knowing my mother will never read this, I can safely note here the list of various white chocolate goodies I got her for xmas... Seestor tells me she's even thinner than the last time I saw her... Grieving is just stripping away the pounds... but there isn't much of her to lose!

1 terry's chocolate orange ball (white)
1 box of after eights (white)
1 packet of white chocolate buttons
1 limited edition white chocolate aero
1 white kit kat

All of these items are NOT available in Canadia, thus adding specialness.

I am safe in the knowledge that it is safe from my chocoholic tendencies as I abhor white chocolate! *phew* This should keep her busy!

There was...

a very unusual amount of sick about town this morning... first someone appeared to have an unfortunate incident on the 30 this morning, followed by an alarmingly high amount on the footpath, through the square I walk through on my way to work... Could it be over indulgence at xmas parties? Could it be an epidemic of the flu? Or could I have just inadvertently followed the path of the poor sod? Very yucky nonetheless!

Popbitch is back up and running again. What a joy it brings to my sad sad existence. I'm supposing they were smartly laying low due to their media trashing a few weeks back about the DB scandal.

Why do people call booze, plonk here? That is one thing I will never understand...

I've just only recently...

seen what David Grey looks like... Now back in Ottawa he was considered terribly uncool. Not that I cared, thus when I was bombarded by his music in the studio around the time of Filament's demise, I do admit to becoming fond of his music. Now that I'm in the UK and he's got a new album out, he seems to be everywhere. To me, his face doesn't match his music at all... I can liken this feeling I have to one that most people experience when they first see their favourite radio dj in person... the voice very rarely matches the face.

Kudos to the guy at the Merc shop on Carnaby st. this lunch time. He was really sweet and helpful when I was trying to find something for my friend Karm for xmas. Not that I have much interest in shopping there, but if I did, I would.

As ever...

Dearbhla is always the finder of all that is cool and trendy... renouncing cat ownership for a single woman as, 'giving up' and a definitive trigger to a 'spinster alert'... Resolving to avoid this possibly precarious situation has opted to become the proud owner of one of these....

I really want one for my desk! Mind you it's so cold in there the damn things would probably freeze!

I dig the colour options!

I would have never thought this would have happened to me...

I'm a self confessed sweet tooth. However, for some odd reason, ever since the weekend I've not been able to manage to drink my regular brew! It seems that it's suddenly become too sweet! How could this be? I usually take 2 sugars in my tea and now I'm cut down to one... What's a girl to do? How could such a thing happen? Is this a symptom of old age? Is it all down hill from here?

Our travellers have departed back to the land of Canadia, lets just hope they take this chilly weather with them! Darrell reports that it's minus 20 Celsius in Ottawa so we shouldn't feel so bad here!

11 more sleeps till I depart for Canadia... feeding extra mouths has severely depleted my bank account so I'm again accepting donations!

My permanent contract is due on my desk in the next few days. So strange in the wake of all the layoffs here in the last two weeks... I almost feel guilty, but not quite. If it was my time to go, I would have gone.

I've got static cling...

in the lining of my new trousers! I'm not really complaining as I got them at this sale on Friday for 20£ they're 100% pure wool with a satiny lining! I'm having a bit of an 80's flashback to when I used to own a skirt made out of the same fabric as this lining and it was a nightmare to control during the winter. Living in London has greatly reduced the amount of static in my life... guess cause it's always so damp but this cold snap in the past few days has wreaked havoc!

I contemplated eating a pear from our Monday basket o' fruit... but went for the mandarin orange instead... It's getting the toss from the first minute I spot a seed. I'm trying to be a better fruit eater... on the whole, I can honestly admit to not liking much fruit, but I'm trying...

Went to spittalfields yesterday and picked up a really groovy pressie for Mark. I hope it fits.... I can't write what it is on the off chance he reads my blog and it spoils the surprise... That market is getting crazy, it used to be way more affordable! Guess cause the area is picking up so are the clientele as well as the prices!

My Amazon order is lost stolen or strayed, I'm most certain. One of Kaffin's xmas presents is in it! HELP!

It's a beautiful clear day!

Which translates to the fact that it's quite brisk. The sunlight and blue skies are indeed a treat! I'm sitting here waiting to have long over due meeting with my boss... after all the redundancies while I was away on holidays, I can't say I'm feeling too stable especially because I'm not yet permanent. tick tick tick

I'm quite pleased with yahoo's photo album, their upload functionality is stellar. Super quick really!

I'm so happy it's Thursday as the weekend approachith. It's always a long week when you first get back from time off. Only 16 more sleeps till I fly home.

Is this it? nuhhuhhh.... (ff)
they're too many stars and not enough sky (ta)
give me an hour, and I'll give your your dream(ff)
too bad the burial was premature she said and smiled (ta)

Psst...

