Surroundings

First day back to work in a new year, never a better time for a change or improvement.

I'm not one to wax lyrical about resolutions and I certainly don't do resolutions. But. It's a great time to take stock.

  I have my boyfriend's best friend and his wife staying with us this week. Both are award winning filmmakers, live in LA lovely people.  Another friend jetted off to Rio as part of her job this morning. I found myself thinking I haven't written in such a long while, not creatively and definitely not for pleasure. My boyfriend is a writer, again I have hugely talented friends running art exhibits, whose photos regularly appear in the press, make short films etc etc 

I set up this blog as an outlet,  a sounding board for my creativity. It has been dormant,  not forgotten.  My creative spark was dimmed, not any more. Now is the time for change ( but not a resolution). 

Discount Traveller

Travel, or more precisely, public transport, the everyday way in which we get from A to B is a very peculiar thing.  It's also for the most part class based. Even your ticket on some modes of travel will indicate if you're standard or first class.

Britain would collapse without public transport, but just recently I have realised it really does alienate the poorer or financially challenged citizen.   We have to book weeks in advance to bag the best deals and if we want, nay need to go somewhere in a hurry...well you either have to fork out at least 5x more for a train ticket (generally a one way ticket at that) or compromise on speed, spontaneity and time and get a coach.  All this and I'm not even going to start on my opinions of my daily commute.

So I missed my part train/part bus route to visit relatives in Yorkshire. The ticket is a unique compromise offered by 'Mega Bus' a cheap alternative to booking the train, slightly longer travel time but still do able.  I approached the ticket desk and was faced with staff who weren't allowed to assist.  There was no one working for the company based in the station to come to my aid. I was buggered.  I couldn't transfer to get the next one. I couldn't even go online to make a last minute booking for the next train leaving in over an hour's time (this is surely a missed revenue opportunity).   I was told "you use it or you lose it".

So I had to call my relatives and my wonderfully internet connected boyfriend to help solve my dilemma. Same day trains for less than £50 one way did not exist. I resorted to my transport of student days of yore...the National Express coach.  Six hours later I would be in the NORTH!

From the beauty, boutique shopping, coffee shopped vistas of Kings Cross St Pancras, I took the tube to Victoria coach station.  The grey monolithic facade with hints of art deco, the ambience, the lack of Cath Kidston or Paul, not a Samsonite or Louis Vuitton wielding traveller in sight,   replaced with an overpriced newsagent, huge flocks of pigeons, Primark matching luggage, it was a world away.

Should I have leapt home and forked out for petrol for my car? On a comparison it actually may have worked out cheaper.

Victoria Coach station is an odd melting pot of students, European travellers, the elderly, pigeons, the homeless and those who simply can't afford to travel by any other route. Misery pretty much oozes from the very brickwork, morbid mortar. Even the sandwiches in the Quick snax look sad.  Travellers are corralled like cattle into waiting areas, chomping at the bit for the little glass doors beneath the digital display to open beckoning onto the leather seated, air con cooled comfort of the National Express coaches which lay a few metres beyond to be whisked away from the grey.

But what's the excuse?  Why is the travel backbone of the country so damn costly? Fuel?  For the price of tickets I'd expect trains to be running on molten platinum. It's little wonder we're unwilling to give up our cars.

I'm embarrassed we're hosting the Olympics this year, because it can only mean increases in pricing for a transport network which is lacking to function properly day in day out, let alone with a million more extra travellers.

Train operators' fare setters seem to exist in their own happy little land, with prices rising alongside everything else whilst our salaries remain stagnant.  They squeak 'but you can get a cheap ticket, log onto our website, register your details...'  Sure I'll do that and get my ticket when the  moon is in the 12th house of Aquarius and the groundhog sees his shadow.   Great way to sell ourselves to tourists, maintain happy regular commuters and we don't even have a 24 hour tube network in London.

Bring down the costs, just make it more affordable, not idiotic. Improve the services or the route options and make travel on our own island more accessible to those who actually live here? Simplistic? Maybe but perhaps that could bring us one step closer to having some of this National Pride we're having rammed down our throats in this Jubilee/Olympic year?

