hello darkness

daylight savings has gone.. and today it was pitch black by 5pm. gosh.

(it's lucky then, that just last week i spent £30 on a cashmere eyemask to block the sun... but that said, even in pure darkness i think i would still like to have a cashmere eyemask on. there's something so "i am going to sleep gloriously for a year because i am a fancy lady a la sleeping beauty without the curse, or perhaps kate middleton" about an eyemask that pleases me. as well as looking like a superhero. albeit, quite an ineffective one given the no-eye-hole situation.. but a superhero nonetheless.)

Things I blame on the fact it's dark at 5pm.
1. eating a family packet of those delightful M&S cookies. what? it's dark at 5pm dammit.
2. candice the personal trainer has met a new 6pm Monday person... and now i have been kicked to the 7am Friday slot. it really seems like the lowest of the low to be rejected by your personal trainer. i thought i was her Monday 6pm girl! i thought we had something special. all i want is for candice to love me (i am aware that this contradicts with item #1...) and she has REPLACED me. i would hate her if i didn't crave her approval so much.
3. starting a vicious rumour at work about who stole the 'team stapler'. yes. because we don't each get our own. reminded me a little of the time at oktoberfest when i became convinced my handbag had been stolen; accused everyone in my general vacinity of theft and got louise to search people's bags.... then someone told me i'd actually put my bag on the roof. oh. low point.
that said, a bit of gang rivalry at work involving 'who stole the stapler' bitchiness could actually spice things up.
4.we didn't get any trick or treaters. boo. (sad boo, not halloween-y festive boo.) likely due to the fact that we live in an apartment block down a scary dark alley where people wee on a saturday night and once there was a poo on our doorstep. yes. actually, it's prob not the dark-at-5pm issue that is stopping the children. oh.
6. i didn't see a dog dressed like this today.

OH!

although on saturday, we did see a dead, plucked mutilated duck/goose on the footpath. louise had to jump around it. again... low point. i blame the darkness.

That said, there is something to be said about commuting to/from work in the dark... it sort of makes me feel a bit like i'm going on a big exciting holiday and having to get up early to make the flight.
sort of.

xoxo

paris, j'taime

i went to paris for the first time when i was 15. i loved it then, and i love it even more now. This weekend (yes, because cosmopolitan girls such as us often weekend on the continent and then come home with such practical items as capes, 'winter shorts' and sweaters covered in feathers...) i discovered MANY awesome new things about paris

1. moulin rouge. we sat at a table so close to the stage that alex got hit in the head by some costumes and i didn't need my glasses. i wore fur and no one judged me. we drank horrible champagne that tasted like honey, but we drank it anyway because the man brought it and it would have been rude not to. 

and then, in between all the gold-coast girls with their boobs out... there were miniature horses. horses that were miniature! french miniature horses! weeeeeeee! and they had ribbons and they were teeeny tiny. and there was six of them. 

oh i loved those miniature horses.

2. the euro. it's like play money. so small and colourful and just wants to be given to giant gay french shop assistants who wear shirts with studs on the collars and higher heels than i do. take my euros giant man, and give me that jacket with the leather sleeves. serena would love that.

We spent most of the weekend shopping due to an ill-timed strike by the staff at Musee D'Orsay* who apparently feel as if there is too much work to be done by not enough people.

They're concerned for the safety of the art, obviously.

Staff in Paris appear to generally feel hardly-done-by, as far as i could tell... we had a WONDERFUL hour in Sandro where fabulous gay men suggested outfits and told us how great we were and showered us with items to try on; we were all best friends ( i was on the brink of telling him about the miniature ponies and suggesting we all went out for baguettes) until we didn't buy enough. then they talked quickly to one another in french and i think prob arranged for the fact that a few hours later, a bird shat on my head. 

seriously.

it poo-ed on my head in the middle of the champs elysse, and alex had to clean it with a tissue and a bottle of anti-bacterial hand wash.

it was a real low point.

