, and it was just melting. However, when i returned to my really beautiful hotel, which only had 6 suite rooms, from the town of El Cuco dripping from head to toe, i just went into the infinity pool, a stones throw from my terrace, and watched people walk up and down the beach....heaven. I think..well, know, the staff thought i was weird as fuck...non-spanish speaking, middle aged woman, of indeterminate nationality, in a busy beach place where there were no other foreign tourists, on my own with no husband or children. Imagine!!
The other remarkable thing about El Salvador is that it was, for some time, one of the most dangerous countries in the world, and while i realise it was normally gang/drug cartel related, and there are few tourists, the foreign office recommended not going at all. Now, however, that has been totally changed around, and its by the new president doing kinda the same things as Guliani did when he was mayor of New York before he turned into a booze soaked trumper. So now..there is a huge police, and army presence on the roads, and, apparently, they just pull people over indiscrimately, something i saw a lot on my 2 trips almost the entire length of the country. Im sure if you live there, and drive these roads often, it is a total pain in the ass if you get stopped, and seeing heavily armed people is hardly my ideal every day experience either, but it is certainly working. Homicides have dropped from 107 per 100, 000 people to just 7.8!!! He did also jail 2% of the male population, and has been accused of taking away all civil liberties, so i dont really know what is true, but, all i can say is, not for one moment during my stay there did i feel any danger, nor did it appear to me anyone else did. But then again, my taxi wasnt stopped by army people carrying semi-automatic weapons, so what do i know?
so, can i moan a bit more about my retun journey...hell yeah, of course i can. Apart from the shenanigans of Atlanta airport, and that the woman who sat next to me on the flight to Amsterdam had a teddy bear the size of a 5 year old child which i had to climb over every time i wanted to go the the loo, and that both San Salvador and Atlanta were rubbish, and stupidly expensive airports, i stayed in a really cheap and small hotel in haymarket when i got to edinburgh, but it doesnt store luggage. So i had to man-haul my bag which was a mere 15k when i left these shores, but after buying half of mexico became 25 k marching around edinburgh. And then i got a train...and not only was there a landslide which delayed it, someone got really ill and they asked for a doctor..so i missed my ferry on friday, and had to stay in Aberdeen until saturday. So by the time i had to get on the boat, having gone shopping again, as my shoes were hurting, and i my jeans had holes, not only did i have my expanded 25k rucksack on my shoulders, i had 2 other shoulder bags, and a large carrier bag. such is life when you live in Shetland. So...omg...i almost broke myself with all this luggage, and pulled my achilles tendon, which, annoyingly, is still aggravated 2 weeks later.
oh well...i expect it will recover when i spend a week on a luxury boat....woop woop.
coming next....Belize and Honduras....with my oldest friend...
Its good to be me....
Yep....here I am in Honduras on a luxury yacht. Life is tough. I met Jo in Amsterdam, we spent a night in Canada, entered the USA in Toronto Airport so we could breeze through Atlanta airport and slept in an Inn in Belize City before boarding the Dumont d'Urville and luxuriating in our swanky cabins. Yesterday we went on a hike through Punta Sal national park, where it rained so heavily we ended up climbing down rapids, hence the clothes on the washing line in my shower room. I don't have any photos of this adventure, as I was afraid to take my phone out of the plastic bag I carried it in, and, in actual fact, my specks were so wet a couldn't really see a fooking thing 😳 and had to be led down the watery path by a young girl. Such is an expedition at my age🤣. As I'm sure everyone is aware, cruise ships are my idea of hades...and I was a bit apprehensive about it, but, omg, what fooking luxury we are in, an a really remote, beautiful place and I'm having a ball. 🥳🥳
OK...first...Atlanta airport...and please dont, for one moment think, this is a personal attack on the USA in general...its just about an airport, and one of the most shite on the planet in my opinion. SO....yep i, once again, went through Atlanta HJ on my way back to Amsterdam...and OMG what a headfuck.
In theory, we had 3 hours to transfer, which is about right...but then not only were our seats on the plane moved by delta, from my booked row 22, to row 44, Jo's bag was placed in the very last row on the plane by the crew...so much for getting off early. And then...oh horror of horrors...our flight was delayed by 75 minutes. OMG!!! I know Derek, that you have no idea that this happens...but, honestly, in no other county in the world do transit passengers go through this shit..we even have to pay $27 for an ESTA just to get onto another plane. Anyway...so...we arrive with an hour and 10 mins to make our connection. Having been through this hell on earth before...i said to Jo that we had no fucking chance of making the flight unless we jumped the passport line...and, thank you god, the plane that had come in before us was from Seoul full of such polite, friendly Koreans that did not even bat an eyelid at these two deranged middle aged women pushing through them. But...then we got a telling off from one of the ground crew, who said we had no right to be asking to go ahead and said...bahahahaha...that 'we should have arrived earlier'. When i told her that our flight was delayed, and if we didnt skip the line we didnt have a chance of making our connection, she told me it wasnt 'her' fault.
