LONDON LIFE

Life in London has been good these past few weeks. I am temporarily working in another office in a different part of London (but that’s another story) and have found myself spending my lunch hours in a well known department store that sells all manner of exciting products. If you can’t find me trying on Jimmy Choo shoes (just because I can – well actually I can’t, because my feet simply don’t work in beautiful shoes, but I’m trying them on anyway) or Donna Karan dresses of a lunchtime, then you will definitely find me in the food department – either tasting samples or in the queue to buy the following:-

1 Oreo Cake mix (didn’t realise that was over £10!!)
Twinkies
Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix
Maple syrup (not the US version that is not actually maple syrup – this is Canadian)
3 x Tootsie Rolls (bought for my children but ate them all when I went back to the office and then felt sick)
Violet Crumble
2 x Goober grape and peanut butter spread (luckily have managed to pass at least one jar on to someone that is not me)
1 x olives (because otherwise the above pile looks a little unhealthy)
1 x olive oil (see above)
4 x Female Multiple (because they were on a buy one get one free offer and what sort of woman is going to turn down the chance to get two for one female multiple!! Female multiples of what??? I must have stood in front of them for so long that I became a bit embarrassed and decided I’d better buy them. I am puzzled as to how the drug company didn’t really think about the title – surely it should say Female Multi-vitamins – NOT just female multiple – but anyway – perhaps that’s why they’re having to give them away – I’ll let you know how I get on with them AND YOU ARE ALLOWED UP TO THREE A DAY!!

…and just to prove it:-

Total cost for all of the above was nearly £307 (massive over-exageration you understand, but it was still a shock for a bag of food stuff) but it doesn’t matter because I have American sweets and cakes and no Jimmy Choo shoes so I am very happy indeed.

Thankfully I am not doing this job every day or it would be pointless actually paying me a salary at all – it might as well just put it directly on the store card for me to fritter away.

So what else is going on in the suburbs these past few days? My house is most certainly quieter and tidier than ever before without all my noisy messy children, but I haven’t had too much time to notice these new changes – which is a good thing. Been filling my time up with lots of lovely things. Mostly.

GOOD THINGS

1. I’ve had a few beautiful walks in the park. A place for feeding the soul and being a teeny bit scared of the horny deer:-

Whose looking at you kid:-

And again:-

2. I am spending most of my free time wearing these shoes – even at weekends when I am back at the side of football pitch for the 25th year running watching my ever increasingly large child run around kicking a ball:-

3. My cat is as mad as ever:-

4. I won an award for Excellence, even though I haven’t been teaching my Pilates classes for near on two years and caught up for the day with lots of my lovely fellow instructors:-

and we went out and ate this:-

5. I saw Ed Sheeran and fell in love under a thousand stars (see separate post):-

6. I went to a wine tasting course courtesy of the French tourism board in Maddox street and met some very interesting people, including a master sommelier – it’s not often I get asked whether I “speeet or swallow” these days so wasn’t sure how to respond:-

7. Went with friends to The Olympic Studio in Barnes (THE place to watch a film) and saw “Gone Girl”. Not sure about it really. Didn’t love it, but it’s not bad enough to go in my next section.

8. Had Book group and a great discussion about “A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing” by Eimear McBride. An extraordinary book, not least because of the style of the writing which is all higgledy-piggledy. But once you get into it, the subject matter, which is brave and tragic works very well with it. Not a light read by any stretch of the imagination, but an important one to have read.

9. Now reading and loving “Mandela’s Way” – lessons on Life, Love and Courage and hoping I will be a better person for it.

10. Surely I can think of one more good thing that happened this week? Um? Oh yes, a lovely evening with my son at Westfield’s – sometimes, it’s all about shopping and food – Nando’s actually.

BAD THINGS

1. Ebola seems to have taken over from the threat of ISIS as the number one terror of the moment. Ebolageddon is on the march. Hopefully to be stopped in it’s tracks very soon.

2. I missed a day out on the biggest cruise ship to arrive in Southampton thanks to a potential vomiting bug infection and had to stay at home.

3. Everyone on the train is coughing. I really don’t mind the commute but I’m quite sure I am prone to many more colds thanks to the close proximity of strangers. This is not even a crowded train:-

4. My son’s ankle is still very bad and he can’t play football for six weeks which is gutting for him.

5. My daughter has a recurrence of her chest infection and back on antibiotics for all manner of ailments thanks to a little over refreshing during Fresher’s week. In addition the really bad thing is that she doesn’t seem to be missing me at all.

6. There’s a lot of other stuff going on with other people I know that I can’t write about here, so for now, that’s it on the bad list.

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