I know this great little place ...

Living in London, you would think I'd have my pick of superb restaurants, swish bars and cosy drinking dens. You would think I'd be spoilt for choice. Well, quite frankly, there's TOO MUCH CHOICE.

When you live in a city so vibrant, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and go to the same old chains for the sake of simplicity. However, after a pretty wonderful night in cosy Ruby's bar in Dalston, I've made myself the promise to forego bland chains for the sake of these secret London gems more often.

I won't lie: Dalston is not easy for me to get to but, boy, is it worth the trouble. Heading Eastwards, my date and I would have walked passed its inauspicious façade were it not for a dilapidated sign above the door: a cinema listing board adorned with wonky 'MWAH.' Going by this picture from London On The Inside, they are always a little enigmatic :)

Downstairs the low lighting revealed pealing walls (gotta love that shabby chic!), a bar replete with amazing cocktails in old school milk bottles, chilled music and a great crowd.

It's made for a lovely evening and I couldn't stop smiling all the way home.

So, this is my recommendation to you! I would love any recommendations you might have to help me in my quest for originality: any city, any country, anywhere - I want to know!

13.1

I've always run (well, I say always ... before I learned to walk as a baby, it was certainly more challenging) but I'm pretty sure I don't have a competitive bone in my body. So, when I say 'run' you should picture a mixture of jogging, walking and down right slow-motion dawdling whenever a smoochy love song comes on the radio.

But no more. I've set myself a goal: a half marathon by the end of 2013. I've created a training schedule, found GPS enabled sports watches, looked up local running clubs. I feel this could be the start of a beautiful metamorphosis from a fairly sub-par jogger into a fully-fledged runner (...sort of).

It. Is. On.

Normally, I don't look for results from my runs. It's more about getting out, exploring my area and taking some time for myself. However, recently I've really enjoyed pushing myself each mile. Here are my results:

28th Dec                                                                    29th Dec

Total time - 45:14                                                         Total time - 30.77

Total distance - 8.36km                                                Total distance - 5.47km

Average pace - 5.36m/km                                            Average pace 5.29m/km

I love running and thought a half marathon would be a challenging yet achievable goal for 2013. I'd love to know what sports are your favourites and what goals you have set for yourself in the past or future. If you're a runner, do you have any tips for me? I'm sure it isn't going to be an easy ride!

Embarassing work moments

They happen to the best of us - something in your teeth, phone buzzing away during an important meeting, tripping up on your way past the whole floor. Let me wash away your personal embarrassment with the tale of how my levels of dappiness (already well known to family and friends) reached new levels at work today.

So, my manager, who is not based in London, asked me to go down and bring up Karen. She tells me that Karen's here for a meeting and has short blonde hair. I think to myself, that sounds like a highly doable and not at all complicated task. Off I pop downstairs and, after a quick scan of the lobby, I find such a lady. I go up to her and ask if she's Karen. She replies yes, that she's here for the meeting with Richard. Perfect! I sign her in and we head upstairs to look for the meeting room. I make polite chat in the lift despite the fact I've no idea who Richard is, a fact I put down to my bambi-esque freshness. Searching the floor, Richard is nowhere to be found so I ask my manager if she's sure of the meeting room as we can't find Richard.

"Who's Richard?" she asks perplexedly.
"The guy Karen's here to meet", I answer straightforwardly.

It's at this point Karen pipes up. "Who's Karen?" Cue blank stares from my manager and me. "I'm Susannah." Excellent. I've essentially kidnapped someone from the lobby, brought them to the wrong floor, made them late for their meeting and goodness knows what's happened to Karen ... the real one, not this imposter Karen.

By this point, imposter Karen is getting a bit shirty. She's on the phone to Richard.

"Richard, which floor are you on? I'm on the fifth. I'm with a very confused girl."

I felt like calling up my friend and saying "I'm with a woman who can't even remember her own name" but, you know, I'm highly professional so I restrained myself. I popped her in the lift and headed back to the office.

My manager gave me the look as a mother to a child. I got the feeling she was contemplating how on earth I got the job in the first place ...