then...as if she wasnt rude enough..as there were about 300 foreign passengers, and no US citizens waiting at passport control, grudgingly, we aliens were permitted to use the other 25 open desks, instead of the one dedicated to all of us 'others'. While Jo and I were being allowed such special treatment, the official checking our papers, taking our finger prints and asking where we came from as if we didnt speak the same language, shouted out to the woman who was dealing with the queue that he didnt want to deal with any other 'foreign people' as they were too annoying. Perhaps he misread the Border Control Official job description, or perhaps he was just a total arse...who knows. and then...to top it all, when i asked the security woman...yes we had to go through that again too...if we needed to take out liquids she treated me like i was deranged...despite the fact that at the moment, half the world does and half the world doesnt...but then gave me hell because i didnt take off my shoes, which no one other country ive been to in the last 2 years makes you do unless its boots. oh...travel...what a joy!
So...anyoldhoo...i suggest you never, ever, ever travel through Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson.
Honduras and Belize, on the other hand, were a total joy. and see this expedition and extreme exploration on boats by day getting soaked and filthy, and yet total luxury by night on a fantastic yacht with french food and wine...no pun intended...but that totally floated my boat. What a faaaaab trip.
OK...no more about Atlanta airport, i promise. So after a taxi ride, 5 airports, 4 flights, lunch with a French Health and Safety executive in Schipohl, 4 bus trips, a night in a hotel in Edinburgh and a shop in Tesco, i finally arrived home to my starkly beautiful archipelago home, gorgeous house, and so, so comfy bed...Halllelullja!!!
But..what a fab trip. So let me tell you a few things about Belize and Honduras.
They were british colonies where black slaves were taken, so, for central america, have a really different ethnic mix. First it was about exploiting lumber...especially mahogany..then...the banana. Belize only has 450 000 people, English is the official language, they are part of the Commonwealth, and now, somewhere Americans retire to, as everything is really cheap in Belize, they speak the same language and have some of the best beach houses ive ever seen. The US dollar is secondary official currency, and easy to use, as the Belize dollar is constantly set at 2 to 1. Even people from Burnt Mattress Arkansas can work that one out, and its a 3 hour flight from Atlanta Georgia. The other thing is that Belize is so old fashioned British that they also still have the Queen on the bank notes, have red post boxes and use the imperial system. Sadly, though, they are not so old fashioned that they use Farenheit, as, apart from the US only 2 other countries on the planet do that. Equatorial Guinea (where, strangely, there are direct flights to Dallas), and, naturally, North Korea. So i can really see why people would retire here...Belize is all pretty brightly coloured wooden houses on stilts, cool, friendly people, good food and drink, lovely beaches and deserted islands, tropical fruits and rum punch. On the other hand, they moved the capital inland to Belmopan as Belize City has been hit by so many hurricanes, and even while we were there, it rained so much that all the streets round the ocean drive were ankle deep in water. I really liked Belize, i think it would be hard not to, but i know, a bit like Mexico City, unless i have to go back there, in order to go somewhere else, i will never lay eyes on it again. Honduras, though, i was entranced by.
We went down the Carribean coast of Honduras to places called Punta Sal, Cuero y Salado...and to the islands of Guanaja, Bonacca and Cayos Cochinos....where a remote group of people called the Garifunas live. Because of the colonial British past, but also piracy waaaay before that, the people here speak their own creole languages and English, not Spanish. Interestingly when they speak English they do it with an accent akin to the southern states of the US, though they have never been outside their costal area, unless they have had to go to Tegucigalpa 400 km away. Again, climate change and weather are a real problem here, and many of these islands will no longer exist in 50 years, if they even survive that long. There were things about these places that reminded me of the Outer Banks in North Carolina, but here they are far more fragile, and this culture does not exist anywhere else. When, and its a when not an if, they have to move to the mainland, thats it over.
And here, i feel i must do a recommendation incase you ever want to do a expedition cruise on Ponant. And yes Derek they do go to Antartica. All the water on the boat is desalinated sea water, and there are no plastic bottles used. They never drop anchor in coral areas, but drift. onboard there are marine biologists, geologists, ecologists, historians, socioligists, and, woop woop, french chefs and sauciers. You have to clean your fins and snorkel gear when you get back on the boat so you dont carry any diseases to the next reef.
Safe to say, i loved it, and may do another...im looking at French Polynesia....
Derek...i had booked both sets of flights before i had the especial joy of going through Atlanta, and, actually im glad i went through from Mexico, as i knew what to expect and that what we had to do to make our connection leaving Belize. I know that Jo would have just stood in the passport line, had i not asked her to push to the front with me, as she is so much nicer than me, but then, had we done so, there is no danger we would have made it. We arrived at the gate just as boarding started. Now i have a new pet hate airport...it used to be Heathrow...and specifically Terminal 5, which actually still is the rudest transfer hub on the planet in my experience, from where i missed 3 flights in a row because of delays at security, and wrote a vicious review on google. Of course i used to have Global Entry so used to just breeze through, but it expired during lockdown, and there was no point of me renewing for this trip...its not as if i would have left Jo in the 'aliens' line...though perhaps i should have...but that is another story....
