Laters Chumps!!

Well It is 17:24pm on Thursday 24th May 2012.  I am now officially off the clock and on annual leave until 9:00am on 13th June 2012.  Happy doesn't cover it.

In the next 2.5 weeks I am going to Italy, watching one of my best mates get hitched, sleep, have people visit, wave a union jack flag, eat cake, stay with my parents in Bath, most probably eat more cake, work out (a lot), walk around, eat cake and enjoy some time with Haynesy....by eating some cake. Like I say, I can't describe the feeling of joy in my heart right now.

If Apollo could grace us with his mate the sun for a bit longer, say until 14th June then I would be very much obliged.  Last year I had time off right at the end of September and it was the best week of the year....yeah a bit more of that kind of luck would be sweet. 

Cake seems to crop up in my list of things to partake of while I am dossing around and I think I may exercise my baking muscle and make them rather than buy them.  My baking skill is sporadic.  Some come out quite good, others come out a bit brick like.  I might attempt something that is supposed to be airy and dreamy and angel like.  That way if my usual cement touch interferes it will result in a reasonably normal cake.  Whatever I produce from my oven, I will post on here.  We can have a good old laugh at how crap I am. 

I fly to Italia at an hour normally best seen from behind my eyelids.  Getting up in the middle of the night is only ever acceptable for 2 things, 1) flying out on holiday 2) a bit of hanky panky.  If your lucky you get number 2 then number 1.  I LOVE this pre departure excitement.  Making the list of things to pack and getting the Lonely Planet guide and making notes in the margins appeals to my inner spod.  The list changes at least 5 times before packing and the lonely planet gets all lovely and dogeared.  Oooooh I love it!  I am sitting here scrunching my nose up in glee at the thought of revising my packing list.  In reality I have to be packed by about 9pm so that I can get enough sleep, to keep to my pre departure schedule.  The schedule that sounds practical and everything will get done but will go out the window when I stay up too late watching something crap on telly, realise I haven't ironed half the stuff to go in the suitcase that is still in the spare room waiting to be packed. But one can dream and relish the organisation of it all.  hehehe, still full of glee. 

Cocobun however looks full of dread.  He knows that his mummy is going away which means that daddy will be looking after him.  To Cocobun this also means that he won't be smothered in kisses every 5 minutes, he won't get half the attention he normally gets and he won't have a 33 year old child saying ridiculous things in a baby voice to him.  He's probably quite happy about that last point.  Cocobun is an attention whore.  He loves it and when Haynesy and I partake of a little kitchen smooching, he hops up, biting our ankles with a scowl on his face, telling us to stop it and to give him some snuggy time.  Soz Bun, mummy is outta here and into the Italian sunshine, ready for culinary nirvana and shit loads of vino rosso.

I'm hoping to take lots of gorgeous photos demonstrating the "Dolce Vita" they have going on there, I hopefully will be looking tan and nonchalant (I love that word!) while conversing effortlessly with the locals over some wine straight from the vines.  If some photos pass muster then I will post them here for you all to gaze on in wonder. 

OK OK, I have to wrap this up.  Things like painting my nails and applying my fake tan need to be actioned before I can get way laid by the television before my panic ironing/packing starts at about midnight.

Laters Chumps!!  xxxxxxx

Cerveza, drama and Grizzly Adams

Just a quick one today.  It's got to that stage before going on annual leave from work where you have to get everything done in the 1.5 days you have left.  But still I am finding time to write a few words.  See never lost for something to waffle about!

Last night apart from lovely and sunny and warm and perfect for sitting in the garden with a cold cerveza, was also drama night.  Having walked the deceptively long route from Wellingborough station to the Hind Hotel for practise, I arrived to find that I couldn't open the door.  At first I thought I was the first one there (even though I was 5 minutes late and a little sweaty I might add!), I thought that perhaps I was the keen bean newbie and that a more relaxed vibe was needed, not promptness.  Thankfully after a few forceful rattlings of the door knob, I could hear shufflings and someone coming to the door.  Yes I wasn't the only one.  There was a grand sum of 3 of us last night but it was small and perfectly formed.  We did some improv work, retelling song lyrics conveying sadness or anger, spoken word not sung.  I did Walk on By one of favourite songs and both times ended up cracking up as soon as I caught someones eye.  I don't know if I can do serious.  Comedy or should I say immaturity is more my style.  I need to develop my serious side. This is hard because I have never been serious in my life.  I think the most serious I have ever been was when I was robbed on the street last year of all my worldly goods from my removal van (that's a blog for another time), serious I definitely was.  Sad, angry, pathetically anxious and worried sick.  I was sorry to be leaving London before that happened, suddenly leaving London seemed like the best thing in the world to do and I just wanted to get out of there as soon as another van could be organised.  As it happens, I was packed up (with what was left, not much I can tell you) and on the road up the M1 within 3 hours.  I think if I had to do a really serious scene where anger is needed, I would channel how I felt that day.  But last night with the sun shining and a beer calling, I wanted to do nice light things.  So we did some singing instead. 

