My Gran had a poodle once

And this is dedicated to someone of the same name. I made it up last night when I was going to sleep.

I have to
Disguise my contempt,
Smile 'til my face aches.
Pretend it doesn't matter,
bide my time and raise the stakes.

Put on your red shoes

I want to go out and dance till I can stand no more, laugh till my face hurts and run because I'm so excited I have to burn off the energy somehow.
I want to look at the fit guys across the room and giggle with my friends and joke about which one of them should go with each of us. I want to be in the club when the lights come on and see which one of us really got stuck with the munter.
I want to stumble home, finding a shopping trolley on the way and jumping in for a ride. I want to wake up in the early afternoon with my face in a kebab and a friend on the sofa.
I want half an eye on the phone wondering if he will call or text, I want the anticipation of that first date and the first kiss at the end of it. I want the thrill of a touch that electrifies. I want to panic about a deadline that doesn't matter and be proud of a grade that doesn't count. I want to be late and not worry. I want to have a bad attitude that suits me. I want to paint flowers on my face and wear a skirt that's too short. I want to show the world a v sign followed by my bare arse then run away to tell someone who'll laugh and wish they'd done it first. I want to wander the streets knowing I'll find someone I know who's not doing anything and we'll find somewhere to cotch together until the rest of the gang find us-knowing where to be seen is instinctual and knowing where to look is common sense. I want my evenings to start at 15:10 again.
I want to spend my weekend wandering around (the old) Camden in a purple haze. I want to pet stange dogs and wonder what I'll be when I grow up. I want to plan trips that will never happen and dream about where I'll go when I have a camper van and a german shepherd. I want to wander the city late at night and laugh at the silly street names and marval at a set of stairs opposite St Pauls cathedral. I want to link arms with my friends and sing at the top of our lungs, what ever song is cool that week (Loser, unchained melody etc).

Would I do anything differently? Not back then I wouldn't changes would come later and it would involve more wreckless stuff not less of it. I'd carry it on longer. I'd be a bit wilder. I'd shout louder than the rest of the world put together.

mid teen times

OK, so it's Tuesday and I did something last night that wasn't stay home and faff around on the internet or tidy up. Consequently the flat needs some serious work, but I can deal with that another day and Mark did have a go.
Anyway, back to the point. I'm fed up of living life one weekend to the next so I'm grabbing every day and making it worth while or, to quote Mark when he was hungover and going into work on a Saturday "let's go kick today in the balls." So I met Mirry-anda-the-panda last night. We had a nostalgic walk along Whitecross Street having met outside the old Accapella builing (which isn't there anymore) had a look around Waitrose, it sits where Safeways once lived. We remembered Clair or Ferret stealing vodka and all the rest of the 'crusers' knocking around there or Snowy park. It was a nice trip down memory lane. We bought some Gu desserts and a dressed lobster which we took to the pub to eat. I introduced Mirry to Sailor Jerrys rum and we discovered an alcoholic ginger beer, it's not as good as Stones alcoholic ginger beer but I'm not in Kansas any more and the Wizard of Oz is unlikely to get in contact me ever again so the chances of my finding that are slim indeed.

We talked about mutual friends some we're in contact with some we're not. Some aren't even our friends anymore. Her 'new' relationship. It feels like not much has changed since we were 15 and in 'Caddis Flae' oh, except she has a boyfriend now and I'm not recruiting drummers with my feminine charms. We stayed in the pub 'til about 22:30 ish, we'd bought some weed and sat outside (across from the police station!) smoking which meant our conversation tailed off and went off on to tangents so making much less sense but laughing a great deal more. We promised we would meet up much more regularly and I'm pushing her to meet her new beau so I'm hoping that will happen soon.

I got home tired but happy, knowing I can still call a friend and just 'hang out' feeling like a teenager again. I suppose it helps that I was with a friend that I've known since I was a teenager and we were doing the same sort of stuff (substitute the lobster for a bag of chips and the pub for, well, Snowy park or a concealed bench in the Barbican centre) as we were doing back then.

*Also swap the 'music' we made in our band for the music we played on the jukebox

Living from weekend to weekend

I've just read back the last few posts on here and I've noticed that, like many people, I'm living from one weekend to the next with very little inbetween. Even in the summer. Any posts that I've made during the week are whinges about how boring my job is and how much I dislike which ever of my supervisors is pissing me off that day.

