back up blog

Getting dressed in the morning is my least favourite part of the day. It shouldn’t be. I have mounds of trousers and tops and shirts and skirts and dresses from which to choose. Over the years I’ve collected pieces from Riviera markets and Parisienne boutiques, American dollar stores and East London vintage stalls. I’ve got a veritable dressing up box of outfits to choose from. Thing is, none of it is any bloody good. Although from a distance my clothes stash looks impressive, I reach for the same key six pieces in my wardrobe day after day after day. To get to these key six pieces, though, every morning I try on everything else in my wardrobe, getting increasingly frustrated that NOTHING LOOKS RIGHT! WHY DO I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR! I HATE MY LIFE! LET’S CANCEL EVERYTHING EVER! Then one morning it simply occurred to me: cut out the crap. Just like that. Get rid of it.   Without the daily ritual of eleventy thousand outfit changes, I’d cease to ruin my morning, day after day, by gett...

I’m not actually sure what my job is. Calum and I were IM-ing about it last week, and I said to him, “ I work in PR, my contract says ‘copywriter’, my business card says ‘digital content manager’, and I spend all day pitching articles to sites as a digital journalist. I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE.” Except, I totally do, because this blog from Emma Gannon explained it to me, and then I wanted to cry because I felt like somebody understood me and I might being doing my life right after all and yes my period is due. Then I had the idea that I wanted to share some of the other best things I read online every month, because so much of what I tweet and Facebook and squirrel away on my Tumblr is the catalyst for what I write about here- you know. Life epiphanies and the like.   Like, right after I read Emma’s blog I started to connect dots to other things that I must’ve already been subconsciously churning over. Like how I’ve been feeling overwhelmed at work because I put a lot of p...

‘Please let me get this,’ I said as we queued. ‘As way of apology for my tardiness.’ ‘No, no,’ he replied, by which I thought he meant he’d pay for the coffee. Then he stepped back as if to say, you go on ahead, and I was thrown that apparently I’d pay my £1.90, and he’d pay his. ‘Honestly- I’ve got it,’ I said, grumpily now. ‘Please.’ I don’t expect a man to pay on a date- I’ve got my own cash- but what I do expect is that if I offer to pay then my date is gracious about it, and ultimately if they refuse it means that they’ll pick up the check. Not for a lobster dinner, not for box seats, but for a hot water I wasn’t even going to dip my tea bag into? Come the fuck on. Also, we’re supposed to be making a good impression. The lady behind the counter popped two cardboard cups on a tray in front of us, and I waited for him to pick up the tray, all gentleman like. He didn’t. That was how I knew: no.   Maybe he was just nervous, my post-date debriefer said. You’re pretty intimidating. ...

The most decadent thing in the world is being awoken from a nap in the library to be told your poached sea bass is ready. The thing most likely to make you squeal in unbridled delight, not unlike an eight-year old in an Enid Blyton novel, is being caught on a post-dinner bike ride in a shower of rain so gentle it’s like being sent butterfly kisses from the sudden grey clouds. There’s no better feeling than free-wheeling down a country hill with mascara-streaked face and hair plastered to your neck, releasing. Releasing everything. WAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Let’s do it again! Happiness is waking up in a duvet light enough and big enough to suspend you like a cloud; long, lazy breakfasts of poached eggs and spelt bread and just-one-more-nibble of the homemade flapjack- you know, to straighten the edges. It’s being welcomed into somebody else’s home, arriving as a stranger who “We’ve all heard so much about! It’s so wonderful to finally meet you!” and staying up past normal bedtime swapping storie...

So what if I have several guy friends who are single, and looking, and for whatever reason we’re not doing the deed. Y’know- I’ve known ‘em too long or I once shagged their mate or the one time we did make out it was just too weird. Imagine that. Imagine also, then, that once upon a time I had five strangers over to my house for dinner , all of who were girls, and kick-ass, and some of whom are looking for love. Those two groups of people should meet each other, right? Further theorise that if I know incredible, engaging, handsome, single men, then perhaps those other laydeez might too. And that if we were bonkers enough to meet as strangers and become friends, then maybe- just maybe- the men in our lives would be up for it as well. Okay, enough with the theory then, because I’m totally putting this into practice.   ‘WHO HAS A SINGLE FRIEND FOR ME?’ I bellowed obnoxiously as we settled down for an aqua frizzante ( me ) and 2-4-1 cocktails (them) in a Brick Lane dive. ‘Who has a f...

London and I have a love/hate relationship . Mainly it’s to do with the transport- not even in the most frustrating place I’ve ever lived, Rome - land of all that is e così va- do the buses decide to alter final stop seemingly at whim. Last week it was announced “The destination of this bus has changed” twice, and I ended up in Holburn instead of Oxford Street. Once, the bus decided to simply cease travelling any further into town at all. There are no words that make a group of strangers groan in united commuter frustration louder than “This bus terminates here.” DEAR LONDON BUSES: I’M CALLING SHENNANIGANS. On the other hand, though, this city just has so. much. stuff to do, that it’s easy to forgive any minor inconveniences. It’s truly incredible how, for example, a quiet Monday night can see an invitation land in my inbox to “pop in”, nobigdeal, to a networking event hosted by the European Marketing Manager of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. It’s cute how one time I lived in Derby and...

‘’Scuse me, darling,’ he said, ‘I know you’s gonna think I’m a crazy- but wow, your hair!’ I turned to see a slight European man with olive skin, a lop-sided smile, and stubble like a pro headed towards me. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean a interrupt,’ he continued. ‘I’m a hairdresser for a Toni & Guy and I need model for my exam,’ he said. ‘You wanna a haircut? You wanna let me cut your hair?’ Now, guys. You know me. I’m all universe and destiny and free is better, and it was already weird that I’d just bumped into an old friend on Oxford Street. I’m still new enough to town that I don’t simply see people I adore as I’m walking to the bus stop, and London is far too big for coincidence. I’d obviously been slowed down for a reason because: science. I’d been running late. I normally go to a different stop but I was headed to a networking event (LOLZ) and so’d taken a slightly varied route. I looked up as I was zip-zagging around dawdling tourists to lock eyes with a fella who smiled, as if...