The Letter

The ex is SUCH a curtain-twitcher.

(So cute)

You know the type -

Auntie-uncle types who sit behind curtained windows, watching the street,

“Look at that girl,

Haan haan, new boyfriend.

She will fail exams.

I should do my duty and tell you madam

that your child is a shameless.

I saw her wearing short skirt

and talking to boys.”

Largely the ex does this via Facebook, (although the ex also occasionally does this literally, when feeling particularly suspicious of a parked car behind the flat) taking note of the people (largely old school friends) who have on weight.

I like virtual curtain twitching, taking note of:

1. People with unpleasant looking babies. (Especially ones with odd-shaped heads.)
2. Attractive women with podhu husbands. (Usually Indian women. There must be something in the water.)
3. Indian men who seem to get married and promptly grow a paunch and lose their hair. Maybe it’s a sympathetic pregnancy.

The ex received this letter in the post a week ago.

I think I died a little.

In a good way.

The Letter

The Letter Detail

“Dear <The Ex>

Re: <Flat Name>

Thank you for your email of 10 April 2013.

Our contractor has now had an opportunity to inspect the building and look for the missing brick in the boundary wall.

Unfortunately he could not find a missing brick, however, he did find a hole. He took a photo of the hole and I would ask you whether this is the hole that you are referring to.

If so, this is not a missing brick but an outlet in case the gully overflows. It has been there for years, which is why I need you to confirm if we are talking about the same hole.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind Regards.

Yours sincerely,
Liz”

The Evidence

Ideally and perhaps more poetically, this letter should have been posted wrapped around a brick.

This made me lolz for ages, not just because of this response, but also thinking about the ex sending the first letter about a missing brick to begin with.

Here are the various letters & complaints I have sent in the past. They are equally silly.

Consolidated Report of Various Non-Events

I find myself writing less and less these days.

Not because the days at work or home have grown more dreary but because I feel spread a little thin, like someone being stingy with the butter on my toast.

I don’t think I can manage both drawing and blogging.

That being said I have now accumulated a decent backlog of fascinating non-events to report

1. I lost a piece of chocolate fudge cake the other day at work.
I bought it for lunch.
Then I ate lunch.
Then I went back upstairs.
Much later I realised I had left the cake downstairs.
I went downstairs to check. It was gone.
I was devastated.
There is no pain greater than losing a piece of moist cake.
That is also the only acceptable use of the word ‘moist’ in a sentence.

2. A client bought in a red velvet and buttercream icing cake.
It was a goliath of a cake.
A huge red velvet monster with an inch of buttercream top and middle.
I ate just one slice of this cake and was plunged into a sated, bloated cake depression, butter cream oozing through my pores.
The whole office developed a strange lack luster lethargy after eating this cake.
I started calling it the cake of depression.
Except Lottie, who had a fairly rock hard pice nearly a week later without particularly bad effects.

Side note
It may seem like there is a lot of cake in our office but I just tend to remember events that involve cake far more clearly than any other events.

Cake of Depression

3. I have a lot of spam to report.
The most recent one, which I particularly enjoyed, was an email,
converted into a jpg,
and then that jpg was emailed to me.
The subject title was “THANK YOU!!”
I like this man’s style.

4. Giant Eggs

I’ve been trying really hard to get Emma (Leo’s girlfriend) to cultivate hens that lay giant eggs because of an article I read in the Metro. (A worthy supplement if there ever was one)

I can’t even begin to tell you how much effort I’ve put into emailing her various words of encouragement with no success.

Apparently all you need you just need to feed them lots of broccoli but Emma is worried laying a giant egg will hurt them.

Emma has no scientific curiosity.

But I havent yet despaired. I’m going to try to convince her to invite us down to Cambridge and try feeding Honey, Sugar & Treacle (the hens) broccoli myself surreptitiously.

5. Monty has been sending me emails.
Then sends me texts to check if I’ve received the emails.
On principle I ignore those texts.
When did Monty turn into my great-aunt?
That’s what she does, but then she only just found out about the internet at 70+ something

6a. Regular Lunch

I briefly, sporadically made a huge effort of social skills and went out for lunch with the guys at work for nearly a week.
Shortly afterwards this burst of social energy died as suddenly as it began.
The guys at work eat far too early.
I like my work day split up neatly into 2 relatively equal chunks.

6b. Birthday Lunch

Yesterday the chaps at work all said

“Hey! Where do you want to go for your birthday lunch!?”

I was enthused! Yay! Birthday lunch.

“Yes! Can we go to Pizza East??”

They have the thinnest, yummiest pizzas I’ve ever . Their Margherita is particularly good.