Now I am not known for my awe inspiring vocal talent, I can hold a note of sorts but as soon as that note has to change to a different one I am in trouble.  Suddenly I am a teenage boy who's balls are dropping.  However my drama leader Rosie was quite happy with what came out doing some scales.  She reckons I could belt out some high notes with some training.  So now I am on a mission to find a song that I would really like to be able to "belt out".  Something with some crazy vocal riffs.  When it comes to music I prefer to listen to men singing than women.  If you put me in a room with Katie Melua then I might be forced to shove that guitar up her backside.  However put me in a room with that gentle giant of a man, Guy Garvey from Elbow and I will sit like a well behaved child, cross legged on the floor and listen to his beautiful voice.  How can a man that looks so much like Grizzly Adams make such lovely noises?! 

Anyway I have to find a song that I would like to belt out.  I think seeing as I love him so much, I might have to go for an Elbow song or my other hero, David Bowie....not different much huh?!  I could do Space Oddity and put on a Bowie warble!

I think I prefer singing to acting actually, it seems to come a bit more naturally (apart from my super natural comedy moments).  Rosie suggested a musical performance, I like the idea of Miss Saigon, now that I would be happy to perform in front of Welly!!  I could be a Vietnamese hooker and do it a bit drag, you know a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman.  As usual I'd probably end up looking like Kenny Everett.  Another hero of mine who I would have been if I was born a man.. 30 years earlier. 

Do we think I have a thing for unconvincing men in drag?!!  What with this and Pauline the Taxi Driver!

Anyway best get on, got some policy to write and a garden just begging to be sat in later..... "Camarero, una cerveza por favor"!!

Ttfn xxxxxx

Karaoke Karen and Pauline the Taxi Driver

It seems, that by some weird fluke of nature, that I have stepped into a freak show. 

I understood prior to moving to Wellingborough what I was getting myself into.  After a year of every other weekend here while Haynesy was living a bachelors existence, I got to sample the dizzy heights of the Swansgate shopping centre, ASDA and Swanwick Lakes.  Upon arrival I have come to see that life here can only be described as one slim level down from what is played out on the Chatsworth Estate in Shameless.  Frank Gallagher is played by the drunk that sits on the steps in the main square outside McDonalds.  McDonalds itself is a veritable playboy mansion of young girls who I am sure would have been lovely slim gobby characters if they hadn't let themselves slip into the world of the overweight, gobby, single motherdom cliche that you don't have to watch Jeremy Kyle to see.  Mimi and her venomous words, gold ringed fingers and Lambert and Butler hanging off her top lip can be seen sitting in BB's Coffee and Muffins in the middle of the Swansgate shopping centre, holding court with the other hard women, that have lived hard lives and sit there with their tartan shopping trolleys, smelling of fish. 

At Book Club on Saturday night I was introduced to Karaoke Karen and Pauline the taxi driver. Not in the literal sense, just anecdotal. I have yet to personally witness them but apparently they are famous in Welly. These two people should be in Shameless. One is a mad big red haired woman with red lipstick drawn up to her nose and right down onto her chin. She lugs a karaoke machine around on a trolley and is given to busting out a rendition of I Will Survive in the town centre. The other, Pauline, is a taxi driver who generally can be found at Wellingborough train station. You'll know her as soon as you see her amongst the other taxi drivers. Not because she is the only woman. No. Because she is the only male taxi driver wearing a dress, wig and full poorly applied make up. Pauline is a transsexual. She is a big burly deep voiced woman. I reckon if she picked up a group of pissed up blokes on a Saturday night they wouldn't dare give her any trouble. She may wear a dress and blue eyeshadow but don't fuck with her, she'll do yer!

