so, i am back at my parents house.

something I always look forward to, and yet always comes with a couple of days of trying to sync the life I had here with them and the me I am now. it always takes a minute to readjust without reverting.

but anyway, it is very nice. it's quite quiet just the three of us bumming around, watching BSG and snacking (my parents are a gold mine of weird food).

but it's also the calm before the wedding storm - by wednesday the house will be chock a block, so i'm making the most of now to get over the jet lag and cold and sort out the last minute details. we are all a bit on pins and needles i think, with dresses, shoes, invitations and stuff floating around us quietly humming in the background.

it's all a bit much to be honest, but I am so excited it's quite literally hard to contain myself. because no matter what, it isn't about the right amount of stuff or if i have limp hair from the weird water here.

it's about kate. and jimmy. and forever. and quite frankly, you can't fuck that up. it's unmitigated joy.

opportunity costs

today I got the call of a lifetime. and it couldn't have been worse timing.

things are busy.

there have been delightful moments (a dvorak concert at the castle with synchronised fireworks and a picnic of strawberries and french cider), there have been hard moments (the debilitating pain of the last few days of the festival), and then there is the rest of life. which i tend to brush over.

now that thing I spent the last 11 months plannig is over. I am a little hollow, a little worn, and a little bit terrified that the rest of the world keeps going, assuming i am still a functioning being when I am out of steam, out of enthusiasm, and pretty much drifting about like a ghost.

Today, I am taking tally of my autumn - being prepared helps me feel less fractured.

Next week, I need to close this Festival. Sign off budgets, send thank you notes, debrief with the staff.

And then Friday I head home for a relaxing holiday/wedding extravaganza. A delightful oxymoron I've been looking forward to for over a year now.

After the dust settles, it's two weeks back at work getting my head on and preparing the vision for the next year with large amounts of research, meetings and planning.

Then, in mid-October I am in London for two whole weeks of meetings with publishers, charities, galleries and partners in a world of schmoozing, business and busy London life.

So, after one week of full on London - then of course, the middle weekend I am dashing to Kent for Liam's mom's gay wedding at a castle, which will be a hoot and a half Then back to London for another 5 days of madness.

Then, that Friday I am jumping on a plane to Chicago for a quick weekend of Anika's black tie Chicago wedding. Which will be amazing, but so so busy and so much jetlag and so much work to catch up on.

And today I got the call of a lifetime.

The following Tuesday, I am due back in Edinburgh by 8am.

I have been asked if I'd like to head a contingency of literati for a conference/tour of here and Australia as an international collective of arts workers looking to the future.

It is a dream gig.

But can I realistically say I can jump off one plane and onto another bound for Melbourne until 16 November (bearing in mind I won't have been at my desk for a month and my programme still needs legs)?

It's fucking insane. But it's also impossible to turn down. I have always wanted to go to Australia. To go, doing what i do best, and seeing the world as a cultural ambassador with the prospect of international collaboration and a whole new vision is really not the kind of thing one gets asked to do (on a full free ride) everyday.

But can I abandon this life for that length of time? Can i really tell Liam I am disappearing for the better part of a month and not expect that to have reprecussions? Do I want to be my job, or do I want to come home?

Sigh...

Today is not the day for decisions.

If I feel better later, I'm going to the gala opening of Bond Bound - an exclusive exhibition of the original 007 book covers and charity auction. But you know what? I might not. And for once, I am totally okay with not going to something just because I can and it'll make a good story later. My psyche is too important for that. I have a lot of shit to sort out.

it is sunny. and warm. and of my 19 events today, the first 10 have gone off without a hitch.

The fact that a publisher sent up a giant elephant costume (about a famous elephant picture book) assuming I would have a random minion to hand to wear it and dance about like a loon in front of 80 small children caused slight panic this morning. But Julie saved the day in a groundbreaking elephant boogie which I am sure will be discussed for years to come (and I will owe her copious amounts of cakes to pay her back). It was outstanding.

So right now, I am glugging coke straight from the two litre and gearing up for an afternoon of interactive poetry and flour bombs.

