look up and on

We are finally going on holiday on Thursday. And! I have a job to return to in September! And I am listening to Kurran and the Wolfnotes (as recommended by superfiona, hurrah for good music) and it is sunny (probably only for two minutes but oh, well).

Sunday night I drank too much on an empty stomach. This summer has been quite wine fuelled. I'm cutting back. I want to shift the five pounds I've gained, le sigh, from the increased partying and decreased gym time. This kind of happens automatically when term time rolls around again (does it ever stop feeling like "back to school"?) but I'm not often patient with weight loss.

Lots of admin to do for my new job. Glad all the necessary paperwork arrived before I go away.

not watching the debate

Just made a curry type thing with the help of two gin and tonics. Recipe mainly stolen/inspired by Giles Coren's Esther (reciperifle.blogspot.com)... writing it down so I might remember what I put in it next time:

paste:
large bunch coriander, long stalk bits cut off
half an onion, chopped
two fat garlic cloves
an inch of ginger, skinned and chopped
one mostly deseeded green chili, chopped
juice of a lime

and:
half a tin of coconut milk
packet of cooked king prawns (160 ish g I think?)
handful mange tout
handful baby corn
noodles (for one)
sesame oil

first, make a big gin and tonic with a healthy squeeze of lime and lots of ice.

then:
whizz everything on paste list in blender. heat some sesame oil in a wok. chuck lots of paste in. fry a bit. put prawns in wok. fry a bit more then add half a tin of coconut milk (or lots if you like it v saucy) and simmer while you clean up the blender and enormous mess you made by chopping stuff and opening coconut milk (if you are me).

sort out noodles however you need to (I got microwaveable ones, Sharwood I think) and boil kettle. Cook mange tout and baby corn. Strain these, get noodles out microwave. Put noodles and veg back in saucepan. add half the prawn/coconut mixture to your noodles and veg. Stir and heat a bit more. make another gin and tonic and enjoy in the setting sunshine at your kitchen table.

PS: the prawn/coconut mix will feed me for two days, but you could double the noodles/veg and mix it all together to serve.

and I was doing so well

Have a ridiculous headache. Must stop with the get-trashed-sleep-late routine. I have little more to say about last other than I really, really should not be allowed a phone when I've been drinking. I am trying to convince myself the drunk pestering was charming, but it probably bordered more on insane.

Balls.

doris and the wank puppets

"Can you undo a bra with one hand?" I sway a little on my stool and reach out to JW, steadying myself on his shoulder.
"I have done." he says, with hesitance. I laugh.
"That" I pour more dark wheat beer into my wine glass "means no."
I drink. "It's a life skill."

Miss McG makes noises of agreement from the sofa.
I turn to the other boys.

M tells a story about removing a bra from a lady named Doris, a patient at the hospital he volunteers in. Doris is incontinent. Doris, incontinence, bra removal and M all unfortunately coincided. M wins the multi-tasking bra removal award, which consists of us all making retching noises.

"How did we get from sex to shit?" I am still drinking. I have also figured out how to use my new phone while slipping into drunkenness. This is bad for the person receiving my enthusiastic text messages.

As I hunch over my electronic downfall, Miss McG drags the conversation back towards fucking. "...had a wank puppet."
It is enough to snap me away from the messages. "What?"
"A friend of mine had a wank puppet. It was a character from that Sooty show - the little grey one. Sweep?"
"Yeah. It was called Sweep... but oh my... a wank puppet?"

The boys decline to comment further.

Eurovision parties seem to bring people closer together, certainly.

a year on

Friday night marked one year since I had my fall. Tomorrow it will be a year since I split up with my ex. The changes happened fast, but the effects resounded through the next twelve months.

It has been a strange year. I've spent the majority of it repairing the damage I did to myself and my friendships last summer.

Friday was also the 21st birthday of one of my best girlfriends at university. Champagne, wonderful food, tipsy noisy conversation in a beautiful hotel (Miss McG to me, on a toilet break - "I can't even hear you across the room" - I'm notoriously mouthy with a few drinks inside me) and then to a bar where I smashed a glass of wine on the floor while gesturing enthusiastically.

Shortly after the barman had swept up my embarrassment, I was chatting to my friend A about the evening and quite how good a time we'd all had. The birthday girl was propped on a stool by this point, lolling a bit. It was time to go home. I remember, through the blur of alcohol, telling A "I don't believe things have been this good, ever."

And they haven't. Anticipating the end of university, proud to know this amazing group of girls and boys, meeting someone new and just as interesting and exciting, with summer plans and happy expectations for next year.

And Indiana Jones is on the TV tonight. What more could I want?

good times

There was a moment last night, as I did ridiculous air guitar to Feeder's 'All By Myself' and jumped high enough that I flashed whoever was stood behind me that I believed I'd never, never been happier. Despite being in a club I hate, at a night that has morphed from mildly kooky indie music to boring 'The [whatever]' bands surrounded by groups of girls I openly made faces at because I found them so awful I was elated, exhaustedly delighted to be out with good friends, drinking bad beer.

Watching the boys on the pull made me laugh, hard. The neon paint that now speckles my new jacket I admittedly could have forgone, similarly the groping hands of stupid emo men wearing more makeup than me, but still, it was perfect.

You don't read this, boys, but thankyou.

hangover cure

I'm a touch hungover after a much-needed night out in my highest heels. Anticipating a need for comfort food I bought the ingredients for a Greek dish that reminds me of visits to grandparents. In the memories I am seven or eight, crowded around the long dark table with cousins, aunts, uncles. The two Alsatian dogs are nuzzling young knees and everyone over the age of fifteen is smoking. My grandmother serves us meat and potatoes, slow cooked for six hours and still the only way I will ever eat lamb willingly.

We call it tavar. It probably isn't spelt like that. You put lamb chops or chicken thighs in a large casserole dish with peeled and chopped white potatoes, a couple of chopped onions and enough tins of tomatoes to cover the whole lot. I add half a tin of water and some bay leaves as well. The meat falls off the bones when its done. I bite the ends off and suck the marrow, a bad habit learnt from those smoke filled nights with family.

Really quite tired now but very content. Also content to not read the outbox on my phone. Cocktails not necessarily conducive to making any sense.

getting fresh

I spent the weekend in Southampton visiting my younger sister. She is in her first year at university and still in the Hardcore Fresher phase where every night is full of drinks with questionable names (Jesticle, anyone?) and chicken burgers from a van owned by a man named Ali. I drank one of those innuendo laden cocktails last night and regretted it when I woke up with a head full of gnomes with gongs at 7am. Clearly my body clock does not allow for Jesticle abuse and still believes I should get out of bed (or, you know, off the floor) at Bright and Early AM.

Southampton is fun. Getting home was not. Stuck at a sorry excuse for a train station because the delay to the first part of my journey meant I missed my collection I texted nearly everyone I knew with much RAGE about the fucking trains. My experiences in relatively economically weak Eastern Europe this summer with trains that Run! And! Are On Time! make me particularly bitter about the stupid fucking government and their stupid fucking trains.

But! I had an awesome time. Like, totally groovy, which is my sister's new phrase du jour. I didn't embarrass myself particularly. I didn't throw myself at men who are too young for me, and I only had to use the toilet in that awful, awful bar once.

I am exhausted now because I am a sad old fart and so, to bed.