flying by the seat of my pants

I don't particularly like that expression, but sometimes life twists and turns and I feel like that's how I'm careering through this strange life of mine.

You may have read of the planes grounded by BA because traces of radiation have been found on them. I was half listening to Radio 4 whilst drying my hair when I heard them say the planes had been used on routes to Frankfurt...

I went to Frankfurt by BA at the start of November, but thankfully the flights I was on were the day after the contaminate planes were used. When did life get so scary?

A small slice of humanity

Something unusual happened today. I was in Sainsbury's after work, idlely picking up a few groceries, lost in my own thoughts... I waited for the queue to twist and turn its way along, until I heaved my basket up onto the counter. The guy at the checkout was Indian, small with a killer smile, and he didn't waste any time kicking off a conversation. It wasn't even one of those polite three-second 'how are you today's either. We were laughing! Imagine.

That small interaction had me smiling all the way to the tube, heavy bag in hand.

It makes you think, doesn't it.

Party reminder!

For those of you who read this, come over our place tomorrow (Saturday 26th) from 7.30pm for cocktails and sushi. Yep we're going all out for a classy bash! No peanuts allowed.

India again

This time next week I'll be on a plane to Calcutta, via Dubai. I'm hoping that I can avoid spending the entire flight to Dubai throwing up in the toilet, as I did on my last trip! I was thinking today how I've become more than a tiny bit blase about travelling. I've done so much of this year that I am numb at the thought of another plane journey. Don't get me wrong, I love visiting new places and I've seen some incredible things, but the buzz has been taken out of it somewhat. It feels like the Christmas I finally realised that Father Christmas didn't exist, the magic has gone. I'm sure it'll be a good trip though, my third to India this year! I'll let you know how we get on.

Parlez-vous francais?

Oui, bien sur!

Those three words were the stupidest thing I uttered all week. Having decided that dragging up nine years of French lessons would be no problem at all, I was suddenly out of my depth. I could pretty much understand most of what the bespectacled Frenchman in a blue polo neck was saying, but I think I scared him by my lack of response, punctuated largely by the odd 'Oui' or 'Donc'.

Man I need some lessons.

Grateful No. 2

This damp, grey week I am grateful for:

1. Sleeping In. As one of my favourite tracks by The Postal Service goes, 'Don't wake me, I plan on sleeping in.' Ahhhhh.... A warm duvet and ten o'clock.

2. Butternut Squash: I'm sure we didn't eat these when I was a child, they seem to be a C21 invention. I'm loving the squash, especially in a soup with smoked garlic. Yum.

3. Alice Munro, namely 'dance of the happy shades', a collection of short stories that seem to me to be not unlike sugared almonds. I never quite fancy one until it gets into my mouth.

4. A week off. Almost over. *Sigh* But much loved. Christmas cards made, shopping done, mince pies in the freezer. Love it. Feel v. smug.

5. The Nice Lady in A&E who examined my sore arm after I feel over spectacularly like an old lady, shopping in hand. A. laughed. I cried. The bruies came... they're here to stay.

More wedding photos

Osam

Of honest men there are few
So gracious
As he who seeks to
Make others shine.

4 in 48

I want to tell you about a friend of mine. She's about my age, thin, shy, unassuming. She wears sensible shoes, a duffel coat and she mostly eats brown rice. Her face is rubbery, almond-shaped - not pretty - but what you might call engaging. At weekends she walks along the South Bank with a sketchbook, stopping occasionally to draw, pulling a thick piece of black charcoal from a plastic bag in her coat pocket.

People stop and stare at her
Sometimes
She doesn't mind
Small children smile, inquisitively.

She might sketch the flat river, a metal and glass construction, or a fleeting seagull, before squeezing the hardback sketchbook into her bag and walking on towards Tower. Just after one she stops for lunch: a brown bread tuna sandwich and a cardboard cup of mint tea. The crumbs scatter on her dress; she doesn't notice.

This weekend she counts four... the man in the cafe, a small flaxen haired boy who asks to look at her sketch, a Big Issue seller beneath Waterloo Bridge. And me.

Four conversations, exchanges of warmth, humanity.

Four.

In 48 hours.

And I almost didn't call her.

Fragility

"No matter how tough we may look on the outside, how many 'I'm fine's we can muster, we're all jelly underneath. I don't mean if the surface is scratched, I mean deep down, right inside. No matter what people say, we're slaves to the opinion of others, or worse, the disdain of the self."

Self-ish

Self-less

The latter the lesser of two evils.

Grateful

In search of a self who is infinitely more grateful for the everyday than the current one whose hands type these letters, I've set myself the task of writing the things/people/events I am grateful for at least once a week. Feel free to join me...

Here goes with tentative debut list:

1. Soy milk latte from Pret. The thought of creamy coffee in a red cardboard cup calls me out of my warm, lazy bed. The morning air grows steadily colder, and my quilt is increasing in comfort in direct proportion to the drop in temperature!

