Tube update: Shoreditch High Street, Bank and St. Paul’s

This weekend, Hannah is staying with us and it’s great because I haven’t seen her for two months, which is too long! We’ve had an epic day out, which started with a haircut from my stylist Reza, who has moved to Base Cuts on Portobello Road (typically, he moves to Portobello Road just as I move away from it to a new job). This time, I took inspiration from Andrew Rannells, who plays “me in 5 years’ time” on The New Normal. Needless to say, Toby and I are fans.

After my haircut, Hannah and I walked over to Westfield in Shepherd’s Bush, and had a brief shopping trip before meeting Toby at Caffe Nero and getting the tube over to Brick Lane, as Hannah wanted to see what the fuss was all about. After dodging in and out of hordes of hipsters lurking by faux-vintage clothes shops trying hard to look aggressively edgy, we noted some intriguing cafés, a row of cute boutiques along Shoreditch High Street, and eventually the station too:

We had actually done a lot of walking by this point, so we decided to visit a couple of London’s landmarks that surprisingly, I hadn’t seen up close until today. The Gherkin for one:

 

The Bank of England, which is apparently where the station Bank takes its name from:

 

and St. Paul’s Cathedral, which looked surprisingly beautiful through the wintry trees, and is situated near a decent shopping centre!

 

 

We finally made our way back home to Kew Bridge (via the Waterloo and City line, which I have never used before and may never use again, but I am glad I got to experience this shuttle train at least once!) to chill in front of the television. The Girl Who Played With Fire is coming up on dvd tonight! Although it was challenging to get myself up at 8am this morning, it was worth it as it’s only just gone 6pm and we’ve accomplished so much with the day! I think at some point I would like to revisit Columbia Road (Toby and I visited the flower market there a couple of years ago on a photowalk), explore Hoxton, and gain a little more insight into the trendy parts of East London and what makes them appealing.

2012, here we come!

The time has rolled around, once again, for my two standard end of year / new year posts. The first one is my own personal review of 2011, evaluating how I did with my aims for the year, and looking forward to 2012 and what I hope to achieve within the next 12 months. So, to recap, my aims for 2011 were:

1. Buy a car.
Tick! I not only bought a car, but I crashed it and then sold it 6 months later!  Driving was a major achievement for me, as it was 6 years in the making, and represented a triumph over my nerves and my previous failure (I have been a lucky person who generally didn’t have to deal with failure too much in life, up until I started learning to drive). But I also learned the hard way that it’s a big responsibility, that it comes with a whole trapping of expenses, and that while being able to drive is an asset and a liberation, living in London and not having to drive anywhere is also a blessing. When the public transport system is good, life is good. (Let me tell you, having gone home to Bristol for 6 days over the Christmas period, I immediately starting missing my car and how easy it made travelling from place to place. Bristol, step your public transport game up please!)

2. Get a job in London.

Tick! Although I miss the warmth and camaraderie of my colleagues in Cirencester (I yo-yoed about how much I enjoyed the job, but I became much happier and carefree once a certain colleague left), my new job in Notting Hill is a whole new challenge – I’m always busy, I’m never bored, and I am learning many new things. Plus, I am earning more!

3. Move to London.

Tick! As you know, I am now living in my own little studio flat in Earl’s Court, which is pricey but very conveniently located for transport (bus stop and tube station outside my front door), and also only a 15 minute walk from Toby’s place.

4. Stay with Toby and make sure that our relationship grows even stronger!

Tick! I love my baby and I realised early on in 2011 that the 100+ miles gap between the two of us wasn’t going to be feasible. We missed each other all the time, and although I may have ended up in London anyway (I’m a city boy at heart), he was the driving force between the transformation in my life and career that has occurred this year.

5. Buy a new microphone and record a new album.

Nope. The microphone never happened. I have recorded some new material (and written even more), but I am hoping that the album will be complete next year.

6. Pay off my credit card and student overdraft.

Sort of. I am debt-free, apart from my student overdraft and my student loan. My car ended up being a big drain on my finances, and moving to London required every penny I had. Plus, I did have a wonderful holiday to Seville with Toby in July, which I wouldn’t have traded for anything but did further delay me paying off my student overdraft. But with my first couple of pay checks, I paid my parents and Nonna back for the money they lent me to settle myself in London, I paid off my credit card, and sorted myself out financially. The student overdraft is my primary financial focus for 2012.

