Tell me why I don't like Wednesdays.....

My new job is turning into a bit of a nightmare but I'll get through it. Give it a week, I reckon, and I'll be doing the job standing on my head, but for now I have been somewhat thrown in the deep end and am scrambling about in the dark trying to work out what's what. Today I did the minutes for a three hour kidney consultant's meeting and my brain nearly exploded. They may as well have been talking in japanese for all the jargon they used, and me not knowing what was being said, I just wrote it ALL down, all THREE HOURS of it. But at least I did. I'll be typing those minutes up tomorrow exactly as they happened and none of it will make any sense, but hopefully no one will realise I haven't got a f*&@ing clue what they said in that meeting.
Ah it's good to have even more of a reason to drink of an evening. After this day, I leapt off the bus and jumped straight into my local Threshers for some red wine to ease the headache, repetitive strain injury to my writing hand, and confused facial expression.

Headaches and Tsunamis

Christ on a bike- what a day. First morning in my new job and my head is spinning with figures and cost code numbers. I am confused and worried that it will never make sense- it will of course I just can't imagine that yet. Also I have my own bleedin (not liturally of course- well I thought it might confuse you being in a hospital) office which is ace and my boss still seems like a really nice guy. Then, after a 10 minute lunch stop off at home- where I managed one slice of ryvita with peanut butter (thanks for not stocking up house-husband), I headed to Sadie's school. I have just had the pleasure of reading my poems to 90 school children under the age of 6 for an hour. My head is pounding but it went well and one of the teachers wants a copy of one of my poems to keep for herself she likes it so much.
The sea at the end of my road looks like it's about to surge over Brighton like a mini tsunami. I love storms but I will not be running along the seafront tonight, as planned. I would be knocked on the head by some flying pebbles I should imagine, or just made to run sideways like a crab to avoid imbalance. Neither is a good look.
Seen lots of my favourite people lately. Jo and Joe came to stay last week, and then Celine has been to visit this weekend... It's great when you get reminders of what great friends you have. Shame most of them live miles from Brighton, but I guess it means that when I do see them I attempt to devour their greatness entirely, and not take them for granted.

Knock Me Up

Rather bizarrely, my blog is working it's way backwards at the moment, which means to all you wonderful people reading it, and I know you all work at it the wrong way, it will be in the correct chronological order.
The reason for going back over a week ago is that I need to comment on a band I saw the night before our trip to Iceland who somewhat blew my mind and made me go slightly weak at the knees. We had free tickets to see Pete Doherty, who none of us actually like, but thought we'd head along for a laugh. The tickets were £20 to the other punters so we thought maybe it would be worth the tube ride across town to Whitechapel's The Rhythm Factory. On arrival, after having passed the really rude bouncers, I suddenly clocked my younger brother snogging the face off some young thing. He's such a tart. And anyway-what the hell was he doing out at the same seedy venue as me on a school night? Weird coincidence and lovely to bump into him, and once we'd recovered from the shock of how random this was, he informed me he wasn't here to see Pete Doherty, but his friends' band The Knock. After a few beers, the band came on and, unexpectedly- most of my brother's mates are quite straight accountant types so I was a bit worried- they were absolutely blimin great- electro Bowie tunes and amazing stage presence. My friends and I were liturally drooling at the end of their set. I have now been asked to get the band some gigs in Brighton, and I will oblige accordingly. check out their myspace:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=20471087

Soundtrack: The Knock-Talk

Blog Number 100!! Iceland.......

So- my short but sweet trip to Iceland began this time last week. We touched down on what looked like another planet, or even perhaps heaven, with the fluffy white mountains, bright blue skies and Persil-clean coastline. Although I was only in this surreal Christmas land two nights, having cut my time there short due to the law of sod saying my new job would start in the middle of my booked dates, I still managed to see some of the northern lights, swim in the Blue Lagoon, wander around Reykjavik, buy an Icelandic Yuletide decoration and eat raw puffin. The geysirs, ram's testicles, snowman building and crazy Reykjavik nightlife were sadly missed, but I have decided I'll be revisiting to take Sadie there one Christmas when she's old enough not to complain about the cold or drown in the misty thermal baths. Iceland is a very expensive destination, with house red wine costing us -now you might need to sit down for this- £30 per bottle (!), so some forward planning involving duty free gin and shop-bought bread and cream cheese ensured we still managed to eat and be merry without coming home skint. I even had the hilarious experience of falling into a snow hole, much to the amusement of my travelling pals, Su, Ellie and Roger. We would later hear a similar tale from other tourists, and it seems that I was lucky enough to be able to stand up after this experience and get myself out, as many other not-so-fortunates had to roll sideways to manouvre through the white sludge, causing their companions to wet themselves laughing even further. This being the funniest moment, and thankfully we were on our way to bathe so I defrosted pretty quick, the highlight of the whole weekend was relaxing in the rocky, snowy-edged, warm cloudy waters of the Blue Lagoon as the sun went down, supping an extortionately priced pint of lager (well- it had to be done on the more than one occasion) with my good friends.