3. The Marais. Our little home in the heart of it all. We ate like kings and then drank wine in the place that John Galliano had his anti-sematic rant which people only started getting over when he made kate moss' wedding dress. 

we didn't meet john.

and we didn't say mean things about jewish people either.

we just drank our wine quietly.

Our first stop after checking into our apartment (which incidentally had no bedroom. no. it was a bit touch-n-go for a while when we first were taken on the 'tour' of the place, which involved opening the bathroom door and closing it again... but then we say the view right into the heart of the Marais, and discovered that the apartment came with an ipad, and were sold. Liss slept on an air mattress and dreamt of Gaddafi, so we were all happy again) was to buy huge amounts of cheese, baguettes and chocolate as a 'pre dinner treat'

we never made it to dinner, instead sat around drinking red wine and watching Taylor Swift YouTube clips. yep.

All in all, Paris really delivered: crisp days full of sunshine and blue skies, a rugby world cup final, macaroons, miniature horses and great friends who will clean bird shit out of my hair.

tres bien

xoxo

tick.

now, onto the other 8...

new door for dawe

My work is getting a new revolving door. Yes. This is actually quite exciting news as the old doors were insanely slow which sort of meant there was always a big line of people waiting to get into glass prison.. which is never awesome. Gives people too much time to think and start having ideas (which may or may not have anything to do with the fact that today we were evacuated from Building 2 due to a 'chemical spill' on the road out front which brought 8 fire trucks and a whole lot of police tape to our street... but i digress...)

Yesterday, I walked through the makeshift non-revolving door (and by 'makeshift' i mean that this door has always actually been there but strangely has a permanent sign on it saying 'do not use. use the revolving door'. and if there is one thing i have learnt about london, it's that they love a process and do not question the authority of a sign telling them which door to use. indeed.) to get into my security conscious building, and while fumbling for my pass which allows me to scan through to the elevators, i accidentally knocked a tampon out of my handbag and somehow managed to kick it across the floor as i walked.

aaargh!!

It flew about 10m ahead of me and during the initial shock, possible scenarios flashed in front of me: Should i pretend it wasn't me and keep walking? should i run after it and pick it up? or should i make a bigger spectacle and pretend it was part of an art project that was too contemporary for most of them to understand anyway?

Gosh.

The seconds passed like hours.

I scuttled after it and picked it up.

It was a real low point.

But then i remembered the fact that we're getting a new revolving door and things were ok again.

revolving door! weeeeeee!

xoxo

hello dolly

oh Dolly Parton, you're so awesome.

and so teeny tiny.
tiiiiny.
like a little lego lady.

i love everything about this. i love your great little dress and you great bouffant of hair and how you managed to find the spot where the sun was shining while your giant tall man stood in the shade. i love your veil. and i love that you say things like
'I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb... and I also know that I'm not blonde.' 
and today, i am loving that you say things like 
'If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one'

yes indeed, teeny tiny dolly parton, indeed.

xoxo

long lost sunglasses

Just when I didn't think i were possible to like Germans anymore, this happens...

---

From: kundenzufriedenheit@karstadt.de [mailto:kundenzufriedenheit@karstadt.de]
Sent: 11 October 2011 15:17
To: Dawe, Emily (Retail Products, Product Marketing)
Subject: RE: #337201: Lost Property

---

Unsere Antwort auf Ihr Anliegen

---

Hello Emily,

thank you for your e-mail! Somebody did indeed find your sunglasses 
and handed it to our lost and found station within the house. Could 
you describe these a bit more, just to make sure that we'll be sending 
you the right pair of glases/sunglases and send uns your address to 
send them to you.

Best regards,
Karstadt Munich
Bahnhofplatz
Sevda
(Mrs. Monteiro)


this is way better than the time Lorna opened up a fake hotmail account and   pretended to be a man called 'hot male juice@hotmail.com' and offer to buy   my car if it had magic numbers in it.

This is much better that that.
x

german win

Things that are tickling my fancy at the moment.