So why move here then?  Yes the centre itself is pretty shit but outside the town it very quickly turns to green fields, farms and winding lanes.  Northamptonshire is really quite pretty.  The villages are small and picturesque and upon closer inspection you can find a nice pub or two.  One of my favourite past times is walking around the many country parks and reservoirs that are literally five minutes drive.  Perfect rabbit walking country, that is it would be if it wasn't for the fact that everyone owns a dog and I don't think little Cocobun would stand a chance against the dirty great big mastiff that I see being walked around Pitsford reservoir.  That dog has the biggest nuts I have ever seen, human and canine included.  Poor Coco's balls are like a couple of peanut M&Ms, this dog has bollocks the size of a couple of ripe granny smith apples. Anyway I digress.  I moved here because for all it's culture and people and many interesting things, there is no peace in London.  You can't stand outside and hear birds like I can right now.  You might see a manky pigeon with a club foot and mange but you wouldn't hear the birds.  You wouldn't get silence outside your front door at 9pm.  You certainly wouldn't get the space you get here and you most definitely don't get fields of grazing sheep.  There is a small stream that runs down the end of my road straight into the middle of town.  Along this stream on one inaccessible side you can see wild bunnies.  Little brown haired, perky eared bunnies.  This is in a town centre.  How the hell did the rabbits arrive there?!  I wish I could bring some London people up here to live with me and the bunnies and we could start a new cool scene of provincial culture.  I need to convince some cool young artists that the East Midlands is totally happening now and to set up a gallery here and get a bit of an arts scene going.  Maybe I'll make that my next venture.  Bunnies in Art.  Or I could go into more of a hospitality role and get a bar scene going that doubles as an art space.  Humm, someones already got to be thinking about this.  Might need to do some research.  I can't afford to give up on the fact that there has to be some culture in this town.

My attempts to find people via traditional routes e.g. the gym or social clubs is proving fruitless.  Even the people at my Book Club agree that unless you have children that meeting people in Wellingborough is nigh on impossible.  (They all have children and therefore can't commit to extracurricular activities as easily as me) So what's my choice?  Create something to attract those like me that may be out there, or just simply crack out a kid?  The second option isn't ringing my bell at the moment.  Some woman are made to be mothers, I'm made to please myself and swear.

Nope I am going to have to create something.  Any ideas on what that might be, let me know.  In the mean time I am going to carry on attempting to talk to people in the gym, which I do quite frequently now, I just need to develop it a bit to actual long getting to know people chats.  And I am going to continue my foray into the dramatic arts (tomorrow I continue my amateur dramatics investigations after last weeks workshop cancellation)

Right I'm off to find Pauline and see if I can't get her advice, at the very least I might get a single gals view on things. 

 Ttfn xxxxx

From Russia with Love

Get this, I was checking my blog viewing stats and I have readers in Russia, Germany and Malaysia!!  How cool is that?  Maybe I have a russian spy reading my blog in their down town between infiltrating the KGB at a black tie in Red Square.  I like that mental picture.  A trained killer in a plush hotel room, giggling over the ramblings of a 33 year old English girl about rubbing her cellulite away.   Now either someone in Luton some how has set their computer settings to Russia or I actually have readers that aren't in my friends list on FB! Not to mention Malaysia, coooooo-el!  I have backpacked in Malaysian Borneo with my beautiful home girl Bella Boo before and love it there.  So the thought of having someone reading my blog all the way over in South East Asia is awesome!

Sorry gushing a little.

Speaking of foreign lands and Bella Boo, I am getting really excited about Annabel's wedding next week in Italy.  Not only do I love Bella (of course!) but I lurve Italy too.  It's such a great place.  Not only are the people hilarious and lovely but the food is amaseballs, the architecture is beautiful, the countryside calming and peaceful and wine drunk straight from the vineyard from where it was grown is the best.  I have spent many a good drunken time in Italy.  Roma, Toscana, Firense, Venicia.....molto bella.  Amore Amore!! (That's the extent of my poor and incorrect Italian.  Apart from asking for a glass of red wine....that I've got down pat!)  This wedding will be so cool.  In Asti in Piedmont, I reckon a bit of Spumante might be in order!  Got a cool 1940's dress and some leg lengthening nude suede shoes to go with my vintage clutch bag and vintage fur cape.  Hopefully it will be too hot to wear the cape but who knows with this friggin weather at the moment!!  I'm so over the rain and cold.  It's May, it should be springlike and warm and fresh, not cloudy, grey and pissing down with rain.  It's at times like this when emigrating to Australia is a real appealing option.  I can put a few shrimps on the barbie in exchange for hot sun, relaxed outdoorsy living and saying G'Day you flamin Gallah to Alf Stewart. 

Someone please tell me that this weather is going to get better?!  In the mean time I will enjoy the Italian warmth and hospitality and do a dance for the sun god Apollo to come back with me to the UK.

Piccies of Italy to follow!

