Life in Reverse

After the jail house debacle, I was feeling pretty positive about the next house viewing as, to be honest, nothing could be any worse than the half-way house. Why is my life never simple? I feel like I'm doing The 'Backwards' Plan - starting with 3 kids, moving house and paying bills, living with several guys before deciding I might possibly like one of them *no, I do not obsess about playing with his curly hair*... CAN I JUST MEET SOMEONE and start off with the basics? Like, a DATE? (And the co-habiting comes months/years later?!) But let's not complain. Just so long as I don't marry a stranger on a drunken night and then have to get to know him, such as in 'What Happens in Vegas' (although no complaining if I end up hitched to Ashton Kutcher)!

Anyway. House number 2 was a flat, A WHOLE FLAT. I felt so adult! :) We were greeted by a very yummy Tim Henman-lookalike (with a strong handshake) who showed us round the flat, starting with the larger bedroom. I was too busy ogling at the two pieces of testosterone in the room to realise what Tim-man had just said to cause a 'no... no.. erm.. we...' reaction from Newby, but after a quick rewind of the conversation through my head I corrected him by explaining we weren't together together. Nope still only in my dreams... *sighs*

We decided against the flat in the end, and it's nice that we then both individually found good house-shares nearby on the same day, so one wasn't abandoning the other. I'm pretty excited about my new house, but nothing will beat my current house! No pictures for now, but the new landlady was lovely and the rooms very cool and youthful with super-cool sinks. OH the sinks! It's still in a good area, similar distance to the gym and close to the town centre, and the kitchen is humungous. And not a jail bar in sight! 

Tomorrow faces a House Content Sale organised by my current landlady, so I'm envisioning tomorrow evening sitting cross-legged on the floor with no table, chairs or sofa and eating takeout with plastic cutlery. But that's all the fun of moving house - realising you've packed everything you still need/ sold it all off. 

Carbooty and some Jail Booty!

Today started bright and early for my carboot sale, creeping down the stairs at 6 am (yes, I managed to get out of bed this time round!) with a bundle of coat hangers and into my car. A great way to meet a very 'interesting' range of people, from polish Mafia and Christmas fanatics to feet-wielding chatterboxes and the odd granny who thought my car was for sale. ('Car BOOT Sale', NOT 'CAR SALE'!). But, by the end of a VERY long morning, 2 rain showers and being chatted up by a 60-year-old who took a fancy to my sheep skin boots, I made a total of (about) £70. No complaining, and I scored some Karma points by giving the rest of my items to Oxfam. Smiles all round! And a huge THANK YOU to Rosie - supporter, ally and enthusiast - for providing some car boot essentials (primarily a table and a clothes stand!) and willingly allowing the feeling of a non-alcoholic hangover and exhaustion to be bestowed upon her! (I FEEL LIKE DEATH AND IT'S NOT EVEN 6PM.) On the bright side, i made about £70.

 

Following on from that episode of coldness, wetness and lookalike 'tip' sales, this afternoon I went with Newby to check out house number 1 on our viewing schedule. And WHAT A JOKE it was! I think I must be beyond the past of exhaustion that I actually spent the whole time trying to stop myself from rolling on the floor in hysterics whilst crying in desperation and leaping round the house like a lunatic. Fact numero uno. It was like a half-way house, or an in-patient psychiatric unit. No, WORSE. The main room (eating room) consisted of a bucket-sized freezer (no joke), a table, and a notice board. A NOTICE BOARD. I was expecting an office with a house mistress in, or a wall of tuck lockers (oh, those are still to come!). And there was a door 'forbidden to housemates'. There's nothing quite like home sweet home then, is there?! Then through into the 'kitchen', or rather, a corridor with a mish-mash of kitchen facilities, would have been horrendous for a group bigger than ONE to cook there in one go (considering that there are seven house mates living there...), and cupboards with room numbers and LOCKS along the wall. Oh, how I miss boarding school! (Do we get evening activities and a canteen as well then?)

