borough markets
I went to
Borough markets yesterday, which is the market that Jamie Oliver likes to zing around to on his vespa. I had a good time browsing through the various stalls and tasting samples, and particularly because it's close to Christmas there was a lot of activity going on. My purchases included:
*
Mulled wine* Mulled apple (the non-alcoholic variety I drank before I'd eaten anything!)
* Truffle butter for Christmas dinner
* A cowboy cookie - an oat cookie with belgian dark chocolate, cranberries and walnuts
* Pistachio and date shortbread rounds
* A venison burger
* A dark rye sourdough loaf with sunflower seeds
It was a tasty haul, but Borough is not known for its bargains, so it was an expensive one. But it's only Christmas once a year :)
Speaking of Christmas dinner, this year I'll be spending it with my cousins - one who lives here, another who is over to visit - and a few friends. We're doing the whole traditional Christmas dinner and eating turkey, Christmas pudding, mince pies, custard (the English like their custard), brandy butter, etc. Since I can't be home, it's the next best thing :) I'm really looking forward to it!
I have work!
Some good news - I have work again! hooray!
I got a contract working for a web company for the first couple of months next year. This is a Good Thing, because it means I can hop down to Australia for a couple of weeks in March and catch some sunshine before daylight savings goes :) And I'm glad it got sorted before Christmas so I can really enjoy the break.
I found out my brother got offered a job on the same day, so it's smiles all round for the family today. Yay!
Vicki and I ate Japanese food and watched
The Holiday in celebration. It was just the kind of fluffy movie I was in the mood to see, so I quite enjoyed it.
unemployed spending
Isn't it tragic that when you are unemployed you have more opportunity to spend money that you really shouldn't?
Today I was feeling a little bit bored, so I thought I'd hop down to Oxford St and browse some shops in the evening. I came back with a gorgeous cashmere sweater.
I've never owned a cashmere sweater in my life, I'm not sure why now is a good time to own one, but there you go.
I really shouldn't have eaten that...
You know when you've eaten just a wee bit too much food and you think, "I really shouldn't have eaten that"?
I've been having that feeling ALL day. Today's menu included:
8am, Marylebone, my kitchen, eating a nutritious breakfast for the day ahead:
- 2 x slice of Vogel's Soy and Linseed bread (best bread ever.)
- 1 x Earl Grey Tea
- 1 x satsuma
10:30am, Canary Wharf, Carluccios, casual interview:
- 1 x English Breakfast Tea
12:30pm, Canary Wharf, Itsu, killing (lots of) time while waiting for recruiter callback:
- 1 x take away bowl of 'Chicken Teriyaki' noodles which was neither very Chicken nor Teriyaki
- 1 x Ginger Zing juice with apples, ginger, mint and lime
- 1 x pack of Organic Sesame Crunch Popcorn
3pm, Farringdon, Starbucks, killing time while waiting for interview that never eventuated due to recruiter stuff-up:
- 1 x hot chocolate
- 1 x berry scone
7pm, Green Park, Boudin Blanc, dinner with Niall:
- 1 x wild mushroom risotto
- 1 x lamb shank with potato, olives and green beans
- 1 x fried banana thing
9pm, Green Park, some random pub:
- 2 x Baileys on ice
The
Heathrow Injection is well and truly on its way...
mmmm... chicken salt.
I have a lot of mish-mashed thoughts that I'm just going to ramble about today. Consider youselves warned. :)
The past week has been fairly eventful. Unfortunately the 3 month work contract that was supposed to last me through until February had the plug pulled on it last week, so I'm looking for work again right before Christmas. It's entirely my recruitment agent's fault; they told me it was a 3 month contract, but the company hiring me was offering only a 1 month rolling contract. Even though the company and I had worked out the dupe about a week into my contract, I didn't think it was going to be that bad because the company expected some work to come through at the start of December. Unfortunately the new work didn't eventuate, and won't until January at least, so I'm back on the job market.
Admittedly, looking for work hasn't been as bad as I expected. I've been to quite a few interviews, there are a lot of people looking for workers to start as soon as the new year begins, and some even before the new year (and they're permanent roles too, so I'd be getting paid public holidays!) Some recruiters are all in a panic as well, because if they haven't met their recruitment targets then they're desperate to get people into roles. I'm just in a bit of a dilemma, because I don't want permanent work. And the stress of job hunting takes its toll. Every day I wake up not knowing how I'll feel at the end of the day. I can be depressed, elated, optimistic then dejected in the space of three hours, and I hate it.
I got interviewed for a contract role last friday which I'm quite desperate to get, but I'll find out tomorrow whether or not I'm the lucky one... and I have to give an answer for a permanent role that I've been offered tomorrow as well. The problem is I'm hoping to visit Australia in Feb/March next year to use up my return ticket, so I don't want to use up 2 weeks of leave in a permanent job to visit home instead of visiting europe... :) So on that basis I think I'll keep trying for contracts and see how that goes. But then again, things change so quickly here who knows what I might do in 24 hours' time...
On happier matters, last week I visited the
Australia Shop in Covent Garden and melted into a nostalgic puddle. Imagine a whole wall of Arnott's Biscuits, ETA Barbeque sauce, Vita Wheats, Picnic Bars, Twisties, Vegemite, Kraft Peanut Butter, Lamingtons, Cottees Cordial and Pizza Shapes... it's a boring old scene from your local Woolworths, but I went nuts and spent 18 pounds on things that would have cost me about 15 dollars in Australia. :P My shopping basket consisted of:
* Tim Tams (for guys at work)
* Mint Slice (for guys at work)
* Vita Wheat 9-grains (for Gabby)
* Cheese Twisties (for Cally)
* Edgell's Creamed Corn (for Vicki)
* Picnic bar (for Niall)
* Caramello Koala (for Phil)
* Wagon Wheel (for me)
* Chicken Salt (originally for Phil until I found out his parents had shipped some over, so now I inherit it. Mmmmm....)