JO & AL, who have lunch notoriously early said they couldn’t even wait until 1:30 pm.

We were in the middle of negotiating them down to a more reasonable time of 1:00 pm when Adam, killed the scheme and said we all had to go at 12:30 for some work related reason.

There is no way in hell I’m having lunch that early in the day. It leaves you with 5 hours of work without a break. The afternoon stretches out interminably.

So I didn’t attend what was presumably my own birthday lunch.

Mark later sent me an email with a photo of them all eating at Pizza East.

I sent him an email back rejecting his photo.

I refuse to acknowledge a birthday lunch for MY birthday when:

1. I’m not present
2. It’s practically breakfast.

They got me back a piece of cake though and a helium balloon. Which was so nice of them.

This post features a heck of a lot of cake.

Now for some photos for flowers I took a couple of days ago in the Canal park, which is exactly where I’m off to today. Its going to be a sunny day! Yay!

Dull stuff but its MY birthday and it’s MY blog.

SO SCREW YOU, REJECTED EARLY BIRTHDAY LUNCH!!

I don’t think anyone uses telephone boxes except sex workers and Trannies anymore.

Green Shoot close up. Very delicate. I looked like an idiot taking these photos.

Green Shoots. I like the way these were scattered.

Kind of cloud like tree

White flowers closeup.

Daffodil Closeup. Riddhi says flowers are phallic and make her horny

Park Shadows. I wish I had a buddy nearby to chill with in the park.

Red Hellebore. Actually I have no idea what this is.

This is a particularly pretty tree. It has no leaves. Just the flowers

Apple Blossoms? I don’t know what these are either.

I’m very fond of this telephone box.

Apple Blossoms Closeup. Well…I assume it’s apple

Yellow Flower Buds

Pink Tree Barbed Wire. See its a metaphor about blah de bloo de yawn

The Strollers Brigade. Angel is full of ‘em.

The King

Grafitti Man Outline. Someone defaced him recently. Sad face.

The Breakfast CLub always has good signs and a long queue.

Milky Way Window

Rock Garden Sunny

I like the shadows in the rock garden

A contrast. You know…

Misc photos so I feel like I’ve posted something

I’ve actually got 4-5 written and saved drafts but I keep posting from work just before my lunch break, so the most I can do is upload photos.

So spring has sprung and now begins a whole series of totally mediocre flower photos.

But don’t worry. I’m going to work up to it, slowly.

For now, just one.

Westbourne Bridge at twilight

Double rainbow, a sure sign that Spring is coming

Purdy Purdy

The best cat. Did I post this already? I can’t remember

Work meme

Columbia Road Market Photos

2012_08_12 Columbia Rd Market

Pink flower closeup

Ceramics

Sunflower dude

Purple

French Lavender – Oo La La

Lady Seller

Alpines

Nettleish thing

Very Mary Poppins

Herb Girl

Crowds

Wee Trappy

Multicoloured Cacti

Columbia Rd Mural

Columbia Rd Mural

Olympic Graffiti near Essex Road

Assorted Photos In No Particular Order or Theme

A mixed bag of photos that I haven’t really sorted out in any coherent theme or scheme.

Because I’m lazy, and I’m procrastinating.

But mostly because I’m lazy.

I’ll theme the next, next lot.

That’s the lot after the next assorted lot.

These are photos from June 2012 – September 2012

Also why the hell haven’t I been using the gallery before?

I like the little circles.

Click to view large.

Arthur, one of the smelliest dogs in the Office

A sunny street near work

Westbourne bridge

Red Shoes (alas, long gone) and broken glass

A dog ball

Banksy with school children. Lower right corner is blank. So new rat is defo new.

Brandy at Kings X

A pint for Leo at Kings X

A stabbing near Pizza East

Covent Garden Market

Phone Box Art

My work computer with to-dos and notes

Igloo Flowers at Angel

New Banksy Rat At Portobello

A new little Banksy rat has sprung up on Portobello.

I’m almost sure that it’s recent and I could easily check, since I have a photo of this wall, that I had taken a few months ago, but I’m just too fucking lazy to be bothered.

Let’s just assume it’s a new Banksy rat.

The dollar sign eyes and the little saw it’s holding seems to be a cheeky reference to the recent debacle over the Banksy that was ripped out of a wall and was found on sale in LA.

It is totally possible that it could be a fake. (Banksy is easy to fake I should imagine.)

What do you think?

Portobello Banksy Rat. I’m fairly sure this is new.

After Snow Comes Fog

Snow photos finally tapering away.

We had to cling-filmed the living room windows to keep in the heat.

There was a point where I was wearing microwaveable house slippers for hours.

