Let Them Eat Cake

Things so didn't go as planned.

I've managed to come down with a particularly nasty version of the lurgy just in time for my birthday. It all started to go downhill on Wednesday. I was feeling fine in the morning, but then started sneezing like there was no tomorrow around midday and by evening I was feeling seriously ill. I did manage to go food shopping for my party and dinner before succumbing to the ill, but didn't really get around to enjoying my lovingly cooked stir fry as by that time I'd already totally lost my appetite. Things took a turn for the worse over night, which I mainly spent alternating between being really unpleasantly hot and shivering. Woke up feeling like someone had hit me in the face with a large hammer, called in sick and hid under the duvet for most of the day. Seeing that there was no way I'd be up to a huge party, I rescheduled my birthday party for Saturday, which unfortunately meant not being able to see loads of my friends as obviously people had already made plans for the rest of the weekend (or come down with the lurgy themselves).

Anyway, John (who was just as lurgyfied as me) stopped by on Friday for a bit and I had a small but lovely party last night, so all's not bad. I'm already plotting a big all-nighter for the next year, have to make the most of the house while I'm there!

I'm still coughing and my nose is perpetually blocked which means I've lost most of my sense of smell, but my appetite has come back and I'm not feeling all that ill any more.

And despite being home sick, having 4 days off in a row was nice, although it means I'll be super busy next week.

3 Mondays to Christmas!

Head Squirreling

 Has it been 2 weeks already? Wow. Time flies. I'm getting old. Yes, I really am.


It's my birthday in a week, I'm turning 40. Yes, indeed. If there ever has been a time for a mid-life crisis, it's now. I've been doing some looking back/looking forward recently, which probably hasn't contributed to me being happy, but I guess it had to be done.

Basically, there has been quite a bit of head squirreling. My brain's a real bitch, it knows when I'm weak & then hits me. Like that night when I couldn't sleep. Instead of sending me comforting images of fluffy sheep & cute dragons, my brain decided to engage me in interesting conversation. Like, pointing out that my love life hasn't really been that hot for a while. Or reminding me that my boyfriend for 8 years, all through my 20s, is now married & has a child (or two, maybe three, I haven't stalked him for a long, long time). And then making it quite clear to me that, well, I'm a bit of a failure in that regard. It was a long & not very pleasant discourse. But it left me feeling somewhat better about myself. My life just isn't like most lives, I'm not like most people, so better get used to it.

Anyway, to distract myself of pesky brain rodents, I attended Elysian Project @ Electrowerks a weekend ago & despite my concerns, it was quite excellent. The afterparty was lovely as well, I managed to reconnect with some of my friends. I also found out that FB fucked up & didn't send the invite to my birthday party to everyone I put on the list. Which means half of the people I invited only found out last week that there's a party at mine & quite a lot have already made other plans. I'm having a party anyway, even if it's going to be a somewhat smaller affair than planned. I can always have another party next year, it's not that my flatmates would get in the way (I think they're both planning on hiding for the weekend).

This weekend was spent attending more parties. First one was Planet Angel's Free Party on Friday, an event I didn't plan to go to as, quite honestly, PA has lost it's appeal for me. It was nice while it lasted, but now something else has to be found. Hence I didn't try to secure a ticket for said party, but Cherelle did & dragged me along. T'was ok, we stayed for an hour or so & then decided that we're really not feeling the love. I even got a ride back, which was awesome seeing that Acton is not quite as well connected in the night bus department as Kilburn was. I fell into bed around 3am, then couldn't sleep for another hour because I just didn't get warm, but then passed out until 1pm. I then proceeded to amble to Morrisons to get some food & start to get ready for the next party. Charlie was celebrating her new boobs, so I trekked to North London in the freezing cold. Her boyfriend's flat was boiling, though, and there was tasty food & pleasant people, so it was worth it. Nevertheless, I got tired around 1am & embarked on the long, tedious & aggravating journey home. I haven't quite figured out the fastest way to get home yet, and the route I took last night wasn't the best idea I ever had. I really could've done without the 10 minute hike through the freezing cold as well, but the only nightbus that stops in front of our house only runs every 30 minutes & the next one was due in 20 minutes. It took a good 5 minutes until I could feel my toes again once I'd finally reached the cozy warmth of my bedroom.

Today was a lazy day, I didn't leave the house at all. Instead, I had my hairdresser come to mine. Nice.

Tomorrow there's going to be a tube strike, which doesn't really worry me as I'm a posh bitch that gets the shuttle bus to work. It kinda put a spanner in the works of my idea to go to Oxford Street after work to get some Christmas stuff, but I can always do that on Tuesday. Tomorrow's also going to be the day that I finalize the booking for my trip to India in February. I'm well excited & have already started making a list of things I need to get sorted before I leave (most important points being getting a visa & topping up my vaccinations).