Ttfn xxxxxxxx

Mr President, it's been an honour

I realise that I may enjoy the act of writing down my waffle but like most things in life it takes a back seat to other things that I enjoy, like eating, sleeping and watching old episodes of 24.  Jack Bauer is my hero.  He is macho, tough, wouldn't think twice about killing someone who threatens the lives of the innocent inhabitants of the major cities of the US of A.  I bought Monsieur Haynes (the boyf) a keyring that when you press each button says a classic Bauer line, like "Dammit"!!, "Mr President, it's been an honor" and "Let's get something straight kid, the only reason your still conscious, is I don't want to carry you" after kidnapping the teenage son of his girlfriend while on the trail of terrorists about to expose LAX to nerve gas.  It's thrilling stuff, I get embarrassingly excited when he's close to capturing the baddie but at the last minute (normally) some annoying woman gets in the way.  Hence, why I have been off the blogging radar for the past week, after ingesting a whole 24 hours worth of season 5!!  I loved it!

Last week I partook of my first session at the Wellingborough Theatre Group.  Rosie, Charlie, George and Alistair, all took me into the fold and within less than 10 minutes I was improvising chugging jaegermeister from a traffic cone at a zoo adoption conference.  Random, pointless, not very well acted I must say but it was hilarious.  If nothing else, I may not be the best amateur actress in Northants.  but I will have a good time.  For 2 hours, I literally went from one scenario to another pretending to be a war memorial statue, arm raised aloft to the sky in victory, holding a bright pink feather duster, looking glorious.  Or as a spy walking her dog being given orders from someone in a bush, to direct an attack on Father Christmas at the North Pole.  For someone who generally thinks of a load of rubbish in her head all the time (the other day I started thinking about getting a shoe rack for the cupboard under the stairs while talking to Haynes about dinner), this is perfect.  I get to act out the weirdness in my head.  To be honest as it was the first time meeting these people and because I didn't know what to expect from a workshop session at an amateur dramatics meeting, I held back a little.  I think at one time I shouted out "our elephant has a bigger willy than yours", this was a slip up but I think exposed what level I generally think on.  Puerile and childish.  It was a great session though and I look forward to going back next Tuesday, if they will have me.  The group is compact and bijoux but I am assured there are more members that weren't there and that the group was only set up in December and really is in early stages.  I'm quite glad to be part of a new group, I may be able to help develop it into the best theatrical group in the region, nay the country one day.  I have already been offered a part in a gala performance of a short play.  I think it's of a woman who thinks that life is a musical, which is perfect for me.  I can bust out my inner musical theatre luvvie and warble my way through it.  I can do a mean "The Heat is on in Saigon" from Miss Saigon.  I have been told I sound exactly like a cross between Maurice Gibb and James Blunt.  Dare I say that this may be my avenue to meeting some people in Wellingborough?!  They are young (younger than me I guess) but they are funny and I reckon will be up for a bevvie or two every now and then.  Essentially my criteria is basic.  1) Funny 2) Enjoys a drink.  I will keep you posted of the next sesh with the group, I think there's some photos going around from it. Which I may or may not share based on how good my fringe looks in them.

Talking of puerile and childish.  While I was left with the children at the petrol station the other day I took my chance to talk toilet humour with the kids.  "The other day I did a pop that smelt exactly like chili con carne kids!!!!"  this was met with fits of giggles, they then shared poo stories, you know, turds in the shape of a teddy bear, ones that disappear before they get a look of them.  A bond that will never be broken was made because of our 5 minutes of stupid potty talk.  See how puerile and childish I am?!  Do parents ever do things like that?  Revert back to being a child with their children every now and then and really go to town on the silly poo stories?!!  Or do you always remain the parent and the childishness only really extends to bragging when you win at Pictionary?  Not being a parent I have no idea.  I know that Haynes wouldn't dream of talking about a comedy turd with the kids, where as I can't help myself.  I don't think I will ever grow up.  Polly Pan, I hope I never grow up.

Anyway, better get on.  Got a deadline on some riveting work around risk assessments for shops. My job is sooooooo thrilling, unlike Jack Bauer who can thrill me any time the security of the United States is threatened.

Ttfn xxxx

P.s. I spoke to a girl in my aerobics class last Thursday.  She was making a "Rolly" before leaving (I suppose that's why she goes aerobics, to compensate for the life she's just lost by sucking on one of those).  She said that she had noticed me in class before (I do exist!!! and did she notice me because she likes the ladies and I blow her hair back in my tight black Lycra and back sweats?) and I'm really good (yep she's been checking my arse out!) and that I should come and do step class before aerobics on a Thursday like she does, so that I get a really good work out...now if that's not someone who wants to see my bobbing up and down on a step for an hour before watching me bob up and down doing jumping jacks I don't know what is! Reckon I've pulled there.  The fact that she looks like someone from Prisoner Cell Block H/Bad Girls, doesn't deter me.  I can rock that look.  And I am not shallow enough to base friendships on appearance, hell I have gone through life looking like a chubby child for the past 33 years.  However as soon as she starts calling me "slag" and the aerobics teacher a "screw" I may have to revise my statement. Ta ta x

Look at my arse don't you think its smooth?..