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So I guess 4.5 out of 6 is not bad at all! I seem to have more success when I write my yearly aims down, so here goes for 2012:

1. Learn to cook a new dish every month.

Toby is a fantastic cook, but I want to learn to make healthy, interesting meals so that I can return the favour from time to time, and enrich my own skill-set and repertoire. Tonight, Toby’s housemates Michael and Naomi have made some very yummy sushi, so that is one thing I shall aim to make; I also enjoyed watching the British Bake-Off and am tempted by the idea of whipping up my own lemon tart!

2. Cut down on takeaways – to once a fortnight.

I’m not quite as svelte as I was this time last year. I have got into the habit of having desserts, of snacking unnecessarily from time to time, and from cooking quite simple dishes (similar to how I was at university). This is all fine, but I am going to moderate myself a bit and cut down on takeaways from Dominos, Pizza Hut and Jasmine Garden.

3. Move in with Toby.

I would like the two of us to move in together; it feels like the logical next step for our relationship, but we both need to be at ease with it and it also needs to be an affordable and convenient location. Moving in will happen when it happens, but I’m just putting this wish out there in the universe and perhaps in 12 months’ time, I will be able to tick this one off the list! 🙂

4. Pay off my student overdraft.

See above. This year I have really improved at budgeting and restraining myself from impulsive / extravagant purchases; therefore, I am determined to pay off at least £200 a month. So even if I don’t pay the whole thing off by the end of the year, I will have made a sizeable dent in it! Fingers crossed!

5. Learn Italian

Ok, let’s get this done once and for all. I am half-Italian, therefore it will not only be easy (especially having studied French and Spanish) to learn Italian, but it will be culturally enriching and give me a new understanding of my own heritage. Work have offered to pay for / subsidise an Italian course for me, but my initial plan of attack will be to buy an Italian novel, an Italian dictionary (and possibly an Italian grammar book), and keep a pen and paper by me as I read – and just have at it.

6. Learn to sew

Because I feel somewhat babyish whenever I have holes or rips in my clothes, and I have to take them to Toby’s to fix. I presume that sewing is a relatively simple skill, and therefore I should learn to do it and allow myself to be self-sufficient when it comes to repairing my belongings.

7. Finish my new album

This year will be the year! I am over halfway. Keep your eyes and ears peeled!

8. Go completely digital with my music and film collections, and only keep physical copies of what I really love

Having moved to London, I was unable to carry all of my DVDs and CDs with me. I would need a truck. Obviously, I have my computer, my iPod, and I was able to take quite a few of my DVDs here; but I have realised that I don’t really need most of the physical copies that I own. So I will sell them, give them away, and go digital. I will open myself up to buying things on iTunes much more (believe it or not, B.Slade’s album Diesel that I bought a couple of months ago was the very first album I bought on iTunes!), and perhaps I might need an extra external hard drive. But I am willing to embrace the digital age (only a few years late!), and also make it much easier for myself to move flats and houses as I go.

Wish me luck, and have a Happy New Year! x

Christmas list.

Since my birthday list was so popular and appreciated, here is a list for a few of the things that I would like for Christmas. Enjoy, and if you’re planning on spoiling me, thankyou in advance and I hope that you find this helpful!

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Rihanna – Loud (Deluxe edition with DVD) – ***NANA GOT THIS FOR ME 😀 ***

Rihanna’s new album Loud was a disappointment to me, particularly compared to the excellent Good Girl Gone Bad and the stellar Rated R. However, although I haven’t bought it myself, I like enough of the songs to still want the CD, and I would appreciate it were someone to purchase it for me. The version with DVD would be particularly cool. 😉

Rihanna – Rated R Remixed

I would love this CD, as I can’t find it anywhere! The dance remixes all blend seamlessly, and every song is excellent and the dark lyrics and thematics of the songs work perfectly atop the crunchy hard beats. 🙂

Jay-Z – Greatest Hits (Deluxe edition)

P!nk – Greatest Hits (Deluxe edition with DVD)

P!nk is a fantastic artist who has amassed a scary amount of hit singles!  I want the deluxe package because although I have nearly all of the songs, it comes with a DVD which has all her videos on it, which would be particularly cool. 🙂

Snowball Microphone

Because of having to spend money on lovely but expensive new things (iPhone, new Macbook) to replace old possessions that broke, my aim to get a new microphone never happened, and so my recording of new material has had to wait! This would remedy the situation, and I could then get going on stuff for a new album! 😀

Lady Gaga Heartbeats headphones (red, to match my Ronaldo trainers 😉 ) – *** TOBY GOT THESE FOR ME 😀 ***

I think that Toby is buying me these – I wanted the red ones to match my trainers, and I thought it was about time I upgrade my audio experience, especially as these have recently been reduced to a semi-acceptable price. Plus, I have been feeling that I would like to add more splashes of red to my wardrobe, and these would be a perfect way to do that.