Nombros deux. The Lounge? BARREN. The aftermath of a crime scene. Or a very dull waiting room. Two sofas, and nothing else. Not even cushions, let alone a coffee table, rug, pictures, wall hangings, TV, music facilities, books, magazines, pictures, frames, paint, plants, corner lighting (lamps, lumieres, candles, lanterns, lava lamps, chandelier, reading light or candelabra), bean-bag floor cushions, a pole-dancing pole, a karaoke set or George Clooney standing in the corner with roses. NADA. So onwards and upwards. (Do we dare?) The rooms were bathroom size. And not the sized bathrooms from The Whitehouse. Or even Cheryl Cole's bathroom. Prison cell size. Claustrophobic. The landlord knocked on cell 3 upstairs (sorry, ROOM 3) and after a good 5 minutes appeared a dorky guy with spiky hair and glasses, who looked about 40. We bundled into his room, and all stood hunched in the door frame peaking into his cramped bedroom, which smelt oddly of weed. *More laughter inside my head. Could this get anymore hilariously worse?!* it turns out, the bathroom (the only bathroom) was bigger than even two bedrooms put together! I had to leave the house clutching my sides and trying to save all my jokes and puns for my blog instead of hurling them full-pelt at this landlord who seemed to think it acceptable to have everyone confined to their cells (ROOMS goddamnit!) and have 'Forbidden Rooms' downstairs. 

We left. We walked. We talked. I was glad to hear Newby had exactly the same thoughts on the house as I did - I would have happily put up a tent inside the Terrestrial Army shooting grounds than have signed an application form for that house. Turns out, it is actually a half-way house for some (OH MY LORD!) and so are the two houses either side. WHAT THE HELL. Walked back home with Newby close to tears with the stress of it all. I told him he had to see the funny side of this, or I'd have gone completely insane living in France with no comical output from all the chaos! i'm sure if worse came to worse, we could live in the tower by the Stratford bridge?!

A French Success!

Well, another exam down. And it went surprisingly and amazingly well! Big sigh of relief as I chuck all my AS papers and notes (two huge ring binders' worth) into the recycling bin, and already my shoulders feel a little lighter and my head a little cluttered. I really honestly don't think I could have done much better - even with more than 10 minutes of crammed revision - OMGICAN'TBELIEVEHOWUTTERLY UH-MAZING the exam was! I don't wish to rub it in to anyone who struggled. I would like to add (and maybe include a short rant about the lucky buggers) that I am most definitely NOT one of those people who can just turn up to the exam without a spot of revision and breeze through it getting top marks. And URGH those people that moan ON AND ON about how they 'did so badly, blates gonna fail AND DIE' and yep, you got it, they get top marks. *Severe eye-rolling going on right now*

But I was secretly worried I'd either get a complete mental block in the exam, which has happened frequently before, or that I'd relied too much on the fact I'd been in France and so OBVIOUSLY French fluency and perfect grammar was just going to come spilling out the moment I opened the paper and so not revised enough. Ok, not revised at all... But it was fine. Seeing Catie brought back all those Parisian powers of mine, and I understood every word in the paper! It actually made sense! No stressing, no blocks, just pen to paper and it flowwwed. :) And when I got to the essay part, OHMYLORD firstly, I actually PLANNED my essay - I was so calm and on top of it all that I P-L-ANNED it, and secondly, I WROTE THREE PAGES. This is like, a French Miracle happening right here! Three pages of French, I may add, which made total sense and I think i had a Verbs revelation there and then as suddenly I was able to include subjunctive and past and... well, all those weird endings. 

On the other hand, I will be tout à fait [absolutely] gutted if I got a bad mark... Although I did get a B on this paper last year so it's not the end of the world. However, i do have a very bad habit of getting exaclty the same mark as previous on my retakes. Seriously, not the same grade, THE EXACT SAME MARK as before. it's happened in French AND Psychology retakes, and English GCSE... Which is quite some feat really and should result in top marks just for sheer aptitude. 

Merci beaucoup and au revoir AS French! 

Confessions of a Multi-Tasking Waitress (2)

A birthday party of 31 gather around the bar, a melange of Italian and English spoken. A quick burst of thought flits into my head about the idea of going to Italy at some point for a short break, but is quickly obliterated as I'm too busy panicking about the people - the huge amount of work I'll have on my hands once they're all seated and making sure everyone's drink is topped up before Boss no.1 notices (she always notices). 

