Finally, I've taken a few pictures of the flat. It looks very yellow (which is partly true) but that's because I didn't use a flash. Anyway, here it is. The living room and adjacent kitchen:
The not so very impressing bathroom:
Our bedroom (the one room that needs the most done to it):
And finally, the guest room (aka Tim's dressing room):
Pictures of the flat
Photos of the day
So, autumn is finally here. It is windy, rainy and cold (apparently it's warmer in Reykjavik than here), but also rather pretty.
Here's Stockwell by night:
And Lansdowne Gardens in the rain...
New week
Well, I've now discovered a new week (who celebrates Easter anyway, this could be the official Halloween week): lucky Friday, lonely Saturday, worrying Sunday (Tim got stuck in a tunnel on the Eurostar for close to four hours, and with no phone switched on!), and finally shitty Monday. Yes, I might just as well make it public — I woke up nice and early this morning only to discover that I have the urinary tract infection from hell! So, there, now we all know it. (Sorry, just have to whinge about it.) Thus my morning was spent in the local health clinic...
Finally getting in to the British Library, I was met by complete chaos. It was children's day! And there were children, parents, more children, grandparents, buggies, nannies, and kindergarten groups everywhere! The courtyard was completely packed, and the queue for bag search enormous. (Yes, the bag search - another thing I've planned to blog about for months now.) Kind of cute, but also a bit stressing when all you want to do is to make up for the wasted morning. On a break a few hours later, I also discovered that they had invited illustrators of children's books to come and 'perform' (i.e. draw) live on a giant canvas. Quite entertaining to watch, and a great crowd pleaser. Just look at all the people! 
However, I was a bit bummed to realize that I had missed one of my favorites: Quentin Blake! Anyone who grew up reading Roald Dahl knows what I'm referring to. Oh well, maybe next year. It wouldn't surprise me if was still in the BL then...
Lucky me!
Guess who had to eat calf brains for dinner, and be bitten by bedbugs?
And guess who didn't go to Paris....
Guess who didn't go to Paris?
Cookies, coffe and an unfinished PhD-thesis. What else does a girl want for a Saturday night?!
Ready for a good Friday
Four chick flicks ready - Mean girls, Save the last dance, Clueless and the wonderful Little women (all for only £13 pounds in Zavvi!)... Guess whose husband is in Paris for the weekend?!
(My great plan was also to load up on popcorn, which Tim hates but I love. Unfortunately, all I could found was the micro pop version, and we have no micro. Bugger! Oh well, I'm sure Doritos will do the trick too.)
Breakfast for adults
We had Tim's nephew visiting two weeks ago. He's eight, and very picky with food. Thus, we had to fill the fridge with whatever special stuff he wanted. I'm still eating his yogurts. "For stronger bones". "From 4-6 months onwards". It does not feel very grown up!
Dinner for adults
Monday: tea and M&Ms.
I think we just lost about 5000 gups. (We did defrost the chicken, we just couldn't be bothered to cook.)
Another thing...
... that I would be happy to live without is the poor plumming. We were convinced we had sorted it out, but no. The kitchen sink is connected to both the bathroom sink and the washing machine: i.e. food in one of them, and you have food in the other two as well. Often when you go into the bathroom it now looks as if one of us is bulimic - old food everywhere in the sink. Yuk! And before we can do any laundry we now have to run a simple spin and rinse cycle in the machine, to get rid of left overs... (I have not yet had the courage to tell Tim I've found pieces of leek in his clean underwear...) Something clearly has to be done!
A thing...
...that I definitely do not appreciate finding on the middle of the carpet in the hall: an enormous woodlouse! (The size of half a thumb!) How did he get there? What happened to living in the middle of a overdeveloped city, far far away from nature? Why is nature haunting me? Oh, so many questions...
Iceland may have bad finances, but they sure know how to make music
Listened to Björk on the way in to work. The line 'I thought I could organize freedom - how Scandinavian of me', always gets stuck in my head.
(And yes, I have also listened to Sigur Rós half the day - until it got late, and the game between Spart and Furuset began, and I had to switch over to Norwegian internet radio. Sparta is now, after 10 matches, at the top of the table!!! Very happy!)
Things that happen...
