It’s not that I don’t get out much.

I’ve been all over the social-meeja-blogandbeer-scape this week and I’m also popping to Butlins for their Tweet Up in a couple of weeks. I just can’t get enough of it in fact!

What’s so amazing about all this stuff is there’s room for everyone and it’s not just powerful as a new media (think blogs/twitter/facebook/myspace et al) it’s really getting people together and empowering people to connect and share in new ways.

A few weeks ago I went to SMCLondon and was pretty gobsmacked. VioletPosy recommended it to me some time ago and I offered to guest blog. I met a lot of very cool people with a lot interesting things to say. In fact, I hadn’t felt such positive energy among a bunch of people for a long time. This reminded me of the early days of the dot com boom and it’s a totally invigorating feeling and anitdote to the credit crunch.

So this week, I hightailed to my old hometown; Shoreditch, and popped in to see Vanessa and Katie at The Sway event downstairs at The Great Eastern Dining Rooms. Oh heavens above, this was certainly one step close to career nirvana and an evening full of highjinx. I have fond memories of the venue, when it first opened I had lunch with a fashionista friend and we drooled at Isabella Blow who was dining delicately in the corner, and dressed exquisitely.

The Sway brings a touch of Sex and the City to blogging – I kid you not, it was a very glamorous evening and lots of amazing people there too – the chicks who click are hipsters. My Armani jacket (it’s out of the wasdrobe again!!) and killer heels certainly got a run for their money. I was quite taken with Deluxe – a site I think a lot of you out there probably know already, and if not should check out. There was also a free bar and some lovely canapes provided by the sponsor Skimlinks and I was impressed with the company’s slick social networking products which I hope to look into more.

On the same night, there was the London Bloggers meet up at Shish! on Old Street – another flashback to days and nights gone I thought. As The Sway wrapped up, a few of us went to the Meet Up. It was a good crowd and sadly I’d missed the speaker. I got a chance to chat to all of the people there and had some very big laughs too. Andy who hosts it is great fun as are the other bloggers who I met.

It’s a good time to be a blogger!

Just look what I found in my butt (a grungy old water butt that is)

Gnarly dudes aren’t they…

the demonstration complete with riot police

Tough call taking the piccies, I thought I was going to get arrested.

another reminder that nothing ever stops in London

Must download that John Lennon track, ho hum.

another reminder I am going to miss my train....ooops

Waterloo at least 15 minutes away by Shanks’s pony.

another reminder I need a lie in...do they take block bookings?

Missed a train but grabbed a seat to skim the London Paper and switch on my iPod.
My soundtrack for the journey home…

Ooh la la, time for another holiday soon…

She puts the laptop on her lap, wiggles her fingers over the keyboard, frowns, squints then makes a really evil honking/laughy noise (a bit like a donkey). Then she smugly hands me back my computer and looks at me like I’m a loony.

She says she hates twitter but she loves having a sneaky peak at Tweetdeck and seeing who is saying what. She just gets it, no fear, no technophobia – it’s all part of her world this social media-2.0-thingummmybob-stuff.

I wonder what kind of technologies will be around when she is my age. Possibly robots? Everything ‘smart’ and hopefully eco friendly – zipping around like the Jetsons?

But I digress. This week I took it upon myself to stop doing everything in a frenzy and teach Miniminx some basic skills – how to make a Ribena that doesn’t rot teeth, how to make a Crusha milkshake without spilling any milk, how to load a dishwasher and then I left her to her own devices to load a software programme…she did it but sadly the software was out of date. I showed her how to search for an update for it online, just as I would try and teach her about looking for something in a supermarket. It’s strange that something so complicated has now become incredibly simple. She’s a computer native.

It struck me the other day while all this was going on that while we are avid readers in our house, the new literacy is computer literacy. We have gadgets coming out of our ears and I’ve sadly got to admit that I’m the one who is occasionally confounded while my daughter is a natural.

I grew up around computers – hundreds of them; oscillators, a garage stuffed full of circuit boards, and I was occasionally allowed to blow them up play on them. But it never seemed to have any real link with life, it was all about boffins and sci fi – not really mainstream, but look at us all now. Mad-fer-it on mobiles, Wii, iPods, iPhones – iThis iThat…. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that one day I would be writing a blog, for the whole world to see.