I love my job.

ps - I will be home in exactly 19 days!

festive fever

so, life:

I am 12 days into my 18 day festival. My average shift is 8am to 10pm. It's grueling and aweful and also amazing. I love kids. I also love champagne. As long as I don't mix the two, things are going well.

Two days ago I was on the 6 o'clock news on BBC 1 (which is repeated at 10pm and 8am - so everyone can have a go). I've yet to see it but my colleagues say I was articulate, which is a bonus. I am now marginally famous. Little old ladies stop me in the street with excitement which is nice. But the real testament to stardom is that one of my college student temp staff says his friends think I'm 'well fit'. I was never a hottie when I was their age, but now I'm apparently a Mrs Robinson.

Yesterday, two of my colleagues who met at last year's Festival and still work here got engaged (to each other) and I am on cloud nine with sentimentality.

Liam's mom and her partner are visiting this week. It's insane to spend my spare waking minutes playing hostess and having dinner parties, but they are very nice and have great taste in wine.

I have also handled two major first aid incidents. One of my staff members had a seizure so she & I spent the afternoon in hospital, and I was the one who called her mom.

Then two days later, a lady had a miscarriage in one of my tents. It was pretty aweful. It took all I had to play with her two toddlers and keep them engaged and calm while their mom was pulled out with an IV and stretcher. They are all fine now. I might be less so.

Other than that, I am living on 4 hours sleep, gutted I am missing the new modernist interpretive ballet of Dorian Gray which is taking the town by storm after it's New York premiere (it's the guy that did the Edward Scissorhands ballet a while back. le sigh.), and trying to get my shit together for the big wedding do in a month.

Things are...busy.

google love

For the first time in eons, I've been just dicking around on the Internet. It's an old fashioned sort of fun, surfing.

I still remember when it was difficult to find what you wanted on the web. Before comprehensive searches or tags. I still remember before it even was called the internet, and was just a bunch of networked nerds in DOS, but I suppose that's not really the point.

My point is, now you can actually do anything you want.

Behold, a hidden page of google I was as yet unaware of : http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/features.html

I love free information. It's like being high, but more fun.

lost

Today, I feel aweful. Somedays I just don't know how other people are even walking around much less being nice to each other or eating healthy or saving orphans.

As I shuffled home from a grueling day at work, my eyes glazed on the middle distance, I wondered what had gone so wrong. Where was I? Because I sure as hell wasn't in my body living my life.

I took a picture to record this feeling. And I didn't even recognise me. I looked like this:




I tried to look objectively, at this washed out, dried up, hollow shell of a person and wonder what happened. Not really what's wrong, because lord knows I'm not leaving my job or giving up on the lifetime's worth of social functions and stress bandying about at the minute (this isn't about problems I told myself, it's about solutions).

So I asked, what is missing in this photo? Apart from a bad hair cut, tired clothes and an over all dismal walk to imbibe everyday, there is no person there.

So I detoured. I walked barefoot through a graveyard I'd not visited in a while. I stopped to listen to the trains whistling below my feet. I looked up at the castle and tried to guess how tall it was.

Because the thing that is missing is me. What do I do? What do I enjoy? What am I looking forward to? When do I do the things I love?

I suddenly don't have answers for these, and that revelation is a great sadness.


I want to look like this again:



This was only 3 weeks ago. Chucking down rain, horrible cramps, no sleep, staying with the psuedo-in-laws. But a whole person, a contentment shines out (although it is quite a terrible picture of liam)

I want to feel like this:


This was a lifetime ago, or three years anyway.

And I just don't feel the magic anymore.

slept

Sleeping with someone else will never be like sleeping alone.

Yes, I cannot describe how totally awesome it is. It means falling asleep as the little spoon every night, and someone to pet your head when you have a nightmare. And the whole waking up to the person you love, beautiful in the dappled sunlight, lazy morning sex routine is truly unbeatable.

But it also means that without a fuck off big bed and the ability to be comatose no matter what your environment (and without a care for the feeling and comfort of your bunkmate), completely solid night's sleep are fewer.

This may not be true for everyone, it may not even always be true for me. But I feel like after two years I should have settled into a pattern by now. And jesus, sometimes is it hard.