The baby on another table I'm also juggling is busy splattering ketchup everywhere and using the cheese off the cheeseboard as a play-dough substitute. I shiver at the mess around the floor, and at the macerated cheese grinding into the velvet-covered chairs. I don't do babies. Not on velvet chairs or with cheese anyhow!

Back to the party, and after a successful 3-course meal inside, they're all out in the garden for coffee and cake. Although no cake for the staff working their butts off to make this anywhere near to a success. On the subject of cake, I have the honourable job of bringing out the cake. Well, one of two cakes (two birthday's within the party), so quite naturally I 'shotgun' the Barbie Cake. Yes, the BARBIE cake. It is truly insane. No amount of description will equate to the utter amazingness of this sugar creation. So on this occasion, I will let the photo I sneaked do the talking. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words!

I follow out a colleague who has a Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake (not half as phenomenal as the Barbie Cake, and may I just add that both cakes are for people over 30!), and within moments of entering the outside breeze all candles puff out. It's my own Indiana Jones moment - holding the Holy Grail of cakes, although in my opinion nothing can quite beat Marks and Spencer's Caterpillar Cake, and wouldn't it just be so funny if under Barbie's icing dress was chocolate sponge - there'd always be one to make a joke about her cacking her pants! The next stage of The Plan is singing The Song. I have spent three years of waitressing building up the courage for the bloody birthday song. I have to admit that by now I just get on with it, no fussing. When I say 'get on with it' I mean START IT. Those first 'Haaa-py Birth-' are my solo. ALWAYS. Not because I WANT to sing it - I HATE singing, and always admit to only singing 'in the shower' - but no one else has the guts (or talent haha) to start the Happy Birthday Song. And so really it saves a lot of time and embarrassment if I just get on with it, and make the best out of those first three syllables instead of a mumbled, out-of tune and wobbly attempt which only seems to encourage surrounding people to stand and watch for entertainment and deliberately not join in. OH!, and that high note in the third line is always a cringeworthy, mortifying moment, more than when you suddenly realise halfway through that you don't actually know the name of the person you're singing to... By then you rely on the fact that the party-people have used their initiative and loyalty to their birthday-friend/relative and joined in after you started singing and you can shut-up yourself and just give a cheesy smile by the third line without any singing at all! 

Well, it's the first of my Listening/Reading/Writing French exams tomorrow, or third out of all four French retakes. I know this won't get any sympathy reaction whatsoever and more like a raised eyebrow and a 'you really should know better and have worked harder for this' speech from the people interested in seeing me NOT fail in life, but buying domestos and making pretty price tags for my next car boot sale is just SO much more interesting than revising about mobile phones, family life, and the media. Riveting! 

To top the evening off, I decided to cook Shepherd's Pie for the house. My Shepherd's Pie speciality. Newby is my Come Dine With Me bud, and suggested how totally awesome it would be to do a CDWM in the house... even though Disappearing Dave has always...well, disappeared, and Luke's always on a no-carb diet - until the next McDonalds! Anyhow, the Shepherd's pie was a hit, with Newby giving me a 7/10 score - he marked me down on the fact it wasn't three course (as in CDWM), and he had to provide his own drink (his beer)... and there was no entertainment in terms of Belly Dancing, Magicians or bongo drums. But 7/10 is still on the way to a winner! :) 

Confessions of a Multi-Tasking Waitress

You are all probably aware by now that by daytime and regularly night time I am a waitress at a local village restaurant. I say restaurant because it definitely isn't as tacky or low-standard slap-up meals as you may find in a pub, and the word 'pub' seems to suggest (or from experiences as a small 6-year old) dingy rooms full of smoke and beer bellies. Minus the smoke nowadays, some village pubs still aren't the nicest of places. Anyway, step into this restaurant and you're transported away to a beautiful French-styled restaurant, highly expensive and elegant chairs that I can only stare at with jealousy, old fashioned duck-egg shutters on the walls and delicate lace curtains in the conservatory room and exquisite grey/lilac velvet curtains in the piano room. I do love where I work, and the chic decor definitely makes up part of the reason why I've kept my job there for the last year! 

I'm certain that anyone working to serve people every day will agree that you definitely meet a highly 'interesting' range of people, not all 'good' I must add... But these people keep my shifts turning and pass the night away and the more people I get the quicker it goes. So I shouldn't complain really.

