Victoria Park, 24th July

I took a pic of this lovely bike yesterday while I was out exploring my local neighborhood. As you can see the friendly guy in the pic (I forgot to ask him his name) was fixing his amazing bike in his front garden because he had crashed it earlier that morning. The damage was pretty minimal but he was taking it very seriously, demonstrated by taking the saddle off and all. You would too if you had a bike like that, in fact if I had a bike like that I'd probably just keep it in my living room and look at it rather than risk it's loss by taking it outside.

You'll be glad to hear he wasn't hurt, and said the accident was caused by him not looking where he was going. Sure you can't be doing that in the busy streets of London!

I'm still perfecting my technique when asking people if I can take a pic of them with their bike, usually I act pretty shifty and take the pic quickly and badly to get it over with. So that is something I'm going to have to work on!

Hips like a snake

I’ve mentioned my ongoing struggle with sciatica/back pain (once or twice...) but things are looking up because I’ve been going to a (very cute) physio and the exercises he has been giving me are really helping. I went to see him last Tuesday and he asked me how often I had done my daily exercises in the past week. So I told him that I had more or less done them 5 out of 7 days. He was like ‘so, you didn’t do your daily exercises daily’. Which embarrassed me so much I vowed (internally) that I would do whatever he told me to do this week. It was the type of embarrassment that brings me back to an entire childhood of mortifying missed practice for music lessons. (I think now is an appropriate time to mention that when I was in primary school I was so afraid of my piano teacher, but so reluctant to practice, that Fran and I would go to the local church for a quick rosary before my lesson on a weekly basis!)

So, the physio talked me through a few more stretches and re-emphasised to me just how important it is that I do the exercises as often as he tells me. He gives me a lovely yoga pose, the cobra, then he drops the bombshell; for this particular exercise I have to do ten repetitions TEN TIMES daily. Now I had struggled with three times, so I was like ‘here, honestly I think that’s going to be very difficult and fairly unrealistic’. And then he threw in the cruncher; ‘do you actually want to get better’.

So I have spent the last few days in a cloud of the cobra pose. For those of you that are not familiar with it, it’s done on the ground, not exactly office conducive. But since I have to do the stretches throughout the day rather than all at once I’ve had to start doing them at the office. I don’t want to be banging on about an injury around the office, so I’ve never explained my hourly, lengthy trips to the toilet. I’m not seeing him again until next Thursday, and I honestly can’t take his disapproving tone again, so it looks like I’m going to have at least 30 more inexplicably long absences next week!

Neighbourhood watch

I’ve never actually been inside my favourite shop in our neighbourhood, which, as you can see from the pic above, is a belt shop. I’m fascinated by it for several reasons:

1. You can’t go in unless you ring a doorbell. I know this happens in some very posh shops in North and West London, but it’s not that kind of area! It makes it all the more interesting to me!
2. One would expect a specialised belt shop to have high quality merchandise, so you’d think brown and black leather belts. But this shop specialises in coloured neon and studded belts.
3. The shop is not located in a clothing district, but just by itself amongst a plethora of restaurants.
4. The very best thing is that it is supposed to be an exclusive belt shop, but Sharon said that she saw a belt in there (through the window, she hasn’t rang the bell yet either!) that she one time got on a dress and threw it out so basically the merchandise is not of high quality!
5. I have never seen someone go in or out of the shop
6. This BELT shop is so special it has it’s own car park as is demonstrated in the picture below. Now the only shops I know of that have their own car parks are supermarkets and furniture shops. Not a belt shop with no customers.

So I’m deeply suspicious. I’m also very disappointed because if the shutters weren’t down when I went to take the picture, you’d be able to see the multicoloured fiesta that is the window display. I was pissed off at the guy for stepping into my picture, so then I decided to use the one of him in it as revenge. Sure with the readership of this blog it’s as bad as posting it on the Daily Mail.

I ever do make it inside the doors of Rajan Leather Belt Company, you, dear readers, will be the first to hear about it.

As an aside, I went outside this evening and took a few pics of the shop and a few cyclists, as I walked away a fairly scary man came out of a take away across the road and asked me what I was taking pictures for. I acted shady, only because I was so scared of him, and told him I liked the sign and I lived in the area. Then I realised I was an idiot for telling him where I lived and I legged it home, looking behind me the whole way in case he was following me. Thankfully he wasn’t.