Not anyone's fault. Not unbearable. But sometimes, on small occasions of insomnia, oh do I miss that spread eagled, not a care in the world, crashing, blackness of sleep that you can have in complete solitude. a10 or 12 hour slab of solid, thick rest without interruption. That is some sort of bliss.

bachelorettes & bourjois

Having lived in the UK's number one (and one of Europe's top 10) destination for hen parties for the last 4 years, I am sad to say the honeymoon period where you find drunk women wearing a random array of ill fitting costumes and penis paraphernalia funny, has sort of ended.

I must say, the middle aged slutty disney princess parade was a laugh, but I felt bad they were so cold, wearing so little, and had accidentally stumbled into the strip club soho block of town where they might have been mistaken as staff.

Now, I've never really been offended by theae gatherings (I bet it's probably pretty fun actually, with the right mind set), but getting dolled up to go catcalling and clubbing it's not really my cup of tea on a random tuesday evening, no matter what we are celebrating.

But that is beside the point. The question that is on my mind today gentle reader is- why do women assume all other women enjoy this sort of wild, girly, raunchy activity? It's one of these stereotypes - like we all want to bitch about how our boyfriends and husbands give bad head or want to oogle calvin klien models and george clooney.

I don't mean these might not be true for lots of people, lots of the time (he is very pretty jennie, I know). But why is it naturally branded into my consciousness because of my gender?

Of all the women I have known who throw or attend these parties, no one ever asked the bride much less the guests if they are comfortable with the donning of a penis (there is totally a greek myth geek joke in there somewhere) and screaming in pink fire engines.

It's sort of like in college where it's impossible to imagine someone who wouldn't enjoy being shitfaced, and teetotalers make you feel weird. It's an almost backward peer pressure - where no one coerced you, they just naturally expected you'd want to.

And today, I am a little baffled on how we got here as a culture. Assumptions defining our social interaction to a point where in certain instances, no one even asks 'what do you want to do' anymore.

I heard once about a friend's husband on a business trip and went out for drinks one evening. After, his colleagues were all shocked he didn't want to go to a strip club and meet hookers, and they just went without him. He went home, dazed at the weirdness, and called his wife.

It's fucking strange. And for the record: I never want to wear a bridal veil in a sports bar, do body shots off a waiter, be taught how to give a blow job in my living room or eat a lollipop with 'nads.

Of course, if you want to, I'll go ahead and give it a shot as a chum - and if it's awesome all the better - but in case I ever get married, as is the catch phrase of the week in the media, "not in my name" please.


ps - Yes, this thought experiment was prompted by my sister's forth coming nuptuals, but the activities in question are unrealted, so don't expect this to bare any resemblance to our real lives or pass any judgement on anyone involved - I'm just playing curious.

I might someday finish the catalogue of our trip, but I am too fucking tired.

The short version:
wedding in brighton to mixed reviews
pseudo-in-laws will probably never be easy
Dover Castle is outstanding
The water there is so hard it changed my plumbing.
I miss sunshine so much it hurts.

But today, I was cheered by two things:

1, I am going to look at a new flat tomorrow. It's on a river.

2, I still in my spare time collect good signage. Silly, odd, badly translated or just charming.

Not only did I see a van marked 'Scotchick' which isn't about under age scottish lasses doing stupid things or about liqour of any sort. It is followed by the subheading "Scotland's number one for whole flavoured chickens". I kid you not. I'm not sure if you can get grape or tar though which would be my obvious first two choices.

But my current favourite is a construction sign (that bold white font on a red background) - "Heavy Plant Crossing". the options are mindboggling.

Our Last Two Weeks, part II

So, after a day back at work post-Queen-spotting, and a day of housework, we were on the road to Brighton on Friday 4/7/08.

From halfway up Scotland to the centre of the south coast of England would take a conservative 8 hours in our rental Micra. Armed with juice boxes, and trail mix we hit the road at 7am.

It was a beautiful day until roadworks and the M25 (the highway that circles greater London) at 5pm on a Friday almost killed us. 8 hours stretched to 10 the 12.

By the time we arrived, we'd had a pointless crabby car fight and had to walk into a cocktail party sweaty and tired and 3 hours late to meet Liam's new step-family of about 50 people who are exactly like my Canadian cousins.