What will we all be doing in 50 years? I hope it’s not going to be like Forbidden Planet, that used to scare the shit out of me when I was a kid…I’m going to have to go for a lie down my brain has crashed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first to laugh like a loon at the early auditions on these manufactured talent-scout shows. And I often get bored as the entrants are honed down to just a few. Deep down I know that I would never even make it past the auditions but there is something about these programmes that makes me gag.

When the first Big Brother was broadcast, it intruded into my life because I could hear the crowds and see the fireworks from the final show from where I lived. I never got hooked, but I confess to watching CBB because, well, they get paid a lot to play up to the cameras and these professionals know the ropes no matter how wayward they are.

But forgive my rant, what I am wondering right now is; does Britain have any talent?

Reality TV shows that boo off any sign of nouse
The Apprentice
Dragon’s Den

Hmmm, are we just tearing down these people who are willing to have a go?

There’s the case of civil servants getting £250 on top of their salaries just to get to the office because it snowed….

And Jacqui Smith’s cute expense claim of well over £150,000. Bath plug aside, what’s the deal here, is it anything other than a champagne socialist bonanza?

And then we get hit with this Guido Fawkes self aggrandisement malarky, it’s not clear to me who he sides with except himself….he’s hardly the Banksy of politics is he?

But let’s not even get started on the Bolshevik backstabbing wars among the graffiterati raging as I write.

We have become a nation of nihilists. I’m sick of the whole thing right now. It seems to me that England exists on a diet of scandal and debaclism. Can’t we just give it a rest?

Only last year Britain’s Got Talent had a whiff of conning the public, and now it’s back in a massive puff of publicity – give it a few weeks and it’ll soon be tainted.

I hear Simon Cowell is taking a wage cut, do I care? And Parkinson takes a swipe at Jade Goody now that she can no longer answer, do I wonder? The Wire is the biggest drama to hit our tv screens ever – do I question why British drama is failing? I despair when great entertainers like Matthew Horne collapse under stress, especially when I’ve enjoyed watching their shows. But I love watching the Simpsons and wonder, where’s our homegrown sense of humour gone? Who is bouying up these people? The Boat That Rocked is a prime example of how our inventive natures survive, but in the current economic and political climate, it’s just not feasible.

It is soul destroying to look into these things deeply, we are a nation of greying twits and the younger generation is getting beaten down by ridicule in the media. No, scrub that, the media just beats everyone up here.

So I believe that Britain has a huge wealth of creative talent. Who cares where we find it, how it embodies itself and why we love it. It’s just a people thing, we don’t need to explain ourselves. So critics, savants, moguls, svengalis; save the bitching for backstage and get the performance right and we may, once more, appear on the world stage, if not just the UK.

I leave you now with a whiff of the Might Boosh…oh hang on a minute, embedding disabled by request from the BBC. So there you have it, we’re in a walled garden and like two year olds, we can’t share anymore, just keep it to ourselves. Nuff said, roll on tomorrow. Go and buy your Sunday papers and hoover up the catcalls of the so called critical geniuses that roam our media outlets in good old Blighty…and prove them wrong by forming your own opinions.

picture credit James Mosingo

No darlings, no typo, I’m far too considered for that. I suppose it’s more of a wardrobe misfunction. Or really a malfunction. Actually, it’s a nonfunction. No, no, sorry. It’s a gone-function.

‘Wasdrobe’ is my new name for what was my work wardrobe. It came to me as I opened up the white doors to find something to wear for my child-free bout of weekend socialising. I rifled through the rails marvelling at all this smart stuff I haven’t worn for months and had a small but perfectly formed revelation. A very obvious and great divide had evolved….

You see, while I’ve had time on my hands, I’ve put it to good use. I’ve done what every good girl should, but no frazzled full-time-working-bread-winner-plate-spinning Mum can do, I’ve colour coded my wardrobe (yep, I bet you’re jealous).

I know, it’s not exactly ground breaking, but it’s my own kind of Hong Kong Shoey Feng Shui. Starting on the left with a winter white Prada waterproof jacket that’s definitely seen a few adventures…moving towards chocolate browns including a very neat suede biker cut jacket, a D&G striped knit with olive sleeves and a few choice khaki items; linen trousers etc, then on to my blue clothes, and ending at my DVF purple satin wrap blouse. Then strangely, a gap. Well not quite a gap, it’s filled with empty wooden hangers. And towards the right, it’s all gone a bit Johny Painter – see vid if you’re not a Fast Show aficionado…

So there it is.
A preCredit Crunch collection of expensively tailored, extensively searched for, very exquisite and very defunct clothing.

