Simple Maths + Food Coma = Dazed and Confused

I think I am regressing into stupidity. I just went to buy some stamps. Granted, I haven't been getting enough sleep lately, and I did have a bit of a post-lunch food coma, but the amount of time it just took me to count out £2.16 from the shrapnel in my purse was unnatural and embarassing.

England's Green and Pleasant Land

Further to my previous post about cultural and ethnic identity, this is the 'English' post. :o)

As I've said before, the experience of coming from a ‘dual-heritage’ or ‘mixed-raced’ background is different for everyone. It is of course more common nowadays than it was 30 years ago. In fact, interracial marriages were still illegal in the USA until 1967. According to the 2001 census, interracial marriages in the UK are at 2%. Although the ‘non-white’ population of the UK is currently only 9% it certainly doesn’t feel that way in London, where cultures of all kinds collide, and mixed-raced couples are certainly not a rarity.

I’ve never had a problem with my ethnic background as such. In fact I embrace the duality of it, although I suppose I do identify with the English part much more, having been brought up here. I'm sure life could have been different had I grown up in the North of England where my Dad is from, where racial tensions between white English and Asian communities have been more pronounced. However, even those who have parents of the same ethnicity, but have grown up in a country different to their parents’ homeland may experience this kind of duality in some way.

Among the black population, for example, you will find individuals that were born and raised here, whose parents may even be the same, who will still strongly identify themselves primarily as Jamaican or Nigerian or Ghanaian, etc. However, someone else with exactly the same background may simply identify themselves as British or ‘Black British’. There seems to be a similar situation within the Asian community. There is certainly no right or wrong here, and identity is of course individual, but perhaps this question of identity becomes most poignant in relation to recent terrorism fears, directly involving the British Muslim community. Home-grown terrorism is something that is especially scary to many and equally difficult to understand. Many people find it incomprehensible that young men and women, born and raised in the UK, could store such hatred towards the country that educated them, that (whether they admit it or not) will have shaped or influenced them in some way.

I’ll admit that my own situation with regards to ethnicity and identity is different, in that one of my parents is English, and furthermore, a generation removed most of my peers’ parents. But I’ve never felt anything but British. That does not mean to say that I neglect the fact that I am mixed-race. But whether I like it or not, I identify with the British culture in many ways. I have a Western mindset. I may be influenced by much of my Mother’s cultural background, but if I was to move to the Philippines, I would not fit in. I could certainly learn to and of course would strive to do so, and I am already aware of some of the various social and cultural differences we have. But I cannot kid myself that I would not be a foreigner there.

I appreciate the various freedoms I have in this country and the multicultural aspects of living in London. Yes, the UK has its faults and its government has its own corruptions and crimes. But so does every country. At least here we still operate a form of democracy and have the freedom to vote and the freedom of speech to protest (although all those anti-war protests did little to stop the invasion of Iraq.) Still, for all these faults, I am content to live here. At least for now. When I’m not, perhaps I’ll move elsewhere (and find a whole new set of problems, lol).

So for those who are happy to take the freedoms and opportunities this country provides and then to spew hatred on it makes me a little uneasy. It does seem strange to me to identify so strongly with a place you may have not really experienced yourself, while reviling the culture you have grown up in and seemingly abusing the privileges that culture affords, the freedoms of which are often unapologetically denied in the countries such people defend. For example, to exercise the religious freedom we have in the UK to preach violence and rebellion as acceptable means of defending Muslim nations, when such nations prohibit even the practice of other religions, is more than a little inconsistent to me.

This is not to say that living in a particular country negates your right to complain about it. But if the laws and cultures of a particular land are the complete antithesis of your own, you may want to consider moving away. Just a thought. I'm not targeting any one group, and in relation to my earlier allusions to British Muslims, I'm well aware that acts of terrorism in no way accurately represent the Islamic faith. In fact, I can understand the allegiance to a power that you deem greater than the one governing the land of your residence. My allegiance is to God and while I am proud of my nationality to an extent, I know that there may come a time when the powers that rule this nation will want to encroach on my freedom to worship God and live by His laws in the way I wish. But it surely goes without saying that this is never a reason to protest such action with the use of violence towards innocent individuals.