Wanna see all our pictures from France? I know you do Miss Hazel...

Very Handy tool

thanks to http://www.nicelytoasted.net/burnt/for this ever so handy reference of the difference between words in the UK and Canadia. Sean, you can now follow what I'm writing about??? *poke*

I have this...

really unnatural desire to consume some of my mum's cream cheese icing....

it's a sickly coloured sky today and it sure is a raining!

xmas shopping this year has brought me no pleasure whatsoever... being on a budget never helps. I keep seeing loads of stuff I want to buy for my dad... he always gets so spoiled every year... it's so strange that he's gone... guess it will never feel normal again.

Jeff and annick are back from their travels! They're heading home on the 10th and are with us here in London till then. Sounds like they had a great adventure, but do indeed seem anxious to go home!

I had this dream last night where I was looking in the mirror and I had finally achieved perfectly shaped abs! dream indeed! I've been gyming it pretty good of late but no such luck just yet...

It's been so many years since I've said this... I can't wait to go home.

so i'm lacking...

a bit of inspiration, having enjoyed my week away from blogging... in this state of laziness I'm inclined to pirate Sarah's style of summarizing events of the recent past...

highlights include:

-witnessing a near mugging in the street while waiting for the bus to take us to the airport
-arriving at the airport in perfect time (this is very novel for me)
-Ryan air flight departing and arriving on time!
-Stanstead airport being a complete ghost town
-paying 19£ each for a return ticket on the Stanstead express...
-having an awkward misunderstanding with a friend who thought we were staying with them instead of in the hotel we already booked
-feeling kind of special in that some of the familiar faces in town still remembered me after all those years
-drinking loads of great Guinness
-feeling really old being surrounded buy 21 year old students (both at jo's student union here in London and in the smoking dog in Lyon)
-immeasurable amounts of love and kisses
-dirt cheap fags
-surprisingly bad food
-a nice feeling of catharsis (can't help but feel a little bit Dawson's Creek writing that...)
-rain rain and more sodding rain
-silence, beautiful calm silence
-very desolate gay bars
-amazingly friendly and nice locals
-air traffic control strike
-the usual Sarah pre-departure anxiety panic
-CNN
-the movie Pecker
-just how rude Londoners are compared to people in Lyon
-the joy of sleeping in our own bed again
-a hair raising visit to Vidal Sassoon for free hair cuts
-a terribly large piss up with the Frameworks gang
-a new house plant (nice big palm)
-practicaly biting through the inside of my mouth during a really strange dream, ouch!
-big layoffs at my job (i'm spared for now)

I can and may expand on some of these points at a later date...

It's good to be back.

oh yea...

So i'm standing at the bus stop this morning with no idea what time it is... I'm lost without my Hazel, she's at home relaxing enjoying her time off...

across the road parked on the footpath (UK) sidewalk (CDN) was a British Telecom service van. All who were stood at the bus stop stared blankly at the man as he sat in his van. Suddenly as if by magic, he started up the ignition and revved the engine and prepared to depart, which meant dismounting the curb and merging with the traffic on the other side of the road... He did the manoeuvre with great stealth... and the split second he pulled into the traffic stream, he poked his tongue out at all of us a the bus stop, and sped off...

?

the pumpkins that smashith

the other day at work I was bored... so while doing my normal tasks I stumbled upon this dusty page deep within the Austrian portal that was no longer live... it was a volume of 5 video segments than ran in total for about 30mins. It was a trip from the rise to the fall of the smashing pumpkins. It starts out in a car with Billy speaking about the beginning of the band, he's driving while being interviewed... The story continues and details their rise to fame, stories about meeting band members... sex, drugs, music... heroin overdoses, death. What struck me the most was the music. I've never been a big fan, I can indeed admit to loving some of their songs and even surprisingly own the Ave Adore album, which I can not for the life of me remember buying... anyhoo... It's absolutely incredible what great musicians they are. I'm not at all in the know about these things but the parts of the documentary that covered their creative process, hard work and absolute obsession with perfection was really commendable. Certainly not your flippant rock star scenario, these kids worked hard. They're certainly not for everyone but the drumming and the vocals synch it for me.

One more sleep till ve go to ze countree of france, c'est vachement cool ou quoi?

hmmm, maybe I should enlist a guest blogger while I'm away... anyone interested?

sometimes...

I kind of get the feeling that keeping a blog is like keeping a sticker book. Back when I was wee, it was all the rage to collect stickers, trade them and so on. It was a good time. So is this. At least this way, I'm not competing for the ever ellusive 'garbage pail kids' sticker!

just why is it...

that so many people are attracted to soaps and candles that look and smell like food? do we want to eat fire and bubbles?

perhaps some things are best left unknown.

for some odd reason...