It was really fun, and even funnier seeing everyone else in the shop clutching bags of Allen's Strawberries and Cream or Nutri Grain for dear life. Nowhere else would you be able to buy a basket full of junk and justify it. Imagine working in a place that makes everyone feel so happy... it would be like working in a miracle factory! At least now I know where to go if I'm feeling homesick. :)
Last Tuesday I went to The Royal Ballet's production of Sleeping Beauty with Gabby and Cally (very cultured, no?) It was really amazing seeing the strength these tiny ballerinas, I wish I could do even a quarter of what they were capable of. The costumes and music were fantastic as well, we all left feeling quite inspired (kind of like the time when we saw
The Devil Wears Prada and wanted an unlimited fashion wardrobe at our disposal).
It only hit me this weekend that Christmas is a week away. If you aren't shopping and running into the crowds and hearing the muzak in the shops, it doesn't seem real. But this weekend I saw carollers on the streets (bad ones), and harried mothers, and lots of
Hamleys bags stuffed with toys of all descriptions. I walked along Oxford St a bit last weekend which was
crazy, so I don't want to think of what it was like this weekend. I'm looking forward to Christmas dinner with my cousins in Victoria. It should be a good day of excessive eating. Mmmm... excessive eating...
I've also got another holiday planned - Vicki and I are going to Seville in Spain between Christmas and New Year. Flamenco dancing, Tapas, and hot Spanish guys... what more could we ask for? ;)
Cam was hosting a Christmas party last night, so I called while it was on and got to speak to him, Bunny, Khanh and Ian. It made my day and sounds like they had a great time, even with
the Turkey debacle. Actually, hearing about the turkey debacle only made it sound funnier. I miss you guys, enjoy the snickers pods while you have them!! :)
I hope everyone is having a great time in the leadup to Christmas. May you all eat to excess and not feel guilty about it! :)
rss feed
I have one. Actually I've always had one but have never linked it... if you haven't worked it out, it's
http://pinkaholic-girl.blogspot.com/rss.xml.
stop and think
I read a line in a
book today: "I wonder whether I have already met the next person I will sleep with, or whether it will be someone currently unknown to me."
Before you get carried away: I wasn't thinking about who I will next sleep with. It just got me wondering about the intricate webs of people I've known in my life and how they fit together; particularly how my relationship with people changes over time.
When I meet someone, I do a bit of compartmentalising. I know it's not very nice, everyone is individual, yada yada, but I do it anyway. People get put into their appropriate categories like "flatmate", "friend", "I know you from uni", "colleague", "someone you must put up with because it's for the good of the nation", "I can't quite remeber your name but I'm sure you trod on my foot once", "nice guy at the cafe", etc.
Once someone has been compartmentalised, I expect them to stay there. Nothing much happens in day-to-day life that would promote someone from "I know you from uni" to "flatmate", "friend" and "you trod on my foot" simultaneously. So when someone does move compartments, it always takes me by surprise. I never realise they've jumped to a new ship until we're having dinner every weekend in between movies and bouts of DDR.
For instance, at my last workplace there were so many people who I knew from uni. At least half the development team came from UTS, so I recognised a lot of faces even if I hadn't met them before (and I was probably more familiar to them because I used to work at the support desk - handing out printouts was really quite a stressful job). So when I started work, everyone was automatically in "I know you from uni" and "colleague" head spaces. I might even have been "that annoying chick from helpdesk" to most of them. But it didn't occur to me that the "uni people" I met years ago would become "colleagues", and some even "close friends". I never thought I'd be sitting alongside them in 3 years' time having coffee with them every day, planning dinners, going ballroom dancing with them, going to their weddings, drinking in pubs together halfway across the world. I still have images of people sitting in labs looking studious and scary. And laughing at a Gantt chart in my IS assignment when Cally and I were merely trying to fill up page quotas...
I guess the point is, I have a healthy dose of respect for all the randomness (or possibly predestined aspect) of fate. I'm intensely curious about the future and how quickly it changes now. Will I be working alongside the coffee guy next week after learning he's secretly a C# guru on sabbatical? Have I met the man who's going to heroically rescue me from some crazy situation in 3 years' time? Am I going to have kids and grow old with a guy who's currently in the "trod on my foot" compartment?
Will neon green make a comeback in 4 years' time? It all really makes you stop and think...
Like on the monopoly board
I've moved into a place in Marylebone! I've been telling people it's Marylebone "like on the Monopoly board" so they have some point of reference. (Or, at least, they will have heard of it before.)
After 10 days of fruitless househunting on
gumtree, I got lucky and found a place which was available immediately - I moved in two days later. I'm living with 3 other girls aged 23 - 25. It's a flat in a converted mansion, which makes it feel very grand olde english as I walk up the front steps.
I moved the rest of my stuff in yesterday, so the room looks a bit like an explosion of clothes and plastic bags at the moment... cooked my first meal last night, filled my tiny allocated cupboard and frige shelf with food, and will be cooking at various points during the week. Oh, the satisfaction :)
In non-moving related news, I went to see the
Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum with Niall today. The photos are really amazing, as are the stories behind some of them (often involving camping out for hours, or lying in flamingo poo, or swimming around in freezing water terrified of leopard seals, etcetera). There's also a category for junior photographers, which was
really impressive. All the photos are pictured on the site, so you can browse around for yourself.
I'm also interested in going
ice skating at Somerset House before winter is up, hopefully when my cousin Bel visits over Christmas. Having an ice skate outdoors is such a novelty :)