It’s certainly very interesting that the generational divide in attitudes towards 'Britishness' is widening all the time. From the older generations, there are many British Commonwealth (and even ex-Commonwealth) Africans, West Indians and Asians (still living in their respective parts of the world) who have such a strong respect for and allegiance to the British monarchy, that at times their patriotism even surpasses that of British nationals. For my generation, there often seems to be confusion about what being 'English' even is. Whether or not you are a royalist or you agree with the current government’s policies, there are still aspects of this country that make it great. It's up to the people to make sure those things are not lost.

So, on the day of St.George, I am going to focus on the things that make me proud to be (at least half) English. British patriotism should not be the sole right of the thinly-disguised racists, bigots and neo-Nazis that primarily make up the BNP and the NF. So I’m getting ready to metaphorically fly my flag high and celebrate all that is good and English. Even if just for the day. Someone has to. Because otherwise, if I’m going to hate this country - the home of my nationality, the place of my education, my home for the past 20-odd years - I will also have to hate a huge part of myself.

Cake Heaven

In the little section that I work in, there are six of us, sat at desks in a row. We're in a corner of the floor we occupy, in a little mini-section of our own, separated from the rest of the open-plan office by some filing units. We are Student Funding and we are foodaholics.

There is a considerable amount of time in any average week that we spend talking about food. My desk neighbour (on my right) will always ask what I'm having for lunch and will often announce what she has planned for dinner, the ingredients, herbs and spices she will be using and how much she is going to enjoy it. My supervisor (my left desk neighbour) is half Italian and a high-end foodie. You can mention any dish that you like and he'll have a suggestion to make it better or a decadent version you should try. We joke that our conversations border on food porn, much like the Marks & Spencer food adverts.

My only objection to our discussions is the frequent inclusion of calorie counts - "Starbucks' blueberry cheesecake contains over 500 calories? Oh really, is that a lot? What do you mean, that's equivalent to a whole meal and a quarter of a woman's total daily recommended calorie intake??" Talk about killing my high...

Anyway, my supe has definitely picked up some skills in the cooking department from his mother. I can attest to this first hand, as within my first month of working with him, I'd been treated to apple and sultana cake (sprinkled with a crunchy topping of demerera sugar), Boston brownies (full-on chocolate fudge, described by a colleague as an ' instant heart attack' due to the amount of butter they contained, but oh my, they were goooood) and peanut butter cookies with white chocolate chunks (only slightly chewy and not too sweet - yum).

Today it was his birthday. Being such a foodie, my colleagues teased him that we were expecting him to bring in cake of some description today. "I don't have any ingredients at home," he said somewhat apologetically and much to my amusement, before realising how unreasonable the demand was. "Hang on, I can't believe I'm apologising for not being able to make cakes for my own birthday!" he said, while I smirked at the fact that were it not for his kitchen being unstocked, his enjoyment of cooking would probably have motivated him enough to do it. Amidst the teasing, my colleagues and I got our heads together last week and decided you can't get a foodie of his calibre anything less than some cracking culinary treats. Our boss picked out a fancy bottle of port (apparently he's a fan, so is she). In addition we were going to get him some special chocolate, recently featured on TV, called Venezuelan Black. It's made from 100% cacao and is meant to be used in cooking (he's previously mentioned how grated chocolate gives beef chilli an extra rich flavour). Boss lady went to Waitrose (of course) to find it. After no joy, I offered to go to Selfridges, where the chocolate had been launched and stocked since.

The food hall in Selfridges is actually relatively small compared to other large London department stores (hello, Harrods). But I'd never been in there before and discovered all manner of exciting treats (they have American goods, like Fluff! My Boy has told me all about this. I relayed this discovery to him and he shared my excitement). I wandered up and down, checked out the home baking aisle, walked past attractive displays of limited edition champagne-flavoured Marmite and tins of traditional English tea and finally ambled around the confectionary section, which offered several brands of fancy chocolate in various flavours, but no Venezuelan Black.