On 'True Love', 'The One' and 'Soul Mates'

With our thoughts invaded by flowers, poems and an abundance of red I thought this appropriate...

We, as a people, seem so conditioned from childhood to believe in happily ever-afters (I blame fairytales and Disney) that we have to wonder; will we ever be satisfied with the happily-now, comfort and companionship, instead of constant butterflies?

Men and women, respectivly, have so over-complicated the idea of romance that the institution of marriage seems to mean less and less every year, which is, I think, tragic. We all expect to be swept away in this maelstrom of flowers, lightning bolts, lobsters and penguins (I refer you to 'Four Weddings and Funeral', 'Friends' and 'Never Been Kissed' if you don't understand that last bit) when really ideally all things being well* should perhaps be reserved for the start of a relationship when everything is new and shiny, instead of expecting it to last forever and then breaking up or divorcing when it doesn't. (*obviously slight generalisation here as sometimes the start can be hampered somewhat).

Now, the concept of soul mates is all very good, but what is so very wrong with a life lived without finding one? A romantic one, I mean. Does a persons life mean nothing if they don't feel they've found one? I wouldn't have thought so.

But then the sad thing is that some people go through life constantly looking for one and leaving each relationship ( possibly with a wonderful person who could've been pretty much perfect for them..and probably is) because they're holding out for 'the one' or 'just knowing'.

I couldn't live my life like that because I think I'd go mad. I believe that if soul mates exist, they do so because we create them. I certainly don't think that some of my closest friends were my soul mates to begin with, but I do believe they became so later on because we had so much in common and worked on our relationships and became so closely ingrained in each other that it is now inconcievable that we should be anything other than soul mates. We chose to be.

In this same thread then, perhaps people only become soul mates in a romantic relationship by doing the same thing; working on it. Maybe then, people shouldn't go into relationships expecting automatic soul mate status because it seems to me that in these cases people will inevitably be broken when it doesn't happen.

It's okay if some relationships don't work out or end for whatever reason, but being blind to the possibility that it might fail should not be an option because then when it does, it hurts all the more and it's like you somehow failed or were fooled. I never walk into a cake shop thinking I'm not going to like the cake or it's going to make me ill and if I have a cake that I really like, I'm certainly going to want to keep going back for more to check if it's my favourite.

This is why I think walking through life looking for a 'soul mate','true love' or 'the one' is a dangerous road to follow; most of the time you hit a brick wall or your expectations are too high and you come crashing down when real life or reality hits. Also people seem to expect relationships to just work without any effort or work, those in the best relationships rarely tell of their hard times but they'll always agree it takes work, patience, communication etc.

My mission I guess is not to look for my soul mate, but to look for someone who could become one, who I connect with, laugh and talk with - have all the right ingredients with - which is a wholly different thing.

A Picture of You

One of the main things, if not the most important thing my dad introduced me to when I was small is photography.

Because we lived apart we'd spend lots of time on outings taking photos of anything and everything. I had the little wind on plastic toy cameras with plastic frame pop up view finders and my first automatic film camera was a Kodak 3500 disc camera I received for my 6th birthday

It went everywhere with me, I'd taken photos of birds in the sky that when developed were nothing more than a small dark smudge against the azure. I'd line up my Sindy dolls and pose them for the camera. I persecuted my dog chasing him round the garden and house for the perfect action shot. It was a total obsession.

As I got older I started to use my Dad's SLR camera and we'd develop our own photographs. I'd experiment with exposed sprockets, black and white and multiple exposures, all from the comfort of our garage and kitchen. I can still smell the fixer if I put my mind to it. Good times.

Throughout my teens my 35mm camera was a constant companion, I'd go to so many gigs and events I have boxes upon boxes of prints of so many great moments. I've also got boxes of random blurry snaps, corners of something or other and...what the hell is that?! snaps.

I'd be a regular at Max Spielman and Boots 1 hour developing stores anxiously waiting for the results, ripping open the envelope to view my prize often before I'd left the store. I've lost count of the amount of Polaroid film I've used in my 32 years.