Black cacherel 50s style jacket, my prized Armani cinched waist rosette jacket, DKNY nipped waist dress, Miu Miu capri pants, black merino jersey t-shirt, black stretch cotton tank, black biker jacket, black Maggie Wonka net skirt, some eco friendly black wrap dress. And there’s a whole lot more languishing at the dry cleaners.

But who cares about the designers – it’s all just black – and a sign of things now past. Like they say, consigned to the back of the cupboard. And how the world has changed…

Funny isn’t it when you see a little capsule collection, or rather a time capsule, like that?

You know me, I’m always at a loose end these days but I do manage to keep myself pretty busy. So today’s ‘job’ was to get back to basic communication and create a flyer and publicise my ‘Lost’ notice to my neighbours and use some good old fashioned door to door leafleting.

I found myself inhabiting a strange new junk mail world as I opened creaking gates and posted my flyer through the NO JUNK MAIL stickers on letterboxes. I met a nice VSO lady on the way round, she was doorstepping for volunteers, and a rather gorgeous delivery man who eyed my leaflet very sweetly (he obviously thought I was the neighbourhood kook, and I guess he’s right).

The whole thing was quite scary. While I managed to get a good old gander at the decor and decay of the houses in my close vicinity, I was terrified of being pepper sprayed or worse, attacked by dogs. Thankfully I was not, and amazingly that was my whole morning taken up.

I’m sure you’re wondering by now what my particular ‘Lost’ thing is.

Well, when we moved here last year, Miniminx and I thought it would be a great idea to let our gorgeous little tortoise Shelley experience the great outdoors and experience summer on the lawn. I’ve never seen her so lively, she chomped and tiptoed her way around the garden like Angelina Ballerina, she grew, her eyes sparkled, it was a good thing. Whenever we brought her inside, she would walk up to the french doors and gaze longingly at the big wild world outside and even bring herself up onto two legs. So you got it, we gave in and set her loose. She’s a born wanderer, and started disappearing for the odd day, and come back, then a week and come back, and then three weeks and back. But by September she had upped and left us. I was worried that she’d taken up home with the tortoise four doors down or worse, snaffled by the foxes under the shed. Worried as I was, I knew she could peck her way out of any situation, but come the snow, Jack Frost would get her. I have had terrible dreams about her demise over the last few months and felt haunted by her loss. While I feared the worst, and Miniminx has shed a few tears, I’ve always kept the faith strong and believed she would return triumphantly in the spring.

So the nature of my DIY-Direct-Mail shot was a last concerted effort to find Shelley. It was quite poetic…

HAVE YOU SEEN OUR TORTOISE?
Our lovely tortoise Shelley has gone walkabout.
We have a feeling she may wake up out of hibernation in your garden because we’re neighbours. Her usual habitat is XXXX XXXXX, so if you find her keeping your lawn in trim please call us on XXXXXXXX
We have all the documentation to prove she is ours.

You get the idea.

Much as I’d like to say I felt a bit smug about my little lost tortoise campaign, I was actually feeling really guilty for losing her. And how upset Miniminx has been. And what if an empty shell is found in someone’s garden and they drop it by. And was I showing myself up as a complete and utter loser. And, and…so enough of all that, I had done all I could, and that was that, it was now in the lap of the gods.

I decided to get busy with the garden. I picked weeds at random and ventured to the bottom of the garden to check on our resident newts in the water butt. I know I’m naughty but when they’re basking in the water they look a bit dead so I’m not averse to poking them with a stick. Phew! The floating one was alive. I looked around the shed and felt a bit glum. Then I spotted the new ringweed shoots (that hideous scourge of any garden) I became a toxic avenger, brandishing the weed killer and spraying it with venom. I my eyes darted around the foliage, something moved, or did it?

‘OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ I boomed.
There was a shell, a Shelley shell. With little feet sticking out of it, but no head. I grabbed the poke-the-newt-stick and gingerly reached out towards my muddy beloved.
‘Is she…..?’ I whispered to myself
‘Is she….?’ I reached over and tapped her shell. She moved! Her head popped out.

photo credit Bob Gibbons

‘ALIVE! YESSS!’
I ran inside shouting
‘The tortoise, she’s back! Hurray!’
A startled cleaner jumped up and down.
‘Sweet’ she said. Maybe I should have offered her £20 ages ago and she would have found her in the manner of my iPod?