In my stubborness I continued to look for another 5 or 10 minutes before finally relenting and asking an assistant for help. I mentioned I was looking for some chocolate that had featured on TV and he immediately knew what I meant. "We've run out," he apologised, "the first batch he made has sold out, so we are waiting for more stock." Disappointed, I thanked him for his help and then reverted to plan B. But I didn't have a plan B. So I wandered round a bit more looking for suitable treats to buy instead. There was a bakery section nearby and my eyes fell on the lovely display of cupcakes.


Aren't they gorgeous? Pretty colours! That definitely swayed me. I'm such a girl. There were boxes filled with 4 cupcakes each, so I grabbed 2 boxes, paid (£13.98 total, cheap they ain't) and took my now-tired arse home.

We left the boxes, bottle of port and a card on his desk this morning. I think he was pleasantly surrpised by the gesture. I assured him that he was under no pressure to share the cupcakes (while secretly dying to try one) and was rewarded with a banana cake topped with pastel green buttercream icing and tiny white icing stars. It was a scrumptious accompaniment to my mid-morning cuppa. My colleague had a carrot one, with yellow icing and sprinkles. Supervisor was very restrained and waited nearly all day, stopping for tea at 3pm and tucking into a pink-iced vanilla cupcake, shaming Colleague and me by delicately cutting his in half, where we had just stuffed our faces in an unladylike manner.

We then discovered that Lola's Kitchen, maker and purveyor of these delicious wonders of baked, icing-topped goodness has a website. We spent some considerable time ogling the pictures and salivating over the descriptions of the various flavours available (rocky road, anyone?). Colleague spoilt it a little by pondering the calorie count per cupcake. "Who cares?" I wondered, "They're not going to be nutritionally beneficial, let's face it." My feeling is, if I want a cake, I'll eat a cake. And I won't ruin the experience with food guilt by agonising over the calories it contains. Good gracious, life's too short. If I'm that bothered, I just won't have one. It's not complicated, is it? A scan of the packaging revealed no indication of any nutritional advice, other than the ingredients list. There was no calorie count, no recommended daily amounts of fat or sugar. "I like you, Lola's Kitchen," I thought. "I'm feeling your style."

Colleague announces she is going to try and find this information on the website. I am strangely impressed and a little concerned by her determination. I'm not sure if she really wants to know or if she simply wants the information to taunt my supervisor. I'm thinking this could be a little naughty on a normal day, but on his birthday, it's borderline cruel. We make estimations on what we think it might be. I play the game and concur with their suggestions. A while later, still unable to find an answer to her question, Colleague reveals that she has emailed Lola's Kitchen for the information. My amusement is quickly turning to dismay. This level of determination is enough to kill any sugar high. Lola's Kitchen sends an email reply impressively quickly. They don't have an exact figure and anyway, it depends on the variety. (Still feeling their style.) They give us an approximation. It turns out to pretty much what we had guessed and not horrendously high. At least it doesn't put off Supervisor, who has finished his cake and is still browsing the website. We discover they make cheesecake, for which we have a shared love. We pause to stare at the picture, making "mmm" sounds in unison. I cheekily remind them that it's a month to my birthday. I hope I get some similar treats. But if I do, there will be no mention of how much fat they contain/how much exercise I'll need to do to burn it off/how many minutes of my life I will lose from eating them. I mean, 'treats' are meant to be just that, aren't they? A treat!

Superfluous food porn pictures alert! Just a couple for the road:

(I can't believe I wrote that whole long-arse blog on cupcakes! Food porn indeed...)