Driving Miss Daisy

After I finished finals, I found myself facing a seemingly endless expanse of time before my new job started: over three and a half months, around 105 days, roughly 2208 hours ...and I get bored quickly.

Not one to hang about, I got straight on the case:
I found myself a job in a local shop, a gorgeous little place which has everything you in no way need, but really really want.
I got involved with a think tank, realised I know nothing about taxes and care to know even less.
I signed up to help out at a summer school
I booked some time to see my sister in the south of France.
I realised that England clearly wasn't bothered about summer this year and so I went and booked three more weeks in the south of France.

Delightful, if chaotic, times. However, there was another, less than delightful, task to be done: learning to drive. I'd been gearing up (no pun intended. Ok, fine, it was completely intended and took me the last two paragraphs to think up) to it for over five years. That's right. I am 22 and 1/4 and I still can't drive. Suddenly mysterious phrases like clutch control and stalling made sense (sort of). It's all rather like a stressful, non contact version of bumper cars. Yet, I still can't check the feeling that I'm in a machine which with one lapse of concentration could be lethal... Eek!

When did you learn to drive? Did you enjoy it?

Un Jeu de Tarot in Kensington

Last night, I was invited to a dinner party in West Ken. I fell in love with the flat before I'd even reached the door. As I walked down the street, lined with tall Georgian terraces, I narrowly missed being knocked out by a cricket ball as two guys played casually in the road. The endless rain of this English 'summer' had ceased at last and the sun fell low on the buildings. The flat was stunning - top floor, huge windows looking over leafy gardens, high ceilings and furnished with excellent taste.


The food was better still - avocado, tomato and mozarella salad to start, followed by a delicious vegetable-laden pastry dish, then possibly the largest portion of crumble I've ever seen in my life before finally cheese, grapes and port. Conversation was easy although I did get the giggles when one of our hosts tried to introduce us to a French card game called 'jeu de tarot.' Needless to say, I didn't have a clue about the rules but threw myself into it anyway. It didn't not go well. I lost every time. 


I love evenings with good food, wine and company even if it did take me two hours to get home because I went in the wrong direction completely in order to chat with my friend for about 10 minutes longer. Excellent logic, n'est-ce pas? Here's to more to come! Cheers! Tchin!

It's the final countdown

Tomorrow, I have my penultimate final. As ever, I'm unprepared! So far, these exams have gone by in a blur but these last two are beginning to drag as everyone around me seems to be finishing. There are carnations, confetti and cries of joy all over college and it's becoming harder to keep my focus. I don't have the same determination I did at the start of this (near three week long!) process and am not really putting my heart into these last exams. I think my slight apathy is exacerbated by my worry about what I've done so far plus thoughts for next week with lots to organise and lots going on. I should be focused on my last two papers. Instead I'm thinking: when will I have time to get ready, when will I pack, will I be able to fit this event in; have I made the right decision to sign up for this, did I remember to book that train...

I think it's obvious that I need to breathe.
Then focus. Two more days. Less than forty eight hours. If I've made it through four years of trials and tribulations I sure can't let this last couple of days drag me down. However it's gone so far, I have the decision about how to act on these two, even if it's only a desperate decision to hurl everything I've got. Four and a half more hours in my exam hall and I'm finished.

Time for some tea, me thinks.

Isn't it a pity

I quite like Valentine's Day - I love that, despite how busy everyone can feel, it prompts people to make thoughtful, unique and loving gestures for those who meant most to them. And, no, I'm not talking about the people who grab petrol-station flowers on the way home; I'm judging them.

But, tonight, I feel positively seething, the result of some rather thoughtless comments from a supposed friend. This Valentine's day, when I told him that, no, I wasn't really looking for any guy, he had the audacity and social obliviousness to say, "Oh, that's so sad. You really should" before launching into some trite how I needed to find myself at the man of my dreams asap.

Should? According to who exactly? I'm completely baffled as to what this comment was supposed to achieve. Either, I'm really not looking for anyone, in which case I couldn't care less of what I 'ought' to be doing. Or, if it did bother me that I didn't have someone to share things with, how is such a judgement comment in any way constructive? What was he expecting? That I'd turn and say, "You're right! If only someone had mentioned my inadequacies sooner!"