So derek...im really impressed that you managed to hold out for so long to get a smart phone....I know this because i got your christmas card today. One of the best things about having one in my life....a travel organiser app...there are lots, but im using one called tripcase. You forward all your flight and hotel emails to his app, and it arranges them into your trip, and you can manually add taxis, trains etc so its just all there listed so you dont have to have printouts or panic when you cant remember the name of your hotel, or what time your flight is. It also updates, so, for example, lets you know that your flight to Atlanta is delayed by 30 mins...no, 40....hang on...an hour etc, etc. I dont think now i could live without it. Nor could i live without Amazon Photos. Gone are the days of attaching my camera or a stick to my laptop to download...they automatically go to the cloud when i have wifi. Aaaaand...i bought my phone because it has the best camera of any ive reviewed....all my photos on here in the past 2 years have been taken on my phone, and stored in the Amazon cloud. But, like you Derek, i still use one finger to type on my phone...even with predictive text...so i upload photos on my phone, and then type on my laptop with all 10 fingers like i learned when i met Jo at Stevenson College in 1979. though it no longer invoves paper, tabulation or tippex.
Some people, tour guides especially, are obsessed with the sound of their own voice, but as i so rarely speak to anyone these days, i am not one of them. No...im obsessed, apparently, by the sound of my own typing. So here it is...another blog entry. And my reason for havering yet again this month..the shortest day of the year. Its all up-hill from now. Woop woop!!
And this solstice has been a strange day here, as we had a weather warning for storm Pia, the Aberdeen ferry left 5 hours early arriving here at 2am, all the schools are closed, inter-island ferries all cancelled and many businesses decided not to open. Right on cue, i was woken at 01.30 by horrendous hail hitting my windows, gusts so strong they rattled my front door, and my bed was shaking about...but it only lasted till 6am, at which time i fell asleep and woke up again when it got light about 10am in silence. So no struggling to get the gate open, seeing bins flying off to norway, the whole of the road beside tesco being covered in water and sea weed, or having to hang onto a lamp post so you dont get blown over. I realised that i have been living here too long when i was seriously disappointed by the risk to life that the weather posed. However you will be happy to hear that, not only do we now have snow, it hailed so hard when i was out today that it really spiked my face and hurt like...well, tiny hard cubes of ice hitting your face at speed. OUCH! Ya f**ker!
So, yeah, just a normal, slightly windy, Shetland day, but just the thing i love about living here...its just so contrary, or some might even call it obtuse. Does that suit my personality or what? no need to answer that...i know it drives most people mad, but i actually like the fact that i live somewhere that is so hard to get to and im fine with it taking 3 days....that is exactly what i signed up for. When i was on the Ponant boat there was an Israeli girl who was a naturalist...she had done one of the Arctic trips which spends a day here. She LOVED loved, loved it, and we bonded over puffins, bromiliads and strangler figs. She was just gobsmacked that someone who lived somewhere to stupidly remote could have caught the same boat in Belize and know the difference between parasites and empathites. duh! hell, girl, im old enough to be your granny, and i have been to almost half of the worlds countries. I do know a thing or two.
through out my life people have always thought i was a really irritating 'know it all' and have tried to bring me down. But...really...tell me...what is there in my life that i havent done...
But today, not only did i find out the the solstice wasnt till about 4am this morning, i woke up in a winter wonderland. So, obv that deserved another blog entry. I feel a bit better when i look at the other massive getjealous bloggers, as you may not realise that i am in the top 5, but there are people who write every day they are travelling. I dont have time for that when im away of course, having faaaar too many adventures to take part in, but, apparently, things are a little less frantic at home. So despite my swimming habit, and the fact that i cant stop swinging by Tesco on the way home, despite having more food in my fridge than i think i ever have, to the point that i wish i had, indeed, purchased that giant, double door, stainess steel Amerikan one, i have a lot of time on my hands for havering.
so...here are my havers. For a start, i no longer put comments onto my photos, but was totally surprised by my Belizian change one day, as it involved a US Dollar coin. I had forgotten that they ever tried to foister that on the US population. The dirty bastards. The picture of Liz on the the Belizian note also made me laugh as it just doesnt look anything like her, at any time in her life, but especially not in the last 40 years. But what do i know...we dont have the monarch on notes in my country. Though i cant help but look forward to some time in the future doon sooth when i see Bank of England notes with Charles on them...how funny is that going to be? He is not exactly the most photogenic person.
But moving on...
