Monday 31 March 2014

Marching on (HO HO)

Sorry. March has been a delicious relief from oppressive grey weather and I feel a lot better in a lot of ways.


I went for a cycle on the first. As I've previously mentioned, I've basically not been cycling at all in the last few months. This one was a bit of an effort, but I had fun… And then I went for awesome Lebanese Food at Kambis with Skylark, to celebrate their one year anniversary of existence.


I don't go to the cinema very often. And I'd never been to the Dukes at Komedia before. It was LOVELY and the Lego film was somehow simultaneously ridiculous and hectic and over-the-top and yet still amazing. Excellent.


I am SOO sexy. (And so glad that I don't have to have any more fillings for the foreseeable future.)


So I had a weird day. We had a big meeting in the office, and because it's lent, I couldn't have any of the super fancy meeting biscuits. I spent much of the meeting utterly failing to concentrate, just staring at the numerous bowls of delicious biscuits. I ate four pieces of fruit in about two hours which is UNHEARD OF, I was just desperately trying to stop myself thinking of biscuits. (Turns out it doesn't work).
Later, I found out my Nan died that morning. She really loved biscuits too.


Went to the cinema AGAIN. Craziness. Grand Budapest Hotel was also brilliant. Popcorn is so weird though.


Down days happen.


Because I am clearly terrible at concentrating in meetings, spent another church PCC meeting drawing the other people. I'm getting better at it though! This was a sad one because our vicar is moving to another church and he's GREAT. I know most people are very cynical about the church and religion, but it is and has long been a huge support to me, and much though it doesn't come down to one individual person, he has watched out for me and checked in with me during some of my harder times during the last few years. Sometimes it's just nice to know someone outside your immediate circle of family and friends cares. It's hard to explain. Anyway, hopefully they'll give us a replacement who's just as awesome.


Had a delightful public transport adventure day… first travelling to one of the colleges I work for in Beckenham (TRAAM!) and then into central London and on up to Glasgow ready for Nan's funeral the next day. What could have been a very stressful journey if things had gone badly was a blissfully smooth, calming and contemplative journey, because things went well. Stayed with friends Rhi and Stoo in their lovely Glasgow flat.


This was the picture of my Nan in the order of service. The graphic designer in me was bothered because it was terribly printed but that felt very petty. I never knew her like this, in fact I don't think I'd ever seen a picture of her younger than about 50 before. She had specifically asked that I read the poem 'Daffodils' at her funeral, which is a very specific wish that I sort of had to go ahead with. Reading things is hard when you're sad though.


Finally got round to hacking away at the garden a bit. Alex built us a nice seating area. Feeling a bit better about being out there now. Also cleared away all the cat shit and tried to build some anti-cat defences out of branches. Cats don't like spiky twigs.


Um… green phase? These are just some of my most reliably functioning felt pens. Alex was ill for a while. He was pretty miserable.


Had a rant on Twitter about the government's 'beer and bingo' idiocy. Described it as being 'just the tip of my rage iceberg', so decided to draw my rage iceberg.


This one goes out to all the people who feel sad that CHORES ARE NEVER OVER. At least some of it is because I'm too much of a perfectionist (Alex recently bemoaned the fact that he doesn't see any point in cleaning because he often sees me going and cleaning exactly the same area he'd just done - I think this says equal parts about Alex's dubious cleaning skills and my excessively high standards)
But anyway. Some days it just feels worse than others. So I did this drawing instead of going and dealing with some of it.


Another down day. But I did this college while watching House of Cards and both of those elements were so much fun that I felt completely happy again by the time I'd finished. Must collage more often.


BIRTHDAY! It was a mixed day, truth be told. I woke up to nice cuddles, which was nice. But then when I took my potentially awesome home-made cake into work to share with everyone, I discovered the flour hadn't combined properly and it had quite a few little white floury lumps. Not enough to totally ruin it, and it was still delicious, but that made me grumpy. And then when I went to get a birthday lunch at Iydea, the lady accidentally gave me the lentil filled roti, which I couldn't eat because lentils make me go all wrong inside. So that made me even grumpier. Then I had a weird interaction with a colleague where I think it sounded like I was being overly critical, and I felt really bad afterwards. But then I got productive for a bit, left work early, got an awesome fringe trim, and spent ages trying on clothes that didn't fit in H&M. When I got home I had a bit of a moan to Alex about housework (triggered by the aforementioned house mess issues). However I didn't realise he was a bit miserable anyway after a bad day at work, and just ended up making him feel terrible and grumpy and sad. But we hugged and made up and I took him out to Terre a Terre for my birthday meal and it was SOOOOO GOOOD. Afterwards I went over to the Norfolk for a pub quiz… for a brief while I was paranoid no one would show up, but then LOADS of people showed up and were all super lovely to me because it was my birthday, and I was filled with birthday joy.

That whole thing sounds like the diary entry of a teenage girl. I still am a teenage girl at heart though. (I can't believe it is now 10 years since I was 16)


That's like THIRTEEN AND A HALF MILES. It felt effortless though, because the wind was behind me, so it doesn't feel like that much of an achievement. I had fun though, and it made me fall in love with cycling again a bit. This is here… which was one of many really nice bits to cycle.


Went to vegfest (a vegan festival/conference) at Hove Town Hall. Tried loads of tiny little cubes of fake meat and fake cheese on the end of cocktail sticks. So basically, fake meat is sorted. There are loads of amazing fake meats. Fake cheese though - that's something science really needs to turn its attention to.


Cycled to work today for the first time since about November. I won't claim it was some kind of awesome epiphany. It was quite an effort. But the awesome light evening made it feel so much nicer than it has for ages.

Onwards to an April hopefully filled with more cycling and cuddles and tasty food and light evenings.

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