It made me so angry that I inhaled a whole portion of tiramisu. This was not in the plan. What made me more angry was I was so blind-sighted by this supposed sympathy or encouragement or however he chose to delude himself that I didn't have a good reply for this horrible comment. I just smiled. Urgh! I wish I'd told him how rude he was being, that he should focus on his own life rather than mine and that his alleged pity was even worse than a barefaced insult.

Cose Segrete

Just having a moment to myself listening to Einaudi's La Nascita Della Cose Segrete. I absolutely love this music and its utter calm. It's all been a bit hectic these last few days so nice to have a moment of stillness.

First drama of the week: my water bottle spilled over in my bag. I popped over to the library for a bit of early morning reading and opened my back to find what amounted to a lagoon. Slightly confused, I ran back outside and emptied my bag onto the street (cue confused looks from people in the square as a veritable waterfall gushes out of my bag). Next, I pick up my sopping phone and, whilst wiping it on my hoodie in despair, somehow managed to dreg up some elementary physics knowledge that water + electrical current = nightmare. So, after whipping out the battery, I rush off to the fountain (no pun intended) of all knowledge (t'internet) and find many a foolish bedfellow, all wondering what to do now that their blackberry has gone for a bit of a dip. Lots of talk of putting blackberries in rice, but, finding this all a bit too much like a Delia recipe, I choose to leave it alone to dry for three days. It honestly took a will of steel not to take a sneaky peak every so often to see if my blackberry was any better, but thank the berry gods, for my phone is fully recovered!

Second drama: After a sneaky trip to London, I hopped back to university but in the process managed to lose my purse. Yes, I know, I'm a hopeless case. But, darlings that they are, the people from Stagecoach called me and said they had the very object in their possession so all I had to do was pop over to the bus depot to collect said item. Simple, no? Er, no. On my bike, I had to navigate my way across a bypass to get to this bus depot, hidden behind a factory several miles from town in the back of beyond. I honestly feared for my life about every three seconds such were the number of freight lorries rushing past me. But, two and half hours later, my beloved purse and I were reunited once more.

I wonder, how long till the next self-inflicted drama... Perhaps I'll enjoy the Eindadi infused moment whilst it lasts!

Intern Anonymous

There is a website which is essentially a forum for moaning in which unpaid and undervalued interns can vent about their torrid work conditions: Interns Anonymous.

Half way into my six week placement, I would not have counted myself among these unfortunate students and recent graduates. In my workplace, the atmosphere is welcoming, the pay is more than fair and, let's face it, I love the novelty of business dress. Indeed, I love sharp tailoring to such an extent that I have not begrudged the crazy early starts, the fact that no-one ever seems to know I'm due to work with them on any given day or that I have to be consistently proactive in order to find tasks for myself.

However, I love to work hard and my pet peeve is not feeling needed. Yet today, I walked into a department in which the staff talked over my head and failed to help me organise my day. It beggars belief that, in a somewhat overstretched organisation, an able 21 year old could not be put to some viable use. I am essentially an extra pair of hands and am willing, if not downright eager, to get on with any task available, grass-roots or otherwise. I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall all day as every person I met looked over me and questioned someone else about why I was there and what they were supposed to do with me, without even being considerate enough to acknowledge me.

I suppose part of my irritation stems from the fact that only now am I truly realising that work will be testing. For years, I have had the pleasure and privilege of intellectual stimulation on a daily basis. Only now can I appreciate that work is filled with mundane, repetitive tasks. Hopefully, with determination and as one ascends within a company, the work becomes more varied and decisions more consequential but it is a key reminder that one's work cannot be one's all.

Row, row, row your boat

I am, at heart, a boatie. There, I've admitted it. I was, once upon a time, one of the (clearly mentally imbalanced) folk who dragged themselves out of bed at 5.30am in the depths of winter, come rain, wind, hail or snow, and sat in a boat for several hours, several times a week. I had callouses on my hands for months on end. I submitted to the all-in-one which is universally acknowledged to be hideous in all respects. I was told to man the ef up on a regular basis. But, still, I loved it - the adrenalin, the camaraderie, the slightly debauched celebrations, burning boats and then jumping over them -- just for kicks.