I managed to leave the house this morning without my jacket... I think it's because I'm wearing a suit jacket and shirt today. I thought I would try something new... but, yea... I'm still wearing jeans and trainers along with it... I'm fashionable challenged... I know.

It's very damp today, not so much cold but wet wet wet... hey, wasn't that the name of a terrible boy band. God, maybe I should delete the three wets as I'm sure I'm going to end up with some unsuspecting porn searchers at my site, god knows I already get enough hits from pervs looking for pictures of ...

Hazel asked me the most bizarre question on the way to the bus this morning... 'if you could come up with a new name for a colour, what would it be?' I responded ' ickle' it would be a grey/black/brown colour.... 'honey, have you seen my ickle coloured jumper?' I love it already! A while back I came up with this idea with this designer I worked with at Mitel... it was to invent a line of clothing for the discriminating designer... it was a line of t-shirts or tops made to match their exactly CMYK colour reference... geeky indeed... but we talked of having the numbers somewhere small across the chest or on the arm band... of course the silliness spawned into RGB jeans etc... I'm quite thankful that never happened... mind you, now after I've written it, someone is going to stumble upon my site, rip the idea and make millions... well, if you do... please remember the little people. *snivels*

As of late I've been pondering a bunch of things... my grieving is subsiding a bit so it's allowed for a bit more room to move about. I've been wondering, just what sort of catalyst one would require to fully come into their own... I know time is the best way to become one with yourself and such... I've got evidence of this as now in winter I wear a hat and don't care how silly I look, because I'm warm... I want to transfer some of that self assurance into all elements of my life... Some might say I need to embark on a challenge of sorts and push myself to the utter limits of my soul in order to see my true self... I don't think it's that easy. I think I have to rely on time and patience and just absorb things in until there is no more room for uncertainty. How long will that take... will it take as long as it takes that woman in that poem 'when i'm old I'll wear purple'?

Only 3 more sleeps till...

Our holiday! I'm getting quite excited! I know not everyone is a fan, but the Beaujolais nouveau is released tomorrow (too bad we're not there for the free samples they give out on the street) The French mostly hate it it's just us silly foreigners who consume it... I wish we could stay long enough to catch the festival de lumieres which is on the 8th... It's so lovely!

We watched the movie 'The others' last night. I can quite confidently say that it was 2h of my life that I'll never get back... I can't imagine it was a surprise to anyone watching the film as not but 10 minutes in, it was clear as day that they were all dead... dear god, what a terrible film...

My big work project is pretty much finished, so there isn't much to do... wonder how I'm going to manage to fill up the rest of the week...

Ah yes, all the tenants in our block received a letter threatening anyone playing loud music at unacceptable times of the day will be evicted with 1 months notice, no argument. Strange, for some odd reason the bratty University kids didn't pump their stereo last night... aww such a shame!

so...

yea, the shitty kids three doors down, thought they would be clever and do the loud music late at night thing just to spite all their neighbours whom already want to murder them. Pumping bass from 11pm -12pm again last night...just to make a point to let us all know that daddy's money will protect them from anyone's nasty interfering with their lives?... god help us.

KJ and Simon rang me last night. What a treat to hear from them. I feel kind of bad as I was so knackered after I got home last night... my unusually poisonous hormones aren't helping either... I'm just no fun to be around right now, so I suppose this bad hair day I'm having isn't helping either...

time for holiday... only 4 more sleeps

What a beautiful misty morning

Didn't feel that exciting when I first hauled ass out of bed... could have something to do with our little spoiled brat student neighbours who live 3 doors down and two floors above us, who decided to throw a party and play super loud music, starting at midnight... it was Sunday night for goodness sake... After nearly all the tenants were standing outside screaming up to their flat asking for the music to be turned down, all that was responded was the two finger salute and a lot of stomping on the floor. So we called the police... who don't deal with this anymore... so we called the noise pollution 24h hotline... guess what, due to budget cutbacks, it's only open 9-5... why bother? so we ring the cops again, and go back inside... 30 mins later, the brats had caught wind that the cops were on the way and turned off the music and kicked everyone out... Cops arrived, and were really sweet, terribly young, they couldn't have been older than 20! They told us to let them know if it kicked off again, then left...So near to 2am we finally fell asleep. *sends evil vibes to ignorant rich students who's parents may be bankrolling them*.... but as my mother always said... 'money can not buy class'

Too funny...

I was chatting to my friend Dearbhla today... I said to her...

sj_chick: I see the light at the end of the tunnel

and she replies in her ever so witty way...

swervla: as long as its not the oncoming train