Thursday I'll join Lynn to watch the latest sequel in the Harry Potter epic. I've got Friday off to prepare my birthday party, which hopefully will fill up most of my weekend.

Not sure what happens after that, but I've been told Christmas is only 4 Mondays away.

Well, Maybe Not

I've had a look at a room in a flatshare today, thought I might as well keep my eyes open but this place isn't what I want. Which is not too depressing, as things are actually not that bad at the moment in my current place.

Since I bought a new TV (a 22'' LCD HD widescreen) & moved the Sky box into my room (with no help from my flatmates, though) I can watch TV in a warm, cosy room - either heated by our central heating or a quite good electric heater. My room is comfy, the kitchen gets warm ok if you put the heating on & cook, so basically as long as I don't get the idea to spend a lot of time in the lounge I'm kinda ok. The landlord seems to be an extremely busy person, but we have the number of the plumber & the handyman (who lives next door) now, so if we really need to we can take matters in our own hands. The plumber's a bit flaky, but I guess that comes with the profession, but he came over yesterday to bleed the radiators, change some settings on the boiler & even promised to talk our landlord into installing thermostats on our radiators. If the handyman (again, a very flaky & extremely busy person) now would get around to installing the loft insulation, we might even be on the way to making this place quite livable.

And it's not as if my flat & the flatmates don't have advantages. I can have people over if I want to (& get the place warm) without anyone complaining. I can come home whenever I want to & in whatever state I might be in, they know me & my lifestyle & are ok with it.

I do miss living with sociable people & it sure would be nice to have a place that's warm all the time, but that might not be possible at the moment in the configuration I'd like.

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to just wait for a while, get my thoughts & wants in order & then come up with a nifty move. Cue mad laughter.

In an attempt to find sociable-ness outside my abode, I met up with John today to check out the latest exhibition at the Wellcome Collection, High Society, which basically looks into drug use across the centuries. It was really interesting, but after some really excellent & well thought through previous exhibitions, I was a bit disappointed to not find more information & insights. It made me go "ah" a few times, but generally could've done with something more.

After an exploration of the bookshop in the same building (which by the way is excellent), I made my way towards Oxford Street to stock up on facial cream & lingerie. I hit La Senza first, got measured (apparently I'm now a 80 DD, which I'm not entirely sure applies to other bras except for the ones in that shop) & bought 2 bras, then wandered over to the perfume section of Selfridges to get some new Clinique face cream. I also wanted to get new deodorant, I've basically been using the same brand since I've started using deodorant. Yes, honestly. I've strayed a few times, only to return again because it's the best stuff EVER. Which has now been discontinued in the UK, or so I've been told. I'm shocked & slightly worried that they've stopped selling it in Germany as well, which would mean I'd have to find a new deodorant AFTER ALL THOSE YEARS! (ok, I've just checked on the Lancome website & it's still listed there. Quite possibly the person selling Lancome stuff in Selfridges was lying just to upset me)

There's more sociable-ness coming up on the next weekends, with Elysian Project next Friday, a party at Charlies to celebrate her new boobs (don't ask) the week after & my birthday beginning of December. I'm currently a tad worried as responses to my invite on FB haven't been as numerous as expected, but I hope that's going to pick up closer to the date. It would be a shame if now that I can have parties in my flat people are not interested or too busy to attend.

So, things are not as bleak & I feel less whiny than when I was writing the previous posts, but the flat situation needs a good looking into & my social life needs a good kicking as well.

On A Mission - Maybe

We're shut off from the rest of the World (aka London) this weekend, they've suspended both tube lines going into town. Awesome, well done TFL. Despite of that, I've made my way to Ealing to have a little chat to the Estate Agencies again. Only to find out that I won't be able to secure the lease on a 2 bed flat on my salary. This basically means that my original plan to find a lovely, cosy, warm & as close to German standards as possible flat & then look for a suitable flatmate won't work. As it stands I'd have to find the flatmate FIRST & then get the flat, which is exactly what I don't want.

Not that there are currently any flats on the market in the first place. One of the agents tried showing me a place that she said was just what I'm looking for - thankfully the current tenants were still asleep due to going a bit overboard while celebrating Diwali & I didn't have to break to her that actually, that place was pretty shite. This was before someone told me I wouldn't be able to rent it, anyway.

So my options are:
1. Find someone to share with & go flathunting together
2. Move further out of London & get a studio/one bed flat on my own
3. Leave this fucking country & move somewhere where I can afford a nice place
4. Get a better paying job/raise/promotion
5. Hit gumtree & find a flatshare that fulfills most of my requirements

I can't see 1 happening as none of my friends wants to live in West London. I would consider 2 if all else fails. 3 is very tempting, but I like my job & my friends & London if it wasn't for the abysmally bad housing situation. 4 is a nice thought, but not very likely to happen. Which leaves me with 5 (& 2 as my plan B). It's not going to be easy.