I can only roll my eyes and scream VERY LOUDLY (inside my head) at some of the antics and words our customers come out with, and yesterday was no exception. We start the shift tying on lunchtime's apron, and polishing some cutlery. Polishing cutlery must probably be the bane of most waitresses lives - I was delighted to discover upon switching from a previous pub that the waitressing staff didn't have to polish cutlery (drying and polishing every piece of cutlery that has gone through the wash), and that was down to K.P. ('Kitchen Porter', AKA pot-washer, another one of my side-line and occasional jobs!). But this evening KP wouldn't be in for another half-hour, and we were already out of knives so I got my white towel out and started the mission of polishing. (Oh, it's a mission alright!)

Back to the bar and we're busy catching up with each other's busy lives. Sorry, I mean, getting to work on the many important jobs prior to our guests and customers arriving, such as wiping sauce bottles, polishing salt and pepper shakers, checking ashtrays constantly and making sure all the cutlery laid out in the restaurant is perfectly aligned. This is where OCD habits are applauded and creates a natural eye for the high-standard of neatness and perfection that is upheld at this restaurant. So whilst standing around at the top of the bar, welcoming guests and waiting for our next bookings to arrive I find myself stuck in a conversation with someone very intent in telling the whole world every single item in her household made by Apple. Did you know, she has two iPod Nanos, 2 touchscreen iPods, they all have iPhones, mac computers.... did I mention their iPad? And oh yes, of course, their iPad2, and... you get the picture. Breathing slowly and keeping calm - it's only the beginning of a very long night. I lovingly think back to my MacBook and trusty iPod which has survived a washing machine and a very hormonal cat. I bet theirs isn't PINK. 

On with the evening. My worst nightmare, of fourteen cronies coming through the door, and into my 'section'. I spend the evening losing my voice having to practically spell out the soup of the day, and take a simple order. Upon putting the first drink down, the man-in-charge is all set to order. 'Just let me finish getting your drinks over and then we can sort out ordering!' I HAVE TWO HANDS. Later on, the man-in-charge is all set to get onto dessert whilst half his table are still eating. Does he want me fired??

And so continues the evening. Table six don't want bread but want bottle water. Still. No, sparkling. No, still. Actually sparkling. I wait oh-so-very-patiently by the table whilst all my other tables are demanding dishes, drinks and desserts as well, and I'm STILL standing at a table who can't make up their mind over WATER. Table three need steak knives before their steaks arrive, table eight are sitting with open dessert menus but I know they're too busy gassing to have even noticed they were put in front of them. The lovebirds on table two are quite happy sitting, staring borderline-obsessionally into each other's eyes, which is all very well but I need to spray and relay it for the next booking on that table who have already arrived and are waiting at the bar. Meanwhile, in other news, table one are tugging on my apron (WHO DOES THAT?????), the kitchen bell for food is ringing and table seven are waving at me for the bill, Jedward plan to make a movie about their world takeover and Lindsay Lohan begins her house arrest with roof-top sunbathing. I think by this point it would only take for an old granny from the W.I. party to patronisingly pat me on the arm, yank me down to her level and squawk 'KEEP YER HAIR ON LOVEY' for the screaming to actually start coming out from my mouth. 

By the end of the night I'm manically laying up tables, perfecting the straightness of cutlery and blowing out candles like a very excited six-year-old. Chairs are linted (see what I mean about high-standards?!), ashtrays washed and polished and the outside chairs brought in, and with that I think it's fairly safe to say we can all sign out and depart. UNTIL NEXT TIME. I sprint to my car and shamelessly speed all the way home - I DON'T CARE about low-emissions and saving fuel, I JUST WANT MY BED!

A Spot of Bother...

Everyone loves to hear about everyone else's misfortune. Fact. And the ability to turn misfortune into a good series of hilarity and clown-acts makes it even more comical as you're actually giving the 'OK' sign for people to laugh. 