... when your husband is home alone for a week:
1) No dishes are made (he could not work out how the dishwasher works)
2) Dish washing liquid is used in the washing machine (well, at least he did the laundry - and all the glass we do in the washing machine is very shiny!)
So much for equality in the home!
Back on the writing track
Echo… echo… echo…
Yes, I admit, it’s quite empty in here. I’ve been really bad at updating lately. Partly, this is because of my trip to Sweden, partly because I’ve been rather stressed and down, and blogging then is just plain depressing — if not for me, so for you readers. But things are slowly looking brighter. If nothing else, they finally have started with free internet in the British Library! Absolutely perfect! I love it. Although it took me a few days to get it to work. I had to log in with my old account, but I couldn’t remember the details. Tried registering a new account, but they already had my reader’s pass on file, so that didn’t work. But no worry, it said on the homepage. Just write your user name, and we’ll email you your password. Only two problems: 1) How could I check my email if they wouldn’t allow me to use the internet, and 2) I couldn’t remember my user name (but was pretty sure of my password). Very frustrating! But after a few phone calls (with my super phone, which is still lovely) everything is up and running, and I can now check emails/update the blog/chat and well, search for info online whenever I want. Super! It really feels like a luxury!
Other good news: we finally gave in and bought a "new" TV. We had been promised one from a friend, but none of us had ever the time to meet up to get it. It had to be a weekend, and when he was available we weren’t and vice versa. But last Sunday we agreed that we’d had enough! The tiny one that came with the flat has definitely done its job. So, we looked around on some ads online, and called a few. Found one who wanted to sell the same day (sounds suspicious?), and was willing to deliver it, too. A few hour later, she was ours! £ 80 felt like very well spent money when we saw the huge TV that arrived (29 inches, 3 years old). It is enormous. I’m not sure if it’s because we are so used to the old, tiny one, or because it really is big, or because the furniture it’s standing on is small… but anyway. It has revolutionized our lives. We can now zap with a remote; watch all five channels without having to go through 99 channels on the way there; and use the Wii again. (Yes, we are playing Super Mario like crazy.) The remote control is particularly impressing. It is absolutely huge! I almost suspect it has been made for someone half blind/deaf/generally disabled person. Just look at the size of the buttons:
Well, at least it is hard to lose it!
Older
We are definitely getting older. Had a dinner party last night (30 grown-up-points), for Tim's boss and our landlady (120 gups). They arrived with a flower and expensive wine (10 gups). As a main, we (read: I) served organic Scottish salmon (80 gups). For dessert we had crackers and fancy cheeses (200 gups). We (read: all but me) talked mostly about the Firm (70 gups), and about what to serve at an upcoming event ("How many cucumber sandwiches does one person eat?" = 400 gups). The dinner was eaten on normal plates, but with silver knives and forks (2000 gups).
Yes, it was a great opportunity to finally use our silver. I (somewhat involuntarily) started collecting at an early age - being given one piece at a time, by my grandparents (and considering that I/we now have 6 knives, 6 forks, 6 table spoons and 8 tea spoons I was probably very young when it started). But this still made me feel very grown up, and very old.
Stress
Woke up this morning from a stress dream. Normally, when I'm stressed, I just don't sleep, so having dreams like this is a bit uncommon, but quite frightening. Dreamt that Tim and I had to move in three days, and that the only thing we could find was a cottage in southern Sweden (Skåne). It was small and cozy, but very old, run down, and same rent as here. Somehow (this was, after all a dream) it would be a three hour commute (!) for Tim in the mornings. He seemed quite thrilled (liked the cottage and being close to the sea), but I was really worried about living out in nowhere, without a car (which we clearly couldn't afford). Mum tried to calm me down, and claim that the 451 bus (?!) ran in to town (Ängelholm!) every day. And then I realized I had to take a job in Ängelholm (because there was no way I could apply for a job in London from there), where I would end up working as an unhappy shop assistant for the rest of my life. And that's when I woke up!
So, I woke up stressed, and depressed, and generally unhappy. Told Tim about my dream, and he laughed and said that was the cutest stress dream he'd ever heard of...
Back!
I'm back in London. It's absolutely pouring down, but it doesn't matter because I'm wearing bright red shoes. And they make life a lot brighter!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)