Sunday 30 August 2009

• Conkers on the pavement as I wandered home after a summer's day.
• Playing word games by candlelight, sitting in a lavender scented garden with a gaggle of friends.
• The heat of a flaming barbeque blowing against my skin.
• The slow, warm ache of a morning well spent.
• Acting as a nexus (undeservedly, admittedly).

Saturday 29 August 2009

• A long, hot shower once back from breakfast with the papers in the sunshine.
• Accumulating books as I pottered around town.
• A fish finger sandwich. Filth, wonderful filth.
• Sitting on the back row in the dark, sinking into comfortable silence.
• Big paintings.

Friday 28 August 2009

• Being mocked for my glee over a triple rainbow through the kitchen window.
• The dark and changing sky above Trafalgar Square at dusk, seen from the vantage point of the National Portrait Gallery bar.
• A positive feast of Chinese food.
• Making up a story about the couple next to us - only to discover that I was pretty much spot on. He's a guru, she's his UK contact, there's unrequited love and - in reality, hypnotism.
• Chattering all the way home.

Thursday 27 August 2009

• Half an hour in a a playground / park, with a juice box and pen poised over listings to plan my weekend.
• Curling up with a bowl of popcorn and junk US TV on 4OD.
• Walking through the door to install that a new (ish) shiny shower had been installed, after much blood, sweat and tears. No longer will we have to fear the prospect of burly builders ripping down our bathroom walls.
• A can of coke at 4.30. A whim satisfied.
• A shared appreciation of the ridiculous and the horrifying.

Wednesday 26 August 2009

• A paperback James Bond novel in my bag.
• Propping up the bar in very good company, with perfectly chilled glass of beaujolais nouveau. Not a bad plan b.
• Caught: bespectacled and dishevelled on the front steps, drink in hand and long past my bed time. A knowing smirk was sufficient comment.
• A lovely, supportive email.
• Saying hello in the middle of the BFI.

Tuesday 25 August 2009

• A gig, a free bar, a very random chance combination of people.
• Presumptiousness.
• An email, subject line 'my to do list', that read 'Apparently my next job is "Maddy and Holly are the best". strange', popped up on screen during very dull website training. I almost slipped over the edge into hysteria.
• Three (blind) mice on the tube platform.
• Slipping into double act banter, to the slight bemusement of a new acquaintance.

Monday 24 August 2009

• Five postmen, in formation with trollies, coming out after each other in perfectly spaced intervals from the sorting office. The Red Arrows of Holloway.
• A good smile.
• Realising, as I spoke it out loud, that I'm not quite as flighty and unambitious as I feel sometimes. In fact, I may have scared the man from Fairplace. Strategic, indeed.
• Cheese and rocket and potatoes. Tasty goodness.
• Treasures in the pockets of my cardigan.

Sunday 23 August 2009

• A cup of coffee made for me, just as I was about to leave the house.
• Curling up, like a cat, in sunny spots around the flat. The windowsill, the doorsteps, my desk. Varying degrees of heat and precariousness.
• Reading, reading, reading. So lovely to hide from the world and spend time book in hand - guilt free.
• Watching Alf effortlessly lift two large boxes of academia up to ceiling level. I'd almost killed myself half an hour before, standing on a chair, buckling under the weight of the box. He just hoicked it up. Job done.
• Chickpeas, eaten by the handful.

Saturday 22 August 2009

• Tumbling back on to Skystation outside the Hayward, legs in the air - whereupon my foot became so freaked out at its great distance from the ground that it went into spasms of cramp.
• Beers in the sunshine, chattering to passing strangers, flicking from lazy conversation to book to Time Out to peoplewatching.
• Apero hour on the Southbank, dinner in Oval, a party on Liverpool Road. A truly London evening - all impromptu, all good fun.
• Pomegranate seeds.
• Modelling what appeared to be a large and shaggy dead sheep. Particularly chic over my shorts and shirt combo. Mmm hmm.