Weirdly enough, I’d been checking tortoise web sites to find out what I should do with one straight out of hibernation. So I put the taps on in the sink to get the water running and filled it, adding some sugar.

I headed back outside, darling Shelley had the appearance of a little space creature that had just landed – slightly dazed and looking around wildly (well as wildly as a tortoise can) at her new surroundings. She was covered in mud so must have tunnelled out of somewhere pretty recently. What a result!

She is now bathing in the manner of Cleopatra in a large warm bath and happily chomping on greens. I still can’t quite believe she just appeared, but hang on a minute. On second thoughts, do you think some bastard got the leaflet, realised that she belonged to us and then just lobbed her over the fence in a panic?

I’ve obviously lived too much of an urban life. For just a moment ago, I got a call from a concerned neighbour.

‘Hello, I got your note’
‘Hi’
‘I haven’t found her, but I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for her’
‘Thanks so much. But do you know what? Oh, you’ll never guess what.’
‘What?’
‘Can you believe it, I just found her at the bottom of the garden. Alive and well and she’s reviving after hibernation in the sink, happy as larry’
‘Aaaah, that’s such a lovely story, that’s made my day’
‘And mine, thank you so much for calling’
‘No problem, that’s really great’

…now, much as I’d like to think it would be a better story if this caller had been the secretive tortoise-over-the-garden-lobber, I’m not going to believe it.

I’m happy to have my other little baby back…

It’s amazing, once Spring has sprung, there’s a feeling of new and natural energy that seems to invigorate the days. It’s so uplifting – the low light of the Winter Sun softens the harsh aspect that makes my eyes water in the early morning (another reason to keep the sunnies on for the school run) – and there’s even a touch of warmth when you stand in the sunshine. The days are longer, mornings brighter and the birds are bringing morning cheer (a little too early for me I have to admit, but at least they drown out the overhead din from Heathrow).

This time of year really appeals to the inner kid in me, I happily wake up in the morning, throw open the curtains and check the garden for signs of new beginnings. Ooh, a bluebell here, are the daffs out? Wonderful magnolia blooms are appearing overnight, my favourite pink cherry blossom is eclipsed by the dazzling apple white tree dressing and soon we will be treated to a carpet of petals on the pavement. It will quickly become a sickly petalled slush but it heralds the long season of budding fruits that will take nearly six months to ripen and fall and Summer to me is half a year long really.

While it’s been a sick bay at Casa Nixd these past few days, today with the sun shining, it was time to get out the peat pots and set about planting our own home grown crops. Spurred on by yesterday’s fabulous images of Scarlett and her carrot scoffing, I am convinced I can go at least one better. So after a few hours of piddling about with seeds and peat, in seven days we should have carrot, cucumber and tomato seedlings which will keep us in salad all Summer.

Ever the optimist, last week I took a few days in the garden to get it all straight, just in case I would be back in an office. But I’m not going to be, so I’ll be zenning out in the garden even more. I haven’t done this in years and it’s a very nostalgic revival of my distant memories of gardening as a child. I’d spend hours with my Mum planting seeds and watching them grow into outlandishly coloured blooms. While I hated the Wallflowers (hideous moniker for a flower) and the Nasturtiums ( covered in blackfly and all sticky), anything else I didn’t like I would sneakily colour with my poster paints once the blossoms were out and was convinced they would grow back with my new and improved colour scheme the following year. Needless to say, child years are like grown up decades so I’d always forget when planting time came around again.

Miniminx was out of her sick bed long enough today to potter around the garden and we became a green fingered team. She even de-slugged one of the big pots we were using (we put them in the garden recycling). I was quite impressed but she drew the line when a rather large slug popped its eyes out on stalks and she delegated the task to me.

I’m doing extreme lawncare this year. I shall not be peering over the neighbours’ fences and ogling their green lawns, I’m going as emerald green as I can possibly go (I should have kept those poster paints). Call it staving off every kind of envy or just my willingness to be a contradiction in terms…the grass is going to be greener on my side of the fence this year. I’ve mowed, weeded, fed, reseeded and watered the lawn and I’m waiting on the results.

With my elderly geraniums killed off by the snowfall, I’ve potted another new load with promise to bloom a wonderfull pillar box red. I’ve replanted my lavender and bluebells and two little Christmas trees which I’m hoping will grow throughout the year so we can have them inside this Yule. There’s also have new herb pots – cooking will be an aromatic delight forever more.