Even though I've since abandoned it for the sake of RAG, work and sleep, I still leapt at the chance to get the girls together for one of the best regatta events of the season: Henley. Sunshine - check. Summer dresses - check. Pimms - check. It was a wonderful day and the perfect way to launch the summer vac. Whether you find yourself lounging on the bank and watching the teams power through the water or surrounded by the crowds in their boaters and blazers, this event is old school in the best sense of the word.

Balls, balls, balls ....

Being summer in England it is, of course, chucking it down with torrential rain - in August; I mean honestly. Confined to the house as I am, I can think of no better way to pass the time than to fill you all in with how my term ended ...

On the day of the ball, I picked up my friend from home who, despite staying only for one night, had managed to accumulate five suitcases! I can veritably hear the baffled cries of my readers: how can one person need so many bags, indeed five times the amount of bags one might originally assume? Why, by bringing three changes of outfit for one evening, of course. My friend is nothing if not a glamorous trouper.  After the aerobic workout that was getting them up the six flights of stairs to my room, situated in the eaves of my college, the girls came over to get ready. The night was amazing - from hairstylists, to vodka fountains, a thousands types of food, gorgeous fireworks accompanied by wonderful music, dodgems, ferris wheels, shisha, jazz bands; Tinchy Strider even made an appearance! All was a blur of excitement.

However, I am most definitely a morning lark, not a night owl, and love to go to bed early so as to wake at dawn, enjoy the quiet calm before the traffic starts and college awakes. Needless to say, I was a little worried about how to make it from 6.30pm to 7.30am straight without collapsing from sheer exhaustion! But, without getting drunk and without the need of an IV of caffeine, I danced my way through the night. A slight slump around 2.30am was cured by an amazingly effective power sit (totes the new power nap). Amazing night with amazing friends ... though not such amazing sleep afterwards since I was top and tailing with two others in a single bed! Two hours sleep + packing + four hour trip back to London does not make for a happy girlie ...

RAK...

Sometimes I feel my character is a bit 'Jeckyll and Hyde'. Lest you get the wrong impression let me clarify: I don't mean that I am involuntarily undergoing a gradual and irreversible metamorphosis into some hideous, misanthropic creature with no sense of conscience! Merely, that I wonder how I can be so confident with people I don't know, able to strike up a conversation and makes jokes, yet with people I see regularly I become more and more shy and reserved, constantly worrying about the impression I've made or whether I'm being included, comparing myself to others and generally berating myself for being so unapproachable. Surely, as time goes on, it should be the reverse...

For some reason, of late, this bizarre and unwelcome neurosis seems to have intensified. I feel that I've broken bridges through my aloofness and harbour the imaginary thought that, if only I were starting again, all would be different. But it wouldn't. It's all to easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the grass is greener on the other side.

So, I resolve no longer to compare myself, to worry about the behaviour of others. All I can do is focus on myself, not doing myself down but doing myself justice by being as kind as possible: in my gestures, my words, my attitude, my actions, my eyes. I think all too often kindness is underrated. People worry, just like I do, about how they are perceived and to that end act aloof or even maliciously, relishing the sense of superiority this affords them. But I would rather be rejected and mocked for being kind and perceived too eager than constantly to hide behind the cold walls of aloofness.

Let's go viral

100,000 Britons have shut down their Facebook accounts in May alone. To be honest, this isn't as monumental a denial of modern social media as you might at first think: many of those questioned have merely upgraded to the newly popular Twitter due to fears about their privacy.

Whilst I don't intend to start tweeting my way through life, I can sympathise with the growing apathy towards Facebook. A recent study suggested that those who use Facebook, on average, have a better social life offline than those who didn't. What complete piffle. One can only assume this study was funded by a certain Mr Zuckerburg, or some such similar. Having so much information about people you've met only a few times or haven't seen for years on end can certainly make you feel that you know every intimate detail of their life -- but do you really? Fine, you can read that they 'went on a bender last night and, like, totally passed out in some random estate lol' or that they've started a new job or whatever it might be. But have you really an inkling about their well-being, their plans, their character? No, but, nevertheless, the illusion remains.