Stanley Kubrick Collection

I would love to possess Kubrick’s films, as his vision as a film-maker is profound and he tells stories so vividly and inimitably. Eyes Wide Shut is sexy, intriguing and eerie, while The Shining is chilling and an adept retelling of Stephen King’s novel, despite it veering away considerably from the book. A Clockwork Orange has a weird atmosphere that puts me on edge, Full Metal Jacket fascinated me in the 15 minutes that I saw, and I’ve always wanted to experience A Space Odyssey. I would see possessing this collection as furthering my cinematic education.

Shakira calendar

I only deal in official calendars, as the photography on unofficial ones is just shoddy and appalling. Despite the fact that this Shakira calendar boasts pictures that are a year old (from her She Wolf album photoshoot), she still looks smokin’ hot! And after two years, Ronaldo needs a rest. 😉 This is the best 2011 calendar that I have seen.

Shakira – Sale el Sol – ***NANA GOT THIS FOR ME 😀 ***

Talking of Shakira, her new Spanish album is stellar, but I haven’t gotten round to picking it up. So if someone wants to pick it up for me, they’d be more than welcome! 🙂

Trey Songz – Passion Pain and Pleasure

Disney DVDs

All the classic 2D animations!!! I have Bambi on DVD already (naturally!), but I would be thrilled to have Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers, Lady and the Tramp, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Mulan… reliving my childhood and providing escapism whenever I need!

Dior Homme Deodorant Stick – *** I HAVE BOUGHT THIS NOW – couldn’t wait! ***

Dior Homme is probably my overall favourite fragrance. I have recently, finally decided to remove Lynx from my life, and so I have been using a deodorant stick of Jennifer Lopez Deseo for Men. This has finally nearly run out, and I can’t think of a better fragrance with which to mask my perspiration and start my day 🙂

birthday list.

Okay y’all. Rather than moan about my job, which I really shouldn’t do because at least I have a permanent job where I receive a decent salary each month and I know I do my work decently, I will talk about positive things. It’s my birthday in 2 weeks! So here is my list of things that I want (with pictorial accompaniments).

A car.

Y’all don’t need a picture of a car. This isn’t going to happen anyway because it’s far too expensive. But I have my driving test in 2 and a half weeks and I need to pass. I hope that I will! And once I pass, I will be getting a car sharpish so that I can drive to work, also drive to London to see Loverman, and avoid the Megabus which may be cheap, but took me 4 hours to get from London Victoria coach station to my home yesterday. This is ridiculous. So, yes, car.

Money.

Self-explanatory. Who doesn’t want money?

French Connection coat.

My beautiful leather and fur jacket, after 4 years, is falling apart. I have loved it since the first day I owned it, but I am going to have to say goodbye. This will be my replacement. It’s a classier and much warmer version of the Gestapo coat (which has a similar cut but doesn’t hug the body so much, and is made of a nylon-scratchy material), perfect for these cold wintry days and without the military-style epaulettes on the shoulder. I tried it on in French Connection and the wool and cashmere blend felt divine. Toby and even one of the shop assistants both loved it. I will be going halves on this coat with my mum and I can’t wait; because it’s not waterproof however, I’ll need to buy a new black umbrella to keep myself dry in the absence of a hood. After all, I don’t want my lovely new coat to get wet and thus spoiled!

Desperate Housewives Season 6.

Because this is my favourite show on television, and I don’t get to watch it when it’s running, so I have to catch up on DVD. The DVDs become my crack for a few weeks. Toby and I saw this being advertised on tv, and I subtly informed him that this might be a good present. I think my tactful hint might have been noticed, and so I reckon Toby will be buying this for me.

Emporio Armani Diamonds for Men – EDT or After Shave Balm

One of my signature fragrances, I love how this fragrance is soft and elegant, yet fizzy and sparkly at the same time. Kinda like diamonds.

