"What in the name of God happened?!"
"I don't know! One minute she was calmly telling me her landlady's internet is out again, the next she was curled up on the floor in a foetal position muttering nonsense."
"Wait, wait, wait...was the failure of internets before or after she'd got next weekend planned?"
"Ah, I think she was going on about not knowing the route for the Notting Hill carnival..."
"I wouldn't worry, it's London performance anxiety."
"What?"
"It's very simple. Any and all indicators that she may not be making the most of each and every waking second in London is sure to induce a bit of existential anxiety. She grew up on a farm in the middle of mountains. Plopping her in the middle of London but taking away the resources to plan to see all of it is tantamount to pushing a child into a sweetie shop and telling them it's closing in thirty seconds."
"So what do we do?"
"This..."
<Bamboleo, bambolea, porque mi vida yo la prefiero vivir asÃ...">
And as the pulsating Latin rhythms of my alarm clock jerks me into wakefulness I realise it has all been a horrible dream. Except it hasn't and the internet is still kaputski. But I'm not panicking. Starbucks, as ever, got my back, Jack...
As you very clever people may have figured out a lot has happened in almost two weeks and I have been very remiss in not blogging. But then again I am now a juene professionale as they don't say in Paris and I have started my first proper job. It won't be featuring in the blog. The blog is about making the most out of living in one of the largest, most vibrant cities in the world and writing about it and for it and not my days at the office. I am, however, in love with my job. The dopey kind of love where you smile when you think about him/her and feel that feeling of the first sip of hot chocolate when its snowing outside. Blah di blah di fuckitty blah... Enough sentiment.
I am also a year older and not very much wiser. We had a wonderful time at my birthday. I'm sure that's a fair statement, they all seemed happy. I, however, had had a more wonderful time than most and was carted to friends' home through the winding warrens around Brick Lane, stumbling most disgracefully and schlurring my wuurrds like Sean Connery after a head injury.
Good clean fun.
It is with great regret and no small amount of distress that I must inform you all of the sad and untimely demise of Fucking Nuisance, our small rabbit friend. Departed this vale of tears 10/08/2013. My fucking birthday.
I got that dress from the market. It was well lush. I were all dressed up, war paint on and ready to go out on the lash when I thought I'd check up on little FN and see if she (for it was a she, don't worry I didn't interfere with it, we found that out off landlady's friend) was okay and well fed.
I found her, lying there, as if in sleep but for eyes open; seeing not this world but rather some far off plain beyond what we ourselves can know. She looked somehow smaller in death and a hush was over that little hutch, a hush that could not be explained by mere absence of little snuffles and rustlings. It was altogether more eerie and definite.
The fucking point is that the sodding little bugger was belly up and I'm going to fucking have to tell my landlady that someone has cocked up massively and her little bunnikins is dead as a sodding doornail.
I don't know if anyone noticed but I get sweary and non-PC when distressed...
It wasn't anything we had done! There were frantic phone call summits to this effect and the fear of autopsies and independent reviews conducted by duly appointed watchdogs hanging over us.
It was grand, turns out she was hundreds of years old. But we still had to dispose of her legally and safely, you can't just pop rabbits in bin-bags, leave 'em outside and hope for the best, you know.
Check these facts out.
It costs £56 for a vet to dispose of a rabbit.
You can't just wing it, decide to bury it and dig down in a city garden because you might hit anything from gas mains to phone lines...apparently.
It's different in the country. Daddy was/is a farmer, a very good one, and once he told me did I know that not one lamb had died in Northern Ireland that year.
I said how the fuck could that be? (Except I didn't swear in front of my lovely Daddy...)
He said that every time an animal dies you're supposed to fill out all these forms and pay the Department of Agriculture to come and safely dispose of it.
But farmers have acres of land, not a lot of money and all the work time that self employment allows (sunrise to sunset) so they bury the lambs and that's that.
I was unfamiliar with the dead rabbit in a city situation. Not the council's job, that's only if it's in a public place. Not the RSPCA, they're more in the business of tending to the sick and wounded fauna. It seemed to be solely on us to take care of the rabbit... And not in a Mother Teresa way.
We were saved from any further stress by our landlady's friend turning up and doing the needful. I never did ask what became of FN...
Enough talk of dead rabbits, no matter how hilarious/distressing the matter may be!
In other news the flirtation with George Alagiah has come to a natural end with work resulting in me only being able to catch the enigmatic and dashing Jon Snow on Channel 4 at 7pm. George was flirting a bit too enthusiastically with the slutty weather-girl anyway. And Jon Snow does have those ties.
We're not going to talk about older men and my TV schedule anymore as some revelations about my predilection for PM Question Time resulted in sustained and unfair mockery. For shame, you know who you are...
We are going to talk about the wonderful and highly recommended Alternative London Tour of Shoreditch/Brick Lane which brought the amazing street art to life and was well good.
It's free! Free!! Well, a pay-what-you-feel-it's-worth, but when you're waiting on your first end-of-the-month paycheque the only remuneration you can afford is usually a handshake.
We saw such amazing artwork. Huge cranes and stork in exquisite detail. Artists who had flown to London's East End from Brazil and Puerto Rico and China and South Africa and had left veritable works of art on streets for everyone to enjoy.
There were Lego-style Luke Skywalkers, scattered Space Invaders, entwined lovers formed of interlocking ribbons of paint, caricature Del Boys, epic fantasy landscapes and deep philosophical statements. Every one of them could have been hung in the Tate Modern and indeed many artists HAD been featured in the high halls of fame. But they loved street art and they kept it up.
I would have paid a fiver just for this one bit of information.
Remember Spitalfields? The market? And why on earth was it called Spitalfields? I'll tell you now...
In the 1650's French Protestant Huguenots were fleeing persecution in Catholic France. They fled to the Roman-walled city of London seeking asylum. They weren't allowed within the city walls but were granted fields around the City as amnesty. These fields were used to build temporary accommodation and artillery ranges but primarily they were used as field hospitals to treat the ill and injured.
Hospital fields.
Spitalfields.
But enough for now! Speaking of culture, next week is a bank holiday weekend which hasn't meant so much since school. And I am looking forward to both Notting Hill carnival and visiting St Paul's and the Tate Modern. Vive la culture!
And vive the building of experience and expertise. One cannot write about nothing after all.
And soon we'll have to think about proper writing.
But until then, London awaits some more!
xo
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