Derek, it surprises me about the security thing on the internet, as both Eli, and MIke and anyone else i know when i was in the US just shut the lid of their laptop without logging out...something i would never do. And i dont know about phone security where you are, but here, and i do just about everything on my phone now, including banking, entering electricity meter readings, booking hotels and flights, i have to scan my thumb print on my phone to enter the apps. Tripcase is just faaaaab...so ive put a pic of my last trip details. There are others, but i like this one the best. the other thing i just could not live without is google maps...omg, just the most useful thing in the world.
And im obsessed with puzzles and quizzes...my favourite at the moment is an app called Worldle...it gives you a shape of a country every day that you have to identify and then answer questions about it. The app also has guess the flag, and photos with Where taken?. I also love instagram, but only for photos...i dont need to be influenced by anyone. bahahahahablahblah...ok...enough.
have a great time over the festive period all 5 people who read this.
im planning, already, next christmas in French Polynesia...
Fingers crossed.
Actually, Derek, another phone app i am obsessed with is Flightradar. This is partly because, unlike anywhere else ive ever lived, the sky here so rarely has planes in it, and really only those going to Iceland from Denmark or Germany regularly cross our horizon. For those who have never flow into Shetland, there are about 12 flights a day, all from other UK airports, except twice a week to Bergen in Norway, and charter flights to rigs in the North Sea which leave from gate 2, and usually involve 3 men. (and it is always men...ive never seen a woman get on a flight from gate 2). But the airport LSI..lerwick shetland islands... is not even close to town, like Kirkwall on Orkney, or even Stornoway. Instead its almost 30 miles away doon sooth at Sumburgh, the most southerly ness of the archipelago, which will set you back a cool £75 taxi fare if you are in the unfortunate position of missing the bus from the Viking Station. So, therefore, in town, we never see a flight to shetland crossing our sky. However....and i have put on the flightradar path of this....on christmas eve, Santy, as he is called here, flies over every village in the archipelago on a coastguard helicopter, and all the bairns come out to wave at him. How fooking cute is that. Honestly, when i was a wee girl who still belived in Santa i would have been totally entranced. And. tbh, even now i love seeing it, even if there were no kids to wave at santy, as Walter, my only neighbour who has kids, (whose Thai wife has just left him and gone home) was spending christmas with his parents in Skerries. my other neighbours, Mariane and Richie are away...im guessing they are in New Zealand, though i have no justification for that supposition. And in any case, they, instead of children, co-parent Richies oh-so-annoying little dog that he shares with his ex-wife, a Papillon called Buddy. Mariane once said to me that she had no idea why they called him that...as 'He's naebuddies fucking buddy'. NO kidding. Buddy once tried to bite me, but only managed a nip, so i didnt even mention it to them...well that and the fact that Richie had passed out on the couch. so i just went home. it was 6am...
The other Flightradar photo is of a flight from here to Aberdeen, though you might not recognise the flightpath. And this is our reality in the far north. We have really wild weather here, and ours is forecast for tonight so the ferrry is not running, but they already have said weather on the mainland. So the flight circled over Aberdeen, till the pilot decided it wasnt safe to land, so diverted to Inverness. Then after doing the same there, it was, yet again diverted to Glasgow, where it did actually manage to land. I dont know about you, but if i wanted a 45 minute flight to Aberdeen, but ended up on a 3 hour flight to Glasgow, i might not be best pleased...however, this is the price you pay for living somewhere so stupidly remote, and i know that Loganair would have had crammed all the passengers into taxis at Glasgow airport for the joyride to Aberdeen. What Larks...not!!! However, you do have to admire Loganair pilots. If you can land on the beach at Barra airport, or in the fog and wind at sumburgh, im guessing you can do the same anywhere. Funchal for example. easy peasy lemon squeezy.
I have just realised that i have put on a photo of my friend Kathleen wearing the new apron i gave her for christmas...didnt mean to but whatever...and, naturally, an apron wasnt her only gift, it was a comedy present. if anyone gave me just an apron, i would delete their existence from my life immediately...if i didnt my mother would turn in her grave. bahaha...
I finished the i crossword for the first time in aaages...and i include a photo as 1 Across just sums up everything about finding myself in yet another year where i have had to print off the various SIC bin uplifts for the next 52 weeks for the THIRD time!!! Already!
Gareth and i were just talking about how older people constantly tell others their age, as i find myself doing sometimes, not because they want to be complimented on how good they look, or get special treatment...but just because it seems so fucking funny that they, we, have arrived here so fooking fast. Yesterday i was 47...now apparently 15 years have passed, and im 62. Already!