Usher – Raymond v. Raymond deluxe

Because Raymond v. Raymond was ok, but not quite good enough for me to purchase it. And Versus is nowhere near good enough for me to buy it on its own. However, the two combined are worth my money. Or the money of whomever buys it for me.

Drake – Thank Me Later

Okay, I was incredibly late to catch on to Drake. I had heard about him for ages, but pointedly ignored all of the hype as I decided “he can’t be that good”. I was wrong. I heard “Best I Ever Had” on Nicki Minaj’s Beam Me Up Scotty mixtape and that became one of my songs for when I think about Toby. I fell in love with that song, and then with “Find Your Love” and “Over” on Teairra Marí’s (by the way, BLAZING HOT) mixtape Point Of No Return mixtape. It turned out that all 3 songs were by Drake, and at this point I decided to reassess him and download his album. It is excellent, and he is talented (and also improved upon Kanye’s 808s and Heartbreak sound). So I would like my own copy of this album.

Rihanna – book.

This is a book about the journey and conception of Rihanna’s Rated R album and Last Girl on Earth tour. I loved everything about her most recent album (and “Only Girl” has been a disappointment to me in contrast) and it became a sonic bible to me over the last 11 months. The lyrics, the sound, the videos, the look – it was all on point. It was deep, it was painful, and it celebrated that pain and exposed it and worked it out. I would love this book to commemorate what has become a very special album for me personally.

DVDs

– Rec 2, The Backup Plan. Horror and romcom – to keep me balanced.

Emporio Armani underwear

Okay, I love these boxer shorts, regardless of Cristiano Ronaldo being in them. And I love my boyfriend so much that even Ronaldo pales into insignificance. That is a lot. Anyway, I love these boxer shorts, and I can’t find them anywhere. And only in red and black online. So if you find the black and white ones for sale, just like old whatshisname here is wearing, please give me a heads up! Or even buy them for me. Thanks!

Chaos by Donna Karan.

This is the fragrance I have fallen in love with that I do not yet possess. If I don’t receive this, I will have to buy it for myself. It smells of ice and etherealness and subtlety. I adore it, and its mystery is something I hope will rub off on me if I manage to own it.

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So now you have an insight into a few of the things that I crave! Just writing that and looking at the pretty pictures make me feel better. Nothing like a bit of online window shopping!  See y’all soon xx

dream – infidelity and paulina rubio.

I was saying to one of my friends that it’s been a while since I blogged one of my dreams! I guess that sometimes if you speak something, it has a funny way of coming into existence.  I also must give some credit to the kebab I bought with Mike on the way back from our last course night out watching the England match (which was dull, although cheering along with the mindless supporters was amusing; I don’t think they realised Penny and I were taking the piss out of them) – the stomach ache I bear as a result, coupled with the disrupted night’s sleep I had, worked together to produce this crazy dream as well as my decision that, like crisps and popcorn, I will never eat another kebab again.  Anyway, here goes:

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I found myself at university, staying in a dorm building which had several of my friends living on the same corridor as me. The hall was brightly lit, with a peach coloured carpet, and Toby lived a couple of doors down from me.  A few doors in the opposite direction, towards the end of our corridor, lived this random guy whom I don’t know in real life, and whom I didn’t know much about in the dream, except he was gay and had quite a youthful face and a happy-go-lucky, slightly crazy manner.  I remember on this particular day, Toby was getting ready to present a presentation he had worked on with his friend on a song they had written for a team they’d been given in a World Cup sweepstake.  He hadn’t let me hear the song, and he was quite nervous about it but pretending as if everything were fine.  To give him some space, I decided to get a bus and go to a string of shops which looked similar to the top of Gloucester Road, except with less shops and shops which looked even more run down than what’s there in reality.  The trip seemed fruitless, and I remember returning back to my corridor pretty promptly.

On my return, I bumped into the guy who lived near the end of the corridor.  He was burbling about something, and invited me to go back to his room. I was reluctant to go as I wanted to wish Toby luck before he started his presentation / performance, but at the same time I wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea to disturb him, so I decided to follow the guy to his room.  We chatted for a while, and then ended up having (anatomically incorrect – orifices do NOT look / contort like that!) sex.  Immediately afterwards I felt guilty, and made small talk while hurriedly getting out of there.  I ran down the corridor to find Toby, who was due to start his presentation.  I located the classroom (oddly enough further down the same corridor as where all our bedrooms were) and burst in through the open door, where Toby and his classmates were gathered in front of a lecturer standing at a lectern in front of a giant screen filled with the flags of the World Cup in some kaleidoscopic Powerpoint presentation.  Toby was stood on a chair, ostensibly about to sing his song, but everyone turned to look at me and Toby’s mouth gaped as I ran towards him, hugged his legs and nuzzled my face into his crotch.  He asked me what was wrong, but I decided to keep my infidelity to myself and said that nothing was wrong and I just wanted to wish him luck and let him know I was there for him.  At that moment, he smiled (which made me feel a combination of guilt and immense love), and the whole class sighed as if they wanted to get on with the presentation of the songs.

