The Nuts & The Bolts

The usual excuses for not updating more often. Various reasons.

The Easter Weekend was a really mixed bag. Planet Angel had it's ups & definite downs, one of them being me really misjudging someone's interest. Good music, though, and some lovely people. The afterparty was only me & the members of the Zoo, which was fine - I enjoy having them in my life.

Easter Sunday was spent sleeping & relaxing, I didn't feel particularly sociable but not down either, I was quite happy being on my own, surfing the web & watching TV later.

John popped round on Easter Monday & we watched "The Rules of Attraction" together, well, half of it until out internet went a bit poo and the film kept buffering. Watched the rest of the movie, with interruptions, after John left.

Tuesday was a really busy day at work, but I got through it. Unfortunately my nose imploded on me in the late afternoon (well, not literally, of course) - I couldn't stop sneezing! It might've been the payback for my earlier smugness of not having caught a cold for a while... Felt quite rough the next few days & didn't do much except leave a trail of tissues whereever I went & going to bed early to get lots of sleep.

Flatmate & I had booked ourselves a ticket for the underground restaurant in Kilburn for Friday. I would post the link, but honestly, it's not worth it. We loved the idea, we enjoyed the evening in the company of talkative, nice people, but the food was not very good & with £30 a head seriously overpriced. I could've cooked a better meal! The host also claimed to have never gotten my email informing them that I don't eat dairy (she also didn't get someone else's notification that he's allergic to fish) & there was quite a bit of cheese on the menu, which was

pizza bread with olives or tomatos

green asparagus topped with mimosa (an egg-flour mix)

squid ink risotto with green salad

cheese board

lemon & bergamotte cream-something

The pizza bread things were fluffy & very tasty, the green asparagus was well seasoned & made me realise that I actually like green asparagus (I despise the white variety), not too convinced about the egg stuff on top. The squid ink risotto was dry as f**k, more like dry black rice with some parmesan stirred in & the salad was just a few leafes with a way too vinegary dressing. The cheese board was ok, a nice selection but not enough crackers/bread & chutney, the cream-whatever-it-was was very rich & I really don't know where the bergamotte was supposed to be. As said before, I could've cooked more inspired & nicer tasting stuff, the portions were way too small. We didn't bring our own wine, otherwise we'd had to pay £5 corkage (she was also selling bottles of wine for £12). It felt like a massive rip-off, especially because or hostess kept telling us how great she is, trying to sell massively overpriced photographs she took (£250, apparently that's what she's studied) & that she's making a living with this. She probably made a grand that night (cramming 32 people into her front room), but she won't be seeing us again.

We are keen to try other restaurants in someone's living room, though. Apparently there is an Indian family hosting dinner nights for smaller groups & you only pay as much as you think it was worth. Very intruiging.

Saturday turned out to be a lovely, warm & sunny day. I woke up early & just couldn't go back to bed as it just felt wront to spend a day like this sleeping. Therefore I got on the Overground to Kew Gardens to meet up with a few others & check out the cherry walk. Which was there, but unfortunately the cherry trees weren't quite ready to bloom yet. Same issue with the bluebells. There were some flowers, however, & the greenhouses were awesome. It was a great day out in the spring sun & got back home happy & tired (all that fresh air & walking around, you know).

Had a lie-in on Sunday & then went off to find a birthday present for flatmate. Not sure if I was entirely successful, but I've got something now & I'm sticking with it. Later that day I bussed to Camden to meet up with a guy I met a Planet Angel a week earlier. It was cool, but he's a complete nutter! Really, I haven't had the "pleasure" to spend time with someone that crazy for quite a while. He hasn't worked a day in his life & is relying on benefits & the odd job, which he claims is totally cool & he actually seemed proud to pass his time taking drugs & hanging out. Apparently he's just waiting for a sign telling him it's time to run away & live as a nomad, afterwards he plans to train as a shaman. It was quite amusing listening to him, but I'm not particularly keen to repeat the experience.

The last 2 days have been not as restful as I'd liked them to be. Work was busy as usual, but not overly so. I started excercising again, cleaned the flat, did laundry, called my parents & prepared food for lunch. I also called our landlord to get her to fix the almost blocked shower drain. All she's done so far is come in, pour drain unblocker into the drain & completely block it. It also seems to have done something to the pipe, as there now is water running out of the shower pedestal. This means that I couldn't use the shower, kitchen sink or washing machine since last night, which is really annoying. Apparently she's coming round tomorrow to fix everything. Thank goodness I'm alone in the flat at the moment, but having to be inventive to do the dishes was not my idea of evening entertainment.

Let's hope all is fine when I come home tomorrow evening. The coming weekend is fully booked if I want it to, with a party in E17 on Friday & a movie weekend at Jay's Saturday/Sunday. I'm looking forward to the latter & will decided spontaneously if I'll attend the Friday party. And maybe, maybe I'll log in to OKCupid sometime. Not very likely, though...