Capturing imagery of those around me has been a life long love and I'm no different now, the development of digital cameras and mobile phone cameras has made me worse. My random snaps have got even more so and much more frequent also satisfying my desire for instant results. I annoy my boyfriend, my cats, my mum...my friends pretty much everyone I think. I'm a fan of candid or natural poses which can sometimes make me a slight predator with my tiny lens peeping up from over the sofa trying to catch a pensive look whilst in the middle of a computer game, or peeping round the corner in the kitchen to capture my mum making tea.

I've never bothered to learn about photography in a professional sense, I've always been a point and shoot or experimental shooter.

However I have of late dreamed of the excitement the waiting for processing gave me and the physical print in my hands. The grainy, over exposed prints, the vignettes, the experiments. I'm going back to analogue, it's lo fi all the way. I find myself reading up and researching and I'm totally falling in love with my old cameras again.

With the 'trend' for phone applications such as hipstamatic it's easy to say why bother with the fuss of film and waiting for the prints, paying for developing. But it's just not the same. It's the element of surprise I love too. Companies such as Lomography have really cornered the market for lo fi and toy cameras making it all the more alluring and easily accessible.

I've just bought for a tiny amount a Smena 8 camera, a primitively gorgeous 35mm camera from the Lomo manufacturers in St Petersburg, Russia. I'm awaiting the arrival of my new acquisition, the excitement is building already.

If I'm ever lucky enough to have children myself I'll certainly try to instil a love of images and photos. I know photos can be a touchy subject for some with the emphasis on self image and critique being way too prevalent in society but in the comfort of your own home viewing memories can be something truly wonderful.

Lurgy

I've always been a sickly person, it's a burden I've had to put up with since I was small.

I was terribly ill from birth when I was premature, almost died, have had double pneumonia and various other respiratory related conditions. Suspected epilepsy and cystic fibrosis. In my adult years I'm asthmatic, I get migraines, I have a back injury and I have a low immune system and seem to be a target for every bug that passes my way. I hate it. I'm always welcome to trying new ways to boost my immune system and try to fight the bugs, but something always seems to blight me. If I was a puppy at a rescue centre I'd have been put to sleep a long time ago.

Not only that but I feel like I'm stigmatised. I pride myself on being a hard worker, I never say no to tasks given to me, even when they're not mine to do or they're the less attractive option. I get a great sense of satisfaction for being the person people turn to to 'sort stuff out', secure in the knowledge they trust once spoken to me I pretty much get it sorted. However when you return from a day or two off ill all the good work seems to be undone and it takes a few days for things to return to normal. Requests come with 'are you in?, will you be around on...?' It's frustrating but for me sadly unavoidable.

I do however have some rules. I won't sit and work late when I don't have to just to 'show face', I will work late or long hours or on weekends when the job requires it. I also take time off when I'm sick.

There's a horrible culture in this country where you have to be at death's door before you should take time off. The work/life balance is skewed firmly in the work favour. I honestly believe the number of viruses and colds that plague us all over winter months would be less prevalent if the people who get them stayed at home and got well instead of dragging their snotty germ spreading beings into work. Within a day of that happening the rest of the open plan office community begin to drop like flies. It drives me mad. Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the lucky few who actually enjoy my job, but I really don't enjoy the wry looks or comments or the sense you've missed something just because you've been away, it's always just one or two people as well who seemingly have the constitution of iron and are NEVER ill. The cynical 'ooooh I hope you're feeling better now, what was wrong' sends my skin crawling. These are the same people who'll then take pleasure in telling you which members of staff have been struck down with your germs and how you 'really should've stayed at home' ARRRRRRRRRRGH.

The most ironic thing? My dad has only taken about a week off work sick in his entire 30 year career...honestly you'd think his genes would take pity on me. But for now I should go, I've got gastric flu and have spent way too much time getting to know, on an intimate level, the far reaches of my toilet bowl.

Out of touch with reality

For the first time in seemingly ages I sat down and made a 'date to watch' with my tv. Two programmes in the schedules had caught my eye BBC2's 'Britains Youngest Boarders' and the much publicised 'Seven Days' on Channel 4, which was much lauded as the next big thing.

