Torchwood

When Diva sends me the photos, I will blog about the party this weekend, the one where I went as a bunny, the playboy one that is, and no don't get all woo haa, I didn't show any leg.

But right now...Torchwood. I like Doctor Who. I like Torchwood now too, and I hope it takes off.

Ahem, this is one reason:

The Scottish-born American hearthrob John Barrowman. His style of teaching Gwen how to shoot a gun today had me all hot n flustered!

Oh dadgumit! In my searching I have just discovered he is "openly gay" and has a long-term partner. It's always the way, isn't it?

Still, I can dream about a lovely strong manly man with his arms around me, can't I?

poesie impromptu

Three poems long hidden away on my dusty old Motime blog, so neglected that although I have wanted to share them all summer, I wasn't bothered to go and get them! I can only write poems when I have an overflow of emotion or heartache.

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1) Written during recovery from disappointment - I will never forget the day I first had that feeling...


FIRST DESIRE

As I watched summer breezes play among the leaves
I realised
I wanted him

I never wanted anyone before
Stirrings of first desire
An aching deep inside

But
Like leaves under an autumn frost
It died a slow and painful death

(February 2006)

**********

2) The initial lashing out after said disappointment...

empty

modern mercenary emotional pirates
unforgiving hearts of stone
marching on and on
unbending, unyielding, un...

(October 2005)

**********

3) And this one I ran across I know not where, while still feeling low . Thank you Mary, you speak for us all:

He knows not that the dead are thine

The weapon that you fought with was a word,
And with that word you stabbed me to the heart.
Not once but twice you did it, for the sword
Made no blood start.

They have not tried you for your life. You go
Strong in such innocence as men will boast.
They have not buried me. They do not know
Life from its ghost.

--Mary Coleridge

About time

About time something showed up on this blogspace...

We are having some exciting thunder and lighting in London tonight! When we were in Texas, Dad and I used to call it "London Frightening".

This weekend, I went to Reading again to see Diva and Nags and Amy, and we all went to Sunny's wedding. It rained a lot. It was cute, there were fireworks outside at the reception, between the rainshowers, of course.

OWWWW I just hit my elbow on the corner of my laptop when I got up to look out the window.

I lost a gold earring today and didn't even know it. But enough about earrings.

And what else...?

Today I had loads of waking dreams while I was fighting the afternoon drowsiness. Each time it happens I ought to write it down. They are just unrelated snapshots and flashbacks.

Ooh thunderbolts RIGHT outside the house! Three of them! My room rocked!

Nite y'all.

Lost Umbrella...

Today at House of Fraser I bought a summer dress, four cute warm tops, and a pair of shoes for under 100 pounds.
255 down to 99, can you beat that?

Coincidentally, everything was French except for one top which was Danish, and the shoes. They were Carvela, but that is apparently under the Kurt Geiger umbrella. I have just learned he is Austrian but based in London. Now that is my brain cell used for the day.

The dress was siiiiiii francaiiiiiis! Cripes, now you are going to ask me for a piccie.

It was funny though, I put it on and all I could think of was summer in Paris and when I checked the label it even said made in France. That was the best deal, it was 60 originally, then half price which I reluctantly relented on, but at the counter as she scanned and folded, the conversation went like this:
"And this is 12."
"What???"
"12 pounds. I know, it's nice to be surprised at the till."

But patience mes amis, today you have the earrings and the shoes:

All the buttons I wore on Wednesday



I love buttons!
Speaking of steals, that satin-lined velvet jacket was a steal last year from 98 down to 48 then 25, and at the till, 22.50!


The Gibraltar glass earrings from Mum that you've all been asking to see



I lost the paper but I gathered that in a special process the glass is bombarded with mineral molecules. Here you see a golden pink, if I turn they will be any colours you want them to be...
Guess how much?*


The pointy new Carvelas with my clumpy old Kenneth Coles



I couldn't bear to part with them, but I never thought I would ever find that deep red again. And lo and behold! Plus I can actually wear the new ones with skirts and they even make trousers more feminine. Still, not letting go of the KCs until the hairline cracks start peeling or something! Seven years on, they are still the only shoes that get the "nice shoes" comment out of random people.

What colour would you say they are?

And the only reason I went to the shop was to reclaim an umbrella I had left at the Biotherm counter the day before.**

Look at the time, I'm off to bed!

* earrings 10 euros
** Finally found a foundation and powder that control my oily skin.