The weather has been really grim here...and we are on our 5th storm of the season...Already! But funnily enough, and not just because i managed to be jammy enough to make it both ways off Shetland between said storms, the last 2...Gerrit and Henk have been that strangest of things here...blowing from the south. For those readers lucky enough to have stepped foot on this mystical archipelago, and walked towards the north coast at, for example, Eshaness or Hermaness, you will know that the chances of getting blown off the cliffs in the winter, or even getting the car door open if you are sideways parked, are as likely as inserting an oyster into a lock. The prevailing 80 kmph gusts are always from the north, which is why the wind and rain hitting the front of my house, and therefore, my bedroom window, wake me by shaking the floor and rattling the front door. So these last 2 storms, particularly Henk which blew the roof off the Sheland Hotel opposite the ferry terminal, didnt even trouble my wheelie bins, as i am totally sheltered by Staney Hill. The devastation, which was widespread, totally passed me by, but i couldnt help but wonder....would hypothetical trees in the imaginary forest in Shetland be able to make a noise loud enough to be heard above the howl of the wind even if there was anyone there to hear? Great philosophical questions of the year....already!
So...tomorrow the Fire Festival season starts...Already! Scalloway is always first, on the second friday of the year, and last year, it was my first ever Up Helly Aa experience. But it rained so hard that my 'waterproof' jacket became so saturated it gained 10 kilos in weight, and it took 3 days hanging over a chair to drip dry, and, it looks like similar weather this year. The fab thing about the Scalloway one is that the galley gets pushed out into the sea after it is filled with flaming torches, and it really is a fantastic sight, even in the pishing rain. However, apart from Lerwick, which my friend Mel is coming up for, and i have the treasured Hall tickets, i will be away for most of the others as im off on my travels again....already!
Cabo Verde.
So i dont think you have to be a metaphysician to report that the answer is a definite NO! Its pretty damn quiet here anyway on nights without wind, let me tells ya, but when i wake up in the wee hours, as i invariably do, i can tell immediately if it has been snowing. For a start, its unusually bright for this time of year, but its also so muffled...like the world has been wrapped up in a fluffy blanket and bundled up in bed by some 6 year old girl, like a spoiled puppy. And as you can see....we have some white blanket...to the point that not only the buses, the mail and schools were cancelled today, many shops and bars didnt open...and even the bluemull ferry wasnt running, because staff just couldnt get there. I know we always laugh about London, or any other big city grinding to a halt because of 2cm of snow...but here, where, outside of Lerwick, the 'highway' to the airport and around Brae, all the roads are single track with passing places only, ditches on both sides, and many with plunges into the Ocean or the North Sea depending which side you are on, 4 or 6 inches of the white stuff, combined with Arctic wind which can make the temperature around -8, is very treacherous indeed. Right now i am watching car antics going up the hill at Unicorn View...2 cars having to be pushed because the wheels are turning but no one is home. now there are 3...and they are all getting together to shunt the cars around and just push them into their parking spaces....What fooking shaninigans! You will be relieved to hear....no one was injured during the watching of this event, and now, all the lights are out, and everyone is home. Hoorah!
So, given the weather, and the lack of buses, swimming pools or bars, yesterday i re-jigged my PlayStation, and played a game for the first time since 2017. I know you are wondering how tf i know its been that long, but like a digital camera, Playstation records the times of your saves. So, given its been 7 years, i thought i might not remember how to do anything, but it turns out it might, hypothetically, be like riding a bike. Not being a metaphysician,however, i cant say, as i have never been on said contraption in my life, though apparently, like an elephant, i had not forgotten. What i had not remembered, though is how much it requires focus, and how totally exhausting that is. That and being killed all the time. that is also really tiring.
so...im hoping to go swimming, receive the Tesco delivery i have booked, and maybe not just be at home...but if that is what the gods of the weather have decided, i go with their decision. Last year i went to 20 countries on 6 trips, and, every time, despite cancelled ferries and snow, i made it easily. This year i already have 3 trips booked, 2 in the next two months. I hope the gods are good to me.
So...fingers crossed...
Woop woop. what a great night.
Cape Verde....Talk about mis-representation! For a start...
1. its not a cape, its a smattering of 10 islands, off the coast of Mauritania. The nearest town is Nouakchott!
and...
2. Verde! verde...bahahaha!!! it only rains 2 months a year, and its closest neighbours are in the saraha desert. Perhaps when the Portuguese arrived in 1462, it was in september after the rains, but in february, let me tell you, there is as much green in Cape Verde as there are trees in Shetland.
So...i am considering sending a strongly worded letter to the President, Jose Maria Neves, demanding compensation for the misleading name of his country, and suggesting it be changed to avoid disappointment.
To Las Ilhas Marrons.
Perhaps im being unfair to Cape Verde...for a start i did have two 6am flights one after the other, and met my cousin in Laura for dinner inbetween, followed by a bit of a trek round Lisbon, so by the time i arrived in Praia, i was totally knackered, but i just found it so, so underwhelming. What was i expecting...well, i suppose dramatic coastal scenery, cute pastel painted villages clinging to spectacular cliffs and beautiful beaches with cool bars and even cooler music. What i got instead was a baked, brown island group without said spectacular cliffs or cute villages, and some pretty but unremarkable beaches with surly staff and mangy dogs. It just not appeal in any way...and i couldnt help but think that i have been spoiled...not only by visiting places that are all of the above things, but actually also by living in such a spectacular remote island group which is so wild and free it makes CV feel like a walk in a park. however it did have its moments...so here are some interesting facts about Cabo Verde....