Even with those close to you, it's easy to stop making the effort. A quick message or, nowadays, even a quick click of that 'like' button can make you feel like you made contact. But no initialism or emoticon can really convey the tone, the facial expression, the gestures to which humans are so disposed and which we need in order to make ourselves fully understood. Moreover, Facebook, with its bursts of news, can have actively damaging effects on friendships, from reading a comment clearly not meant for your prying eyes or viewing a party invitation sent to all of your friends but not to you, either by design or out of neglect.

It's no wonder that people reach a level of saturation and wish to return to simple methods of communication which, let's face it, can be confusing enough at the best of the times, without adding the golden haze of viral networking to the whole affair.

Escapism

Everybody needs a little escapism from the more unpleasant, or even simply banal, elements of their life from time to time. Normally, when I want to escape into an alternative reality, I do one of the following:
1. Bake. Particularly recipes with an unnecessary number of steps. I'm not one for this all-in-one malarkey.
2. Read Country Living. Am I worried that I share the interests of a middle aged farmer's wife? Perhaps. Do I dream of living in a grade II listed farm house with a dog called Potato, a roaring fire and a local supply of apples nevertheless? Yes.
3. Dance. Zumba, ballet, aerobics - whatever. Can't.get.enough of those endorphins.

However, when at university (where perhaps the drawbacks of reality hit me harder than elsewhere) I have no kitchen, would be mortified to be seen with CL in my shopping basket in the social hub that is the local Sainsburys and know of no local dance classes.

So, today, I got up around 6 and hopped on my bike and with a some hastily scribbled down directions set off on a long ride. Fool. What was I thinking? I began to resent myself when wondering what on earth I had meant by 'G Lane' or 'take a kind of small right.' I positively loathed my former self when I accidentally ended up on a dual carriage way. Luckily, after a hasty recourse to the side of the road, I escaped with my life and made it back home.

Despite the dramatics of the ride and the intellectual rigour needed to decode my sparse notes, I forgot my normal world for a couple of hours, enjoying the view from Boar's Hill over the cityscape of Oxford and generally taking overly romantic pictures.

Now, you have the almost unutterable pleasure of two photos!

I was torn between my love of old maps (Boar's Hill in 1919) ....

and the sheer narcissistic pleasure of my own photo (a casual field in 2011)

Miniature prosecco and absolute joy!

I won't beat around the bush: finals may be boring but finalists are more so. It may sound callous, it may sound unsympathetic - actually, it is. This term has, thus far, been intolerably dull as I am living in the strange twilight zone of a third year sans examens. All my friends have been following the French dictum of 'metro, boulot, dodo' (tube, work, sleep) except there isn't even the hint of 'metro' to ease the tedium of constant revision, just the quick walk to and from the library. Not only is summer term distinctly less fun without friends to muck around with, it is disconcerting to view veritable spectres of your future self, worn down by the stresses and strains of finals revision. The finals fear seems to be contagious for I feel a little apprehensive about my own. Yep, I'm actually nervous about those tests, you know, the ones a year from now.

However, today, the first of my friends completed their final final (if that makes any sense!) and I couldn't have been more pleased for her ... as well as a little gleeful for myself! After running around like a headless chicken trying to find a suitably hysterical card (merci, Edward Monkton) and a nice miniature bottle of rose prosecco (merci, Hotel Chocolat), I dashed over to the exam schools to greet mon amie (this post is becoming tres francais, n'est-ce pas?)

It soon became painfully clear that I needed to up my game. Cards and prosecco were clearly not enough. There were inflatable magnums of champagne, garlands of kaleidoscopic colours, vuvuzellas (no, I'm not sure how this instrument, which quite frankly sounds like a bee breaking wind, adds to the celebrations either), huge bouquets of flowers, confetti, silly string...  The list goes on. There were also covert tins of baked beans, bags of flour and boxes of eggs for the inevitable trashing (essentially where you besiege your friend with any edible substance to hand; the more disgusting, the better). However, being the goodie-two-shoes that I am, throwing food was clearly not an option. However, I refuse to be upstaged and so next time will be bringing all of the above AND a bubble blowing machine or something equally spectacular.

