Tea and Cakes

I like tea.

(and other hot beverages)

I seem to have misplaced a couple of books.

If I lent anyone my textbook on Abnormal Psychology, or my Introduction to Psychology textbook, could you let me know, I could do with them back.

Cheers

T&C

On my way to work today I decided to start my pre-christmas shopping - window shopping to get an idea of what I might buy people.
I went into Fat Face.
I fell in love with lots of things. All for me, not for other people. It’s 2 days before payday, I have a rather large credit card bill, and I’m only allowed to buy Christmas presents for other people in December.
I left Fat Face.
*sigh*

Then I spent €30 on tofu. It didn’t make me feel much better.

Feijoa Vodka and cranberry juice in my favourite martini glass.

Tangy, slightly sweet but not too much – slightly sharp too. You can taste the booze: a good quality in any drink, I always feel.

Drunk while slouched in front of the tv, knitting, while wearing my comfy, in the house only clothes. I know the drink deserves better, but this is what makes me feel good.

Today I have relaxed. I’ve done lots of washing. I’ve watched telly. I’ve knitted. I’ve drunk tea. I haven’t left the house. I haven’t done any work. I haven’t been stressed. It’s been fab. (I haven’t started drinking during the day either, delicious though this would have been for breakfast. It’s an evening thing)

Another work trip. As I’ve been relieved of the car I was looking after, my train journeys will become even more frequent. This time I was returning from Drogheda, a trip that my local train station attendant had refused to sell me ticket for, as “I don’t know how much it costs”. I’ve seen this guy lose his temper before, screaming blue murder at a mother and her young daughter one morning, for trying to buy two tickets, so I wasn’t going to push it. The nice girl at Connolly sorted it out for me though. (Note to self: must write that complaint/thanks letter).

Anyway, back to the tale.

They got on at Balbriggan. Three of them, two girls and a boy. I wasn’t quite sure, but I think that he was the brother of one girl and the boyfriend of the other. Maybe they were all just very close. Cousins perhaps. It would certainly explain things. The blank, featureless faces of the simpletons they were. Some genes went wrong somewhere along the line.

One of the girls didn’t want to sit by me. I know this because the other girl (we’ll call her “Diamante”) and the boy sat opposite me, and the first girl (we’ll call her Glossal) looked at me, took in my unfashionable warm clothing (trousers, practical shoes, thick coat and scarf), the fact I was reading a book and wore no make up, and declared “I don’t want to sit here, lets go somewhere else”. Which was just dandy by me.

Off they went down the train, which was obviously filling up by now as they returned after a few minutes, and sat down with me again.

I pretended to read my book for the rest of the journey. It was tough. I didn’t actually want to meet their eyes, I was scared one of them would start threatening me and I’d be forced to deliver swift justice with my fist. I’ve never actually punched anyone before, and I’m pretty sure they were under 18, so I’d probably have lost my job if I did, but, well, I’d be doing society a favour, and I know it would have felt good.

The boys attire is barely worth mentioning. You know what he looked like. Shell suit, trainers, overly gelled hair. The girls didn’t use his name, but if I had to guess, I’d say Anto.
Diamante had long, GHD straight dark hair, and was wearing skin tight jeans with a tiny, waist exposing top, that showed off the diamante explosion coming out of her navel. No kidding, it looked like she’d been attacked with glitter glue. Her hands were covered in Elizabeth Duke for Argos gold rings (including a large sovereign ring, honestly, they just seem to follow me). Glossal also had long, GHD straight dark hair, but she was wearing less clothing. A tiny denim miniskirt, a small t-shirt and a fake fur waistcoat thing. You know the ones: Kate Moss was wearing them about 2 years ago, the entire world was wearing them 1 year ago, and it’s only just filtering through to the great unwashed.

Glossal and Diamante were discussing make up. “I only buy ‘jet black’ eyeliner me. That’s cos I like it really really dark, so I only buy ‘jet black’” I took a quick glance up at Diamante, who was sitting opposite me. Red lip gloss, pale face powder, blue eyeshadow. Why pick lips or eyes when you can go for both?

The conversation moved to Glossal’s recent tongue piercing.
“So, like, she said I can’t meet anyone for 4 weeks!” Said Glossal.
“Nah, it’s 2.” replied Diamante. “I met wi Tommo 2 weeks afta mine.”
“Wa? She sai’ 4 weeks”
“Nah, it were 2 weeks exactly I met wi him”
For those of you not familiar with the language of young people in Ireland, to “meet” with someone is, well, it varies depending on who you are and where you live, but anywhere between snogging and blow jobs, and perhaps more. Thus, the phrase “I met wi Tommo” meant that some part of Tommo was in Diamante’s mouth 2 weeks after she had her togue pierced.

I lost where exactly the conversation changed tack, but we were suddenly discussing one of their friends, who had apparantly punched a teacher. It was possibly Tommo, and that’s how it happened, but I’m not really sure.
Glossal was telling the tale: “… [the teacher] called him a gypsy, so he had ta”
“But that means Knacker!” Diamante exclaimed, outraged.
I sighed to myself.