It has the oldest European settlement in Africa, Cidade Velha, just along the coast from Praia. it was founded by the Portuguese in 1462, is a World Heritage Site and one of the worlds Seven Wonders of Portuguese Origin. I had no idea such a thing existed, nor what the other 6 are, but there you go. All the greats...Colombus, Vasco da Gama and Magellan travelled through this town, and, obviously, it then became a vital port for the slave trade across to the Americas. And..yes...this is what i was expecting...cute small town based around a square with bars and restaurants galore with a giant fort on the hill behind it. really loved this place.
Cape Verde used to be in the third world, but is now on the list of Developing Small Island Nations, one of only 2 to climb up. Try as i can to google it, i still dont know what the other is.
You can pay for everything in Euros...they have, like Belize and the $US, a fixed rate at 1 Euro to 10 CV Escudos. Though my swanky hotel, with its pool on the roof, had an ATM right next to the door, and things are cheap...my hotel bill for food and drinks for the 5 days was 70Euro. though..ok...i did bring in some things from the supermarket, but, unlike in Vienna or Mexico, i didnt walk out without paying. maybe my crime spree is over...but i doubt it. bahaha...
so...thats is CV in a nutshell...where it is probably best left. Its not a bad place..but really...there are so many more interesting, beautiful and chilled places, so i suggest why bother.
Alternatively...and coming next...Lisbon. Hadnt been for about 35 years....Loved, loved loved it. probably should just have stayed there instead of schlepping myself all the way to Praia.
And on the horizon....Paramaribo and Curacao. woop woop.
So due to flight times not matching up for connecting to get to Praia, i had to spend a night each way in Lisbon, a place i havent been since 1989!!!! Given that my flights from Edinburgh were £90 return, i might just go again sometime because...well it was just so, so FAB!
For a start, i had booked a hotel on Pink Street...unbeknown to me, it is one of the very trendy bar and restaurant streets in town and used to be the red light district, due to its proximity to the docks. My hotel used to be a high class brothel, is now a 'lit' night spot with rooms upstairs, and all the decoration, fittings and fixtures picked to look like original victorian era pieces..ok i realise it wasnt Victorian era in Portugal, but you get the idea. I have put on a detail of the wall paper in the loo, for example, and actually if you ever have a room with walls just begging for this design, i can tell you where you can buy it thanks to Mr Google and his magic information feed. So each room is different, and named after one of the girls, or boys who worked there...some have dancing poles, revolving beds, and one even has a cage....all have mock period furniture, toilets, beds, (ok not so victorian) disco glitter balls, and a hamper of goodies you might need. You can have breakfast brought up to your room from 10am, and dont have to check our till 2pm. What fooking larks. Loved staying here so much the first night, i cancelled my airport hotel on my return and stayed here again before flying home. And for the icing on the cake it is a short stroll to the cathedral, the river, and Afalma from Pink Street, not to mention there is a bloody fantastic supermarket in the metro station 5 mins away where a large can of SuperBock was 70c. All this and a taxi to the airport was only 14Euro...happy days. (i was actually going to get the metro from the station of the fantastic supermarket, but you had to change lines, and it took 40 mins...whereas a taxi was only 20 mins and, hell, im too old to be worrying about saving 10 euros).
So, all in all, its true...i preferred 2 days in Lisbon to 5 in Cape Verde, but would it have been different if i had gone to a different island? Most tourists go to the inspired-named island of Sol, which supposedly has beautiful beaches, but that didnt really appeal, as cheap holiday companies run packages there, and it just looked a bit too Ibiza for my liking. Anyway...water under the bridge...Been there done that wont ever go again.
And Derek, if you dont remember me disliking a place ive been, you just havent been paying attention...(bahahahaha!) as just last year i particularly regretted going to a town called Nis in Serbia around the same time you were in Banja Luka. Dont know why i didnt just go to Belgrade...but would it have been nicer...who knows? I will probably never find out, as Nis was so depressing, and the people, especially the old women so scowling and miserable that i have no desire to return. The other place i really didnt like, in fact to the point that its still my least favourite place in the world is Cancun....well if we are not mentioning Atlanta HJ Airport anyway. HA! However on the trip to Nis as well as Serbia i went to Kosovo, France, Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. Thats how i managed to accumulate 20 countries in a year...that and it was from my Google Maps feed...so it included stops id made at places like..toronto, paris, amsterdam, sao paulo, sint maartin and...most notoriously, Atlanta, in some of which i didnt actually leave the airport. sometimes for the best.
However, maybe my expectations of Cape Verde were just too high, and i thought it was going to be waaaay more beautiful than it is, or actually could be. Maybe i envisioned the Maldives when i should have realised it would be Tenerife mixed with Gambia.
Maybe i should just think everywhere is like Paraquay....underpromise and overdeliver.