In a word, they are a good laugh, but not the calm, reserved and thoughtful faces one wants to see after a long day. More the - hand you a shot, yell in your ear, give a big hug and expect mildly entertaining conversation - types. Fun, but tough.

But of course, the 4th of July - the night was not over. So post-cocktails, Liam's brother and sister took us to a kitchy american dinner for amazing milkshakes and mediocre burgers to celebrate - then went to the beach (Brighton faces out onto the North Atlantic) and lit sparklers from some hippie's bonfire and danced around in the pitch black of the night sky to the sound of the waves.

It was freaking adorable.

Next time: Nuptuals and Nightmares

Our Last Two Weeks, part 1

It is time, ladies and gentlemen, for a fortnightly round-up of the exciting adventures in my life.

First, let's travel back in time (doodle loodle loo, doodle loodle loo)

Tuesday, 1 July.
After having a massive meeting with one of the 5 largest banks in the world (I am not stupid enough to risk their six figure annual donation here), I went home from work at lunchtime.

I had to put on a newly dry cleaned dress (the first time I have ever paid this middle-class right of passage), and help Liam tie the unfathomable and yet utterly dashing windsor knot in his burnished copper silk tie - because at 2pm a taxi came to pick us up.

destination: the palace.

Today was the Queen's Garden Party - an annual event that gathers together the disgustingly rich, the public service sector and a random smattering of boy scouts, marching bands and diplomats to celebrate her majesty's birthday.

She has 3 in London and one in Edinburgh, and I was invited, I suppose, as one of the up and coming of the city. So, we went. I even bought a hat (it was required) with veil - it was totally Casablanca or some shit.

And by the way, it is prohibited to be unaccompanied in the presence of royalty (in case I was to bog off with a prince and cause a scandal I guess), so I brought my trusty british arm candy decked out like a Paul Smith model, and my passport for the ID check at the gate.

Upon arrival, we witnessed the royal procession down ed carpeted stairs to the garden while a brass band played God Save the Queen - which it turns out is the same song as America the Beautiful but with different words. Looks like we even thieved that out of spite. It was very diginified. Then, we ate copious amounts of cake.

Luckily, and also sadly, were dressed infinitely better than everyone else. Turns out rich people stop trying after the first few fetes and the number of people invited for 50 years of postal service or some such thing pulled out whatever semi-formal they wore to wedding 10 years and 15 pounds ago with a JC Penny Hat on top. Some of it was ghastly.

My new official dress code for formal occasions is you cannot show the backs of your knees in royal company. It's distasteful, no matter what your gender or age. (The number of past-middle-aged men whose kilts were hitching up in the back and showing just too much leg was appalling. )

In general, it was adorable and hilarious though, and so very pseudo-posh British. The Queen was in a lemon suit, just like always, and looked at the rabble of hysterical middle aged women who would RUN (when you didn't think it was possible) to stand near her with a steely resignation. It was a sight to behold.

The most bizarre part was when we all took tea (or lemonade or iced coffee), it wasn't the gold foil royal crest on the chocolate petit fours that got me. But the royal tea tent. Princess Anne needed respite I imagine and I think Philip was sneaking a tipple of something into his coffee, so they process to a private marquis. But the tent was glass sided on two sides - so about 700 middle aged loons could stand on the outside peering at them like a zoo observing to each other if Ma'am takes one sugar or two. They even stood on chairs and pushed like they were at the day after thanksgiving sales at Hudsons. Needless to say, we ceceeded from the madness and wandered the rose garden and medieval abbey ruins embedded in the lawn instead.

It was outstanding.

Of course, the version I tell my grandmother will significantly up the ante (more about the royal guard of archers - with real bows and arrows! - less about the tasteless fashion), and ever the royalist she will weep with joy that I've witnessed the upper eschelons at tea.

Next on our agenda: a weekend in Brighton.

things that are true today

- halloumi is possibly the best thing Crete ever gave the world. i love squeaky cheese.

- i love my family. a lot. but they are incredibly frustrating a times.

- on a side note, my 11 year old cousin regularly sends me chain emails about finding god. to say it is odd (and possibly unintentionally offensive) is an understatment.