So I'm going to attempt to make light of a very bad series of unfortunate events. My good karma seems to have run out - did I hoover up one too many spiders? Or pay back for all the tricks I played on my brothers in our younger years? And so misfortune has had a good go at hitting me from all angles in under a week. It started with a letter. I knew before opening it wouldn't be the best of letters...  It came after a few house viewings, structure surveyors and then weeks of silence. WEEKS OF CONTENTMENT. And then the letter. Or 'letters' - as we all received one. Living contently, the perfect household, destroyed by the blow of a letter. Intrigue all built up yet? The house has been sold. I am absolutely DEVASTATED. This is coupled with working full-time at the restaurant this week to compensate for not-one-but-two staff on holiday, and my best friend going away for the next 2 years. All I can say, the silver lining to the thunder storm, is THANK GOD it's Friday. I feel emotionally and physically drained with all this stress. Just when I've got my next and final French exams. Words or sound effects cannot describe my utter frustration and... aggravation! I feel like King Kong beating his fists at the top of the Empire State Building, batting planes from the skies. Only in my story I'd be jumping up and down on the kitchen roof, beating my fists whilst making a bonfire out of the 'sold' sign which has taken obstinate standing at the front of our drive. 

OK YOU CAN LAUGH. It's fine. I will allow you to give a splutter of disbelief and incredibility at my misfortune. Ok, let's stop laughing now. I lasted two months on the breath of good Karma and luck before crashing down like Apollo 13. I have to add it was a bloody good two months though! 

So I spent the afternoon between work shifts searching for more house-rents, bewildered and lost between crazy, lonesome cat-lady's and a house which claimed to have two 99-year old's living. After a brief consideration of pitching up a tent at the bottom of the KES football field next to the garden, or moving into Tesco's 24/7-store cleaning cupboard, The Newby returned home and suggested if we could rent a flat together. *Jump up squealing, race around the room and do a crazy dance*- sorry, I mean, 'give a small completely NON-desperate smile' - and said that yes, of course, that would be a totally amazing idea and far better than crazy-cat ladies and nursing homes, and we should definitely look into it. Maybe misfortune is there just as that pinch to prove you're not dreaming... But head up, keep strong and don't let the bastards bring you down! (That's the spirit!)

Things to do when you are positively BORED OUT OF YOUR MIND.

What to do when there's nothing to do...

1. Iron random peoples’ clothes. ‘Random’ being housemates. ‘Clothes’ being the heap of clean washing that’s been sitting in the kitchen for a week. [Occupation rating: 10-30 minutes. Add a bonus 10 minutes for holding your hand under cold water due to iron burns.] Spice up your evening when a mystified housemate enters, wondering if there really is a washing fairy in the house. Or scare the hell out of him by informing him that his mother has moved in. 

 

2. Arrange the household’s DVD collection in alphabetical order. [Occupation rating: 2 minutes for under 20 DVDs, 5 minutes for under 100.]

3. Strip and remake your bed. [Occupation rating: 10 minutes for double bedding, add an extra 5 for cushion arranging. Interest level: 2/5, or 4/5 if you bang on some house-pumping music and make your bed whilst doing Gaga-esque dance moves.]

4. Clean out the waste-paper basket, leaving only the nice and interesting newspapers in to be used for fire lighting. Put any old and crumpled papers or leaflets in the recycling bin. [Occupation rating: 2 minutes, Interest level: 1/5, or 4/5 for any OCD’ers out there who get a kick out of throwing crap out and tidying things up.]

 

Before and After

5. Tidy up the cutlery drawer. [Occupation rating: 2 minutes, Interest level: 1/5, or 3/5 if you’ve gone out and bought a pink tray to add a female-touch to a house with 3 guys.]

6. Set an all-new high score on Bop It. EXTREME. [Occupation rating: 10 minutes-10 hours, Interest level: 5/5]

Modern Day Fairy Tale

I cannot work myself up in a tizzy over this… but it seems that today’s knights in shining armour come with cough medicine and throat sweets in the place of helmets and horses. The last few weeks I’ve spent coughing up my lungs and keeping my ab muscles in very tight form (I’m expecting a six pack any day soon!) as I had the worst sore throat in a long time (I seem prone to things like tonsillitis and sore throats) which then transgressed into the worst hayfever in a long time. I even went to the doctors about it, so it must have been serious as I NEVER go to the doctors unless I am literally dying. So you can imagine my frustration when she sent me home and told me to ‘rest’. 