Boo, guess who?

Hello my dear readers,

I have been away for so long that I have forgotten how to blog. Lost that chatty feeling.

So here is the update:

1) When I came home tonight I thought I would still be numbered among those poor Orange customers who have had no internet for two days. I would have done a really short blog via my phone email...because I missed you all.

2) For the past few days (I got Friday off), I have been in the blissful company of my dear mother. We walked about arm in arm, shopping, browsing, gossiping, laughing, nagging, rolling eyes, and laughing again. We ate all sorts of wonderful food, including fancy dim sum at Yauatcha, followed by tea and cakes. Orchid tea - the last two times I was there, they had none. And my yum Shanghai Lily cake of course.

You know how it is when you don't live at home anymore and you see your parents after a long while, as desperately as you wanted to see them, they've got these idiosyncracies, the ones you forgot about. We're still on the same wavelength on many things, but then there are the things they do or say that make you wonder how you are related - but I guess that is how families evolve.

3) I have permission to take my leave and go to Canada on the 19th of December. My mother wants me to stay for a month. Furthermore, my father invited both of us to spend Christmas with him in Calgary. We miss him...it was nice of him to ask.

4) I got my flu vaccination today. I scratched my name off the office list for the 17th of November. I probably would have caught it by then!

5) My mother brought me the coolest pair of glass earrings from Gibraltar. She had been on a trip there with two of her sisters. The earrings are bombarded by minerals and look like pieces of pure iridescence, changing colour from one moment to the next. In fact, they are now officially cooler than my Murano glass earrings...

That's all for now, folks!

Farewell Arts Club

Looks like I am down to blogging twice a week.

This may be the last time you hear about the Arts Club, I am afraid. I am not renewing my membership - in fact as a parting gift, it was extended specially so that I could have a farewell dinner there with my allotted 6 guests. It was to be a bit of a Christie's alumni reunion with Miss S, Rox, Tom, Rebecca and her beau Giu, plus my cousin James. But Tom and James could not be tracked down, Rox is in Switzerland again, and Giu was stuck at work.

So it was just me with Rebecca and Miss S.
We enjoyed a three-course meal. Rebecca chose a nice bottle of Claret for us.
And it was such a pleasant evening, full of tinkling laughter and sparkling conversation. Even Miss S showed a more lively side, though that may have been the wine.

I know I promised some of you a description, so if I can remember what I ate, I will tell you.
1) pate en croute with pear chutney.
2) roast pheasant with roast autumn veg, one of them was a nice crispy toasted leaf...and there was something (perhaps the giblets) in a vol au vent.
3) Paris Brest Praline in a creme anglaise sauce - hey I remembered that one. Very hazelnutty.

Apparently, there was a banquet in the dining room with all the big players in the arts world (hello!), including Princess Margaret's daughter (I knew she was one of the little bridesmaids at Charles and Diana's wedding but forgot her name was Sarah Armstrong Jones. Yeah I know, don't worry.)

So we ate in the Bar/Bistro upstairs and after dinner I showed the girls the cosy drawing room where the recitals take place.

To tell you the truth, as much as I have enjoyed my membership, I never took full advantage of it. More often than not, friends and I end up in Chinatown eating dim sum. I find myself in Mayfair/Piccadilly less often than I once did, and I can't justify renewing. I have other things to do now, and priorities change.

But I am glad I could take you all along for a year :)

Late Poetry Day entry

I was unable to participate in Thursday's abundance of poetry, so Panda said it would be extended to the weekend for me. :)

I dusted off all my poetry collections and looked at all the poems I liked in school. I find them very sentimental and touching, but a bit too morbid for my current situation. Then I took another look at e. e. cummings, whom I could not understand when I was young -- neither his words nor his odd unpunctuated rhythms. But I am older and wiser now, so here is one of his:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

**********

And one of mine from 1998, when I was ending a few years of unrequited love:

You shine like a star,
.....but distance dims the light.
You offer me words,
.....but I cannot see your face.
I listen to your voice,
.....but I cannot hear your heart.
I reach for your hand,
.....but I find it withdrawn.

So I watch
and I wait
and I wish.....

That I might bask in the glow of your love,
gaze into the depths of your eyes,
feel the warmth of your heart,
and place my hand in yours.

A Blog Meme

Quick update:

I have bought two size 8 trousers from Principles . Mmm nice and comfy, well styled, and I can sit down without the fear of popping a button. I've just found out they won awards for the best petites range. This is no surprise - of all I have tried, this is my favourite.