So, i realise that most of you, my hundreds of avid readers are not really social media lovers, so dont do Facebook, but being far less sensible or discerning, I do. One of the things i take part in is Shetland groups...mostly about photography, or the shenanigans of wheelie bins or sheep, but im also part of a Sooth-Moothers group. I think i may have explained this before, but i realise that not all of you are paying proper attention, so i will reiterate. When i first got here, i thought it referred to the way people from the South speak...hence south mouthers...sooth moothers. However, this is not the derivation of said nomenclature. It, in fact, from the way people from the mainland arrive in Shetland...on the ferry that comes into Lerwick from Aberdeen via the Sooth Mooth of the Sound. I, being the contrary bitch that i am, did not arrive this way. I landed on a Loganair flight to Sumburgh, 25 miles away, though all my shit got shifted to Shetland via the Sooth Mooth, so i believe i still count. Whatever my credentials to be in this Facebook group...someone put on a post about an exibition at the museum that was finishing this weekend...and it looked like my kinda thing, so i went today.
Well...to say it was my kinda thing is an understatement. Mike Mcdonnell only did this art after he retired as GP in Yell, after a pretty interesting life living in several remote island communities around the world. Most of it was made of flotsam or junk he found walking round Yell, and a lot of it represents his political, ethical and religious beliefs. He died in 2022, and while i was walking round the exhibit there were people chatting about times they had with him, conversations they had, and just what larks they had had knowing him. It was very Shetland.
On the way out, i noticed a catalogue, and that several of the pieces were for sale...some for as little as £75..the most expensive being £300. I was so, so excited as i thought i might be able to buy Pictish Head Case for only £150....but, of course, the exhibition ends tomorrow, and all of them have been sold.
I was gutted.
However the woman on the desk told me that they had practically all sold on the first day of showing. I was in Mexico for Dia de los Muertos at that time.
And i wouldnt have missed that...even for an original Mike Mcdonnell.
After being pretty disappointed with Cape Verde, I tried not to get my expectations up for Paramaribo (which, incidentally is pronounced not as I thought para-maree-bo, but Paramarabo). So imagine my excitement when it turned out to be so small, safe and cute, I could pinch its little chubby cheeks🥰. If you are wondering where all the people are..well, just like it was when I was a kid in Scotland, everything here closes for a half day on Saturday, and doesn't open again till.Monday. And if you examine one of the photos closely you will see that there is a mosque and a synagogue right next to each other, a thing so gobsmacking to us, but people here don't even understand why you are taking a photo. Suriname...you've got to love it. ❤️
So, you find yourself in French Guiana, you know, as you do, and discover, unexpectedly, it's not only part of France, but part of the EU, uses the Euro, and was a penal colony to which 70,000 french convicts were sent, a little like a Gallic Australia. Despite being just across the river from Suriname it has a totally different feeling, and I've just had such an interesting time here. However, I won't blether on just now as I have a taxi coming to take me to the airport at 2am, for my stupidly early flight to Curaçao. God my life is just so hard.😮💨🤣🤣
Curacao (i dont know how to get the cedilla on my laptop) is a liqueur named after the island, because it is produced from a bitter orange grown there, called the laraha, and for it to be called Curacao it has to be made with the peel of said fruit. When or why blue colouring was first added, no one is quite sure...but, its not for any reason other than to make it stand out amongst cocktails, and does not affect the flavour. So there you have it in a nutshell, or orange peel, or blue bottle.
The island is off the coast of Venezuela, beside Aruba, and part of the Netherlands Antilles, ie...still part of the Kingdom of Netherlands where people speak Dutch, hence the direct flight back to Amsterdam. But it has a totally different feeling to Suriname, where i didnt see or hear a single tourist (of which there were few, let me tells ya) who wasnt Dutch. I dont know why it should seem strange that people in South America dont speak Spanish, Portuguese or an indigenous language, but it just does, though when i went up to Galibi on the coast, i told an native american man that i didnt speak Dutch.. he just looked at me gobsmacked, and just said 'why not?'.
I loved Suriname...did you know that its the most forested country in the world?....with 95% of the land covered in trees, though i did see some of the foliage by the one road from Paramaribo east, totally smothered in Kudzu, an invasive vine from eastern Asia which is a real problem in the southern states of the US, especially round Tennessee and the Carolinas. And Curacao was great because i was staying in a fantastic tree house, the capital Wilhelmstat is really cute and pastel coloured (actually one of the most photographed town areas in the Carribean), and it has pretty beaches, but a bit too touristy for my liking. And...ok, we dont have the weather, but Shetland has far, far more beautiful, pristine beaches with clear azure water than Curacao. I know anyone who hasnt been here wont believe me, but it is true nevertheless, and im just jaded by these supposedly 'stunning' beaches when i have better at home.