So back to the cutesy story… I was up one night doing some more ‘dying’, when there was a knock on my door, and when I opened it, standing before me was The Newby (newest addition to the house), with a bottle of cough syrup and throat sweets in his hands. *Sudden burst into smiles of delight* I apologised if I’d kept him up at all in the last few days (he has early morning starts), and explained it was my hayfever which had reached the point of asthmatic attacks and coughing fits (particularly in front of customers at the restaurant, where I’d be holding in my cough thereby causing my face to turn bright read and my eyes tearing up… hmm, attractive!). He immediately recoiled his hand with the cough medicine saying it wouldn’t help, and said he knew of something else that would help. I explained I used over-the-counter drugs for hayfever, such as Piriton and Benadryl, and he wrote down for me this crazy long drug name I could buy from Boots, which was Piriton in a more basic form and without the brand name so heaps cheaper. Turns out The Newby has a Masters degree in Pharmacology. Someone with brains! (And nice hair!) 

Newby has also turned into my new-time film-bud, as we discovered yesterday in the spare room half of Blockbusters. And no, I don’t mean my own vast DVD collection, I mean HALF OF BLOCKBUSTERS IN THE SPARE ROOM. It even puts my DVD collection to shame!! So we picked out a mound of films, and ended up watching ‘Youth in Revolt’ with Michael Cera, and it was really hilarious! So a good evening. :) Plus, I’m feeling much better. 

The Next Chapter of my Life: Moving On

... Or Moving In?

Apologies for lack of posts recently - this last week has been a huge blur of madness, mess and picking my life up again! But also lacking in my life is an antagonist… oh, dear Caroline, where art thou to create chaos and mayhem?

But nevertheless, it is most certainly a lot more peaceful and calming without crazed lunatics in my life other than myself! 

*BEFORE*

 Sunday - Moving In..

 

It’s hard to believe I’ve been here a week. It feels like forever, but in a good way! Last Sunday I looked round the house for the first time - amazingly even better than the photos, and then after carrying box after box up the stairs, I then decided to put up Rosie’s trampoline (she lives round the corner!) and bounce my troubles away. Yes, putting up a trampoline in the middle of moving house, ha! A week later I am just about unpacked, thanks to the help of my fantabulous bookcase to hold my own personal Blockbuster-sized DVD collection and several under-the-bed boxes for my mass of clothes despite the 3 bin bags of ‘clothes for car boot’. And my cushions fit in beautifully. :)

One of the first nights here, I was unloading more clutter from my car (I cannot believe how much clutter has propagated since I left! I SWEAR this must be proof that my belongings have minds of their own. I throw something out and they breed another 40! They’re like magnets in a room of iron filings!) Anyway, I always walk around outside in socks, which is never a good idea for many reasons, and I came back to my room realising I had something stuck to my foot, so pulled it off, and immediately had a panic attack as I realised I’d trod on some horrendously HUGE spider and I was TOUCHING it. It was IN my HAND. I threw it at the floor, leaping over my suitcases and strewn clothes to my life-saving box of tissues (always there to the rescue to clear up/swat bugs!), and then cautiously returning to peek round the bed post. And all I could think about was that my Dad wasn’t there to rescue me! Life is so tough when one is alone. I guess maybe I shouldn’t be one of those old, lonely cat-ladies as I’d be useless with live mice tearing round the house (I once woke up with a live rabbit hopping madly around my room, brought in by my cat). I can just imagine vaulting up onto a stool holding a broomstick with this mouse scuttling for it’s life around the table… So the reality of living independently: No one to save you. 

I also had another ‘foreign’ experience (I thought I was rid of all that now!) when I went to the mini Tesco’s nextdoor to buy my first pot of washing machine soap. I knew the brand - the one I’ve grown up with - but just got so confused by all these ‘liquitabs’, gels, and powders, and they didn’t have the big bottle my mother uses… It reminded me of cleaning products etc in France where I’d have to decipher the labels searching for the word ‘bacteria/bacti/bacterium’ (all Latin roots, so translation is easy!). In the end I called Dad, before settling on the Fairy Non-Bio Liquitabs. ‘Softening your world’, one sock at a time… :)

And taken this morning: