Update the Twoth

It snowed today! I got out of bed thinking it was colder than usual, got dressed, ready for work, found my mobile and saw a text from my sister saying, 'It's snowed outside!'

And I kid you not, I ran to the window, threw open the shutter and tore off the sash (or at least I imagined the narrator doing so in the Night Before Christmas, my window not having a shutter or a sash). Lo and behold, a frosty white coating of icing powder all around - I felt like it was Christmas - or at least, winter...

I went and got my disposable camera and finally finished the damn roll with photos from my room (to be posted up later) and spent the next two or three hours in probably the best mood I have ever been in during a morning. I left the house with a silly grin on my grin on my face, picked my way along the slushy disgusting pavement like a pregnant woman, got passed by two locals who, having noticed my uncoordinated gait, turned as they passed me and realised "we've got a fresh one here", and got on to the Tube not caring if it took me til lunchtime to get to work.

I was actually pretty disappointed I was only 15 minutes late. Even more so because of the fact that I have been 15 minutes late for about 5 out of the last 7 days. A crisis like snow makes the morning commute so much more interesting. There was however a psycho woman who screamed at people to move down the carriage and let her on (as she landed into the carriage from a height), which made the whole carriage go quiet, even for London standards. There was this poor schoolboy who couldn't have been more than 10 or 11, who kept on looking up at her like she was an angry relative, half curious yet respectful, the other half dying to grin. He cast all around the carriage for others to grin with, found a classmate, looked at me, in fact he did the rounds about three times. It was all the more amusing since he was nearest her (nearest of about 5 that were surrounding her) and being the shortest of the 5 seemed the most vulnerable. He kept on looking at her as if to gauge whether she was going to explode again.

I hope it snows again tomorrow - although my enthusiasm for making snowballs or at least a snowman died about 10 seconds after looking outside - I really need a Kiwi sidekick to get the energy up for that kind of malarkey so early in the morning and I didn't feel like getting down and dirty with the frosty stuff just then.

Progress is slow for the big flat move - I am moving flats - but once it is all over I will sigh with relief and post all the gory details if I can be bothered. Basically, the leaseholding flatmates started throwing their weight around like children over a stupid (and selfish, at that) dispute, ordering the flatmate with which the dispute was, to move out of the flat. I could see it happening to me, the honeymoon period with the flat was over, so I said tarah. I tend to avoid conflict if I can, but I knew that one day I would let rip and face the prospect of having my room rifled when I was at work - so I'm keeping it cool, calm and collected and hopefully I'll get the hell out of here with everything in one piece (and my bond, $%£!!). More later, but my new place is above a restaurant, beside a DJ and his club, and near a mosque.

Sounds like another adventure!

Meme

I've been tagged. Argh!

So I need to post up five things that you wouldn't otherwise know about me. Hmm...

- I wear a ring on my middle finger on my left hand (I actually got asked in Germany if I was married, believe it or not! By a guy though. On behalf of a girl apparently. Apparently not. Not that he was interested. I think.)

- To escape doing the dishes after dinner I would sneak off to the toilet and sit there for hours. My family wised up after a while (6 years) and started having a delayed dessert, so I would come back to the table, see the dishes still there and my family would start laughing at me. I can't really do that anymore, seeing as no one else in the flat is going to do my dishes for me.

- I have been to Brixton four times now and have been shot zero times. It's an encouraging ratio. London-based bloggers will know that Brixton is much more dangerous than its Wikipedia entry lets on.

- I have a lava lamp in my room and it is purple. I'm truly disturbed by the way the initial movements of warm lava (?) through the still-cold water form mini-stalagmites that resemble foetuses. I must take a photo and post it up sometime.

- I got busted in third form for fiddling with a Coke machine at school. Career thief that I have become, I learned from these elementary blunders:

a) Instead of acting like I was actually getting a drink (I had plastic token I was trying to pull up and down the coin entry), I panicked when I saw a teacher coming and started jerking the token to try and get it out, succeeding only once the teacher was next to me and taking an interest in my criminally thirsty mind.

b) Instead of telling him the name of someone else in my class, I recited my name and form class virtually immediately - name, rank and serial number I kid you not.

c) Instead of keeping mum about the affair, I told my friends, who (in a restrained manner, now that I think about it) told me I was an idiot for panicking. The token got confiscated I think. Either that or I gave it a ritual burning. I did actually learn something that day at school - to this day I have never told my father (he gave me the token from the packaging for a new hammer he had bought) or my mother (she would have given me the quiet 'disappointed' treatment - you know, the one that absolutely rips you up inside).

- Six, just cause I'm feeling nice: I discovered a mildly raunchy novel in my house (my parent's house), read it cover to cover about 10 times, then had a massive conscience guilt trip. I took the book out the back to our decommissioned incinerator (I think burning rubbish had been banned about 10 years prior) and gave that a ritual burning, complete with page ripping. I felt just like the Germans must have in the Book Burning Square (which I have now been to!). I don't know whose book it was so I never told anyone about that. It was probably the most explicit piece of literature I had read at that point in my life. I can't remember how old I was, but the title? A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follett.

I'm sure that book corrupted me. Either that or it was the time I burst in on my parents having sex. Dear Lord.

I am tagging ex-pats over here: Clint Heine, Michelle, Pru, Frit, MavXP. Sorry guys if you've already done them, I've just been rubbish lately and have not been doing my Required Reading.