I am a bit of a faddist.  If there is a fad going round I will generally partake..normally about 6 months after everyone else has done it.  Today while using my Oral B vibrating toothycleaner I realised that if I put my energy into one fad and stayed with it I would probably save myself some money and some time.  I can't help jumping merrily on band wagons.  It's not because I am worried about not being "down with the kids" but I always think there must be some genius reason why the world is going nuts over things. There must be some nirvana experience while playing angry birds but not that I have experienced.  Maybe my standards are too high and my nirvana will only be reached once I have mastered some mystical art or had my wicked way with Colin Farrell. 

I think the only fad that has lasted in my world is Weight Watchers.  They do say that it is a lifestyle choice and not a fad, which I suppose I am confirming by still being on it 16 months after joining.  I've seen it through the good and bad and the ugly (the Christmas cheese and chocolate binge was not pretty).  But I have changed my body and my health a lot over the past 2 years.  I gave up smoking, I started WW and I joined a gym and started exercising regularly.  Weirdly the smoking was the easiest one, I just stopped.  Eating on the other hand is my favourite past time.  I love eating, drinking, watching food porn, talking about it, looking at it, food, food, food, food, food!!  Therefore mastering my diet and exercise has been the hardest thing.  I'm still not perfect and I still vear off the path of virtue regularly.  The secret is to realise that you are human and that left over tub of Ben and Jerry's will be eaten on the sly behind a closed kitchen door, sitting on the counter with a spoon and the rabbit looking at you with a look of quiet disdain on his face.  Not that I'm speaking personally of course.  If your going to change your eating habits for life then you have to accept that really tasty fattening foods will have to be consumed occasionally and as long as it is occasionally and you get back on the wagon then it doesn't matter in the slightest.  Fuck it, go on, enjoy that dirty bag of Doritos and salsa dip in front of X Factor!!! Just balance it out with a salad for dinner. 

Along with fads I get obsessive about weird random things every now and then (which are fads too I suppose!), these are the current ones that in a couple of weeks will be relegated to the refuse bin of my world:

My sisal body mitt - Every shower now exists of at least 5 minutes of rubbing away at my skin like I am doing a brass rubbing.  At this rate I won't have any skin left by next Tuesday.  Honestly I go at it like I am polishing ivory or something.  But the bright redness and tingling sensation are quite addictive.  I like to think my skin is so much softer and brighter for doing it and that by rubbing away at my arse like a woman possessed that I am also going to be cellulite free for summer.  This of course is bollocks.  I am a woman and that by itself means that those lumpy fat deposits aren't going anywhere.  Even losing nearly 2.5 stone hasn't changed that all that much.  My thighs still resemble custard in tights. 

LA Ink - Kat Von D is a bit of a twat but I still love that programme.  I realise that I am late to the party, it was cancelled in 2010 but I love watching the repeats on DMAX channel.  Tattoos, tattooists, artists, looking at images that would make cool tats and researching who I want to do mine is my favourite pastime.  I have decided on a full back piece in this cool geometric black/grey design with a few of my own ideas thrown in by a tattooist called Thomas Thomas at Into you Tattoo London.  It's going to cost about £500 but I reckon it will look the mutts nuts. Just have to save up now and start prepping for the pain.  Here is an example of what I would like carved into my skin for life (hopefully not a fad or I'll be fucked!):

New Look - My wardrobe consists of a lot of New Look.  It's got the stage where people at work and friends have stopped asking where I get my clothes from because they get the same answer every time.  In Wellingborough you have what can be described technically as a shopping centre but in reality is a collection of pound shops and mobile phone kiosks.  It's shit.  The one shining beacon in this turd of a shopping experience is New Look.  The relatively exotic shopping experience of Milton Keynes is only 40 mins in the car away but still who can be arsed when you have New Look in town?!!

Kinder Happy Hippos - I love this little wafer encased nutty delights.  Not only frigging tasty but minimal WW points. Trust me you will love them, only 99p for a box of 6.

On that note I am going now to stuff my face and rub away at my behind some more. 
I'll be back tomorrow with something a bit more meaningful.
Ttfn xxx