Half-Asian Invasion

A few things have happened lately that have raised questions in my mind regarding racial and national identity. Since I have a mixed-race background, in true half-breed (lol) style, those questions have come separately. This is the 'ethnic' post. The English one comes later. :o)

At my old workplace, we had a gang of administrative staff that all seemed to follow an Identikit aesthetic template: dark, usually slightly wavy hair, dark eyes, glasses (although occasional contact lens wearers) and an olive complexion. Most of us were not white, but mixed race of some description or from an Asian/Oriental background, so we jokingly described ourselves as ‘beige’. None of us really looked that similar if you knew us. But when other staff members or visitors to the Centre’s reception would finish a conversation with one of us that they had quite clearly started with another, it became apparent that we had each become some sort of admin clone, and we started referring to our band of look-alikes as the ‘sisterhood’. It became an in-joke. One person even insisted that one colleague and I were sisters, despite our adamant denial. I mean, we do actually know our respective mothers, and neither has a secret lovechild, but apparently that still wasn’t a convincing enough argument.

Still, there was a strange sense of belonging we had, our merry little band. Even though none of us actually shared the same ethnic background (English, Filipino, Chinese, Indian/German, Iranian, Chinese/Jamaican/Italian), we had formed our own. In some ways I quite liked the paradoxical sense of belonging to a group that didn't belong. I suppose it came from my own feeling towards my ethnicity. The experience of coming from a ‘dual-heritage’ or ‘mixed-raced’ background is different for everyone. For me, it has usually always been a positive experience. I often joke about being asked 'what are you?' and the confused looks I used to get in primary and even secondary school, when referring to my mother's homeland that no-one at that time seemed to have even heard of. I've grown to love being slightly different in that way, so much so that perhaps I embrace it too much, sometimes shying away from identifying myself with a race at all. I've always been wary of being perceived as a stereotype - my parents being a Filipina and an older English man. It just sounds so cliché. It's ironic that when I was a child, it seemed very few people (children and adults alike) had even heard of the Philippines. Now I'm an adult, everyone knows about it, but often, to my irritation, as a place where Western men go to find young brides after a failed first marriage. You can see my reluctance to identify my family with this sort of connotation.

So I've always quite liked the fact that I can be mistaken for any number of different ethnicities, being able to slink between different groups of people 'undetected', not feeling defined by my race or ethnic background. I like the anonymity of it, the fact that people can't always make an assumption about the way I am based on their perception of what I am. Granted, a lot of this is my own 'issue', and sometimes, in my aim to avoid being stereotyped, I can veer towards denying my ethnicity, which isn't a good thing. I don't meet people who share the same specific ethnic background very often, although it's not especially rare. But I've never felt like I don't belong, and I'm grateful for that. Neither have I necessarily felt that I needed to.

However, maybe there is a need, however small, to belong, or feel that affinity you can feel between you and someone with whom you share a commonality of background. Where I work, we currently have a relatively large number of temporary staff. Many of them are Australian, here on working holiday visas, saving up to take money back home and see a bit of Europe while they are here. They're a friendly bunch and I've become quite good friends with one of them. While talking to one of the girls recently, she alluded to her 'crazy' auntie, who was visiting from Australia and would be meeting her English boyfriend. She mentioned her auntie was Filipina (almost by way of explanation for her craziness, much to my amusement). For some reason, this completely surprised me and I exclaimed, "Your auntie's Filipino? [I always say 'Filipino', which is actually wrong when relating to a female. My Mum chastised me about this on Friday so I'm trying to correct myself. It's like Spanish, feminine words end in 'a'.] Are you Filipino?" [Again, wrong, but I'm just trying to be accurate in my re-telling of the story.] I can usually tell when another person is the same mix as me, but it had never even crossed my mind with her. Maybe because she is from Australasia, I assumed she may have had some Maori or Pacific island blood. (Here's the thing with other people assuming things about my background - I do exactly the same to other people.) There was a split second after she said "yes", that I felt a weird sense of excitement, of identifying with her, before replying "Me too! My Mum is!" We both had this odd surprised excitement, amid exclamations of "I didn't realise you were!" and "You don't look it!" It sounds funny and dramatic, but it was nice, discovering another person like me. I felt that aforementioned affinity and I hadn't realised I would. She then told me that one of the other temps is also half Filipino, again, much to my surprise. We chatted briefly, her asking where in the Philippines my family was from, had I been there and when was I likely to go again. All of a sudden there was an additional element to our acquaintance. "Tell me when you're going out there, we could meet up!"