2. The thought of a whole week's holiday. I realised with horror that I haven't had a 'proper' break this year. By proper I mean one where I haven't been called on my mobile by work at least three times a day, or woken up in the night worrying about how to reply to an email. On Saturday I'm taking a train to Bristol to stay with my sister and brother-in-law for a week. I can't wait. I'm a domesticated feminist and will put that thought to use by baking an obscene quantity of mince pies in readiness for Christmas.

3. Books, namely Moon Palace by Paul Auster. I live my life in books, each day I think about characters from books I've read, sometimes years previously, and if I'm tired I confuse them with my friends. I'm convinced that most of what I know has been accumulated through a subltle osmosis through the thin pages of countless novels.

That's it for now! More next week.

Birthday drinks

The view was gorgeous,
The company even better.

Autumn in the City

Neutral

I write this sitting in a bare hotel room. Four walls, lino floor, curtains and bedcover all in an indiscriminate shade of nothing at all. A vague attempt at cheeriness has resulted in a faded Kandinsky print, hanging slant on the wall above the single bed. A table with a lamp, a chair, a black plastic phone... the sum of everything composed in those dull items. I've just been to a dinner of pretzels, hot smoked mackarel, pickled cauliflower and cheese, followed by six dancing South Africans in Brazil football shirts, and a dish of cold, wobbly tiramasu. I wonder how I arrived here. The night is black, looking outside is like dipping my head into an inkwell.

This time tomorrow I'll be home, and this nothingness will cease to exist, for me.

Sadness and memory

Like all preliterate beings, the boy's memory is astonishing. The capacity for detailed observation, for seeing an object in its singularity, is almost boundless. Written language absolves one of the need to remember much of the world, for the memories are stored in the words. The child, however, standing in a place before the advent of the written word, remembers in the same way Cicero would recommend, in the same way devised by any number of classical writers on the subject: image wed to place.

Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude, p.165.

Lazy Sunday

When I was at University in Leeds, all those years ago, the days were short, the nights long, and coffee consumption prolific. Between stints in the library a group of pretentious-theory-obsessed-lit-freak-English students would gather on the steps of the Parkinson Building, a white wedding cake affair of a building, reminiscent of a Post Office from Colonial days. We'd chat, a few people would smoke, and we'd drink coffee from Bakery 164 across the street. They did the best coffee - had there been a Starbucks they would certainly have given them a run for their money. The cups were plain white, and the caffeine hidden inside two espressos certainly made the afternoon go faster.

Memory is subjective. I must have spent hours sitting on those steps, but the memory has been reduced to a small package of thought... this morning I'm sitting on our new L-shaped couch thinking of how I'd love a coffee but am too lazy to get up and boil the kettle. That thought reminded me of those cold steps, and there I am.

Winter soup

If you, like me, have started craving warm, comforting winter food, then I can heartily recommend this Tomato & Red Lentil Soup. It's really easy:

Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
6 tomatoes, chopped
1 fat clove of garlic, crushed
2 cups red lentils
1/2 glass red wine (optional)
1 pint bouillon (veg stock)
3/4 pint tomato juice
Fresh basil
Black pepper

Fry onion, tomatoes and garlic for 10 mins til soft.
Add red wine and simmer for 3 mins.
Add remaining ingredients.
Simmer for 15-20 mins until lentils are soft.
Blend and serve with creme fraiche and black pepper.

Yum!

A Very Happy Birthday

Today I turned 27, which is an odd age, and an odd number. I've never had much of a fondness for odd numbers, but at least this one is divisible by three, fulfilling a childhood liking for the number! Someone asked me what it feels like to be a year older, and to be honest I feel exactly the same, not one iota older or wiser.

I had a lovely day... sushi with T., The Alchemist at the National with S., and drinks on Friday to look forward to. We're going to my favourite place in London, I'll be the one with the big smile!

Seasons in the City

I have a deep, inset love for two distinct concepts this month -- autumn, and the East Coast of the USA. I label them 'concepts', ever aware of the disconnection between the romantic musings between my cold ears, and the reality 3,000 miles across the pond. I've always loved North America, from that first glance of the jagged East Coast from an aeroplane window in 1999, and every year, around this time, an ache develops for New York, large and painful enough to send me to thoughts of emigrating. Cool crisp air, enough to numb noses and fingers under woollen gloves; bright, distant sunlight; dusty, grey pavements thick with evidence of life... these things inspire something creative inside. It's probably a case of the grass being greener, of unreality, romanticism to the extreme... but today as I lounge on a cream sofa listening to The Postal Service, I'd rather be there than here...

Visited Countries

create your own visited countries map

It was about time the 'visited countries' map got updated. Here it is, as of October 2006. I'll be adding a few more next year.

My travel still only comes out at 10% of the world though... Sigh. A long way to go.