Or I could just stay where I currently am, freeze & feel guilty every time I turn on the heating. Yeah, not ideal, either.

On another note, I'm still trying to distract me from the misery that is English housing by making an effort to be more sociable. Frani came over on Friday for a massive catch up & a home-cooked vegan dinner, both of which was great & made me happy. And I went to a Halloween party on Saturday, dressed up as a gothy witch, which was quite cool, too. The weather hasn't been as cold as the previous weeks, which means I've actually had a few quite decent days in our current flat.

It's set to get colder again next week, though, and I'm starting to panic again. And my flatmates kinda have someone lined up to take my room already, so I should make up my mind if I want to do the flatshare-hunting or just hole up in my room with my heater & wait for winter to pass.

Honestly, if anything's ever going to be the final straw that makes me leave London it's going to be the living situation (oh, and the medical care, which to be quite frank, is just as bad as the houses).

Despicable Me

To distract myself from flat woes & spent the evening in a warm environment, I went to see Despicable Me on Tuesday.

It's awesome.

It's well made & actually has humor for grown-ups as well.

It's incredibly, insanely cute.

It made me giggle quite a lot.

I want a minion.

Go see it!!!!!

(4 out of 5 little yellow stars)

Our House

There's a problem with my new place. It's cold. Really cold. It wasn't so bad when we moved in (August), but even then you noticed the lounge being distinctly colder than the rest of the house. Now that it's autumn & frosty, the temperature difference between back & front of the house has become even more noticeable. While the kitchen is quite bearable even without heating & seems to keep warm quite long, the lounge (& upstairs bedrooms) resembles a freezer. It takes ages to get warm, while the radiator in the hallway happily toasts the staircase & loft, & gets cold again as soon as the radiators cool down.

This massively pisses me off. It's actually making me quite miserable. I like my house warm, without having to throw money out of the window to keep it that way. It doesn't help that one of my flatmates claims to never feel cold & the other one hides in her room with a little fan heater.

I'm entirely not happy & this situation is not made better by my flatmates not really being very sociable types. I spend most of the evenings I'm at home alone in the lounge, while they hide in their rooms to watch their own TV. I like my personal space as much as everybody else, but I'm not living in a flatshare because I don't want to hang out with people.

I've spent most of this week trying to figure out what to do. Not that there is much I can do, except move. And this is made difficult by the fact that I've signed a 12 month joint lease.

The landlord's coming over tomorrow & will hopefully make the radiator in the bathroom go warm, tell us how to turn off the one in the kitchen & be able to tell me when the boiler has last been serviced (I'm assuming never). I don't think he's going to be very open to my suggestion to insulate the wall & the loft, which is what this place really needs.

Depending on how all of this turns out, it might start hitting the estate agents again.

Bugger.

Back!

Oh, hello! Been gone for a while, what with moving house & Sky taking absolute ages to sort out my interwebs (they were even worse getting my TV set up, but hey, I'm not paying for anything so can't really complain).

Things wot happened since I left Kilburn & set up shop in Acton were many.

I had a wonderful Planet Angel party weekend, mainly due to the afterparty being quite rad & featuring Arnon who was visiting from Canada & stopping by before he was flying back. Earlier that month I had both him & his girlfriend Cara staying over at mine for a few days, but hardly got to see them due to work & their sightseeing schedule. Can't wait to see them again next year at Burning Man :)

I finally gave up & got my hair cut, it's now a layered bob & much less of that mess that was gracing my head previously. Mysteriously, I seem to have developed somewhat wavy hair. I don't understand why & am not sure if I should be worried or pleased, my hair's always been straight as hell, but I can now definitely spot some wavyness to it.

The new flat is nice, it feels a lot more like home than the previous place ever did. My room's got all it's furniture now & I even bought a new bed (& a double duvet, today), all I need now is some decorative elements. My furniture is white, the bed is silver metal, the walls are white & the floor is some weird shade of charcoal/blue. I'm thinking some bamboo boxes to replace my shoebox storage & pink/purple colour touches. I had seen a great poster at Ikea (online), but unfortunately they didn't have it in the store. So now I'm on a quest to find grey/pink/white bed linen (need new covers as I didn't have a double duvet before) & something to put on the walls, although I'm not entirely sure how/if I can attach things to the walls as they seem to be rock hard.

What else? I've been working a lot, but seem to get recognition for it as well, which at least is something. Unfortunately being stressed & having manic workdays means I need the weekend to chill out & mainly slump on the sofa, which is not really what I call a banging social life. There are some parties coming up, so there's hope.