Yoga stuff

Went to three yoga workshops with Matthew Sweeney on the weekend (see pictured) in Soho. Saturday morning I was kinda questioning the logic which saw it fit that I was limbering up amongst London’s most anally retentive and not ensconced on the couch eating porridge and complaining about the weather. Saturday was focused on jump throughs and jump backs, followed by an afternoon of back bending (my favourite). Then Sunday morning was an introduction to the Intermediate Series. This is getting slightly ahead of myself, since some of these require legs behind head action, crazy balancing on arms stuff (the ones you look at in pictures they just look wrong), but it was good anyhow.

Not much else to report really. My housemate is going quite mad, but I am buying her massive meringues and that seems to be appeasing her. They are as big as an average persons head. I know the rule – never eat anything bigger than your head – but I think that there should be exceptions for meringues.

The good, bad and english

Good news: I haven’t run away. Bad news: I have joined the circus…

I went last night to an induction class for acrobatics at Circus Space. I was surprisingly adept, though it is oddly terrifying doing backwards somersaults after all of these years. When they pulled out the vault-style trampoline and piled up the crash mats I was more than a little uncertain what would happen when I ran up to one and jumped. Turns out you fly though the air. We also balanced on each other. This is more painful than it sounds. I have another induction coming up for the flying trapeze, but the waiting list for trapeze courses is much longer. Not sure how much circus-ing I am really intending to do, but it did feel very stress relieving to spend a bit of time upside-down and moving reasonably rapidly towards a crash mat.


One of my housemates is about to bugger off, so I got home to a massive pile of spare clothes. I am now the proud owner of a Pimms* fleecy wind-breaker and a union jack umbrella. I will now be able to totally blend in to my English surroundings.

Also - on the music front - I have finally climbed aboard the Yo La Tengo bandwagon. They are good. I am listening to their latest album (bought from emusic - which is a pretty awesome website - like iTunes only you get mp3s).


* For those who have not had the pleasure, Pimms is a distinctly English drink that you have with cucumber, fruit and lemonade. You sip this in the sun, get very sun burnt and watch things like cricket. It goes well with cucumber sandwiches. Having said that, it is culturally the equivalent of Tooheys, but for chicks (and guys like it too – they are like that over here – all a bit “Mumsy”, if you know what I mean).

Slip-sliding away…

Well. As we all know, London is about to become 50kg the poorer. Friday night saw the fair-thee-well of Miss KT … as did Saturday morning… and various clubs and pubs around the pretty town. Yes, at one point I remember looking at the young lass and thinking – my word! She is full-sails to the breeze! Which is certainly saying something given the way that I felt Saturday morning. I am just not as young as I used to be. Come Sunday morning I was still under the weather, but kept my date with Brigid, Tim and a very long slide.

The Tate modern as a current “exhibition” that takes the form of 3-4 very long tubular bendy slippery-slides. Now, while I cannot judge the artistic merit, I can say that these slides are damn fun. We got there early, elbowed some kids out of the way and Brigid and Tim ran to the ticket desk, leaving me in fits of giggles, to be the first people in the line to pick up the free tickets and nearly the first down the slides. The longest one runs from the top of the Tate to the bottom and does make you squeal like a girl. The second one is a bit shorter but scarier, ‘cause it drops off very rapidly and then swings around everywhich way. Suffice to say, my remaining hangover chose this moment to resurface as a pounding headache, but it was all worth it.

Here are some (other people's) pics. They are not this cool in real life … they are cooler!

Instant Chocolate Flavoured Karma

I have been being pretty nice to people of late. Giving up seats on the tube, smiling at nice vegetable selling men and the like. Last night I got a Karma down-payment. I went into my local (lovely) bakery and they had a little round tin loaf. I asked how much, and she knocked it down from £1 to 50p 'cause it was the last one. Then I looked around to get a piece of cake for my housemate who has been feeling down, and asked for a piece of the chocolate cake. She launched into an explanation about how the milk hadn’t been warmed when they made it and ended up giving the slice to me for free. She then went on to give me two more slices for free. I tried to give her more money, but she refused!! So – I walk out with a yummy little rye loaf and three hefty pieces of chocolate cake for 50p!!! Talk about raking in the karma! Mind you, I have seen them out the front of the bakery smoking splifs, so it is possible that she was a little stoned. Actually, in the middle of the transaction she and the other baker actually left the bakery and went out into the street to look at the sunset. I followed - the sunset wasn't that great. I actually laughed and said something like - yeah! for an english sunset!! The guy said that it was the sunset was the join between two worlds.

Actually, now I am glad I got out of their straight let alone with cake in hand. Anyway, it was good cake so all is well that ends with cake. Mmmmmmm.

I am boring myself!

Sorry for the sporadic posts, people, but life hasn’t been all that post worthy of late. Work is going really well. Still the same. Full on, challenging, scary, but ultimately awesome. Location still rocks. My housemate Serena Joy is still mad (as hatter), though she claims I am also mad, so I dunno who comes out on top with that one. Coming home with yet more pomegranates squirreled away in my handbag, she raised an eyebrow and commented that I even rivalled her in my ability to get obsessed.

The weekend was delightfully empty of stuff. I went to the movies with Serena (Devil Wears Prada), stole some minutes from Mat’s flying visit through London to have lunch with himself and Katie, and movies with Brigid on Sunday night (The Departed). You see? All good but doesn’t make me rush to the computer to record every nuance, so I won’t blab on and bore you more.