In some ways, I felt a little silly at my excitement in the discovery I share such a small similarity with another person. I liked her anyway, it's not as if this made me like her more, or more likely to talk to, or keep in touch with when she returns home. But there is something reassuring in finding a sense of similitude with another. I've realised that at times, we can tend to focus so much on the differences between ourselves and others, that finding something we have in common, however trivial, seems a startling revelation. And those similarities are much more common than we think.

Happy Poets' Day

A colleague informed me yesterday that today is 'Poets' Day'. I was intrigued by this and slightly ashamed that I hadn't heard of this before, seeing as I was an English student and all.

"Oh really," I said, "Poet's day?"

"Oh yes," he answered, sensing my confusion. "Haven't you heard of it before?"

"No," I admitted.

"You know, POETS' day. Push Off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday."

And with a cheeky smile, off he went.

I did push off early, actually. I do every Friday. Tomorrow is Sabbath after all. :o)

Running Away...?

Sometimes, when you reveal a little bit about your state of mind, someone unexpected will meet your little revelation with such insight that you are taken aback. I forget that when you make these tiny revelations via your status on certain social networking sites, other people can actually see it.

I exclaimed yesterday that "emelectric wants to run away and never come back". It was how I felt at that precise moment. A teeny bit dramatic perhaps, but not inaccurate.

A few hours later, a friend of mine, technically the friend of a friend (OK, a friend of the Ex) left me a message in response:

"The only problem being, you may run away from what ever you wish to escape from and realise you've been followed by yourself. Which may or may not defeat the purpose of running away. Keep your head up Em."

My eyes immediately welled up. I don't know exactly why. I was touched that he'd gone out of his way to leave me some words of wisdom, especially when we don't really have a friendship, as such. I was struck by the pinpoint accuracy of his words, that there are some things we really can't run away from, and often, as much as we think it does, the real problem doesn't always lie with our situation. I felt embarassed when I realised that my biggest problem lately is myself. Mostly I was grateful for the contact, that he had sensed my mood, connected with it in some way and then bothered to share his thoughts with me. I do like hearing the thoughts of others on any given situation. I won't always ask for them and I may not always like what I hear, but I do listen, contemplate the suggestions, take the advice (albeit grudgingly at times) and act on it, when I think it's right.

I haven't responded to his message yet. I will, though. I'm still pondering how to thank him without getting overly intense. He probably didn't even realise the impact his words would have. Someone's throwaway comment can be someone else's profundity. But I appreciated it. More than even I expected. I might still want to run away, but for now I've definitely been stopped in my tracks.

Loving the Ones You're With

Positive relationships, of any kind, can be tremendously rewarding, life-affirming, sanity-saving and one of life's greatest pleasures. I do believe God created us with a need to love and be loved. I think that is part of being created in His image; after all, God IS love and longs to have that reciprocal relationship with all of His creation. Furthermore, God gave us the capacity to have children, to create beings after our own image so that as parents we could experience that unconditional love and concern for our children, that He does for us. We are blessed to have support networks - the extended family that we are both born or adopted into and that which we choose ourselves (friends, partners, etc.).

I've been learning to stop and appreciate such relationships lately, a great deal. I have been extremely fortunate in my family situation (although it is by no means perfect, but that's part of its charm) and I am well aware that not everyone has this experience. For this reason, the relationships we make and keep out of choice are often extra special to us, and I am blessed to have friends that I truly love. I have certainly been appreciating these family ties and friendships lately. Admittedly, my appreciation has been mainly of an inward fashion, from afar, unexplicit. I will make a point to express this outwardly to my loved ones at some point. I cherish them, I really do.