Friday 21 August 2009

• Terrible jokes. Really terrible jokes. (Though I did get the opportunity to tell my favourite joke ever. Hee!)
• Sitting in a candle-lit and lavender scented garden, watching the stars and planes overhead before meeting the usual suspects at the pub.
• A stolen couple of hours in Soho.
• Picking up shopping on the way home - restocking the vital essentials of lettuce, peanut butter and pitta. What more does a girl need?
• Just five minutes more between the sheets before I faced the day. And then another five. And another...

Thursday 20 August 2009

• Blue eyes for no apparent reason.
• Sushi, sushi for lunch.
• An impromptu catch up due to the cultural hub that is the Southbank.
• Kate as raconteur. I wept with laughter.
• Northern soul on the northern line, momentarily unplugged to hear a Northerner tell me I'm beautiful.

Wednesday 19 August 2009

• An interaction with a couple of Americans, travelling without their husbands.
• Cider in the sunshine.
• Meandering chatter over a bottle of red.
• The brilliant unexpected hilarity of a email forward. Anagrammed names prove frighteningly accurate.
• Panko covered sushi.

Tuesday 18 August 2009

• Sitting on the floor of the kitchen, talking stats, while a small dog snuffled around my ankles.
• Stars in the London sky.
• Curiosity sated, predictions proved accurate.
• Shimeji mushrooms. Like something from a fairytale.
• The familiarity of the walk to work, this morning in glorious sunshine.

Monday 17 August 2009

• Perfect London transport timing. Hoorah for buses.
• Sunset over the Lea Valley.
• Extra strong tictacs. Reglisse. Who would have known? (Also - they make me sneeze. A lot.)
• Notes left for me on my bed.
• Home.

Sunday 16 August 2009

• Finding my favourite duvet cover from my childhood. A rabbit-patterned Habitat little wonder from the early eighties.
• The BIG spider reappeared. It's so big, it's not even frightening. It has a personality (grumpy and sardonic) and a name (Jerome).
• Aperitifs on the lawn after all the cleaning's been done, catching the last golden rays of sunshine.
• More eau de nil tea cups. I spy a slighly pointless collection.
• A couple of hours drinking coffee, watching the world go by at San Cere brocante. Spot the Brits... (what's with the socks and sandals look, old men?)

Saturday 15 August 2009

• Books, books, books. So much so that, when looking for the pile I'd accumulated in the kitchen, I realised I couldn't find it because I'd read them all. Utter, utter bliss.
• My mother's absolute hysteria, and the requisite explanation of the jokes. The Ramblers Association and shoe shine. Turns out, we all have our own quite esoteric sense of humour.
• Mushroom spotting around the loop - shaggy ink caps and puffballs.
• An encounter with an old friend, looking happy and healthy. Job done, as he would say.
• Hiding from the tractor drivers as I lay melting in the sun. Too hot to resist sprawling, really.

Friday 14 August 2009

• Finally finding the right house, and being recognised therein.
• More tomatoes than any one girl should be able to shake a stick at.
• Cooking for other people, always a pleasure (especially people who are quite good at local gossip).
• White preserved asparagus, sucked down on the hop.
• Doing battle with the fauna of the house. I was victorious.

Thursday 13 August 2009

• Merry waves from the many people who now know us by name, despite having waved at each other for the last twenty years.
• Piecing together relationships, and revealing more history of the hamlet. Three bars at one time indeed. (There are only half a dozen houses!)
• Peanut flavoured crisps. I'm still not entirely convinced they're not quite wrong.
• Taking up position on the front doorstep, my favourite place, coffee and book in hand, post early-morning walk.
• The enraged response to Benjy le chien peeing on a box of trays. 'Oh la la, il a fait pisser', followed by something I'm pretty sure translated roughly as 'the little shit'. Such anger, I had to hold the giggles in til I got home.

Wednesday 12 August 2009

• A truly stunning sunset. The sky was glowing.
• Stretching my french with octagenarian farmers. Not nearly as terrifying as anticipated. Quite good fun, actually.
• Inadvertantly making eyes inappropriately. Oops.
• Messing around in Sousceyrac with carambars and bad french jokes.
• The weight of the sun on my skin.

