Things that make me smile No.65

I was at a pub with a friend last night, and we'd just got our drinks from the bar. As we picked them up and moved away, Spike went to shut her bag with the hand holding her bottle of tonic water, and poured most of the latter's contents straight into the former. There was an absurdly long moment before she realised what was happening, and an even longer one while I stood there and laughed.

Every little helps - to piss me off even more!

1. I order a Tesco grocery delivery for Sunday.
2. It doesn't show up.
3. I ring Tesco, who tell me there's a problem in-store and my groceries can't be delivered today. We re-arrange for Monday.
4. I try to go online to remove from the order the items I needed for that day. My order status is 'delivered'. I can't make any changes.
5. I call them to ask about this. It emerges that they haven't duplicated my order, they've duplicated the last order my brother made from his account. They rectify this and I make my order changes.
6. Near the end of the delivery slot on Monday I get a call to say the van's broken down. My delivery will be late. I'm given a new time slot.
7. The new time slot comes and goes. No shopping.
8. I call them again. They haven't managed to get the van working. My groceries won't be delivered today either. I grit my teeth and re-arrange the delivery for Tuesday.
9. On Tuesday my order arrives in a prompt and timely manner.
10. I get my regular mini bank statement by text. Tesco have over-charged me by about £25. I call them again to complain about this and am told someone will get back to me.
11. It's now two hours later and I'm still waiting for that phone call...

This spectacular display of incompetence is brought to you by Tesco. Their solution to the problem is to give me more vouchers to use on my next order each time something goes wrong. At this rate my next order will be free.

Blooming heck

I forgot to post about this when it happened, but it makes me laugh so much I can't resist a little flashback. I was walking to the tube station after work, surrounded by all the identikit city boys in their suits, when a gust of wind came along and blew up my skirt. Thankfully I was perfectly decent, but unfortunately that decency took the form of a pair of bright white, lacy, knee-length bloomers. Foxy.

Things that make me smile No.64

On my way home yesterday I found a copy of Vogue just lying on the pavement.After a loooong long day at work that was something of a highlight.

P.S. When typing this out I originally wrote 'sidewalk' instead of 'pavement', then had to go back and anglicise myself. Disgraceful.Next thing you know I'll be talking about faucets and diapers.

Flashback

When I was a child I was fairly plain looking, while my cousin, who's the same age as me, was really pretty. I once confided in a friend of my Grandma that it made me sad that people always commented on how pretty my cousin was, but that no-one ever said that to me, and she started telling me the story of the ugly duckling who turns into a swan. It was part way through the tale that my Grandma joined us.
"Don't get her hopes up, Olive" she said "Sometimes ugly ducklings grow up to be ducks".

Things that make me smile No.63

Caterpillar! I know that's an odd thing to smile about, but I genuinely can't remember seeing a caterpillar since I was a child, and this was a really good one; bright green, several inches long and as thick as my thumb. It was trundling determinedly across the pavement on its nubbiny legs like a little mobile piece of foam rubber. I sat on the wall and watched it for a while but then some Johnny-head-in-air Old Street trendster narrowly missed treading on it, so I moved it onto the grass. I was tempted to take it home and put it in a jam jar and see what it would grow up to be, but I didn't think it would enjoy the hour long tube journey.

Things that make me smile No.62

Cat cafes. No seriously, look at this. In Tokyo you can actually go to a cafe, order a latte, a blueberry muffin and a kitten to cuddle. All for the bargain price of about £6. It sounds like my idea of heaven, but somehow I can't see the health and safety police being particularly supportive of a similar set up in the UK. Maybe I should just settle for a cup of Nescafe and the seven cats currently in residence in my own home.

Travel

I don't travel well. Not in the sense of getting sick (unless I get on a boat), but mentally I don't travel well. I start to worry about missing the plane about two days before I set off, and don't calm down until I'm safely at my final destination. Travelling alone is even worse, and I was utterly terrified heading off on my trip last week. Not only was I flying to Barcelona alone, late at night, trying to negotiate the bus, find my hostel, find the coach station, buy a ticket, make sure I got on the right coach etc etc, but I had to do all this with the serious handicap of being me. I speak no Spanish beyond a tentative and poorly pronounced 'Ola', I'm scared of strangers and I have the world's worst sense of direction. Honestly, I once got lost on my way to work. It was a ten minute walk that I had done five days a week for four years, and I got lost. Anyway, I made it through the whole process with remarkable and surprising ease and managed to find the coach station, much to my pride. I was rather intimidated by the idea of navigating the Spanish ticket machine but waded bravely in, and was amazed to find that I understood exactly how to book a ticket to Zaragoza. It wasn't until several pages into the ticket buying process that I realised why I understood it. It was in English.

Honey, I'm home.

Well, I'm home. Did you miss me? I actually got back on Tuesday but, while I've got my internet working at home now, my laptop has decided to have a minor nervous breakdown, so I still don't have much opportunity for updating this. I'll write a few posts today so as not to get reported to blog social services for neglect.

The Nowhere Festival was, of course, absolutely magical. I'm not sure I'm capable of writing about it without sounding absurdly gushy and saccharine, so I'm going to keep it brief. I spent a wonderful week basking in the creativity and fun, and trying not to bask in the sun. It was insanely hot out there, which made for a quieter festival than in previous years. A lot of the things that were scheduled to happen in the day had to be put off or cancelled because everyone was otherwise engaged in minimal-exertion, maximum-cold beer activities. It was still really nice to spend that quiet time in camp with friends though. Night times were as lively as ever, with dancing, cabarets, fire shows and all things nice. I came home filthy, exhausted, mosquito-bitten and a million times happier than I was when I left. I feel far better equipped to deal with the real world now that I've recharged somewhat.

Things that make me smile No.61

I popped out to the shops at lunchtime today and saw a man walking along with his flies undone. Not usually a big deal, except that this particular man didn't happen to be wearing any underwear. Eeek! It did occur to me that perhaps I ought to let him know, but I was laughing too hard.

Come on already

I cannot begin to express how much I'm looking forward to going away on Monday. The last few months have been one disaster after another, and have ground away at my optimism and enthusiasm until they are but residual nubs, huddling fearfully together in a seething mass of resentment and misanthropy. Cheerful stuff, eh? Nowhere promises me a chance to recharge everything that's good in my psyche. Much as I hate to be sappy, I'm forced to admit that it does me a lot of good to spend time in a community that's completely unconcerned with the usual business of selfishness and judgement. Roll on Monday!

Get your teeth into this one Freud

I dreamed that I had a hedgehog, which I wrapped in a ball of clay and put on a camp fire. When the clay was hardened I cracked it open and pulled it off, taking the hedgehog skin with it. Inside was a teeny tiny, perfectly formed, cooked baby.
Which I ate.