At this point, my stomach ache woke me up again as it had done periodically throughout the night.  I remember getting up to open the window; it was light outside and I hoped that some fresh air would do me good (as it happened, it made no difference) before getting back into bed and falling back to sleep.

I found myself going into a giant record store which reminded me of a huge Virgin Megastore from back in the day.  When I walked in, the front of store display advertised hordes of Paulina Rubio CDs, books, DVDs and other memorabilia at knock-down prices.  I was about to start browsing – there were items that certainly caught my eye even at first glance, when I bumped into my tutor from university, Mary.  She was sat reading a book on a cube seat, and she smiled at me and started asking how I was.  We had a conversation about the book she was reading, and about what some of my favourite books were.  I then saw two women approaching her wearing skirt suits, and Mary explained that she was interviewing for the course intake for next year, so she would have to say goodbye for now.  I smiled and left the seating area as one woman sat down and began to talk to Mary, who had closed her book; the other sat on an adjacent cube and began to read a book of her own.  I was about to start browsing the Paulina Rubio merchandise, which including products which both do and don’t exist in real life, when I bumped into Simon from the careers guidance course.  He asked me if I had seen Mary; I responded by indicating the cubed seating area, but then explaining that she was doing interviews so he might have to wait for a while before he was able to speak to her.  With nothing much else to say to him, I left Simon and began to browse the shelves.

However, during my conversations with Mary and Simon, a lot of the CDs had been snapped up, and I could barely find half of the products which had been on offer when I’d first entered the shop.  I spent quite a long time rummaging and amassing quite a collection of items, when I bumped into my mother, Deena and Davina.  They said that they had come shopping looking for a birthday present for me, and immediately handed me a big box of some kind of board game, and a smaller box on top.  They said that they were going to look for some other gifts for me.  My mother immediately disappeared, and Davina and Deena went off in different directions.  I followed Deena and asked her if there was anything I could buy for Davina, but I don’t think she had any suggestions.  Eventually, I found myself left alone by them and I had to go to the till and pay for my Paulina Rubio stuff, and also for my own birthday presents!

Afterwards, I returned home with all my purchases only to find that my mother had already arrived at home.  She looked at the amount of carrier bags I had, and then she engaged me in some meaningless, forgettable conversation.  I don’t remember what was said, but I remember taking a yellow sleeping bag with me and leaving the house. I wandered the streets and before long, found a wide grey pavement outside a run-down block of flats.  For some reason, in my head I had decided that this was an orphanage, and the area of town did not look very Bristolian nor very friendly; it was all quite dilapidated, and I felt quite tired so I decided to lay down on the pavement and curled up in my sleeping bag.  However, the sleeping bag was double-sized, so I still only took up half of the bag; the other half covered the rest of the pavement.  After a few moments, Mike came strolling by as if by chance, looked down and noticed me laying on the floor (I wasn’t asleep).  He spoke to me briefly, and we chatted before he told me to budge up, got down on the pavement and slid into the sleeping bag next to me.  This time, nothing sexual happened but we just chatted for a while and I remember feeling happy and lucky that I had a friend to spend time with.

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That is about it!  As always, any thoughts or light that you can shed on this is more than welcome. A few connections that I can make: I watched the World Cup match last night, so perhaps the football was in my head; I’d seen Deena earlier in the week and I remember we were walking around HMV and she was considering looking for a present for her friend’s girlfriend.  During the night out last night, I was speaking to Mike about how much his friendship meant to me and how lucky I was to have him in my life.  I also spent a lot of the evening texting Toby, who is currently sunning it up in Florida (lucky man); I miss him.  Finally, Simon was the only person who hadn’t managed to get into the bar last night where we were watching the football; although Mary wasn’t invited to watch the football with us, it is interesting that Simon is the one who was asking me about her whereabouts, as if he were looking for someone from our course just as he was last night.  But the rest of it is beyond me!!!