Footprints criss crossing

Sun on the snow

Mosque in the Fog

Moss Islands

Moss Islands

Moss Spur

Lone biker on bridge

People Walking Under Bridge

Acklam Road Strip

Sun walker at the skatepark

Wet pavement in gold

Portobello snow day

Portobello Gold

When It Stops Snowing I’ll Stop Posting Snow Photos

On the way to work today, they stopped the tube and changed the route midway.

We all got off the tube when we heard the muffled, barely audible, intercom message.

(As a general rule, always get off the tube even if you can’t hear the message.)

An older, slightly deaf lady had paused near the tube doorway, hesitating.

She asked me what the message said and I told her the train was going to Victoria.

She couldn’t hear me, and stepped forward a bit more.

I repeated,

“This tube isn’t going to Hammersmith anymore. It’s going to Victoria now”

Simultaneously, I was also vaguely waving my arms at her, to induce her to step forward and get off the carriage.

She still couldn’t understand and stepped forward a bit more, craning her neck to hear me.

Just at that moment, the tube doors closed, leaving her head firmly wedged in-between the doors.

A man near by leaped to help me prise the door open off the poor lady’s neck. (Which is hard!)

He comforted the stunned lady, saying the same thing happened to him too.

Who knew head-in-tube-door-wedges happened so often?

Bag – yes, Coat – yes, Arm – yes,

Head?

Trees on Triangle Hill

Top of Triangle Hill

Snowy bench

Fir leaf

Rock Garden

Birds around a lamppost. lampposts and snow always remind me of Narnia.

Another snow photographer

Yellow Willows

Branches near a wall

Fluffy Seed

lamppost by a white road

Grey Sky and Pigeons

Cold Duck

Canal Park

Canal Park Bench

Red Telephone Box

Snowy Day In London

At last!

I’m timely.

These photos are from London today.

It snowed all day, with huge fluffy flakes hurling down.

I wish Westbourne Park was prettier. Even a liberal dusting of snow hardly helped.

The buildings have this depressing-1950′s-council-estate quality. That yellow-brown stone, the grim concrete and metal.

I couldn’t feel my fingers after a while when I was taking these, and the ones on my right hand turned a livid pink.

I almost thought I had frostbite. I’ve turned into such a hypochondriac

Snow Bridge

Blizzard from the Window

Snowflakes on leaf

Snow on leaf

Snow under bridge

Snow on Brown Plant

Snow on Brown Plant

Snowy Street

My frozen feet

Rip China. Not sure why.

Snowy Park Trees

Snow Trees

Bushes

Spiky Trees

Spiky Trees

Church in the snow

Car Heart

Mask Painting

This year I spent my Christmas in London, snug and lazy like a curled bug, barely leaving the flat for about 10 days.

It was great. I’m so sad it’s over now.

The Ex and I were invited to one New Years Eve party with a masquerade theme.

(This is only the 3rd NYE I’ve spent in London. The last party was in a house that was “smoke free”. I’ll say no more.

It really annoys me when people who are smokers (as was the owner of this house who has come to our house and smoked inside), who then throws a party in the middle of winter and insists that everyone goes outside into the snow and rain to smoke. What the fuck? You suck and your party sucks, please never invite me again. So there. Huff!

In any case, I neglected to tell the Ex there was a theme to this years NYE party much to the Ex’s annoyance.

I wasn’t planning to bother getting a mask, being deep in the throes of my sloth, but the ex insisted.

So dragging ourselves up and finally changing out of PJ’s, we tripped off to Cass Art, purchased some cardboard masks, paint (like I really needed any), glitter and some sparkly beads and set to work like little enthu cutlets.

It was nearly a whole day of arts and drafts. The Ex, not usually a fan of either, really went for it. We even bought better elastic and ribbon.

We had a small spat in the art shop because my GENIUS suggestions for the Ex’s mask (Purple glitter paint or white glitter paint and lots of beads + feathers) were rejected and the Ex went to ask one of the shop girls for advice and ended up buying a single tube of silver paint that cost £8.00. 8!!!!!! Tiny tube!

The Ex thinks the higher the price the better the product.

Admittedly the paint was a lovely metallic silver.

But come on.

8 pounds on paint for a one-time-wear mask for a party? Seriously.

So only 6 hours after we decided on our brilliant plan of action for the party did we finally finish our masks.

The Ex grew mildly competitive half way through. (To see who would have the better mask)

It was rather good fun. Here are some crafty photos of the mess.

Mask painting begins

Look at all that mess. Took ages for the glitter to dry

Eventually had to blow dry the paint. That did it.

Mask Finished

My mask (The Queen) & The Ex’s mask (Gay Pope?)