You hear nothing from me for ages, and then BOOM - all the sudden the lady comes over all prolific with no less than two entries in under 24 hours. There's a simple explanation: Procrastination.
I should be killing myself packing up boxes, filing my tax return, cleaning flat, making phonecalls, sending emails, paying bills, buying groceries, organising sock drawers...you know, that sort of thing. Instead I find myself glumly hunched over my Mac, lukewarm cappucino to my left (as of yet untouched), and surveying the cold, drab day outside my huge kitchen window.
I actually have so much to do that the temptation to simply bankrupt the day and crawl back into bed with a book looms ever so temptingly in the horizon of possibility. Of course, that's not what will happen. I shall sit here for another twenty minutes or so, head in hands, trying to find a way through the poorly constructed maze which is my mind, and eventually, with a great sigh, I shall push my chair back from the table, click my laptop shut, and shuffle upstairs to get on with it.
I guess it's about that time. Will keep this particular moan short and not so sweet. Somewhere in the back of my mind I'm hatching a plan to treat myself to several episodes of 'Lost' which i've saved up but not had the time to watch. A giant dose of escapism with a sprinkling of organic 'Green & Black's' chocolate is just what the doctor ordered.
Happy Sunday people...
Sunday, 18 November 2007
Saturday, 17 November 2007
Panic Sets In
I wish I had something interesting to say. As it stands i'm stressed out of my mind trying to do a million tedious but time-consuming tasks these days. I was struck dumb this past week when after countless weeks of hassle, and great expense, I finally managed to secure a new competitive mortgage on my flat...only to discover that my mortgage isn't up for redemption for another year...whoops. "Bye Bye hundreds of pounds...see ya laaaaaater....."
Top of the stress list at the moment though is trying to pack up what feels like millions of personal possessions and getting ready to move into a new place in less than two weeks. When I say 'pack' what i really mean is that this afternoon between reading a really compelling autobiography and doing my second load of washing (rock n' roll i know) I transferred all my belts and scarves and hats into a suitcase. Yep. That's it. (Now if you knew what a fashionista I am and a downright hedonistic clothes-horse, you would understand that this was no small feat...nonetheless it hardly constituted preparation for a giant move - merely an attempt to blot out panic and pretend at being productive.)
At any rate, all my possessions can arrive at the new place in giant bin bags for all I care. A far more worrying dilemma is that the very next morning after the move I'm meant to be on a charter plane to India. I can hear you moaning now, " She's moving into a new place AND has to jetset to Goa to work on her tan before Christmas...must be horrid for her, poor thing"...
But actually it is. First of all, I have not had the time to obsessively do a million sit-ups a day to get in body-baring-bikini shape for major beach action lately...nor have I had my vaccinations sorted so that when a rabid dog bites me I'm not buggered (I actually did almost get bitten by one such foaming-at-the-mouth dog last time I was there so i'm not being a drama queen). I haven't managed to get my Indian visa yet (a feat in itself involving ridiculously long-winded forms to fill out, ugly passport pics to get taken, and puzzling queues to navigate in the early morning) and I'm purposely not allowing myself to imagine the 9+ hour charter flight from hell with annoying fellow passengers.
No, I'm merely trying to work out whether the mad family who are selling us their home will be out on the agreed day, whether they will renege on their word and leave us absolutely NO furniture (thus necessitating Christmas din-din's being eaten on the floor with only a wood-burning fire to give comfort) and whether I am making a huge mistake moving from my central London flat (five minutes walk from Big Ben) to a slightly less central zone 2 (the horror!) location.
Either way it's a done deal, have bankrupted myself in the process, and am paying a premium for a nice enough new home worth probably half of what i'm paying for it, only it's got this amazing balcony off the master bedroom and that's where I'm going to compose my first novel, write a killer track and drink copious bottles of red wine whilst surveying the dirty ol' London.
I've got it all figured out see...
Top of the stress list at the moment though is trying to pack up what feels like millions of personal possessions and getting ready to move into a new place in less than two weeks. When I say 'pack' what i really mean is that this afternoon between reading a really compelling autobiography and doing my second load of washing (rock n' roll i know) I transferred all my belts and scarves and hats into a suitcase. Yep. That's it. (Now if you knew what a fashionista I am and a downright hedonistic clothes-horse, you would understand that this was no small feat...nonetheless it hardly constituted preparation for a giant move - merely an attempt to blot out panic and pretend at being productive.)
At any rate, all my possessions can arrive at the new place in giant bin bags for all I care. A far more worrying dilemma is that the very next morning after the move I'm meant to be on a charter plane to India. I can hear you moaning now, " She's moving into a new place AND has to jetset to Goa to work on her tan before Christmas...must be horrid for her, poor thing"...
But actually it is. First of all, I have not had the time to obsessively do a million sit-ups a day to get in body-baring-bikini shape for major beach action lately...nor have I had my vaccinations sorted so that when a rabid dog bites me I'm not buggered (I actually did almost get bitten by one such foaming-at-the-mouth dog last time I was there so i'm not being a drama queen). I haven't managed to get my Indian visa yet (a feat in itself involving ridiculously long-winded forms to fill out, ugly passport pics to get taken, and puzzling queues to navigate in the early morning) and I'm purposely not allowing myself to imagine the 9+ hour charter flight from hell with annoying fellow passengers.