East side story

Living in east end london, by all appearances, is not conducive to hanging on to your bike. I was a big fan of biking around in Dublin and would love to do the same in London if I hadn't been told repeatedly that I shouldn't buy a bike unless I can accept that it's going to be stolen. So, for the moment, I'm living my biking life vicariously through the life of strangers. In some ways there is no better place to be on the look out for people with amazing bikes, but on the other hand, every bike is a further reminder that I don't have one of my own.

I've been a victim of bike crime in the past and know myself that I don't take it well, that, coupled with the horrific thieving stories I've heard (one of the girls that works with me had her bike was stolen from INSIDE her house) , and the remaining parts of bikes that I see all around the city have prevented me from purchasing. After a recent (and ongoing) visit from my friend Caoimhe, I've decided to put up a few pics of the lovely bikes, and their owners, that I come across on a daily basis.

There's no doubt that the first pic is not good. I'll be the first to admit that. But the owner was as proud as punch of his set of wheels, he told me he was supposed to be working at Lovebox handing out flyers but the security staff had told him to 'fuck off'. And you have to start somewhere. So here we are.

Review of the Week!

This last week has been so much fun that I think I will detail each day as an homage to my favourite blogger Jennifer Alice in Wonderland!

Monday was my 25^th birthday and I am a usual candidate for someone who would be depressed on her birthday but not so! I think it is because I have now given up a job that I hated and started one that I’m really enjoying, moved countries and basically think “omg, I love my life” at least twice a day. So I went into work on Monday morning with a song in my heart as me old pal Sharon would say and we had an amazing chocolate cake and I remembered that I am going to be about 15 stone very shortly. That evening a few of us went down to the newly discovered Victoria park and drank some Pimms and hung out. I must mention two things here:

1. . Sharon and I have become obsessed with making and drinking Pimms. She won’t let me put strawberries in though which kills me.
2. 2. We also drank some Bulmers, we haven’t lost touch with our knacker roots.

After going back to the house and having sausage sambos and other party foods our current house guest Aido returned back from a long day at Wimbledon. Aido is about 6 foot and performed a height test on our couch so that anyone planning on staying with us in future can rest assured they will fit. He did this test after saying he didn’t want to spend a second night in my bed because I ‘take over the bed’. This is not a surprise given that I have been single my whole life so he stayed down in the sitting room and everyone was happy!

I must mention here that I got an AMAZING birthday present from Shazbags. She got me a flight of the concords tshirt with ‘i’m not crying, it’s just been raining on my face’ on it and I absolutely LOVE IT (in London I have noticed people often say ‘loves it’ which in an ironic twist, I HATE!). I will take a pic of me wearing it because I love it that much, but possibly when I don’t have greasy hair and a massive spot. And anyone with a humorous chip in their body will think it’s hilarious.

I dusted off my old running shoes on Tuesday night and went off for a run in Victoria park. I haven’t run in about 3 months because I have developed excruciating sciatica. On a sciatica related aside: this is awful. I hope you never get it. One of the ways to get rid of it is to excercise, but you can’t exercise because it hurts too much. So it spirals into a vicious circle. I’m not writing any more, but if it EVER happens to you, you have my deepest sympathy. Actually empathy.

Wednesday was Wimbledon on the green in Canary Warf. We met a friend of Sharon’s and watched the longest tennis game in history. We had fun but I expect I might never voluntarily return to the ‘warf again. We caught up with our old friend Caroline on Thursday evening, she was in London for the day (v-young businesswoman!) and went for dinner and on the way home we got pic n mix and honestly, and this is entirely true, if I was never allowed eat a meal again, I’d be happy to just have pic n mix. I had only been saying about a week before that i hadn’t had a decent pic n mix for AGES and I certainly made up for it on Thursday night.

Now, you’d think I’d had a busy enough week already at this stage, wouldn’t you! Well no, off I went at 5.45 AM on a train to KENT for a conference with work. I don’t know why I put Kent in capitals there, because it’s not as if I’m saying ‘Kent, of all places’ since neither I, nor probably you, know where Kent is. Anyway, this was fine aside from the early start and the fact that after a few talks I had to sit through a live hernia operation. Now I knew this was going to happen, sure I sent out the press release. So I knew it was going to take place, I just never really thought about the fact that I would have to sit through it. I have never watched an episode of ER because I dislike blood that much so it was really not something I wanted to watch. But I did sit through an entire hernia operation, being filmed from within the very hospital I was sitting in. Now, in retrospect I am quite pleased that I did it, because I have a better understanding of the whole process but at the time it was not a very pleasant experience.

