ZOOMING INTO DEBT

Just found out today that the airline I was flying into Canada for my friend's wedding in 2 weeks time has gone bust. Bloody Zoom Airways! I found out about it because I have a mate who was supposed to be flying back to the UK from Canada on Zoom. He was advised after sitting on the tarmac for almost an hour that the plane was not allowed to depart. This friend was supposed to arrive back to London with days to spare before we fly to Croatia to go sailing, and instead finds himself stranded in Calgary. His girlfriend has just spent six hours on the phone and internet rescheduling his flights which will allow him to arrive in Dubrovnik only one day late.

Bloody Zoom Airways! Grrrr!

PUNTING IN CAMBRIDGE

I've really been going all-out with the iconic British experiences lately, haven't I? The most recent was punting in Cambridge.

This last bank holiday weekend a group of eight of us headed north to Cambridge to celebrate my flatmate's birthday. The majority of the group drove up there on Sunday, and I was one of three who caught the train Monday morning. I was glad I missed out on Sunday's adventure. When we arrived in time for a lazy brunch on Monday we were greeted by the sight of one of the worst collective hangovers I've ever witnessed (from the outside at least). Baggy eyes, drawn faces, one girl couldn't even face breakfast and was sleeping (and allegedly throwing up) in the park down the road.

It was a beautiful day though, and as the whole point of travelling to Cambridge was to get on the river they managed to pull themselves together and off we went...to buy beer and wine to help us punt. Half of us decided to hire our own punt, while the others decided to be big, scaredy, girly-pantses and join a boat with a professional punter. So while they were gliding smoothly down the river Cam, learning a little local history about Kings College or Trinity College, we spent an hour lurching from one side of the river to the other, bashing into any boats that got into our way, and generally looking quite the opposite of sophisticated.

I can proudly say that we didn't technically hit the side of the canal/river once, due entirely to the fact that the person sitting in the front of the punt - designated the 'paddle-girl' regardless of gender - was charged with leaning forward and pushing off from the wall before the boat hit it. We also didn't lose the pole, despite a few close calls which nearly saw the punter tumbling in the water.

We ended the day by ambling around the town centre, visiting a street market, and having a relaxing lunch and quiet beverage for those who had recovered enough to partake in the amber ale. All in all a lovely, sunny day spent in good company. Happy birthday, J xx

WIMBLEDON & THE PROMS

I remembered some more things I did during my 3-month blog blackout:

Wimbledon
Eating strawberries and cream at Wimbledon is, for some reason I haven't bothered to research, a quintessential London experience. Despite knowing pretty much nothing about tennis, I decided it would be worth checking out. I left work a little early on the 23rd of June (Day One) and caught a Tube to Southfields where I met up with a friend before following the throng of people to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

It seemed to me that queueing to get into Wimbledon is just as much a tradition as the tennis. Every queuer was given a brochure on queueing etiquette as well as a sticker that said "I Queued For Wimbledon 2008", which made me think there must be people whose whole experience of Wimbeldon is the queue. The line moved quickly, however, and after about 45 minutes we walked through the turnstiles and into the ground. The atmosphere was fantastic. People were milling around, eating, drinking and being merry. The sound of cheering and clapping drew us to Court Three where we watched Mario Ancic (hot Croatian) beat Michael Llodra (left-handed French dude).

Things got even better once we acquired free tickets to Centre Court. A friend who was meeting us inside had accidentally lined up in the taxi queue instead of the ticket queue and was rewarded with free tickets from the amused Australians in front of her. We went in and watched the women's singles: first Bartoli beating Lisicki then Radwanska beating Benesova. Even though I'm not a huge tennis fan, the enormity of sitting on Centre Court during Wimbledon still had me giggling like a girl - it was seriously cool.

It was an awesome evening, so good in fact that when two of my work colleagues said they were skipping out of work early on Thursday to go to Wimbledon I decided to join them. The Day Four queue was a whole different experience. Four days of sunny London weather had brought the crowd out in droves. The queue that had stretched about 50 metres back from the gate on Monday now snaked all the way around the car park and back into a field. It was so long that the crowd marshalls had us form 3 additional lines to the left of the main queue at the end: essentially queues to get into the queue. As you can imagine, this was not a 45 minute wait. Two (strangely not entirely unpleasant) hours later we finally entered the ground.

I wasn't optimistic about topping the amazing experience of free Centre Court tickets from Monday, but I think I actually pulled it off. Due to the fortuitous timing of a toilet break, we were directly outside Court 7 just after it was announced that Venus and Serena's doubles game had been moved to that court. We were able to get some really good seats and watched the Williams sisters beat Radwanska (who I had watched on Centre Court on Monday) and Domachawska after a valiant attempt by the Polish girls in the second set.

