An update for you, my adoring readers and/or fans (should you still exist).
I Now Live In The Almost-Country
More precisely, a village that is technically in Cambridgeshire, but has a Royston postcode ERGO is not 'real' country (i.e., you don't need wellies and Ocado offer a number of convenient delivery slots).
Good things about the village:
- I live in a (rented) Georgian house with 3 bedrooms, a garden full of gigantically fat pigeons and a leaking conservatory (that's big enough, should the village hall burn down, to host the Am Dram Soc's peformance of Pirates of the Penzance, inc audience). The entire house costs the same to rent as a 1 bed flat above a chipshop in Shepherd's Bush (actual fact). It is very pretty and very wonky and after 8 years in Canada, it is just the ticket. My husband, a Canadian, keeps bashing his head on the doors which, bearing in mind the Georgians weren't THAT stubby, tells you something about his extraordinary manliness.
- There is a very good butcher that also sells a) 'loave cakes' and b) 'home fashioned fruit pies'
- There are 2 other shops, notably a corner shop they call "Dips' Shop", a magical emporium that sells a range of items including sausages (of high quality), dustpans (and brushes should you need them), firelighters, 3 types of crumpet, papers, broccoli, discounted Valentine Chocs and party hats.
- It is a 15 minute walk across a field to train to London that takes an hour, and you can always get a seat.
- There is a really good GP full of excellent doctors and receptionists and people who are complaining. To these people I say: leave the UK for 8 years. (Try living in Canada, even, which allegedly has a health service of its own.) Then come back, experience the NHS again for 5 minutes and weep hot tears of gratitude.
- There is a kebab van in the car park (6-10pm every night inc. Sundays) that has the mystery meat on a pole, but also has meat on a stick.
- We are not in London. I am from London. Born there, went to school there, lived there most of my life. But I do not want to live there anymore.
Bad things about the village
We have 3 pubs and they are all shit.
The irony of this is not lost on me and yet. And yet. In this job, the idea of work is an abstract. There are headhunters that headhunt headhunters to go and work for other headhunters. We don't earn commission (no no, we are not THAT kind of headhunter) and I am paid a salary to sit and talk in the abstract about work all day long. It is probably the perfect employment for a Non-working Monkey.
It is fucking ace to be back
So great, in fact, that I have not been able to write it down. I keep wanting to start and then don't know where to, because there's so much. But I have been inspired to get to it again because ....
....A great person has written a great book
It is Emma Beddington, AKA Belgian Waffle, and her book is really, really good. I read half of it in one day and I am wanting to chomp more of it down.
I told her it was a relief it was good, like when your pal has a baby that doesn't look like a potato with marshmallow eyes so that when you say "oh isn't he/she LOVELY', you actually mean it. Have a look. (I also found out within the first 10 pages that she lived next door to the man who let me in to the University of York, where I got a Desmond and got up to no glorious good for 3 years).
I find Faceswap 3 years too late and laugh until I can laugh no more
Here I am as a dog, for example:
I wrote a post about a Barbour when I got back that was a bit odd, so I've got rid of it but there were some very good questions in the comments that I will go back to and try and answer. In the meantime, if you have any items you wish to discuss with me I encourage you to fill the comments box(es) with your topicks.
Pip pip!
NWM
We have 3 pubs and they are all shit.
- Parvenu Hotel Resstrunt Bar. High gloss textured wallpaper, does weddings. Rolls-Royces parked outside. Slacks. Slippery 'Chesterfield style suites', Chef's Snack Platter. No.
- Pub of Danger. It is where you go if you want some crack cocaine. Driving past it you would take one look and shriek "Oh this MUST be in The Sunday Times' 50 Best Pubs Within Commuting Distance of London 2012 Guide!!!". It is all wattle & daub glory and creaking signs. Then you park up and cross the road, feel your way through teenagers with tiny eyes sucking hard on cheap cigarettes, and find that the pub is full of people that would probably kill you and put you in the ham sandwiches given half the chance. "How charming!", you shriek, necking your pint in record time as you leg it out the back through the car park.
- Pub of Laminate. Is the pub that you think, well if nothing else we'll go to there, for it is managed by a reputable - nay, celebrated - nearly local brewery, surely it'll be OK. But it is not. It is over-lit and full of laminated menus and you feel genuinely indignant that you don't qualify for the Pensioners' Weekend Meal Deal. There are fake fires and people in their late 20s silently eating a Sunday Roast Meal Deal (your choice of chicken, beef, pork or lamb with an alcoholic beverage of your choosing) with their parents. Everyone is on high stools, and no-one is comfortable.
The irony of this is not lost on me and yet. And yet. In this job, the idea of work is an abstract. There are headhunters that headhunt headhunters to go and work for other headhunters. We don't earn commission (no no, we are not THAT kind of headhunter) and I am paid a salary to sit and talk in the abstract about work all day long. It is probably the perfect employment for a Non-working Monkey.
It is fucking ace to be back
So great, in fact, that I have not been able to write it down. I keep wanting to start and then don't know where to, because there's so much. But I have been inspired to get to it again because ....
....A great person has written a great book
It is Emma Beddington, AKA Belgian Waffle, and her book is really, really good. I read half of it in one day and I am wanting to chomp more of it down.
I told her it was a relief it was good, like when your pal has a baby that doesn't look like a potato with marshmallow eyes so that when you say "oh isn't he/she LOVELY', you actually mean it. Have a look. (I also found out within the first 10 pages that she lived next door to the man who let me in to the University of York, where I got a Desmond and got up to no glorious good for 3 years).
I find Faceswap 3 years too late and laugh until I can laugh no more
Here I am as a dog, for example:
I wrote a post about a Barbour when I got back that was a bit odd, so I've got rid of it but there were some very good questions in the comments that I will go back to and try and answer. In the meantime, if you have any items you wish to discuss with me I encourage you to fill the comments box(es) with your topicks.
Pip pip!
NWM