However, here there are no Javanese restuarants, chinese supermarkets or Hindu temples as there are in Suriname, because then acqured indentured workers after the slave trade was abolished, and we dont have happy hour at 5pm as they do in Curacao because they cater for American tourists, and cruise ship people. Another thing that i saw in Curacao that i havent seen since i worked in Liverpool, and Wester Hailes is the shop with the assistant inside bars where you have to ask for everything, and they pass it out through gaps that are not big enough for you to grab it, or put a gun through. They dont have that in Paramaribo....
But they also dont have my house, and my bed.
Much as i love travelling...it is so, so good to be home.
Apparently there is no place like it...
So, yes, apparently it is. The daffodills are out everywhere, the puffins have just arrived back at Sumburgh head and have got their land-legs, and red bills after 8 months in black and white out in the North Sea, and next week there will be lamby lambkins everywhere...woo hoo! I remember reading a novel called Butterflies in November about a woman driving the ring round Iceland, with lots of other shenanigans i wont mention, but it was written by an Icelander, so im sure you can imagine. (If you are in any doubt that they are mad as a box of frogs, just watch a film called Lamb). So my point is, in the book the woman describes the seasons in Iceland as 5 months of darkness, and 5 months of light with one month of dark to light, and one month of light to dark inbetween. Ok, so Shetland is not so extreme or far north, the sun does, for a very short time, dip below the horizon even on the longest day, and we dont have 24 hours of darkness (thank god), but the spring is really short, can still involve snow, as it did one day last week, when i woke up at 6 because it was so bright...then by 9 am it was all away, and blue skies....storms, incredibly high tides. Autumn is, obviously a bit of a mystery as there are so few trees, and those that are here in gardens never turn because they dont have time, and usually the leaves go black from all the salt in the air. So...what im saying is...April is the change from winter to summer in a really short time...Its all uphill from now on. Way Hey.
So other things that are not pertaining to that British obsession with the weather....When i came back from Suriname, i spent a couple of lovely days with my cousin Laura in Kelty in Fife, where we went for a walk through the wood in the photos. We also went to an exhibition of my brothers paintings in Cockenzie house, and i bought one...which is travelling up to Shetland in style on the boat...the first time i was in a cabin with a window....yesssss! The Northlink ferry equivalent of business class.
And Derek....bahaha...if Curacao was going to be based on any colour from the Netherlands...it would, of course, be orange, not blue....which i seem to remember is your favourite colour, and KLM is that sky blue, like the colour of the Scottish flag...not dark, what we would call, royal, blue. And talking of blue...did you know it was the last colour to have a name....green had one before it, and its not even a primary colour. Apparently, people didnt need a word, because they so rarely needed to describe items of that colour..red came first, then yellow, and then green, being the hue of so many plants and edible things, got nomenclature first. So, as i think ive said before, the sky, or the sea in ancient texts is often referred to as Bronze or Golden, or wine-dark. Even today the Himba people in Namibia have no word for it....though, having been to Namibia, im guessing they have lots of words for brown, red and sand-coloured. As they no doubt do in Cape Verde.
Just saying.
So...did you know, just when you would have thought there was nothing more to be said about a man who lived over 2 millenia ago, a new book has just been published. And...no its not Jesus, its (gasp) Aristotle! Apparently the author was very religious until she was 11, then totally gave up God. Following this, not for her were teenage years filled with smoking, dancing in dingy dark clubs, experimenting with mind altering substances, listening to music so loud your ears bled or discovering sex while wearing some of the worst fashions known to mankind. No sirree. She spent her time searching for happiness..in all the right places apparently, as she found it in, who would have thought... Aristotle.
So while i did a philosophy course at Uni...it was Metaphysics and invoved Nietzsche and Hume, not Socrates and Plato, and my knowledge of classical philosophers is hazy to say the least...but this peaked my interest, beacuse it is about one of my favourite things...Happiness. While i have no intention of reading Edith Halls book, i have actually spent quite a lot of time researching Aristotles idea of happiness which he believes it the ultimate goal of life, is not based on pleasure alone and is about realising your potential to be the best person you can be. One of the reasons im drawn to this, is that its not about religion, or wanting heavenly reward, I get fed up with devout people telling me that we would have no ethics or 'goodness' without god to advise or threaten us.
So Eudaimonia the highest state of happiness, transcending pleasure. It is usually translanted as Flourishing.
So to cut a long story short...Aristotle actually believed that Sisiphus achieved Eudaimonia. Ok not when he had to push the huge rock up the hill. Hard as hell, repetative, exhausting, punishing. But when he pushed the rock over the hill, he had time to himself walking back down, to reflect, the recuperate, to think, to walk alone in enjoyment all the way back down the hill. Is that not just an allegory for most modern peoples lives....
And...Derek..im well aware you know the Dutch love of orange...please forgive me for always teasing you. You are the only person who regularly messages here, so im afraid you are the brunt of my hilarious repartee. And...im a bit jealous of you seeing the latest eclipse...but i was in Tennessee for the last one in 2017. Right now, even seeing the sun in Shetland would be a gift of god....