Note to Self.....

Don't sleep with the heater at full belt.... I am so groggy today. I feel like a half baked potato....make that a mash potato.

I cannot wait for the weekend and want it to be here now. It's the first of my three minibreaks this month. My friend A and I are going to Berlin this weekend, then I'm off to Barcelona the weekend after and then it is four days in the Black Forest over Xmas.

I really haven't done much travel since I arrived in September except going to Paris a couple of times. The first two months here was spent looking for a job, marrying a bottle of scotch and having a nervous breakdown. I think I underestimated how full on it is moving to another country. And there is the misconception between english speaking cultures that a move between one of these countries won't be that hard because there is no language barrier. Yes we all do speak English but it's a completely different language once you get there.

The first two months, I stayed with an old best friend of mine M; he and I lived together in Sydney many years ago when he was in Australia on a working holiday visa. We've remained close ever since. If it hadn't been for him, I think I would have been back in Australia by now. He offered his spare room rent free until I found a job which was very generous of him. Yes he did live in Reading (west of London) which is kind of like Woollongong without the beach but with the same ratio of pregnant teenagers and bogans ....or chavs as they call them over here. Oscar Wilde was jailed in Reading; Kate Winslet is from Reading and there is the Reading Festival and the television series Beautiful People which is shot in Reading. I kept reminding myself of these highlights every time I commenced the two hour late train journey home from a boozey night out in Soho and for the first two months of unemployment and a smithereened heart, that was nearly every night. Not to mention that an off peak return train fare was £20; peak is £34......it is cheaper flying to Madrid.

All that aside, it was lovely to stay with M. His houses backs on to the River at Reading with a lovely terraced garden. Catching the dying days of Summer sipping cheap aussie wines (there are more here than are in Oz) was a nice distraction to the turmoil in all directions that I was experiencing. It's nice now though to be right in the middle of it all in Kings Cross. The flat is the first place I looked at; it was renovated and clean and had a dish washer, dryer/washer and a fan forced oven which seems to be a rare combination in London town. And my flattie seems relatively sane albeit 12 years my junior. The best part is that I'm a ten minute walk from work, twenty minutes from Soho and West End and 25 minute walk to the cool stuff of Shoreditch and Brick Lane. Life is harder here than in Oz; I've basically gone back to living like my university days; no car; walking everywhere and buying homebrand! Not to mention I haven't flatshared with a stranger in nearly 15 years. But then again I didn't move here for it to be like home!

FAUXBOOK

Brilliant article on friendships in the 21st Century: hit the FAUXBOOK title to link to the article. Poor yaself a cup of heroine before you read.....

C

More Issues Than French Vogue

So have been a slacker again.

To be honest, I read my last post a couple of days after I wrote it and was totally embarassed. Why I choose my return to blogworld following a bottle of wine and a heart that has had an argument with a few kitchen appliances is beyond me. But once I hit that publish button, the deal was done and since then I haven't been able to work out how I wanted to follow the last post. So found myself in eternal writer's "how do I write the next part?" limbo. And the fact of the matter is I don't want to go into it in depth. In short, we didn't work out. It's been shit but I'm feeling better. Generally we both had issues but I concede I had a lot more than him. It was the wrong time for me; too much change happening in my life and too much upheaval on all fronts to let us run smoothly. He's the first person I've ever fallen for completely and trully which is actually a great thing because before him, I really did think I was autistic! Sadly it was just the wrong time for me. Sometimes when things you've longed for eons finally arrive, you actually doubt their reality. And that was me. I couldn't believe he was for real. I was determined to make him my too good to be true....and in the end I succeeded. C'est la vie.

So yah that's it. There's been lots of walks and wonderings through London, Paris......Reading.. these last few months; all wonderfully melodramatic. And every pop song from good to woeful suddenly takes on shakespearean importance once the heartbreak kicks in. Matchbox 20 are poets; Roxette were geniuses and Kylie was on to something in preferring the devil she knew. Ms Lennox.....Love is a stranger in an open car....and don't let me get started on anything written by Everything But the Girl. And then there's Mr Ben Harper.....ah....my therapist these past few months.

But enuff.....no more talk of this.

So now I find myself living proper in London: Kings Cross to be precise. Am working as a government lawyer; my flat is a ten minute walk from work and I am sharing with a 23 yr old university graduate. Yes I've become the Demi Moore of flatmates. Although I think I'm more Mrs Robinson......she at least drank, chain smoked and had a facial expression.

I'm still majorly finding my way here. I am firmly back to square one. It's scarey but I'm excited. As Yazz once wailed.....The only way is up!

C