Gratitude: The Spoilt Cat Edition

Obviously, this is being written on a Saturday rather than a Friday, to the accompaniment of ferocious purring from the spoilt, silken pawed cat who has decided to curl up on my 'work' cushion and cosy fake fur lined hoodie. Yesterday I went out for pay day wine and nachos, my first social outing since New Year's weekend, a cause for gratitude in itself.

I'm also grateful that the post viral fatigue that laid me low last weekend and at the beginning of the week seems to be easing off, and I'm glad that I was able to resist my inner workaholic and tell myself that taking a few days off from MA work was not going to lead to me failing the course.

Gratitude item number three is that I've been getting on well with my work colleagues. Although I'm not the most extroverted person (on Myer Briggs personality tests I'm always on the I/E borderline), before this autumn I always took it for granted that I tend to get on well with most people, even if I occasionally had to bite my tongue. And then I started working at the school where none of the other staff would talk to me. I know that you 'should' say that I'm indifferent to other people's opinions of me, but being isolated like that was incredibly depressing and somehow dehumanising. So I've been doubly appreciating the gossipy, giggly re-entry into work place banter, where the works of SClub7 suddenly becomes a completely viable topic of conversation.

And there's the stunning glimpses of sunrises and sunsets I've had on my walks to and from work. One sunrise was this incredible fuchsia colour bomb, just what I need to perk myself up on the chilly trek home.

My last item is probably going to mark me out as a big cat scaring meanie, but seeing Stanley (white and ginger cat) running away from the clockwork mouse he was meant to be chasing...well, how could you not laugh?

Mudlarks....Or Not

The sun came out on Saturday, suddenly making the idea of frisking about the countryside sound rather appealing. Almost twelve hours of sleep the night before had rebooted my perkiness levels too.

But by the time we got out to our chosen bucolic spot, the sun had finished teasing us and retreated to put his feet up and have a cup of tea. The river bank got muddier and muddier, the stiles more difficult to get over, and as my energy levels went into a vertiginous decline the sky took on a steely hue and a bitter wind blew up. The landscape looked so bleak that by the time we decided to turn back, I wouldn't have been surprised if we'd stumbled upon some Dickensian urchins living in a shack.

It was one of those moments, which if you put into a story people would slate it as unbelievable overkill - look we can see she's exhausted and feels like the piffling distance back to the car might as well be 10 miles, we don't need to see her struggling to remove her wellington boot from a patch of particularly glutinous mud, and as for the general sense of desolation, come on! What I was thinking, however, was more like, OK universe, YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME.

Anyway, check out slices of the world this week.

Blank Friday

I'm grateful that someone was walking down our quiet suburban road at 4.30 am and saw that some crazed arsonist had set fire to our neighbour's car. Luckily, the horrendous scenario where the fire spread from that car to their car and our car, and then leapt the few feet to our houses, and then the houses that we share party walls with, exists only in anxiety seized imaginations.

Apart from that this week has been a bit...blank. I spent most of last weekend fighting off some sort of immune invasion that made one of my tonsils swell up and ulcerate. I can now say that I've actually coughed up a bit of tonsil, a (hopefully) unique experience that I was not particularly looking to tick off my before 30 list.

And then I've spent most of the last week in that kind of dazed post viral fog where your brain drifts off halfway through a sentence...like it just did there, and I find myself zoned out and staring into space...with no idea how to end this blog post...

Hutong

I keep forgetting to share these photos, although (or perhaps because) they are one of my favourite sets that I took whilst I was in China. Behind the hostel where I was saying was a hutong – the warren of traditional Chinese one storey houses that have been replaced by new high rise apartments. Apparently there are all sorts of ‘special’ hutongs worthy of sight, and around the Forbidden City rickshaw drivers compete to see who can get tourists to pay the most for a journey. But I wanted to quietly savour my last weekend in Beijing, so I picked a residential street and decided to see where it would take me.

Just a few minutes walk away from the frenzy of Western labels that is Wanfujing, I returned to the China where the presence of a foreigner was met with curiosity and puzzlement. As I photographed such boring everyday items as a bicycle-with-trailer filled with baozi steamers, I could feel benign ‘crazy laowai’ thoughts brewing about me.

I was surprised by how quiet the streets were, used as I was to navigating Shijazhuang’s happy chaos of children playing, adults gossiping or gaming, dogs going about their canine world and impromptu businesses. I guess that people were sheltering indoors or in courtyard gardens, but the impression that remains in my mind is of almost eery shaded quietness, relieved occasionally by a decorously subdued motorbikes seeking shortcuts from the congested main roads.

On a more prosaic level, I was delighted to find that every street had free, immaculately clean toilet and shower facilities, although I imagine that the residents must find venturing forth in the bitterness of winter somewhat less delightful. I also imagine that that is why, despite the destruction of the hutongs being loudly decried in Western media, so few Western residents actually live in them.

Join me in a trip around the globe.

Love list - Haiti edition

Online, offline, I've read so much about the Haiti earthquake this week, and two posts stood out, for illuminating the everyday life of the country which is facing disaster piled upon privitation: Elizabeth Briel and Owen both brought to life the Haitian people in a way that no sensationalist news report can ever hope to.

Friday Gratitude

I started my MA this week. After having previous plans for postgraduate study go hideously wrong, I never thought I'd get the chance to do an MA because I just couldn't afford the fees and living costs. Even though I think it's going to be really hard to work full time and study part time (ok, I know it's going to be incredibly hard) I just glad to finally have to chance to try and pull it off.

Being able to walk into work - I might be a little chilly at first, but I'm getting exercise, looking at the sky, and most importantly do not have to sit on an aged, smelly rail replacement bus, which has condensation running down the inside and puddles of water in the aisle, whilst listening to fellow passengers talking about stabbing people up. (I also just had to share that little vignette of my week.)

Working in the same building as one of my favourite friends, and the resulting delicious lunch we had today. Chicken + bacon + avocado + gossip = happy me.

Out of Season

Skywatch around the world.