No, I'm merely trying to work out whether the mad family who are selling us their home will be out on the agreed day, whether they will renege on their word and leave us absolutely NO furniture (thus necessitating Christmas din-din's being eaten on the floor with only a wood-burning fire to give comfort) and whether I am making a huge mistake moving from my central London flat (five minutes walk from Big Ben) to a slightly less central zone 2 (the horror!) location.
Either way it's a done deal, have bankrupted myself in the process, and am paying a premium for a nice enough new home worth probably half of what i'm paying for it, only it's got this amazing balcony off the master bedroom and that's where I'm going to compose my first novel, write a killer track and drink copious bottles of red wine whilst surveying the dirty ol' London.
I've got it all figured out see...
Friday, 2 November 2007
"God Save The Queen...I’m A BRIT At Last!"
Yesterday i offically became a British Citizen. This means that I can vote, go on the dole, get through the fast queue at Heathrow, and moan about how this country is going to the dogs with the best of them. The journey which began a few months ago in front of a dodgy computer in Elephant & Castle, trying to pass a ridiculously detailed citizenship test, ended fittingly in a sweltering hot town hall with sixty other people (mainly Nigerians - but more on that later) singing the national anthem.
We were told to arrive at the Town Hall precisely at 1pm and told we would be out of there around 3:15pm. I realised this was wishful thinking when an hour later i was still jammed in a room painstakingly waiting for my name to be called out so that i could go up to the front, obtain a sticker with my name on it and make sure my outfit pasted muster (apparently no jeans or trainers were allowed and two Afganistani young men were sent home to change as was a Bulgarian fellow).
Luckily sometime around 2:30 a group of us who had recieved our name tags were ushered upstairs for some 'refreshments' and to wait while the rest of the soon to be Brits were checked in. I slunk to the back of the room and buried my head in a book for the next hour or so whilst everyone else partook of the juice being poured from cardboard boxes and watered down coffee...there were even a few biscuits to be had from the look of things...all served with utter contempt by substitue dinner ladies behind a makeshift table.
Soon the room swelled by a ridiculous amount and I realised this was because most people had come with 'guests' and I was starting to feel clautrophobic and was wondering when the hell the ceremony was going to start. It wasn't until 3:30 that we were actually seated and the given a ten minute lecture on how to behave during the ceremony. I would have thought this a pointless exercise, but my fellow passport-hungry peers were nodding with such enthusiasm that perhaps not.
Given that we all had to say our names aloud and then go up and receive our certificate to general applause, have a hand shake with the deputy mayor (a sweet but impossible to understand West Indian man with an indecipherable thick heavy accent) and pose for a picture (which we were told we could purchase later on for £15 to remember our 'special day'), the ceremony dragged on. I used the time to take note of the crazy sounding names and everyones country of origin.
Of the sixty or so of us present the breakdown was as follows: 85% Nigerians, 10% other African countries, 5% other (I was sole Canadian, there was one Aussie, on Kiwi, two Chinese, three Yugoslavians and one Vietnamese...).
All in all I am rather pleased. I've waited many years (almost 13) for this and i can finally cross off 'become a Brit' from my various to-do lists i've had over the years. It's been sheer laziness that's kept me from doing it, but I'm grateful I did at last. Now maybe my accent will come on with leaps and bounds and I'll stop being treated like a damn tourist.
Or maybe not.
We were told to arrive at the Town Hall precisely at 1pm and told we would be out of there around 3:15pm. I realised this was wishful thinking when an hour later i was still jammed in a room painstakingly waiting for my name to be called out so that i could go up to the front, obtain a sticker with my name on it and make sure my outfit pasted muster (apparently no jeans or trainers were allowed and two Afganistani young men were sent home to change as was a Bulgarian fellow).
Luckily sometime around 2:30 a group of us who had recieved our name tags were ushered upstairs for some 'refreshments' and to wait while the rest of the soon to be Brits were checked in. I slunk to the back of the room and buried my head in a book for the next hour or so whilst everyone else partook of the juice being poured from cardboard boxes and watered down coffee...there were even a few biscuits to be had from the look of things...all served with utter contempt by substitue dinner ladies behind a makeshift table.
Soon the room swelled by a ridiculous amount and I realised this was because most people had come with 'guests' and I was starting to feel clautrophobic and was wondering when the hell the ceremony was going to start. It wasn't until 3:30 that we were actually seated and the given a ten minute lecture on how to behave during the ceremony. I would have thought this a pointless exercise, but my fellow passport-hungry peers were nodding with such enthusiasm that perhaps not.
Given that we all had to say our names aloud and then go up and receive our certificate to general applause, have a hand shake with the deputy mayor (a sweet but impossible to understand West Indian man with an indecipherable thick heavy accent) and pose for a picture (which we were told we could purchase later on for £15 to remember our 'special day'), the ceremony dragged on. I used the time to take note of the crazy sounding names and everyones country of origin.
Of the sixty or so of us present the breakdown was as follows: 85% Nigerians, 10% other African countries, 5% other (I was sole Canadian, there was one Aussie, on Kiwi, two Chinese, three Yugoslavians and one Vietnamese...).
All in all I am rather pleased. I've waited many years (almost 13) for this and i can finally cross off 'become a Brit' from my various to-do lists i've had over the years. It's been sheer laziness that's kept me from doing it, but I'm grateful I did at last. Now maybe my accent will come on with leaps and bounds and I'll stop being treated like a damn tourist.
Or maybe not.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