Festival chic

Spent this Saturday having a very pleasant time hanging out at a college music festival selling ice cream, enjoying lots of music sets and sneakily, some might say cunningly, engineering it so that all my friends came along to say hello. The sun was even out!

But no, alas, alack, woe. I dash off for a mere half an hour to grab some dinner with the old flatmate and, as soon as I head back, it is CHUCKING it down. No word of a lie - forget cats and dogs; think pigs and elephants. Fool that I am, I skip along trying to hide under trees and whatnot. Meet the friends and we realise there is only one thing for it: we must embrace the rain. Yes, we WILL work the festival-ly look, as Best Friend so aptly described it. For those of you not accustomed this means: smudged and/or running mascara, soaked hair (requires regular 'jugeing' for rock star volume) and in my case a very inappropriate white linen top which went see-through fairly quickly.

Despite being un peu cold and wanting to thwack the lady in front who was smugly allowing her umbrella to drip all over me, twas a fabulous night made better by my friends' final set - anyone for a good bit of Cee Lo Green and some vintage Motown?

Back to reality and work now but, unfortunately, I have been horrifically unproductive all of today and yesterday but hopefully this evening I will work like a worky thing (yes, my grasp on the English language is outstanding). I fear I may get distracted as I have a bizarre urge to google wellies. I think I've caught the festival bug!

Assessed.

Happy Easter Sunday! Hurrah for afternoons filled with paltry English sunshine. I am currently waiting for papa to set up the barbecue and can think of no better use of my time (apart from revision, packing for university, stuffing my face with chocolate etc. etc.) than writing un petit blog post on my day out at the shops last week, though this was no ordinary retail therapy.

Last week, I was assessed -- though to be quite honest, by what criteria I'm not entirely sure. I applied to a well known department store for an internship way back when (well, November). The folks down at HR seem to have enjoyed toying with my feelings, stringing out the application for a full six months. For an internship. Yeah. I completed reams of tests which ranged from the mundane (what's your name and where do you come from) to the insane. A firm favourite was the test of your reactions to hypothetical scenarios likely to occur in retail management - such as if a customer came down and complaining that one of your bibs had stained her baby's face would you
a) pour a bucket of water on the baby to see if it remedied the condition
b) call the CEO of the company down for advice
c) take her to court to sue for libel
Fine. I may  be exaggerating the teeniest, tiniest  bit but some of the situations did seem rather unlikely!

Still, I made it to the gazillionth stage (stage 6) and was invited to a London store for the assessment day. Having spent days deciding upon my outfit, I took great pleasure sashaying up to London in my newly cobbled shoes with the other commuters with all my documents in their colour coded folders. Stunning though my shoes were, they were clearly not actually designed for walking so I was much relieved to find a lift up to the seventh floor where we met with the assessors and other candidates. The exercises, I assume, designed to test general team work and leadership skills, hardly differentiated the candidates from one another. We all seemed fairly on a par so I cannot help but feel resigned about the outcome and am worried I'll be upset.

However, I shall take solace that I was whittled down from around 3,000 applicants and also by the fact that I got to head up to the amazing roof garden (which I had no idea existed!) and soak up some rays whilst gazing at the city scape of the best city in the world. Always a silver-lining, non?

Still, everybody keep your fingers and toes crossed until Tuesday, s.v.p.!!

The Bookshop

The title of this post is somewhat ambiguous: I have both been working in a bookshop and have just finished yet another of Penelope Fitzgerald's novels, coincidentally entitled The Bookshop. However, these two are not wholly unconnected as I have found my lovely, local bookshop to be the perfect place to get really stuck into a book: quiet, without distractions and with enough hypothetical judgement from the customers that you feel like you really need to read rather than daydream!

Obviously I spend the majority of my day during term time reading but normally either in Latin, Greek and even, on the odd occasion, French and German (apparently there are no English philologists!). Tacitus' Annals aren't really my ideal bed time reading, however devoted to my subject I may be. Most of the time, I'm simply too drained or too busy to read for pleasure. I had slightly forgotten just how lovely it is to be completely caught up in a book, so utterly hooked that you accidentally awake in the morning to find the light still on and a book on your face (ahem, no I'm definitely not speaking from personal experience...)