Tuesday 11 August 2009

• A little bit of a tan with my red frock.
• Shooting stars. Lots and lots of shooting stars.
• Reading companionably at a safe distance from the pool in the midday heat.
• Watching my sister in full-on socially acceptable chat mode.
• Falling asleep curled up on a chair, again.

Monday 10 August 2009

• Dressing up like the statues on the front gate. Sadly, there may be photographic evidence. Hee!
• Polkaing around the kitchen.
• Lying on the front path, playing beat the intro.
• Accidental drunkenness.
• Tomatoes. I bloody love tomatoes.

Sunday 9 August 2009

• Rosé wine, Dolly Parton and cabin fever. There are worse ways to spend a rainy Sunday.
• Revisiting Au Dejeuner de Sousceyrac - the same menu covers, the same 'dark sauce'. It was perfect.
• Green glass teacups from Teyssieu brocante for two euros. A bargain.
• Cher in Mermaids. A suitable ending to a day of Kate's film choices.
• Texts that made me smile.

Saturday 8 August 2009

• My ma, giggling with us from HP's bed like we were all in a dorm room.
• The glow of the setting sun on the barn roof. Moureze, you're lovely.
• A wonderfully low and orange moon (and reference to my sister's horror at the proximity of 'Mars' years ago.)
• Citroen sorbet and cocquelicot icecream in a waffle cone.
• A cacophony of bird song as I set out.

Friday 7 August 2009

• Cooking with Kate, skating around the kitchen in synchronicity.
• Finding honesty growing in the wild.
• Being left to sleep until I woke up (albeit on the hardest mattress in the world).
• A meal with old, old friends.
• Chattering and laughing as we walked the loop for the first time this holiday.

Thursday 6 August 2009

• A road sweeper blaring 'Give it up, baby give it up' as I wandered across the road. Amusing.
• Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. (Beckett, 1983)
• Sitting around the kitchen table.
• Reading on the steps by Liverpool Street station, feeling like I'm on holiday.
• The first songs on my podlet, as I sat waiting in the warm dark air after landing, were Leonard Cohen, the Mamas and the Papas and Oasis. All proper France music, all by coincidence.

Wednesday 5 August 2009

• A follow up to this story.
• Lunch in the canteen.
• Hip-hop-food flavoured banter.
• A magnificent barney as I walked to the pub. Couldn't have been more X-Rated Eastenders if it tried.
• A cool corona when I stopped for the day, accompanied by entertaining conversation, cashew nuts and the moon marking time as it moved through the sky.

Tuesday 4 August 2009

• An encounter with a master plasterer with particularly mobile eyebrows. God bless the habituees of the French House.
• A texted image of Tim, arms a-flying, playing the piano. Wish I'd stayed.
• The hideously ironic timing of a mis-sent email. Turns out, I really will never learn.
• A greasy, greasy cold samosa - bliss.
• A minute on the steps looking at the moon, while the road was silent.

Monday 3 August 2009

• Wine and home made cheesey nibbles on a slightly precarious perch under the Fourth Plinth.
• Initiating another believer into the glory of Beaujolais.
• Inadvertantly entertaining the couple on the table next to us (a couple who had been intriguing me no end) when they caught my protestation about just one more drink. I really did have to go home and clean the poor fish. (However, I still didn't actually do it. Am bad, bad, bad.)
• Giving the gift of books. Such an easy way to make friends and influence people.
• A promise that I would not be indoctrinated into the ways of sci-fi nonsense. What a relief.

Sunday 2 August 2009

• A north London soiree..
• Bacon and maple syrup in the sun. Bliss.
• Brief Encounter, cheeseburgers, ginger ale, blanket, Ms Hartwell. Day after the night before, perhaps?
• The moon, the night before it's full.
• We like short shorts... my earworm of a theme tune today. Hmm. Maybe the short / shirt combo was ill advised.

Saturday 1 August 2009

• Reading fiction. How I've missed stories.
• Cava and pringles at 4pm. Why not?
• An orange, eaten with sticky fingers on the way up Holloway Road.
• A very male interaction around a £20 pair of reebok classics. I'm going to take a wild guess, and assume that they 'fell off the back of a lorry'...
• An unexpected but welcome denoument.