Summer in the City

Last weekend was endlessly pleasant. I'm discovering that London is a city that thrives in the sunshine. As soon as the sun comes out, everyone is sprawled in the sun and remarkably happier then they were before. It's like a massive prozac pill for the city. I love it.

On Sunday we decided to wander down to Hyde Park and have our first Picnic In The City. It was the same day as the London Marathon, and absolutely everyone was out and about. It was probably the best couple of hours of people watching that I've ever experienced (and the sunglasses most definitely helped in disgusing our nosy eyes!) We were sat amongst kite-flyers, frisbee-throwers, badminton players, and even in close proximity of a 3-man wrestle practice (one guy had his cod-piece on the OUT-SIDE of this trousers. Considering the fact that they looked like they were having some three-way orgy in the park, this did NOT help him look any cooler). There were many couples picnicking, reading books and generally being happy that the sun was out.

After picnic in the park we decided to go to a Greek restaurant that sits on the South Bank of the Thames. We watched the sun go down over London whilst snacking on taramasalata, tsatziki, flat bread, olives, souvlaki, king prawns.. Mmmmm. I just started drooling. The atmosphere was amazing, with a prime view point of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Considering this is our first summery outing of the year, I think it's safe to say that this summer in the city is going to be a good one.

Steak and Ale Pie

Proof that Conrad is so good at cooking and I the reason that I am so good at eating:

That Old Chestnut

Being 25 and all, I seem to be learning more things about myself as I go along. I know this is one of the things that everyone tells us will happen. You become more used to your skin. You grow into yourself. You understand more who you are.

A minor thing I'm beginning to realise is that I have quite an impulsive, slightly obsessive personality. I find something new and go charging gung-ho into the new 'project'. After a couple of months and after many hours of obsessing, constantly thinking about it, centering my life around it, interest tends to wane. I love blogging. I love feeling like there's somewhere I can write. I have always loved writing, I even flirted with the idea of becoming a journalist at one point.

I am also somewhat of a perfectionist. If I do something, I want to do it perfectly. I don't want to do anything half way or without a million per cent of my energy. My dad always described me (not particularly in a good way) as someone who never had any grey. Everything was always blackest black or whitest white - I couldn't have anything in between. I wonder if that is an aspect of perfectionism?

Anyway, the point I'm driving at is that I am finding it difficult to blog right now. There's nothing extremely poetic to talk about, I have no romantic stories, no qwerky descriptions of my daily routine. My need to blog also came from endless hours of boredom at work - this is THANKFULLY no longer the case. Friday is my last day, and it could not come quicker. So I will no longer have 8 hours a day to peruse strangers typed-out lives and dwell on subject titles for a blog post.

Hopefully this won't be the end. Knowing me, as soon as I say I won't blog anymore I'll be posting 10 times a day (remember the whole black or white thing?).

Carrying on in German Tradition

This Easter, my parents reminded me of a tradition we took up whilst living in Germany:

The Easter Tree.

At first you might think this is a bit odd, but it became another special addition to Easter-time. My sister and I would decorate eggs ourselves to hang on the tree along with store-bought equivalents.

I was surprised to find that my mom had been storing these eggs all the while, and it was funny to see what my 10/11 year old mind created. Needless to say, Allie's eggs were always a little more intricate and made a little more sense.

The 'twig' aka 'Easter tree' came from my parent's very own contortia tree outisde.

It's good to bring back old traditions that you forgot even existed.

How To Say?

I want to write a blog post, but I have nothing to say. Right this second I feel a little bit sleepy, a little bit excited, a little bit head-achy, a little bit tanned, a little bit chilly. This week is kind of a non-week. I got back on Sunday night from 10 days away to Manchester (some might say my 'home-town' if I had one of those) and next week is my last week at work. So, nothing much to say about this week. It's a strange limbo-land where I'm on the edge, full of nervous anticipation, but I'm almost there - I'm at the tipping point.