Boring times, by the way, are actually quite delightful so I am not complaining. I have put in alot of hard hards to get my life to boring stage, so don't knock it!

PS:

Devil Wears Prada - Ok, if you are really in the mood for a chick flick and won't mind coming out with the slightly sinking feeling that you really should do something about the daggy state of your wardrobe.

The Departed - Frickin awesome. I don't normally go in for gangsta style films. But The Departed is truly end of seat stuff. It is in the acting. You really give a sh!t about the characters. It is beautifully acted. The tension between the sheep in wolfs clothing / wolf in sheeps clothing plot is all in the fact that you care about what happens to these people, 'cept Matt Damons character. You do want him dead. But you are meant to. I am sure that I will not be spoiling the film at all to say that, regardless of who you want dead, alot of people end up dead.


Oh oh!! Speaking of which - hilarious moment last night when my housemate (the dumb one, not Serena) was watching Spooks and commented that, "Oh .. you would think that people would run away from the guys with guns .. it is interesting how people know which guy is dangerous..."... It was such a David Brent moment. I felt like saying to her, quite slowly, "Yes.. but it isn't actually real, is it, I mean it is just acting". My God. She is so dumb. Priceless.

Happy “empty plane” Day!

Today my flight leaves for Australia with out me! I have officially overstayed my welcome in the UK, eaten out their collective figurative fridges, and ratted through cupboards looking for ginger hobnobs. I am not sure even exactly when the flight leaves. It is a bit like the film Sliding Doors, with one half of my possibilities flying off into the sunset without me, only I am going to be the long haired Gwyneth Paltrow cause short hair doesn’t suit me overly. I will lump returning-home-Tangles with short hair. So she is shorn, jobless and homeless, while I am here gainfully employed, warmly housed and with a healthy head of hair. Bit of a no-brainier, really, isn’t it? What would you have done?

It does mean, however, that if worst comes to the worst and I find myself pennyless, sleeping under London bridge and unable to pay for my flight home, I will have to juggle for money and that could get ugly. Let hope it doesn't come to that, huh?

bugger and blast

They say loving those who have wronged you sets you free. I am trying to love Royal Mail, but I am still bound with murderous rage. Kill kill Royal Mail. They are twats and they are rubbish. Because they are so rubbish, ebay people send you perfume that needs to be signed for. This means getting a little red card shoved under your door because you are NOT a looser and home at whatever-the-fuck midday granny hour they called past. They then hide the parcel in a backstreet in Stockwell very briefly before sending it back the way it came, as though, being in the mail business, they feel that the more parcels there are rushing back and forth through their "system" the better they are doing there job. Twats.

Apart from suffering deep disappointment Saturday morning, this week as passed remarkably smoothly. i.e. I didn't come down with any illness and was able to get in to work each day. Work is scary and may make me cry some point soon, but I still love it. One my key observations of the week has been how tidal the Thames is. It flushes up and down and even revels little scanky pebbly beaches every-so-often. I think of all of the Charles Dickens period dramas that I have seen and pictures lecherous smelly old men combing the beach to pull gold tooths out of rotting dead people. It livens up my lunch break.

Anyway - Saturday were meant for doing washing and Argos shopping, not mooching in front of the computer, so I am off.

Tangles goes to Tooting, tra-la-la

THATS NUMBERWANG!!!

Sorry about the quietness. I have been sick. I was really looking forward to my first full week at work, but no... The tangles first-week-at-work curse struck again and I had to have two days off sick. I got a nasty head cold that had me couch bound flat chat for 48 hours. Urgh. I am still not well. Went down to Tooting this morning to go to an NHS drop in centre to get some antibiotics. This was an adventure. My brain was so fuzzy that I got lost (a) in the nurses' office, (b) on the train platform (two directions, full visibility), and (c) in Tooting. Actually, I didn't get lost in Tooting - I got bewildered. There is a difference. When I get bewildered I buy strange fruit from overstocked Indian shops. I hadn't had Chikoo since 1997... I had forgotten what I was missing. It looks like a brown smooth stone and tastes like a dirty persimmon*. Not bad.

I don't want to whinge too much, cause for once KT is beating me on the unusual illness ladder, but I feel like crap. It seems that I have been in "fight" mode more than I realised. After the whole moving country, job hunting, house hunting, life basics sourcing thing, now that everything is hunky-dory my immune system has gone to Bali for a dodgy holiday and left me fighting off various symptoms armed only with manuka honey**, some lemons, and a handfull of unusual tropical fruits that I am hoping have yet uncovered elixir properties. It is dire.

On the plus side, my immune system has reason to think it can go easy for a bit. I love my new job. Although I certainly haven't been there long enough to see the bad bits, the bits that I have seen I likeee very muchee. My work even has a room with a bed in it and a door that locks so you can sleep if you want. Crazy.

Anyway - I am off to eat some more honey. This is the land of Pooh Bear and I don't want want any damned tigers raining on my honey parade. I don't know what that means. I think I am delirious. See ya!


* Photo below is Chikoo. It is yummy, if you like that sort of thing.

** Manuka honey is like honey, only more so. It comes for New Zealand. Don't force feed it to your housemates unless they are receptive to the idea.