If you want to know what I did this weekend, plus video show, go to Diva. She did the work already, bless her bum (to borrow a phrase of hers). If you're too lazy to clicky the linky, Diva, Amy and I went to Sunny's Hen Do in Surrey. Back at Nags and Diva's later that night, we had lots of food, and played Snakes and Ladders with shot glasses. In the morning Diva made scones, which we ate with clotted cream and jam!

**********

I have been tagged by Hoverfrog and Sunny, and probably someone else I forgot.*

*All people named above are P27ers, former 20sixers.

Why do you blog?

I like to share my experiences, stories, silly or deep thoughts, and the increasingly occasional factual post.

How long have you been blogging?

Since Feb 2005 on Blogger, Aug 2005 on 20six (now defunct), and June 2006 on P27.

Self Portrait.

A real painting I saw at Christie's this summer called "Making Friends". It depicts a little country lass looking just like me as a girl, kneeling in the grass and leaning towards a handful of rabbits who are stretching towards her with curiousity in their noses.

Why do readers read your blog?

Some for a culture fix. Others just because they're used to me now and want to know what I've been up to. And a few others who know me in real life and keep up with the events we don't cover on the phone. Have I missed anyone?

What was the last search phrase someone used to find your site?

I don't know about P27, but on Blogger it was "Olivia Raise Chocolate" on Google France. I come up twice as number 2 and 3 on the search page. What is that about?

Which of the entries gets unjustly too little attention?

That's something I do not remember.

Your current favourite blog?

Cuteoverload.com, notice I am completely escaping the onus of choosing between real bloggers!

Which blog did you read most recently?

Can't remember, starting to fall asleep now. Someone on Blogger, possibly Pandy.

Which feeds do you subscribe to?

None, no point.

Which 4 blogs are you tagging with this meme and why?

Anyone who wants to do this, just jump right in.

Rarrr!

This morning I had a bugger of a commute. Nearly an hour, which is double the usual. By way of concession, I fully realise that an hour is an easy commute for many, but time is relative, remember.

So the first train never showed up, and the St John's Wood platform only gets that crowded when there's a cricket match on. When it did come, I couldn't get on the first three. I do hate it when people behind you slip round and find a spot that you didn't think existed. The last lady's bag got stuck in the door anyway.

Once I did gain a place, I found myself hanging onto the same pole as a.....oh, a Polish couple (sorry). They kissed all the way from SJW to Baker Street (one of the Underground's longer stretches). Pooch, pooch, arm around waist, whisper, pooch, pooch. Her hand forgets to hold onto the pole and slips onto the top of mine. (That was an extra niggly bit for me.)

I SWEAR I wanted to throttle them and step on their toes really hard!!! I have nothing against a certain amount of PDA, and theirs was of a nice sort, really. But not that much, in a crammed train. And the LAST thing I want to see when I am disgustingly single AND suffering from Pre Menstrual doo dah is KISSING! Thank God he got out at Baker Street, otherwise something would have gone wrong before Bond Street.

When I got to Bond Street, same waiting game, same not getting onto train. And then we all squished in again, and man! Do some people's jackets smell manky or what??? Some of them mix it with aftershave/perfume, and others don't. Either way, ugh!

**********

Anyway, I spent the morning trying to forget it all by updating the database, but then my mood would flare up every now and then.

It didn't help that I was complaining inwardly at the total heads-down attitude of the office. Even though my two colleagues and I had little to do, we had only one conversation about neglected pets, other than the odd comment about rain or boredom. At one point, the receptionist came over for colleague N, whispered her name, handed her the package, and N whispered half a thanks.

The most exciting things that happened were:

1) somebody's stacking tray fell off the edge of the desk on the other side of the office, and

2) a colleague went over to the lunch department to complain about them sending us menus from the same deli two days in a row.

3) Fed up with my brie and bacon toastie, I decided to be adventurous and order the curry and rice for tomorrow.

I got off earlyish because it really had been a slow day, and I found a very nice black wool coat with a velvet collar, belt and buttons, totally by accident. It didn't cheer me all the way up, and I still had to have a bit of a rant to my darling Mumsy on the phone. Then I got an email from my favourite male soprano, who always radiates a bit of sunshine, so that helped a bit. I will have to tell you about him sometime, won't I? My blog generates serendipity, you see.

Time for beddy-byes now.