Working in tv, I had a feeling these were going to be water-cooler programmes, Twitter, Facebook and office chatter would be encircling the documented doses of reality like hungry vision vultures. I'm not deemed a 'creative type' and I do tend to be shunned from any conversation involving great creative debate however I've always enjoyed this genre of programming and it's fun sometimes to attempt to get my viewpoint heard amidst the academic critique and so settled in for a night with my ancient telly.

The tender troubles of homesick boarders at Sunningdale tugged at my maternal instincts and I've vowed if I ever had the financial means good schooling yes but boarding no. The young charges were engaging and quirky, their characters very defined from the moment we were introduced to them. I didn't catch the end of the programme, an ill timed paternal phone call drew me away with a promise to iPlayer later on, if anything to ensure young Hathers was ok and they'd all gone to bed after brushing their teeth.

My attentions then turned to Channel 4's latest social experiment 'Seven Days'. I was filled with anticipation it looked so great. I was bitterly disappointed. I felt no love for the majority of the characters, there was no engagement, no pull, no interest.

From pretentious whiney 'IT' girls who really didn't need anymore attention, blonde stereotypical interior designers and a property mogul who looked like a dread-locked Ronnie Wood with a creepy kitty shrine tomb swimming "pond" in his house. Where did they get the contributors? I noticed there was a casting credit whom I felt may have searched their own address book for people to appear. I felt like Channel 4 had totally missed the mark. Some of the characters I did want to see more of to gauge any sort of lasting connection potential, were all cut short.

I tried to give feedback on the much publicised webpage only to get the message that it was experiencing 'unprecedented' volumes of visitors. My, my Ch4 I wasn't born yesterday a hugely publicised programme which encourages the public to comment, critique and influence the contributors and you didn't expect that many hits? False modesty is so terribly earnest.

My hopes of a series akin to the BBC's late 90's epic 'Paddington Green' were totally dashed. There were no great characters such as Jackie the transsexual and Harry the wigmaker. I don't really care what the people of Notting Hill are doing day to day. I'm not sure I can bear to watch another episode, peer pressure might convince me. But for now I'd rather you give me Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts interpretation of West London, or I'll pop along to Portobello this weekend to absorb the real residents.

Vegetable virtuousity

I'm not what you'd call trendy, I do own a couple of Cath Kidson items yes, but I'm far from the Primrose Hill or Hampstead set. I wear Converse Allstars, love polaroids and have heavy rimmed specs and a 1950s fringe, but I'm really not a hipster. So why did I come under so much fire for ordering an organic veg box delivery?

Seriously, the comments I have been subjected to today were something quite bizarre; from 'oh that's a bit posh' to 'living beyond your means, £10 for 3 apples and a potato'. What, what what?!! I live a pretty frugal existence to be honest, I'm the Queen of the bargain hunt, buy most of my wordly possessions on ebay and get a shiver of joy when I see the bright yellow glow of a reduced sticker in the supermarket. If I could survive solely on £1 Iceland HotDog pizzas without gaining my own gravitational pull and my skin mirroring said pizza I'd be a very happy bunny.

Anyways, frugal and healthy living prompted me to reorder my small mixed fruit and veg box from Abel and Cole. £11 is all it costs for the little package of earthy smelling organic joy to appear on my doorstep this morning. It was like Christmas opening up the box to get to the scrumptious contents.

Along with the delicious contents I had a small tastefully printed booklet advising me about the Autumnal produce. Apple rarebit sounds amazing I have to admit.

But why the discrimination? Does organic produce still have a poncey stigma? Personally I feel so much better eating something which hasn't been frozen or engulfed in chemicals so it'll last for a month in my fridge. Not to mention the fact fresh fruit and vegetables taste oh so different. The difference in cost at the supermarkets has certainly become marginal, so it really can only be the social and moral leanings.

To be honest I really don't care what my box detractors think, I'm very happy with my muddy potatoes and cartoon style bunched carrots in fact I'm off to rummage in my veg box now. Nom!