Soundtrack: Super Furry Animals-Northern Lites

Death by Lozenge

Do you ever get that feeling that only really cringey things happen to you? You know in the Guardian's Weekend magazine there is a questionnaire for various people, usually people who are lovies, asking them things like 'When were you most happy?', 'What are your worst traits?' .. that sort of thing? Well you know the question where the mag asks them what their most embarrassing moment is, is it just me or, apart from Fergie from Black Eyed Peas who peed herself onstage, are most of their answers pretty tame?.. Some even saying they never have been embarrassed, or have been turned slightly scarlet forgetting their lines in a theatre dress rehearsal. This is NOTHING.
I have had LOADS of embarrassing moments in my life, and what happened to me today will DEFINITELY be in the top 5.
(And by the way- I'll tell you all about Iceland trip shortly...)
I've just started working for the NHS and have just been on an intensive 3-day induction course. I've also recently developed a hacking, chesty cough which doesn't seem to want to go away .. I don't think going to a country which was -3 degrees during the day helped but anyway... So on Monday in our first "lecture", and bear in mind there are about 40 of us all crammed into this room, most of which are nurses, midwives, radiographers etc, not just us admin staff, I got a big coughing fit that went on for some time and was annoying and embarrassing, to the point where the man teaching us about infection control (coincidentally) stopped his talk to pass me a cough lozenge. But this is just the start- get this: I then, "cleverly" I thought, purchased some cough lozenges of my own for the next couple of days, knowing it was likely to occur again. This was all very well, the lozenges did their job, but today, feeling a little more relaxed, when I started my morning spluttering, I popped in a Locket. Only thing was the big fat smooth slidey thing suddenly became wedged in my throat so that I was almost convulsing on the spot like some sort of deranged woman, gargling and making weird wheezing noises. I must have gone bright purple and the sounds were similar something out of 'Gremlins'. And considering I was in a hospital, surrounded by medical staff, it was only the IT girl who came and gave me a huge slap on the back and managed to dislodge it. Oh how the shame. And thankfully, my humourous quips about it afterwards slightly diverted people somewhat from the dick I had made of myself. And oh how I breezed through my presentation that afternoon as nothing was ever going to beat the morning's spectacle in terms of humiliation.
And maybe, just maybe, it was my body's way of reacting to the shock of going back to work... scary stuff this work. It nearly killed me.

Soundtrack: Kaiser Chiefs- Oh My God

Wool

Just finished packing for my Iceland trip- oh it's a hard life. My rucksack is so full of woolly things I can barely close it,and tucked in there somewhere is my skimpy bikini for the thermal baths. I can't bloody wait! We fly out tomorrow from Heathrow, and I'm off to London tonight to join the gang for a pre-trip Babyshambles gig to start things off with a bang. I'm meeting Ellie at London Bridge dressed in my Bette Lynch fur coat and Ugg boots. I may well stand out from the suits. For the trip the four of us are staying in Hotel Bjork in Reykjavik and hiring a car to explore the geysers and beautiful scenery. Watch this space for Iceland adventures.....

Soundtrack: Sigur Ros- Glosoli

Look where pulling gets you...

After yesterday's 10 hour proofreading stint my eyes were so dried out I felt I had been on a 20 hour long haul plane journey. Luckily I got everything done so I didn't need to go in today. If I had I think my eyes would have bled.
BTW has anyone been watching 'Pulling' on Monday nights on BBC2? It's absolutely brilliant- like a cross between Sex and the City, Smack the Pony and Shameless. So funny and, sadly, so true to life. It's the kind of TV comedy I would love to write if only I had the motivation.
Onto a completely different tangent, Louise Wener was on Radio 4 yesterday (thanks Joy for the tip off) talking about child rearing and how much she loves it. Woman's Hour did a special on how bringing up children really effects you, and how there are lots of myths about how wonderful having kids is, even though some people find out different, and experience bringing up children akin to being thrown in a fire. There was Wener arguing my kind of corner, saying that although motherhood is really challenging, it is in fact the most rewarding thing you can ever do. She said that she knows that when she's older it won't be the gigs she's played or the books she's written that make her most proud, but it will be her two kids. Ah- what a lady. I agree, although I haven't had The Book published yet so you never know, it might take precedence. No seriously-I understand that for some women having a child turns out to be something they simply don't enjoy, and find hard to naturally get into. I have been very lucky, or should that be clucky, that I have loved and easily adjusted to it. Mind you- if you were one of the people who saw me liturally on my knees in the middle of Churchill Square Shopping Centre two years ago, weeping, while Sadie tantrumed beside me, you wouldn't know it. It took an hour for her to stop screaming, if I tried to move her she spat at me or kicked me, and people were staring horrified or giving me sympathetic 'maybe we should call Social Services' smiles..
Oh happy days.