Since I love sharing good finds, I'll end with a couple of favourites for your perusal!

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. An amazing and fairly rare combination of a tightly constructed plot and excellent writing which manages to be poetic, humorous and yet completely true. I was totally gripped, though must admit that towards the close I had started to tire of the endless gothic cliffhangers. So, whilst I've heard that The Angel's Game is equally fabulous I may need to restrain myself until next vac to launch back into such melodrama!

Bluestockings by Jane Robinson. A very inspiring book about women's fight for university education. I was amazed at how recent a struggle it was, continuing even after the cataclysmic World Wars. I was also shocked by the ridiculous preconceptions about women's mental capabilities (apparently the activity of a woman's mind was thought to be inversely proportional to her sanity and even her fertility!) and what personal sacrifices were made for this cause. A definite reminder not to take my freedom and privilege for granted.

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was as late a find for me as writing seemed to have been for the author who discovered her talent rather late on in life. Her novels are petite and delicate but wonderful. I've read a fair few now including The Beginning of Spring (an evocative portrayal of Moscow at the turn of the century) and The Gates of Angels (an interesting deliberation on love, faith and science) but this was by far my favourite. The petty injustices suffered by Florence Green and the despondent finale had me completely enraptured.

E(1) is for Edgy

I've just spent a lovely day (topped off with just a hint of spring-ly sunshine) avec the Best Friend in Spitalfields and think I am in love. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to shop anywhere else ever again. Well, this is clearly a lie as I love my Zara and a cheeky bit of Topshop from time to time but there's something oh so satisfying about digging out a vintage item from a big heap of, quite frankly, questionable clothing (were red leather hot pants a good idea, even in the sixties?) As I still harbour a somewhat snobbish concern, totally against the vintage mentality, over the origins of the clothes, bags, belts and broaches were the main culprits aujourd'hui.

As we walked down Brick Lane I was completely caught up in the bustle and the noise. I can't wait to move back to London permanently. I am most definitely not made for the country, far less for a small town. Once university is over, it's back to the big smoke for me and all the excitement, diversity and history which comes with it. I realise that, attending one of the oldest universities in the world as I do, that statement is somewhat ridiculous but there's something of the chaotic, the ramshackle to London's history which I adore. Mostly though, I am consumed by the grittiness, dirtiness and dubiousness of London's past, something which feels lacking from the smooth, sandstone colleges of academic life.

That said, I simply do not know my home town well enough and have thus resolved to eschew the touristy and the tacky London, the better to hunt down the quirky and offbeat. Goodbye Leicester Square with your dodgy night clubs, hello Portabello with your soulful blues nights!

Frankie says relax ...

So, here we are again. It's the stress fest that is the beginning of term. You've just arrived, have barely unpacked and before you know it you're about to have a nervous meltdown about beginning of term tests, let alone when full term kicks in - overload of lectures, insane amounts of essays to write, huge charitable events to organise, trying to fit in new societies. Aaaand relax, because no matter what has gone before, this term is going to be different.

Last term, the stress got to me but now I refuse to let the expectations of others and the pressures of work affect my wellbeing and push me towards a lifestyle which is an unbalanced, not to mention an unhappy, one.

My plan (aside for power bikram yoga sessions on my new mat which I received from Best Friend for Christmas?) is to be inspired by a quote which mirrors my mentality.

The first one I found was from Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar: 'There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure  but I don't know many of them.' Well, wise though she may be, this quote is simply unfortunate for I do not have a bath at university and 100 miles is rather a long trip to soothe away my troubles.

The next, located firmly in the classics, was from Ovid: 'Take a rest. The field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.' Firstly, I'm not a field and, secondly, I don't need to rest; I need motivation to work yet in an unstressed and zen like manner. Onwards and, hopefully, upwards.


My third quote is from Maureen Killoran,who quite frankly I do not know from Adam but whose advice is sage. "Stress is not what happens to us. It's our response TO what happens. And RESPONSE is something we can choose."