1. Germany. the whole shebang. love. oktoberfest in munich last weekend was so awesomely german that i might need sub-headings for this one:

• Traffic light obedience. I love that everyone is so loyal to the little green man telling them when to cross the road. I admired that so much i didn't even mind when they glared and tut-tutted at us crossing on the red (...a girl's gotta cross the street dammit!)
• Dresses which are both demure and slutty. what fun. When we first arrived, there was a girl wearing a dirndl and i asked her where she got it from... she looked at me like i was retarded, said "umm... at a shop" and walked away. hissss (she prob wasn't german.) that said, it turned out to be true and we were dressed like locals in no time.

• Gigantic beers. that cost less than a middy at the obh. win.
• Songs that have actions and repeat simple german phrases over again and everyone yells and clinks their giant beers and dances on the seated part of the table (but not the actual table top. oh no. germans say no.) and clap and sing. oh germans. i wish i belonged.
• Toilet cleanliness. I read somewhere that 6million people attend oktoberfest each year. Louise was nervous and took toilet paper in the pocket of her apron. Never fear Louise! Germans are here... the bathrooms were clean and orderly and fully stocked with toilet paper and no vomit. win.

• Lederhosen. Which was described to me as "made from the father of bambi", which is a sad thought... because i loved bambi ever so (and, weird side-note - Deggbo told me yesterday that bambi was a boy. i always assumed bambi was a girl. this has made me question life as a whole. strange.) Lederhosen make old men adorable, young men incredibly attractive and baby men scarily kidnap-able. There is something awesome about a tradition like that, which ALL bavarians get into. i love it and wish it was mine. love.

•  The game with the spinning floor and the giant ball that knocks people off the spinning floor until there is a winner while everyone sings fun german folk songs. Enough said.

 oh germany. you so crazy.
 i'll be back soon xoxo

2. Mayfair. It's blue on the monopoly board for a reason. Last week Elissa (who likes to lure us west at any chance..) lured me twice to Mayfair, and each time I loved it so much i didn't want to leave (to be fair, the second time I could barely walk straight from all the scones I consumed at high tea). It's so nice and fancy-lady friendly there. First up we went to a bar where the drinks were on fire and the waiter had a fake pittspurg-y accent and wore a sailor suit. The man next to me bought two (yes, two) bottles of £140 champagne; and that wasn't even impressive. (It's a sad discovery that when we were younger and couldn't afford to buy drinks, we were a lot nicer to people in bars, eh?) 

And then (obviously on a different day, given the fact that at the bar-with-the-cocktails-on-fire, there was a girl 'attached' to a man on the dancefloor and alex claims to have been the target of a prostitute recruiter... either that or we all drank too much of the drink that came in a giant shell...) we went to High Tea. We were very fancy. We drank tea, ate scones and Duncan wore a tie. 

Mayfair is awesome. 

Probs owned by the Germans.

yep. mayfair gets pretty loose for the suited-up crowd when there are fireworks and treasure chests filled with rum.

work was a blast the next day.

3. Deer. Gigantic man deer who make gigantic man deer noise (prob because they knew i liked the lederhosen so much...) which Deggbo and I found in Richmond Park on Sunday. Yeah, cause we're the kind of people who take walks in the park on Sundays now. Checkin on deer, sitting on logs... you know, the usual.

Hello my future lederhosen. Nice to meet you xx

4. Candice. My new personal trainer who is tiny and small and says things like "you're stronger than you think you are emily" and "gosh, you sweat a lot emily" and "gosh, you have a gigantic torso emily"... she's pretty awesome. 

(She makes me keep a food diary. oh)

5. http://surisburnbook.tumblr.com/ 

greatest blog ever if you're into famous babies... which is my jeopardy topic obviously.

And, to bring it all down again... Things which make me not so chipper lately:

1. burglars robbing my parents and taking all my grandma's jewels and my mum's car. bastards. (although the story pam tells of the fact her stolen mini was involved in a high-speed chase through the laneways of swanbourne and ending in the car being set on fire with a petrol bomb (!) has earned me some street cred in the office...)

2. my finger hurts.

3. candice. obviously.

4. my sunglasses went missing in munich. so now i cannot see. bah.

The End. Thank you for visiting.

xoxo

tuesday's wisdom