Next, we will have a cacophony of colour. I’ve planted some lurid, aromatic plant seeds with exotic names which should be in bloom by May and last until September.

Another sign of Spring vitality, a hatched and detached egg sat in the midst of the lawn but no chick in sight. And now it’s April, I’m hoping our tortoise is going to reappear out of hibernation – she disappeared after going walkabout in the Autumn and we’re convinced she is curled up asleep and ready to wake up again soon.

We’re quite keen on getting some chickens as well – but maybe that’s for the out of town garden and we do have foxes so I doubt they’d last long. I’m like a kid with a new toy, gardening is a great new thing. But as far as the good life goes, I’m not sure how far it’ll go…cups and saucers in the front garden? Where on earth would we put the recycling?

After a hour or so of feeling like I was about to pop, I woke up again thinking it was 8.54 and was just about to panic when I checked again and it was 6.54. Phew!

I got a good morning kiss, a cuddle and a cup of tea in bed. Then I was babbled at for 90 minutes. Oh yes, Miniminx was up and about and working on her new, new signature. It’s morphing over the pages of her Hannah Montana notebook, so now it’s a fish motif (she’s Pisces) with her first name in the body shape and her surname initials in the tail. Wow, amazing and thoughtful and invidual – what a cutie. She’s learning how to express herself and creating a sense of identity. She proudly showed me page after page of permutations and I have to say I’m massively impressed, in fact it’s quite a developmental milestone.

We’ve had a Wicked weekend in more ways than one. First we went to see the Wicked the Musical on Saturday and second, after a long and Rosé fuelled Sunday lunch by the river in the fabulour sunshine we were Wicked and Musical.

Miniminx’s Luckyvoice Partybox is a hit in our house, but not it seems next door. So much so in fact, that my neighbour felt it necessary to holler at me about above through the din. It was 7pm, not 2am. Yes, how very unseemly of her, she obviously didn’t enjoy our renditions of the Smiths and Pulp or our duets – we hadn’t even got to Dolly Parton on the playlist. Thank heavens I took off my Amy Winehouse wig before I answered the door…actually, hang on a minute, maybe I should have just kept it on and screamed ‘Blaaaaaaaaaaaake Incaaaaaa-arse-errated’ …that would have stopped her in her tracks.

Ooh she’s a wet blanket isn’t she? Three hugely happy grown ups were placed on the proverbial naughty step and the impromptu party died a death. While I’m tempted to hang my smalls out to dry on our shared trellis just to wind her up a bit, I won’t, because I’m nice and she’s a meanie. I’ve never complained about her REALLY ANNOYING chair-scraping-across-wooden-floor habit, or the way she lets her burglar alarm ring loudly as she goes in and out of the house, or her car alarm going off at 6.45am.

Maybe I should drop anonymous notes through her door saying ‘Lay off that wind breaking will ya?’ or ‘Don’t mean to alarm you but your cleaner is having sex parties while you’re at work – signed a kind, concerned neighbour’.

We’ll just stick to show tunes for now though…I think she might get the point non?

I’m taking it easy today and will be lolloping on the sofa as I did a major work out with my personal trainer yesterday, he may be fit but I look more like this at the gym…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qXWCm3X7qg&hl=en&fs=1]

I got a bit of a knock back today. I’ve been rejected at first stage for a freelance job (that means on sight of CV in my world) because I’m not relevant. Well, that’s a bit of lie actually, I’m just being melodramatic…other people are more relevant apparently. From what I gather, there are just too many candidates around for too few jobs. I did the old peashooter/moon trick again yesterday (that’s what I call uploading your CV to apply for a corporate job…see here). I’m spending my days following up on job options and there’s nothing at my level around, I’m overqualified for what’s out there or too restricted by the commute. I simply refuse to spend three hours commuting and missing out on seeing my wonderful Miniminx.

As usual at this time of day, when I’ve exhausted the usual avenues of searching for work, I’m left wondering what I’m going to do. I need some inspiration as I feel like I’m going round in circles at the moment. Do I just start up my own business and dump the career and do my own thing?
Or do I just tough out the next few months? I’ve got some options up my sleeve at least but for now I’m going to get creative again and finish my collage…it could be a good career move!

On days like these, this is the song that always lifts my spirits – INNER CITY BLUES, MARVIN GAYE – I found it on youtube…go on, have a listen, I might just have to play it again, it’s just brilliant, the lyrics resonate completely with our times even though the track was released in 1971

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPH3xNkHFhE&hl=en&fs=1]