I should be making the most of my evenings, meeting friends in a park, or going to shows at the globe with my boyfriend, but I don't. I've gone back to the pub job so that's Wednesdays and Fridays out of the equation but on the evenings when I'm not working I seem to go home and clean. My new hobby is washing up-or pulling out the cooker/fridge to clean behind them, or re-organising the cupboards (cleaning them as I empty them, obviously).



Shit. I'm turning into my Dad.



I like nothing more than the satisfaction of a clean orderly kitchen side or a freshly made bed and I've always had a weird obsession with washing and washing up. I seem to spend an unreasonable amount of my life hanging socks. None of this would make a particularly good blog post. (So I'm sorry about this one).

I work and clean. That is my life. It will be worth it when I can buy a house outright and spend my evenings in my own garden and my weekends walking along the Pembrokeshire coast.













Additional: I've just booked two tickets to see 'As you like it' at Shakespeares Globe Theatre. After all, for the time being, I live in London. One of the most interesting, busy and cultural cities in the world, I might as well make the most of it until I retire to the countryside.

Arsenal v Celtic

I watched the game last night, some of it at me Brothers and some of it at my Dads then back to my Brothers to see Arsenal end the game victorious. Before the game started, when the players where in the tunnel the Celtic supporters sung their hearts out to their club anthem 'You'll never walk alone.'

Danny looks at me and says "that's an Irish song isn't it?" Must be, says I. The last time either of us had heard the song was at our Grandads funeral a few weeks ago.

Danny "But they're a Scottish club"
The screen shows a sea of green, white and gold flags
Jade "well they've got some strong connections with Ireland by the looks of things"
Danny "maybe it's something to do with religion, would they be the protestants or the catholics?"
Both - "Catholic"

So thanks Grandad, you've taught me something about football and sparked an interest in history. My own history. Our own history.

I know that they have 'orange marches' or 'orange men' in both Scotland and Ireland but I don't really know what it means. It's something to do with fighting between Catholics and Protestants, but I don't know who's orange or what they're marching for. But I'll find out.

Time is ruthless

it's already an entire day since my Grandad died. I didn't see that sneaking up on me.

It's Friday, I should be happy, the start of the weekend and two days of freedom. But I'm not. I'm unprepared for it. I need to wax my legs, wash my hair, find my clothes which seem to be tunnelling their way through to the flat next door. My flat is a state. The mice are getting cheeky and closer to the sleeping part of the room we live in. We're finding cockroaches on a daily basis now. And I've heard nothing about the place that we had put a side to move into once the contract (sentence) is up. In fact I've been told that we shouldn't really start looking until it does expire as we can't do anything until then anyway. Frustration!

That's exactly what it is, I'm frustrated because there's nothing I can do about any of the things that are irritating me. We signed a contract to stay in the flat for a year so that's what we have to do. I asked about the neighbours and as told they were nice. I should have got that in writing because it wasn't true, they were drug dealers that the landlord had been trying to evict for 18 months. When they were evicted and the property seized by the Met police they just took up their usual business in the courtyard. The police would come, search them, tell them to leave and they would be back within 10 minutes.

The other thing that is wrong with the flat is it's infested. There are mice and cockroaches. We noticed the mice as soon as we moved in and had a lone cockroach which Mark dutifully identfyed then released. But since we have new neighbours downstairs there are lots of them. My theory is that they were down there when the place was a drug den/whore house and now that the Summer is here their numbers have exploded and we're getting the overspill. The new neighbours are probably a lot cleaner than the last lot and therefore the roaches are trying to find somewhere they like. The pest control people were informed two weeks ago but because we don't have a doorbell they couldn't get in and we have to wait for another appointment. I don't think they're in a rush.

My job is unchallenging (I'm writing this whilst at work) and at the moment there is actually nothing to do. I'm not joking, nothing. I'm a temp so my job's never safe and I feel like this one is coming to an end. I feel like it came to an end about a month ago but they haven't let me go just in case. I've been looking for another job, I've even worked on my CV but I haven't got a covering letter yet so all of the replies I've got have been rejections. They have also moved the goal posts. I signed up for a job from 9-5:30 now that I've been here a while I'm being put on the t2 shift-9:30-6, no big deal, half an hour either side. I have a pub job I need to start at 6. I told them this. The phone supervisor has pushed and pushed for me to do t2. unrelentlessly. So now I have to and she's putting me on there twice a week. I wonder how long it'll take them to figure out that my absence due to sickness has gone up and seems to coincide with those days. I have to get a cover letter done and get out of here. I want a proper job, but there aren't any out there at the moment. I like the bar job but it means I'm working days and evenings and I'm knackered.