- i absolutely love to come home after a long day at work and have impromptu sex in the fading daylight.

- i have started another grown up book. the signs are promising

- today i was interviewed for a kids website summer reading campaign. it was sweet to say the least.

- liam's computer game mod just started playing rachmaninov's prelude in c sharp minor. not only is the designer geeky enough build a civ world about the age of imperialism, he has thematically chosen a period approrpiate score when my baby begins a russian campaign to dominate scandinavia. i love it.

the film festival in review

So, the EIFF has closed it's doors for another year. And for the first time, I really made the effort to see things and take risks. In the past week I saw 8 things. Some good, some bad and predictably - some so pretentiously aweful they bordered on unwatchable

In case you care, or ever wonder at the random DVDs on discount in the back of your local Blockbuster, here is the complete list


Summer Hours was a mainstream french film trying to find and anglicised audience. The pull of Juliet Binoche and the promise of quiet turmoil were worth the risk (it's about a woman who dies and her villa full of important antiques causes trouble for her children in choosing to keep, sell or give to a museum the objects that hold such history and memory), but it was ultimately hollow and unsatisfying. Although there were some touching and loaded exchanges, the lack of emotional depth to the characters meant I had to wonder if the very frenchy slow tracking shots weren't conveying some unspoken emotion but were actually covering up a lack of plot.

The Wackness a perfectly decent american "indy" with a great Ben Kingsley and a raft of decent performances that tried so hard to be cool it was almost painful. It was very funny and the main kid was quite compelling but so much desperation at being the next great thing made me realise how big a shadow Juno has cast on the small quirky comedy with twisting dialogue. It's going to be hard to surpass.

Good Dick While I was watching it, it had everything - great chemistry, a silly plot, a charming hero, some decent dialogue, and a ludicruous and oddly intriguing premise (boy works in video store. girl addicted to porn. he's interested. odd and crazy wooing period commences leading to moralistic ending and slightly obvious dramatic twist). When it was over it seemed pretty good - decent performances, empassioned artists, an interesting choice. When I got home it made me feel alittle ill and betrayed - sort of like when saturday morning cartoons have huge moral messages tacked on that not only diminish the enjoyment of the product, but also make you feel guilty and a little queasy for having enjoyed something so manipulative and yet unrealistic. But I'm over it now and i guess it's still pretty good - I just wish it had been less heavy handed and more plot driven.


Roger Deakins & Seamus McGarvey - a conversation with a man I didn't realise I had a professional crush on. Roger Deakins is the cinematographer for Assistnation of Jesse James, Jarhead, Shawshank, Kundun, and pretty much every Cohen brothers film since Barton Fink. He is ludicrously talented and hearing him talk about his work was utterly fascinating. Seamus McGarvey was interviewer instead of fellow cinematographer, which is a shame, because his choices in Atonement bore further reflection.


The Kreutzer Sonata Great story (from Tolstoy), great music (from Beethoven), ultimate heart rending tone of betrayal, jealousy and insidious doubt. So why fuck it up by doing high school handheld adlib-ed bullshit with shoddy camera work and terrible performances set in modern day LA? It was truly truly aweful. Liam put it best when he said "it's was just so mentally middle aged". What could have been an operatic epic on relationships (a man believes his younger, hotter musician wife is cheating on him - we never find out) is one man's internal monolgue for two hours and gratuitous flashbacks to their masculine, domineering, passionless and ultimately depressing sex sessions. All I know is if i was her I would have done a hell of a lot more than fuck the violinist.


Warsaw Dark an ambitious, experimental but slightly jumbled thriller set in Poland from Chris Doyle - previously cinematographer to much of the east asian cinematic renaissance including In the Mood for Love etc. While he is on of those eccentric filmmakers who says things that aren't entirely coherent and manage to be incredibly poncey - his attempt to make a jazz sculpture of film where the plot is not longer the point, but an aspect of a riffing session of artistry was really quite interesting - just not easily accessible.

