Wednesday 30 September 2009

• An amazing story about a Glaswegian call centre, a long lost father and a half brother.
• A lovely new scarf.
• The fish shop is still open. Hoorah. As a reward for cleaning out the blasted tank this weekend, I may buy myself a new little fantail.
• Revisiting a pub that I hadn't been to for years - and discovering a heated and twinkling garden.
• A knowing grin?

Tuesday 29 September 2009

• An unexpected but hilarious look of shock and horror.
• Standing - still - in the middle of Charing Cross station, watching the crowds swirl around me.
• A friendly orange cat.
• An evening of bumping into people. London grows ever smaller.
• Teen angst.

Monday 28 September 2009

• Mindless humour, delivered by Simon Amstell.
• My new flatmate is a whisky drinker. I think he'll fit right in.
• The graphite of a propeller pencil, worn down just enough.
• A double espresso on the way to work - consumed without throwing it down my front. A victory!
• A perfect fit.

Sunday 27 September 2009

• A new pancake recipe. Beaten whites, indeed.
• The feel of the heat-soaked wooden balcony floorboards through the thin cotton of a starched shirt.
• A square of dark chocolate.
• A vat of happily bubbling chickpeas.
• The most comfortable sofa in the world.

Saturday 26 September 2009

• A exchanged solution to a mutual breakfast dilemma.
• My bed made for me - tight enought to bounce a nickel.
• Reading on the front steps, curled up like a cat in the sun.
• Steak tartare and frites. Mm mmm.
• The golden wash of light as I walked west along the north bank of the Thames, from the City to the Southbank Centre.

Friday 25 September 2009

• Mushrooms on toast for lunch, basking in dusty sunlight at the Jerusalem Tavern.
• A medley of greys, silvers and little black dresses. Stuck in a rut, or just timeless and classic?
• The New Rose.
• Brixton in the sunshine.
• A show of affection.

Thursday 24 September 2009

• My charmed life - an evening of champagne and beautiful people at a party at the V&A.
• Apple green satin round toed high heels.
• A little bit of social matchmaking.
• Sunshine in my eyes.
• Bank card reclaimed.

Wednesday 23 September 2009

• Performing a feat of magical intrusion.
• Broccoli and lettuce and cheese sauce, in a pyrex bowl. Wonderful but appalling.
• A splurge in Oxfam - eight books in fifteen minutes. I knew there was a reason I avoid bookshops.
• Bumping into an old aquaintance(while clutching an armful of books - see above).
• A different walk home.

Tuesday 22 September 2009

• A stolen few hours, filled with paintings and pigs and photography.
• Macaroni cheese for two.
• Lemn Sissay reading his thoughts, arm involuntarily in the air.
• A moment entwined, breathing the same air before succumbing to sleep.
• A twinkle across a seminar table. A kindred spirit, I suspect.

Monday 21 September 2009

• Lunch in the park, making the most of a blast of an Indian Summer.
• A guilty secret on in the background while I sorted out some domesticity.
• A new blue felt tip pen.
• A buttery crumpet.
• Successfully managing red nailvarnish on the bumpy 91.

Sunday 20 September 2009

• Getting the giggles as I stared down the barrel of a camera - sultry, indeed.
• A big old choir (and orchestra and folk bigband and brass band and bagpipes...).
• A dinner party in my flat, at which I was a guest. Much fun and an easy route home.
• Bumping into the middle sister on the Southbank.
• My shoe collection was admired by a four year old. I think I've made it, sartorially speaking.

Saturday 19 September 2009

• Making up intricate stories about other people's lives.
• Drinks on a balcony overlooking Westminster as the sun sank in the sky.
• Being perky and blonde for good karma.
• Hunkering down and avoiding the rain.
• Waking up to a blue blue sky and the sound of pages being turned - realising I was at home.

Friday 18 September 2009

• A brazen wee fox wandering through Clerkenwell at 11am.
• Spotting my new favourite advertising poster. Thanks Dixons.
• Yearbookyourself.com - I look surprisingly good as a 1950s jock.
• Baby, oh sweet baby, you're the one.... A Dirty Dancing tribute night.
• Busted? Spotted while squeezing in a quick glass of red in the sunshine.

Thursday 17 September 2009

• Cup of tea, candles, hotwater bottle and a book - a quiet half an hour of anticipation after midnight.
• Fajitas and margharitas.
• A black cat curling around my ankles as we sat on the curb kicking the leaves.
• Breaking out the playing cards (on the glass table. Eek.).
• A pitstop at home between meetings to get changed. A wise, and warm, move.

Wednesday 16 September 2009

• A yellow padlock on a black gate.
• Old friends, standard haunt, good chatter.
• An unexpected (and, in retrospect, slightly regrettable) gift of a couple of bottles of red. It would have been rude to say no...
• Being given a book as a present, and a pavlovian response about an inscription.
• A tidy desk! (Well, as tidy as it ever gets)

Tuesday 15 September 2009

• "I carried a watermelon?". RIP Patrick Swayze.
• A literary-nerdy morning - with references to Robert Frost, a dictionary search and grammatical confusion (hither and thither indeed).
• Conkers on the pavement. Shiny and fat brown conkers.
• Setting the world to rights over dinner with a gaggle of girls.
• Being collected from my perch on the pavement, where I was waiting like a small damp waif.