I'll carry this on later, I have to get breakfast. I'm not all that unhappy about my weight at the moment, I'm about a stone over weight, but that's something I can do something about. I'm having horrid porridge.

Happy Birthday MpB!

Last weekend was a great one. I don't have time to go into everything in detail but I'll do the itinery and fill in the gaps later.
Friday: Sam Smiths pub with Marks workmates and Dave.
Angel for 'do you remember the first time'-never made it, Steam passage for last orders.
Chip shop Mark has a need for excessive salt.
I fell asleep almost instantly Mark and Dave sat up chatting til dawn.
Saturday: Chelmsford. Pitch and putt with Mark, Dave and Luke then on to Romford dogs. Mark had a £40+ win-lucky sod, well it is his birthday weekend. Home. must. sleep.
Sunday: Dave and Jadey came to London. London museum. Wheterspoons for dinner. Then Two Brewers in Whitecross street. I pointed out where we'll be living on a map in the city-wish we were there already. We walked Dave and Jadey to Liverpool street then walked home.

It doesn't sound like much when it's put like that, but trust me it was well worth it!

My new friend

There were a few mistakes, a few light things to do and a bit of indecision that wasn't all mine for a change.


Phew, what a weekend it was.



Friday I went out with a friend of mine from the pub that I work in, we drunk Ale from Sussex and chatted. It's nice to get to know new people and Jon is one of the people that I'm genuinely interested in, rather than someone that I'm forced into knowing and have to tolerate (certain colleagues, friends of friends or friends of family members). The only real problem here is that the only time I've spent with him has been when I'm serving behind the bar or when we're both on the 'correct' side of the bar and then we get shitfaced. We both seem to enjoy the really strong pale ales so drunkardness sneaks up on us. And Jon does a disappearing act after a left hand milk stout. It's one of the things I like about him as I've been known to just leave once I've had enough-I'm not big on goodbyes when I'm drunk, they usually lead to sloppy kisses and the classic "You know you're my best friend, hic" or " I really love you man!" And it seems that even when I'm beyond remembering my own name I just know that this is not a dignifyed thing to do so I sneak off too. We had another of those nights that ends in me playing pac-man chasing a take away curry around the kitchen floor because Mark's put it on a plate but I'm too drunk to lift my head off of the floor so I push the plate forward with every bite I attempt.



Saturday we went to Ricmond park-WOW it's even prettier than I remembered, we saw the deer, the first time was from a distance, and we tried to get pictures with our phones and although we could see them quite clearly the camera picked them up as about 3 pixels on a screen of green and blue (The Rigante colours). Still it was a magical sight. We walked on through the park and came to a lake with a bench between it and an overgrown meadow so we sat and had lunch. Saw some beautiful blue mayflies and inspected a really ugly insect that landed on my ruck sack. As we got up to leave we saw the deer again, a lot closer this time and they were coming towards us. Some had anklers and they varied from 1 to 7 pointers, there were colour variations some being quite dark fawn and others quite bright whites. They were all beautiful and the anklers looked like they would feel like velvet to touch. I thought it looked sumptuous, Mark said the feel of velvet makes him itch. I shall put the pictures on here at somepoint when I play with this blog at home. They got closer and closer and I started to get a bit nervous-well they are a bit like small horses and one of them did try to eat me when we were in Wales. So we tried to back off but they kept coming, bloody hell we're beng surrounded by carnivorous deer! It all ended well when I hit one on the head with a digestive. Deer seem to like digestives-who knew?

O-a-sis, on Sun-day. Short pause. At Wem-bley
Words screached by a city dweller into her mobile phone at the crossing this morning. Mark's right you know. There are goung to be a lot more arseholes at the Oasis gig than there were at the Blur gig. I can see there being a few groups of chavs on an annual outing and more people will be there for the atmosphere (a place to get hammered) as apposed to the music. As I've said I'm a much bigger Oasis fan than a Blur fan, making me the odd one out in the circle of people that I mix with and I suppose that means that I'm more at home with the arseholes of this world than the relatively normal people that I work and socialise with.
I'm not sure if that's true or if I've just had to get used to it, having been 'the best of a bad bunch' at school or college or uni. I don't know when I'll get over this feeling of being hard done by. I'm 28 and still banging on about a 'difficult start' well I should have made up for it by now really.


Sorry, this is a shit post, I'm just waffling and wallowing in a bit of self pity. Poor me!
But at least I get to see O-a-sis, on Sat-ur-day and Sun-day. At Wem-bley.

See ya there you arsehole