Mermaid was hands down the winner. To say it was a darker, funnier Russian Amelie (as the blurb did) isn't giving it enough credit. The surrealist tone and isolated young heroine fit, but it's truly charming and weird and a bit disturbing even. But the actress was captivating and the plot keeps you guessing. Unlike NightWatch however, I wish I spoke Russin for this one to get the nuances and mis-en-scene of Moscow's billboards and adverts constantly commenting on the narrative.

Faintheart is just like every other indy british film you have ever seen. Just as fun, just as repetitive. Downtrodden hero loses everything, bands together with mates in ludicrous yet charming and funny situation to win back girl, save family and rekindle the human spirit. This has happened with unemployed strippers, up hill/mountains and in Notting Hill. This time: viking battle renactments. While sweet, funny and heartwarming you wonder if the UKFC can't greenlight something with a little more stamina and a less predictable cast off EastEnders and channel 4 sitcoms.

But, in it's favour, the film was a social experiement created through chat groups and forums on MySpace - in interesting concept which just proves putting too many men behind the camera means all you'll get is a long string of cliches which lose potency.


Thus endeth my week. Moral of the story: see fewer british and american pseudo-indy's, amp up the weird foreign and always see the live talks with the masters. I like big, blockbusters and tiny experimentals, but that in betweeny thing the government funds is just unsatifying.

Last night I was trying to remember my childhood friends. There were lots, and most I don't even remember their names. Which isn't really all that sad, because what I remember is shucking corn at meijer and building sandcastles and the time we went to devil's lake.

But here was my childhood in a nutshell:
- I lived in 13 houses between birth and age 18
- I went to 4 different elementary schools
- I lived in 3 different states

I used to think the accident being right when I hit adolescence stunted me somehow - I spent my tween years trying to be a grown up and hold shit together and have been cryogenically frozen maturity wise. put on pause.

But sometimes I wonder if growing up all over, with lots of change and all sorts of people and adventures meant when my parents settled down when I was 13 and lived in the same town with the same baseball team and same bike paths I stagnated. I didn't know how to settle properly and never really did. I didn't really want to.

I loved growing up in back alleys, with crack whores and a pot smoking dad and midnight picnics and our own dingy strawberry patch outside our subsidised duplex. when my parents went middle class maybe I gave up.

I wonder if I'll ever grow out of that.

movie going has it's own rituals.

in the huge neon multiplex by my house, every bathroom stall has a star on the door with a movie star's name on it.

I avoid using any labelled Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, Demi Moore and other sub-par performaces and phone-ins. I find it uncouth. I generally head for something like a Kate Winslet, or every once in while a Kathleen Turner or Katherine Hepburn. Today I nabed Helen Mirren and felt quite smug. It's some sort of snobbery I guess.

On principle, I will only pee inside women I respect.

the depths

I think I have come to a momentous (and still semi-confidential decision).

I have to leave Scotland.

Not today, or even next week. Probably not for a year or two yet, if I can manage, but soon. Maybe sooner than expected.

I think there are three main reasons for this, all of which I am coming to accept as valid life choices.

1: It is eating me alive. The everyday struggle against a terrain that was not meant for human settlement is slowly seeping into my bones. Call it SAD, call is depression, call it too many cobbles for my already sad ankles, or the unclimb-able hills that make every outing a fucking marathon. The weeks and weeks of bland gray nothing that wipes out all memory of what a nice day was. That makes you forget you even like being outdoors and the house arrest sofa coma induces total apathy. The weather and landscape, while awe inspiring, are just not built for my sad little body. And every day I have less inclination to talk a walk, see my friends, run the errands and worst - it sucks all interest in the carpe diem adventures I live for out of my soul.

2: The social structure is untenable. Partly it's a nationalist goverment without an economic leg to stand on. Partly it's the forever chip on the shoulder about the english, americans and consequently the rest of the world. Partly it's the terrible health care and constant construction. But mostly it's a horribly inadequate domestic policy and community spirit which sees 14 year old puking on 500 year old statues. It sees little old ladies being mugged at the end of my road. It's the day I fall down in a construction site, and none of the construction workers help me up. The regulations binding this town aren't improving the quality of life - and they are drawing big chalk lines between people who lose all scope of anything but their own best interests. It's a horrible, sad place. And so dirty. And no, I don't want to live in a city like London or New York that puts those bits far far away from the middle class people like me and pretends it's not there - but I also don't know how we are all supposed to keep living in this hell hole when everyone is so goddamn selfish and alone. Where even making eye contact in the street is too much effort.