All-in-all it was a great experience and I'll definitely be going back next year.


The Proms
"Promming" is another essential English experience. It involves (not surprisingly) queueing outside Albert Hall to buy five quid standing-room tickets to one of the concerts. The Proms are eight weeks of (primarily) classical music concerts each summer that attract a wide range of people and not just the usual classical music crowd. Some friends were visiting from the north of England so we went along to Prom 5 on 20th of July. We saw Bella Hardy sing, Martin Simpson play guitar, and a band called Bellowhead rock my world. They're an 11-piece band that plays traditional music in a contemporary, funky style. When they walked on stage I was expecting a jazzy/Cat Empire-type experience but their sound was much deeper and there were some great theatrics from the singer. There was moshing involved, and not just by me. If you're ever around when they're touring you should seriously watch them play. Dates here.

TWISTED TIME LORD TALES

I just read that David Tennant (Doctor Who) is dating actress Georgia Moffett. I love it. Moffett played the Doctor's daughter in the sixth episode of the most recent series and is the real life daughter of former Doctor Peter Davison. So this means the 10th regeneration of the Doctor is dating his on-screen daughter, whose real-life father is the 5th regeneration of the Doctor and is therefore a younger version of himself.

Twisted tales indeed...

(Goddamn I'm a geek)

FRANKIE IS MOONLIGHTING

It seems Frankie (my faithful weblog confidente) has starting moonlighting as a government-sponsored drugs advice website. Cheeky beggar. If you're interested in drugs you can check out his alter-ego here www.talktofrank.com :)

STILL ALIVE

I can't believe it's been over 3 months since I last posted. My excuse is that I moved house in May and we only had the internet connected earlier this week. So much for my (unpublished) resolution to post one blog per week. Still, keeping a new years' resolution until April is pretty darn impressive if I do say so myself.

So what have I been up to since April? I have no idea. That's why I'm supposed to be writing this damn blog! I imagine my memory as being this massive dark attic, stuffed full of useless treasures from days gone by (the lyrics to Ice Ice baby, the technical name of that pump that doctors use to test blood pressure, the words and tune of a Japanese children's song about frogs). The memory attic is so crowded with rubbish that there is hardly any room to store any new, interesting pieces that I collect. So some things I throw in there get wedged down behind the other junk, out of sight, but can be found later on with a bit of fumbling around. Other things, however, don't fit at all and are lost forever. It's like I fling my experiences into the memory attic but they just skim over the top of the storage piles and fly out the window, never to be seen again.

Here's a quick overview of some of things I can still see peeking out from behind my memory of the time I nose-dived into the netball court in front of all the boys in high school and landed with my skirt over my head (wish I could toss that memory out the attic window):

Moved house
I moved from the stroller-strewn streets of SW11 north to the tree-lined avenues of West Hampstead. Most importantly, I'm no longer living in a room the size of a kitchen pantry.

Note to internet stalkers - the attached photo isn't of my new (or old) house, it's from a cute town in Norfolk. So there.

Visited York
York is a beautiful, lovely, quaint city. I dragged a London buddy up with me to visit a friend of mine and we had a fantastic weekend. I've always loved walled cities. I love walking around the cobbled streets and imagining I can hear the footfalls of people taking those same steps hundreds of years ago. Highly recommend you visit.

Cruised to Dover
One of my flatmates has the pleasure of working for a boss who is so rich he doesn't think twice about offering her his red Audi convertible any weekend he's out of town. We took full advantage of his generosity and went on a day trip to some places that I can't remember but were near Dover. There were castles and forts involved, and at one stage I could look over the channel and see France. Curse my overstuffed memory attic.

Visited Manchester
I also had a really good time visiting a Vina-friend in Manchester. I was a bit spoiled as my friend introduced me to some really cool people, and took me to funky bars, quirky cafes and other places I would never have found on my own. I'd definitely like to go back for another peek. Unfortunately I'll have to do the touristy thing next time as my friend has since moved to Birmingham. I could go visit her there instead, but as I was more than a little disturbed by the dress and customs of the local Mancunians, I'm not sure if I'm ready to face a city full of Brummies just yet.

Cruised to Norfolk
Last Sunday was another red convertible day, so we hit the highway and went to Norfolk. There was less climbing over, around and through English Heritage properties than the other road trip (one of my flatmates is recovering from a broken ankle) but lots of top-down cruising beneath shady green canopies and under a clear(ish) blue(ish) sky. Bring it on!

I've no doubt there has been another 40 things happen that I could have written about here, but they're just out of my reach at the moment. I solemnly promise to try very hard to write more regularly from now on. And if I don't, you can assume I've just lost the key to the attic.