As the train pulled in to Dublin the girls started talking about the times of the last train back. (Note: the boy didn’t say one word, not even when Diamante was discussing her previous conquests)
“The last train’s at half past eleven” Said Glossal.
“Yeah” replied Diamante, “Tha’s eleven and fifteen minu’s”

I swear, you couldn’t make it up.

So, I’ve quit nano. It got to Saturday night, after work: I was exhausted, and realised that I could either spend the next two days (my weekend) writing like a maniac to try and catch up the 27,500 words I was behind, or I could spend them relaxing and doing the other things I needed to do. Quitting won. Here’s my justification.

a) 27,500 words behind schedule. 41,500 to write.
b) Before November is out I will have worked 3 more late nights and had one overnight trip out of town, that I wouldn’t be able to write on.
c) I really, really needed to get some washing and cleaning done.
d) I want to spend time knitting.
e) I was super stressed anyway, it was making me sick, so taking away the stress that could be taken away seemed like a good plan.
f) I didn’t like my story that much. It wasn’t any good. I know I have a tendency to think that about stuff I write, but I just didn’t like where this was going. It was all too predictable and Maeve Bincheyish. I may go back to it sometime.
g) Hell, I’m just a quitter. I could have told you all that from the beginning.

So, I feel pretty crap about giving in. Really crap in fact. Like you do when you’ve accidentally eaten a whole carrot cake in the middle of a diet just because it was there. I don’t feel good about myself for it.

Anyway. I’ve written another couple of posts so that this will get buried. If you need to comment on anything, comment on those, don’t feed my self pity or give me sympathy: I really don’t deserve it, there’s only one person to blame for this and I know who she is. She has a penchant for gin, vodka, tea and cakes.

Blatantly stealing the idea from Elimare
There has been a big lack of posting recently for various reasons. This is what’s going on.

1. I’m working like a maniac. It will be worth it next year, but I’m not looking forward to the next few months, and I’m going to have to be very clear with the powers that be about how much of this I can keep on doing.

2. I have failed miserably to keep in touch with any of my friends. Sorry.

3. My neice’s birthday present is still at home, not in the post where it should be. Too late now, but I shall try to post it tomorrow.

4. I’m only at 8500 words on nano. About 20,000 behind target. I’m not giving in. I’m taking Monday off. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon too, but I tried that last Friday and worked 12 hours instead.

5. I haven’t been knitting nearly enough. Knitting makes me calm. I should knit more.

6. I have failed miserably at categorising my beverages this last while. I intend to rectify this. Just not yet.

7. I’m trying (and failing miserably at this too) to stop eating cake. Writing about the cake I’ve eaten would just make it real. If I don’t write about it, I didn’t really eat it. Then I can try and kid myself I ate something healthy instead. Like blueberries (muffin) and carrots (cake) yesterday, and healthy healthy, erm, chocolate (cake) today. No redeeming features there I’m afraid. I did have a proper dinner tonight though too. Mmmm, Tesco microwave meals. Euchk. I can still taste it.

Some kind spammer has decided to wind up middle class sussex with a chain email.

It promises a £60 voucher (yes, that is pounds, not euros) to anyone who sends the email to ten other people, copying the email to j.sainsbury @customerservices.com.

The first time I received it I ignored it.
The second time I replied to my mother explaining that it was spam.
The fifth time I replied to my brother (who works in IT and should know better) explaining again that it was spam, and that he should know better.
Today I received it twenty times. Yes, you read that right. Twenty.

These emails are coming from my mother’s friends. People I need to be nice to. People who may read this, who knows? People who use email to forward each other amusing things.

I’d had enough. Politely, but firmly (in hindsight perhaps a little too firmly, but these people need to learn), I explained that this was junk mail, that Sainsburys are unlikely to give away free money in this manner, and that the email address that it was supposed to be copied to does not in any way relate to Sainsburys, ending as it does in customerservices.com

I also pointed out that as I do not live in a country that has Sainsburys, the whole thing was wasted on my anyway.

I didn’t get into the fact that I’m not particularly happy about my email address being forwarded around and copied to junk mail websites, as in fairness, that’s pretty much all my hotmail address is good for anyway. Now, I’m regretting that, I think it could have been a valuable opportunity to educate them in privacy and internet good manners.

*sigh*

Update (23rd Dec 2006): This seems to be a really popular post on the blog all of a sudden. My guess is that the email is still doing the rounds. It’s spam people, spam. Delete it, do not pass it on.
Anyway, now you’re here feel free to take a look around the rest of the blog. It’s mainly about delicious things that I’ve eaten, books that I’ve read, and things that I’ve knitted. Not so much about explaining junk mail to the good people of Sussex.

The shops are filled with Christmas decorations.
The tv is filled with ads for mum jazz and cd box sets.

But now, the final straw - Fairytale of New York was just played on the radio. It’s surely only a matter of days before Slade’s Merry Christmas rears it’s ugly head.

3872 words, running behind target.
A migraine and work set me back.
Fingers crossed for weekend productivity.