Monday 14 September 2009

• Lay your sleeping head my love / Human on my faithless arm. (W. H. Auden's Lullaby)
• An ingenious solution for individual portions.
• A perfectly ripe pear.
• An evening of calm in a candle lit room, flames flickering through the porcelain and glass of a mismatched collection of teacups.
• Drunken geniality.

Sunday 13 September 2009

• Rejection (not of me, I hasten to add) by Burger King and McDonalds. In a row. KFC was the next option, I fear.
• A long, slow and easy morning, scattered with debauched behaviour.
• Replacing another pair of holey plimsolls. I may have tracked down the last pair of size fives in London.
• Dim sum gluttony.
• Helplessly giggling the afternoon away - a familiar path trodden with a usual partner in crime.

Saturday 12 September 2009

• Lunch in the sunshine, chez famille - punctuated by simultaneous hiccups from across the table.
• A leather dress. Yeah, I'm not convinced either.
• The perfect Saturday night.
• Sunshine on my neck at Watford Junction.
• Ridiculous underwear.

Friday 11 September 2009

• Indoctrinating a protege into the ways of the Big Red.
• A decking garden hidden in Morningto Crescent that provided tapas, wine, good company and the occasional twinkle across the table.
• Beef flavour hula hoops. Awesome.
• Being able to say, 'let's go home' and be taken there in a mere hop, skip and a jump.
• Retreating under my duvet briefly between the end of the day and the beginning of the night.

Thursday 10 September 2009

• A quiet half an hour, waiting with a new (to me) book.
• Dissolute behaviour at the Dolphin into the wee hours.
• Ripping strips off a boorish man.
• The evening light through a gas storage tank in near Broadway Market.
• Answering our location questions with google on my phone and an a-z. Hoorah!

Wednesday 9 September 2009

• I love Nick Cave even more than ever.
• A wave and a smile across the pub
• Sliding into bed, all tangled up, after a long day.
• Dim sum prawns in many forms.
• A favourite dress found in my archives

Tuesday 8 September 2009

• Plink, plink, fizz.
• A wide North London sky, filled with an ever changing moon, stars and the glow of Canary Wharf.
• An equal match. Hoorah.
• Basking in the park at lunchtime.
• Walking through London backstreets, buildings glowing in Indian summer sun.

Monday 7 September 2009

• The panoramic view from the escalator at Nice airport. Astonishing.
• What I wore today (via Belgian Waffle).
• Catching up with an absent friend, sharing jawdropping gossip and generally raising a little bit of havoc.
• A restorative coffee and croissant, consumed in wordless early morning companionship.
• The gelatinous feel of an evening primrose oil capsule undulating between my fingers.

Sunday 6 September 2009

• Reading (whisper it now) Harry Potter on the beach. Oh, the shame.
• A long meandering and aimless walk after dark which took us past the beach and fouind us settling down to watch the world go by. Easy adventuring is all I can ask for on a Sunday evening.
• Tomatoes and rosé on the balcony, watching goldfinches flutter and chirp.
• 'That's going to get you into all sorts of trouble...'
• Having the sun moved to comply with my petulant desires. It's not often that a girl gets her own way in such a dramatic (or comedic) fashion.

Saturday 5 September 2009

• People-watching in the old town over beers and citron presses, as we gently poached in the sunshine.
• Being lulled from a doze by tales of the Fitzgeralds' escapades along the 1920s Riviera.
• Oysters.
• The moment a man walked past and laughed at the scale of my (then divested of lobster carcass) plate. In retrospect, I was eating from something the size of a very large salad platter.
• The colour of the sea, spied from way up high. Nice is just beautiful.

Friday 4 September 2009

• A lunar corona. Amazing.
• Walking along the moonlit pebbly beach, absorbing the sounds and smells of the sea.
• Champagne and chips a l'ancienne on the balcony.
• Dozing on the sofa, windows and doors flung wide open.
• Circling around the twinkling Baie de Anges before, eventually, coming into land.

Thursday 3 September 2009

• A cool breeze blowing away the fairly significant cobwebs.
• Typographic geekery.
• A texted photo, torturing me with my weekend destination.
• Strong, viscous and vicious coffee brewing while I was tackling a very careful shower.
• Socks. Warm woollen socks.

Wednesday 2 September 2009

• A chance meeting on my way home. Such trouble.
• The clack of my necklace as it runs through my fingers.
• A family portrait of DIY products (my partner in crime and I both came to the conclusion that we'd like to be paint and varnish stripper above all other options)
• An animated conversation encompassing all things great and good: dating scenes, art, spirit levels, magic tricks and Slovenian swear words.
• Purloining, by proxy, Penguins.

Tuesday 1 September 2009

• Shiny red shoes.
• An impromptu birthday lunch for Holly - flavoured with wine, pizza and gossip about boys.
• Domesticity punctuated by John Hughes movies.
• Mastering the knack of burrito folding.
• The wonder that is google chat, providing me with the opportunity to idly talk to a bored Libya-bound sister.

Monday 31 August 2009

• The heat of a late August sun on my back (misjudged outfit and all).
• An afternoon gazing at lovely things in the V&A.
• Time to potter at home before heading out again.
• A beautiful pair of tiny black curlicued scissors, to be worn on a necklace like a slightly eccentric spinster aunt.
• Learning the collective noun for starlings. A filth. A filth of starlings. Spectacularly pleasing.