3: I have no where to go. All my college friends left. All my current friends are social acquaintences without any real depth, and I am both too tired and too bored to try and reconnect with my life. And my job is pretty much the end of the line. I am the foremost person in my field, and it's a little early to be at my peak. I can't keep doing this, and there is nowhere else to go.


In short: it's a fucking pickled mess of horse shit.

gone

Today I got a letter from a solicitor in Kirkintilloch (a town about an hour from here).

He regreted to inform me one of my authors had died.

A guy I'd spoken to not three weeks ago, though we'd never met face to face. He was on holiday in Samarkand.

It puts things in an odd perspective.

ah, the english countryside...

We spent this afternoon planning our roadtrip to Kent. For some reason we both really love looking at big old maps and shopping for rental cars and planning on what cute village we might want to have lunch in to break the 12 hour journey.

Plus, we also have this childish habit when our attention spans have dwindled.

One minute we'll be looking at the map discussing the most direct A roads, and the next, we spot some place with a silly name and we're off on an infantile gigggling spree to find the most ridiculous towns and hamlets imaginable.


Kibblesworth, Fockerby, Wombwell, St. Quivox, and Zeal Monachorum are honorable entries, but today's clear front winner:

Horton-cum-Studley, in oxfordshire, near Wormingstall and Oddington.

epiphany

I had a revelation while brushing my teeth the other morning.

Liam is the only person I have had sex with more than once. Is this because:

a, I have/had committment issues
b, I have catholic guilt problems
c, I am/was a ruddy whore
d, my vag has a Cinderella complex

I like D best.



I also like the fact I looked bloody amazing at the press conference yesterday, made all the major press- and the next morning proceeded to fall down a huge flight of stairs, sprain my foot, bleed and cry in front of burly construction men. My gumpish natural grace is reminding me I have not eshewed my roots entirely. At least it's better than the other way around I guess.

shopping

It is crunch time. I have just tried on almost every dress in my wardrobe. I have made outfits, made lists and now armed, I am ready to shop.

and there is much to be done.

the target: have something spectacular, stunning and appropriate to all my summer functions. planned encounters include:

Monday 9 June - Directors Private Preview of the Festival Programme - champagne reception for major donors

Thursday 12 June - Programme Launch - morning press conference, The Playfair Library

Tuesday 1 July - Queens Garden Party - high tea with royalty, Holyrood Palace

Saturday 5 July - Iain & Janes Wedding - guest

Saturday 9 August - Book Festival opening party - evening soiree

Friday 19 September - Kate & Jimmy's rehersal dinner - bbq?

Saturday 20 September - Kate & Jimmy's wedding - maid of honour, Meadowbrook Hall

Saturday 25 October - Carol & Heidi's civil partnership & Leeds Castle reception

Friday 31 October - Anika & Justin's Rehersal Dinner - bowling?

Saturday 1 November - Anika & Justin's black tie wedding - Chicago Wyndham, greeter


That 5 month run includes 10 major semi-formal functions. My mostly retro secretary wardobe does not pack enough ammunition for this kind of campaign. And my second in command, god love him, thinks I look good in everything. There is only one solution. Guerilla tactics. And a credit card.

(I act like this is a military operation because I treat all retail outlets as hostile territory.)

So, with a little finessing of the god saving little black dress, little white dress and a few lucky purchases all I need now is:
- a gorgeous dress ( this one I think)
- navy satin peep toe shoes ( like these?)
- a great handbag (this? or this?)
- an chunky onyx or black pearl necklace
- a strapless bra
- a hat i can meet the queen in
- brown heels (I already own these, but they are a little work-ish, if very sexy on)
- an amazing jacket/wrap (possibly in fuscia or copper)

And that is all. Which is good, because the two flights to america, two trips to kent, a chicago hotel, 2 rental cars, 4 wedding presents and lord knows what else means my budget is fucking ridiculous.

Am I good or what?