So when I finally got home on Friday evening, I went off to see the Dirty Projectors perform with Alarm Will Sound. We were going to see the Dirty Projectors, but they happened to be performing with a contemporary orchestra first, which I was really looking forward to. But we ended up watching the DP running a few songs that I didn’t know with some alternative off-beat syncopation and ill sounding harmonies. I think it was supposed to be appreciative music or some sort of bullshit term that I can’t be bothered thinking about. In fact, I just looked it up and the website claimed:

“its unsettling mix of jokes, high concept and existential urgency”.

I’ll leave it at that. But it did got to remind me of this piece of music I studied for my leaving cert which was absolutely awful and we had to study it for ‘form’ even though there clearly was none. If you watch nothing else today, please watch this. You’ll actually be doing yourself a favour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41XrSLNbasA

Back to the Dirty Projectors. The whole time I was watching the musical equivalent of the Kerry Katona and Peter Andres alleged relationship I couldn’t help thinking about the poor 68 year old man sitting in the hospital recovering from his VERY INVASIVE hernia operation. I was thinking:

• Is his wife with him. Does he have a wife? I hope so.
• Is the surgeon going to visit him this evening? (in which case, I feel sorry for the surgeon because he’s still working, if he isn’t then I feel sorry for the man who is being neglected by his surgeon).

You know how sometimes you’re so involved in a situation and then you leave and you completely forget about it, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t keep going. A good example would be the Irish recession, which I now attempt to rarely think of (except when I have nothing to say to someone over here, it can be a good conversation starter) and another example would be the old hernia man. Back to the gig, once Alarm Will Ring left and we just had Dirty Projectors it was super and it reminded me how much I enjoy live music which I haven’t see in a while because I have been counting the pennies.

So then I got up this morning and went to the post office to collect a few parcels that I haven’t been around to collect during the week and I got some really thoughtful presents which really brightened up my day. BUT the most hilarious of all was the envelope of the card I got from my old mate Sinead. I have an old nickname which some people may be offended by, Cunt-Eye, chosen for its sheer hilarity and because it is the most offensive nickname she could think of (I think she did well!). I took a pic of the envelope. Which is pictured above, because I don't know how to make it appear below!

My little blue girl!

I bought a mascara the other day, purely based on it's price (it was 1 pound). When I got home, I discovered that it was actually blue mascara. At first I was a little disappointed, but then I stuck it on over the black mascara I had been wearing and wasn't offended by the results. I'm thinking of wearing it again as it happens. Suddenly it feels like it's 1997 again.

On a separate, and sort of linked note, I did end up buying a black mascara from a 15 year old boy. He advised me about which one would suit my needs, going into such detail as to recommend one to me because it was waterproof. When I laughed, he was like 'what are ya laughin' about, I've been doin' this for free years innit'. I have been working on my accent and think I have perfected this sentence. I can also say 'I'm gonna go to Cargo' in aussie-speak thanks to my lovely room mate and her party-loving sister!

Sound of the Underground

Getting around on London tube is simple and sweaty, certainly during these global-warming ridden times. I both love and hate the tube. I love it because of its aforementioned simplicity and the fact that you can go down steps in Bethnal green, multicultural east end London, and come up in the heart of west London in Hammersmith without seeing light. Two points here:

1. 1 1. Could JK Rowling have gotten her inspiration for floo powder from the tube for the Harry Potter books

2. 2. This is my daily journey to work rather than an arbitrary route I choose.

I digress, the reason why I hate it; the tube goes against my fundamental desire to know exactly where I am at all times. The tube map does assist this, but I like to see landmarks (not specifically well known landmarks, just buildings that stand out to me) so that I can self-congratulate when I see them repeated times and realise where I am. There is no better feeling than knowing that you are getting familiar with an area that was previously unknown to you (I would put this feeling in the same category as the feeling you get when someone mistakes you for a local, asks you for directions and you KNOW how to get where they want to go). This leads me to taking buses at all opportunities when time is on my side; at the weekend, after work, basically any time when I’m not on my way to work. It’s great to be able to piece together the bits of the city you know, especially when you’re obsessed with that kind of thing. What I like doing is knowing the city SO WELL that I can TAKE THE BUS to lesser known areas to make my journey faster. The problem is that it really doesn’t make the journey faster at all, in fact I have just returned from a journey where I took one and a half hours to travel from Clapham north to Bethnal Green, a distance spanning a total of 6.1 miles. There was no traffic. I thought I was being really smart and fooling the system by taking the bus. I was wrong, but I'd probably do the very same thing again because I love seeing the city!