But good gracious, they can be hard work sometimes. :o)

'Dad' Humour

I have a silly sense of humour. It's sometimes dark, quite often very sarcastic, occasionally witty, but mostly just plain silly. I think it's genetic. Both my parents have a silly sense of humour, in completely different ways mind you, but silly nonetheless. My Dad in particular, is renowned in our family for using shockingingly bad puns. The thing is, he knows how bad the jokes are, but he can't help himself. It's typical Dad humour. Anyone else could say the things my Dad says and I might roll my eyes and let out an unimpressed sigh. But when he does it, it cracks me up. It must be something in the delivery. Here's an example:

We watched the end of the London Marathon today, Mum, Dad, Big Sis and I. The weather was typical for English Springtime - completely unpredictable. It was bright at times and not overly cold, but halfway into the main race, the heavens opened and it rained spectacularly. The poor athletes were completely soaked through. Nevertheless, the male champion still finished it just over 2 hours (what? 2 hours? for 26 miles?!) and the female in just under 2 and a half.

The women's race was won by German national Irina Mikitenko, shortly followed by Svetlana Zakharova from the former USSR, who Dad declared was "Russian towards the finish line". Didn't I tell you? Pun-tastic. Third place was taken by Ethiopian Gete Wami, pre-race favourite to win. Dad had a gem saved for her. "She's Wami," he said knowingly, his face making an attempt at being serious, "but I think she's feeling a little coldy".

I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing, partly at Dad's mock-serious face during his delivery, partly at the sheer lack of embarassment it requires to come out with something that cheesey. Mum and Big Sis were equally amused, but clearly not as much as Dad, who was laughing so much he started crying. "I don't know," he said, wiping away tears with an expression of almost pained amusement, "it was just so corny that I even made myself laugh."

Three's Company

I saw Bigger Sis last night (not to be confused with Big Sis. I think they may object to these titles. However, I suspect they may object to 'Older Sis' and 'Oldest Sis' more. Hmm. Anyway). We met at an Italian restaurant near her place of work. The food is always great. She goes there often with friends and workmates, so the staff know her and let her order off the menu if there is something she particularly likes. It's small and intimate, but not claustrophobic. Plus, considering it's in Central London, the prices are pretty reasonable. I was running a teeny bit late, as usual. Most of my friends know I can be pretty unreliable when it comes to timing. I'm very conscious of it but am still unable to get organised enough to be early. I've since discovered (thanks KM) that there are different views of time and how we relate to it. Apparently I'm a polychron. This was a fantastic revelation, but is really another subject altogether. I'll write a blog about that methinks. Anyway, I digress. Luckily, lateness seems to run in my family, so I knew I could get away with being 10 minutes behind.

When I arrived, I discovered Bigger Sis had one of her work colleagues with her, which I had not expected. We haven't seen each other since Christmas, so were in need of a catch-up. For a split-second I felt a tiny bit surprised/disappointed/awkward/irritated. "Eek! New person! Person I don't know! Person who is probably quite a bit older than me and will probably make me feel young and naive and ignorant!" I'm a fairly flexible person, but I like to be kept in the know. I don't really appreciate having things sprung on me, especially not in this type of situation. Generally I'm relatively friendly and when you get to know me, you'll find that I can be rather loud, (too) talkative and relatively confident, but when I don't know someone I'm actually rather shy, to the point of being awkward at times. I'm rubbish at small talk. I often resort to 'hmm' sounds and making random statements about the weather (oh, how British) when stuck. I also tend to ramble off on tangents, the end point of which often bears little resemblance to its start...

Anyway, once I got over my one-second panic, I went over and said hello and gave Bigger Sis a big hug and shook her friend by the hand (people my age don't always seem to do this - why is that? I'm never sure whether to do it anyway and risk appearing a geek or not do it and risk appearing rude). I soon found that I need not have been worried. Her friend (I'll call him 'D') was very easy to be around, was a little jet-lagged (and thus less likely to notice me being an idiot, or even care) and really, really funny.