I had soooo much fun in Mancy-town. Mom and I went wedding dress shopping (of which we are NOT finished. I am going to drag this amazingly fun experience on as long as humanly possible - especially if I get some free champagne out of it!) I decided I don't hate strapless as much as I thought. In fact, I'm actually contemplating buying a strapless wedding dress! Who would have thunk it?

We went to go look at yet another wedding chapel which was PERFECT. It is the oldest chapel in the area (late 1800s I think) out in the country. But it was just too small. I would literally walk about 2 steps and be at the front. So, we're in a bit of limbo with that too at the moment.

We have booked our tickets to go to Japan in June/July for Conrad's brother's wedding. I'm looking forward to this, but it's kind of killing me a little bit that we are just a hop-skip and swim away from the Philippines and we're not going to be going there. I always assumed the next time I would be in that part of the world would be to show Conrad the country that remains so firmly stamped on my heart. I'm thinking of just booking a quick flight on my own and going over there for an afternoon! How is it that I still miss it so bad? I really hope it doesn't overshadow the trip to Japan - that I'll be comparing everything to Manila, and looking lustfully across the sea towards my 3rd 'homeland'. I love it so.

Enough randomness for now. When I get home tonight I'm going to post some piccys of our trip to Manchester. We gave the little mini a run for it's money across a large part of England. He held up well.

Meant To Be? I Think So.

The reason I'm being quite sketchy about my new job's description is because I'm a little concerned someone might do a google search looking for it, and find my blog... And I'm not really sure this is how I want to introduce myself into my new life. "Hey guys.. here are all my guts neatly organised and spilt out onto a blog page!! Enjoy!"

What I can and want to say is that it's for a chidren's charity that believe in social justice. There is a small group of people that have come together to research into a cause, and I am going to be the administrator for it. This role seems to fit so neatly into my life right now for a few reasons:

- The only real experience I have in the workplace is pretty much administrational. This is such a good way to use that experience to get in the door, and knock their socks off, then going on to single-handedly save the world.

- My degree was cultural studies/sociology course with a massive emphasis on research. They really seemed to be happy about this.

-My new boss is amazing. She is at the most 35 years old, and she is absolutely everything what I want to be in ten year's time. When I was talking about why I wanted to leave my job and go into charity, she said that she had also worked for Goldman Sachs in a similar role to what I do. The glint in her eye proved to me that she knew EXACTLY what I was talking about and why I was totally at the end of my tether as far as life in this environment goes. She may as well have pulled out a walky talky and whispered "She's one of us! Get. Her. Outta there!"

-At the end of the interview, I actually said "This is all so exciting...!" At the time I thought this may have been the death of me. But I think they actually liked my crazed, inappopriate displays of excitement.

-I was a bit scared about the massive pay cut I was going to have to take to change roles after leaving a blood-sucking money driven environment (that obviously pays quite well). I was given an offer that was quite low yesterday and I was nervous, but it wasn't going to stop me going for the job. Today, my boss called me and told me that she thought the offer they had given me was unfair due to my experience and how much she thinks I'm bringing to the project. She changed her offer. It's still not as much as I'm making now, but it's about half the amount of paycut that I was taking before. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't even mentioned the fact that I was upset about it, she just offered it to me.

-I'm actually going to be helping people. Seriously.

This job has changed my life. And I haven't even started it yet. It fits in to everything that I want to be - I can actually see my future now, and it is so so so happy.

And The Future Seems Sunny

So I went for an interview yesterday at a large children's charity based in London.

About 5 minutes after I got home from the interview, I got a call, and I got the job.

I have been in a state of dis-belief and excitement since yesterday at approximately 5pm. I am so excited. I am so in awe. It's as though everything was meant to be.

I feel peace.

All pieces of my messed up puzzle of a life seem to be fitting together quite well - for the first time ever.

Perhaps I am okay at this 'being an adult' thing after all.