Waiter (almost as soon as I sat down): "Are you ready to order?"

Calm down, I've just got here! And if you knew how indecisive I am, you would know that asking me that so quickly is even more silly than asking a normal person.

Me: "Can I have a few more minutes please?" A few. That's probably an underestimate.

D told us a little about his recent holiday to Japan, shared his thoughts on why frequent shopping sprees are not wrong (I did try to explain that in my case they might be a little wrong as I don't actually have any money, but he dismissed this idea) and told us anecdotes about his grandmother and her many siblings, who all had fantastic traditional English names like Flo and Doris and Elsie.

About 5 minutes after the first time, Waiter approaches. Oh crap. I haven't even really looked at the menu. And there are at least 3 things I could happily eat. Do I go for the safe option and get my regular pizza? Shall I try one of their new dishes? Shouldn't I be able to make this kind of choice relatively quickly and without help, like a regular adult? When in doubt, use humour.

Waiter: "Have you made a decision? About anything?"

Me: "Yes. But nothing to do with the food. I've decided what I want to do with my life, but I still don't know what I want to order."

Bigger Sis and her companion laugh at me. The waiter laughs too (thankfully) and says he will come back.

The conversation continued. We talked of families. I listened to the story of his great aunt who fell in love with a GI during World War II, to the disgust of much of her family. When she subsequently eloped with him to the US, her parents stopped speaking to her. Although not all of her family objected to her decision so strongly, she remained somewhat estranged from them for the rest of her life. D then relayed, to our amazement, that he recently found out another great aunt, one of her sisters, had been visiting her black-sheep sister in California every other year for the past 40 years without telling anyone. No-one had ever known until now, when in her old age she had randomly confessed to one of her few remaining siblings.

We laughed as he described the different attitudes between the generations, like the way his grandmother's family referred to one of their gay male siblings as 'musical'. He pondered the reason why every big family gathering began with a strange 30-minute stand-off where everyone sat in awkward silence until someone eventually directed a random, blunt comment at their sibling such as, "I don't like your hair", apprently breaking the ice and allowing the friendly banter to begin. It was fascinating, listening to all these stories straight out of another era.

On another topic, for Bigger Sis, hayfever season has started with a vengeance. All evening her eyes were streaming and she took frequent intervals to blow her nose and wipe her eyes, vowing she would be breaking out the drugs as soon as she got home. We talked about allergies and how they can sometimes develop, seemingly randomly, when you get older. Bigger Sis is also allergic to cats, despite having them as pets when she as younger. I've recently discovered, to my dismay, that I may also be slightly allergic to cats. This is a sad revelation for me, considering I love cats and had a cat for maybe 13 years when we were growing up (me and Big Sis, not Bigger Sis). I've only noticed it when visiting my best friend, who has two cats and a crazy dog that thinks she's a cat (ok, I know that one doesn't count). I mentioned this development.

Bigger Sis: "And how is your cat, by the way?"

Me: "Um...fine. [Pause] She's dead."

Cue raucous laughter from D.

After dinner and dessert we somehow got on to toilet habits and how our Dad seems to think it appropriate to share these with us. Apparently, this isn't limited to Dads; it's a generational thing. D told of the time he was on a delayed Eurostar train back to London from Paris. While stuck in the tunnel, he struck up conversation with an old American couple sitting nearby. "She was delightful, absolutely delightful", he enthused, "but then suddenly she asked if I was eating enough fruit to keep regular and the whole conversation was ruined. Too much information! I don't even know you, I was just being polite, the train was delayed!"

After D left to catch up on his sleep and get back on London time, Bigger Sis and I stayed another 3 hours, relating our improved work situations (mine - a new job, hers - huge changes in her current job, mainly the recruitment of 2 new staff to lighten her and D's workloads); upcoming holiday plans (visiting friends and sightseeing in Washington, New York and possibly Philadelphia in the Autumn, she invited me to come along); general life updates (her upcoming remortgaging, my relationship, friends' new situations, family stuff). She seemed excited and happy about the upcoming changes at work and was interested to hear about my news, offering fantastic, objective advice as she always does. In response to her thoughts I made my 'contemplative' facial expression, to which she commented that I looked like Big Sis. We laughed at the similarities between the three of us and our parents (shared and otherwise). I got a glimpse of how things were for Dad when her mother died and how relieved she was when he met our Mum. We marvelled at how alike Dad is to his youngest brother, despite their 15-year age difference meaning their childhoods barely overlapped. We pondered the complexities of sibling relationships. After a last cup of tea (for me) and a complimentary glass of wine (for her, from the manager), we paid and left. We walked to the bus stop together, me realising I was relegated to the Night bus as the last train had been and gone. Bigger Sis waited with me until my bus came, in true Bigger Sis style.

After big hugs, vows to see each other again soon and her seeing me safely on to my bus, Bigger Sis and I parted company. Feeling like a tourist on the way home as the bus passed the bright lights of Piccadilly Circus, the lions of Trafalgar Square, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament before crossing the Thames, I arrived home at 1am. It was only a quiet dinner, a casual meeting, on a school night too. But when the company is this good, there's no better way to spend an evening.

A thousand steps...

I've had a thought in my mind a lot, since I found it last week in a little book we have at home, but I've never read:

"Even if you take a thousand steps from God, you only have to turn around and take one step back towards Him, because He has followed you all the way."

David Marshall, God's Little Book of Encouragement

I'm hoping I never take that many steps away, but I'm thankful for the reassurance that He is there even if I do.

April Snowers

Last night I dreamt that George Clooney was in love with me. Naturally, I was flattered, but I told him I already had a boyfriend (the Boy will be proud of me). He then proceeded to burst into tears, so I held him a little while, patted him on the shoulder and told him he'd get over it. Then I woke up. :o)

As soon as I woke, I opened the curtains and was greeted with a fantastic view from my window:


















Actually, I lie. That was the view from my sister's window, but her's is better. :o)

SNOW!!! Woo hoo! It's so pwetty! I feel a bit like a kid again. Although, since Spring is one of my favourite times of year, I'm a little disappointed that the weather's gone from 17°C and dazzling sunshine to 5°C and light snow in a matter of two days. Hey, it's England, I should be used to this by now. Anyway, my plans to get up early, get some stuff done, go out to buy a swimsuit and then head to the gym were scuppered. Once again, I get to blame the seasons for my own laziness. On the plus side, I got to stay in and look at all the pics (including the ones in this blog) my sis took this morning while out walking in the snow with her hubster.

It's a little weird, there are Spring blossoms already in full bloom and the trees are budding, but all are now covered with a light dusting of snow. Look how pretty this weeping willow and magnolia tree look:


















Anyway, my day has now become very lazy indeed. In line with feeling a bit like a kid, instead of tidying up the shocking pigsty currently masquerading as my bedroom, I'm now watching the film 'Big' with my sis and:

1. Wondering how they managed to make adulthood and work look so much fun
   
2. Laughing at the fact that I still find that weird Zoltar wish machine scary
   
3. Thinking that even though he's in a man's body, a 12-year-old boy sleeping with a grown woman seems kind of wrong.

Right, now I've got that off my chest, I can get back to my pigsty. Oink oink.

Health Advice

Admittedly, I’m not really in a position to give anyone health advice. BUT if you are rather unfit and have to run a reasonable distance to catch an imminently-departing train, when you eventually get on that train and get seated with seconds to spare, here’s a little tip: in an attempt to disguise from your fellow passengers your shamefully low level of fitness – indicated by your rapidly heaving chest and noisy breathing – DON’T try to hold your breath so that it looks like you aren’t panting like an animal. You’ll just get dizzy and may temporarily look cross-eyed. Just a tip.

Good Morning?

Er....yeah, that's about right.