Terrible Habit

I have unfortunately acquired a terrible new habit.

I keep falling in love with men on the tube.

There is mainly one. I have seen him twice at Belsize Park. I think he is a doctor. He has a beard and incredibly well chosen shoes.

I have decided to take bold action. I have written him a note. I have sworn to myself that if I see him again I will give him this note:

'To the man on the tube,

This will be the third time I have seen you.

I decided to write you a note and swore that I would give it to you if I ever saw you again.

I have never felt compelled to do this before.

My name is Ginny and here are three things I like:

1. Swedish folk music
2. The author Haruki Murakami
3. The film - The Science of Sleep

I thought I would tell you three things I like so that you are able to have a basis on which to judge me on.

I would very much like it if you sent me an email in receipt of this note. I am, however, aware that I am a complete stranger and will completely understand if you choose not to. If you do not respond and I see you again, I promise to avert my gaze and specifically sit in a different carriage so as not to make you feel uncomfortable.

I would also like to apologise if you feel this is incredibly inappropriate.

Here is my email address:

Kind Regards

The Girl on the Tube, Ginny.'

I am undecided as to whether inserting a passage by Haruki Murakami entitled the "100% Perfect Girl and 100% Perfect Boy" would be too much?

I hope I see him again, and I also hope that I have the courage to give him this note.

Having a job.

It has been a while since I have written anything of any remote interest, for which I apologise. This has been due to the fact that I have acquired a job. I am currently working for Office. Unfortunately when telling people I work in Office, it is often misconstrued, and people tend to think that I work in an office. There are several aspects of working in Office (a shoe shop for those of you who have never been on a high street), that I enjoy. Firstly I must say that getting a discount on 8 pairs of shoes every four months is very nice. I also enjoy the general lack of being told what to do. There are several things I do not enjoy however:

1. My horrendously muscly legs from running up and down the stairs several hundred times each shift.
2. The number of times I have dropped boxes on my face from great heights.
3. Dusting glass shelves which obstinately refuse to remain free of dust for even the shortest period of time.
4. I also do not enjoy the fact that at the most inappropriatly busy times, I will get to the desired shoe in the stock room and then completely forget what size I am meant to be getting. This happens more times than is acceptable.

However, my all time least favourite thing about working at Office is the policy they have when we do not possess the correct size. The policy is, in the case when we do not possess the correct size of the desired shoe, we are required to take 3 different options. Now please do not get me wrong, I completely agree that showing different styles which are similar to the desired style can be helpful, BUT my problem comes when we have the size below or above in the desired style. In this case, I might take the smaller or larger size down, but it is a horrible feeling when you are walking towards the customer holding the desired style, in the wrong size. The look of disappointment you create on their previously joyful, expectant faces is heart breaking. I have never informed anyone of a loved one dying and I'm sure I cannot categorise the death of a family member and the absence of the correct shoe as being in the same league, but if the pain of losing a loved one is as painful as trying on the shoes you want most in the world in the wrong size, I would not like to lose a loved one.

FIVE

When was the last time anyone watched channel 5? Just a thought.

The smallest satsuma segment ever!

Yesterday I came across the smallest satsuma segment ever! It was amazing! And it tasted really good too although I felt a bit bad eating it.

Getting my freak on with Giles Deacon

Whilst at a discussion recently between Colin McDowell, and my favourite bespectacled charmer - Giles Deacon, I decided to pop the question. By popping the question I do not mean proposing to Giles (and yes we are on first name terms), but asking him a question I hoped he had never heard before. I am so sick, to the point of possible internal damage of generic people asking generic questions to these intelligent people like; "What inspires you?", "Who is your muse?" and other such question crimes, that I decided to be a little more bold.
As I held the microphone in my profusely sweating hands, I stood up and announced my name. It is a shame that I am so short as when I stood up, I could hardly be seen!
I began my question by saying,
"This is a slightly morbid question...", to a slight nervous laughter from him and Colin, to which I myself then nervously laughed.
"When you...um...pass away, would you like someone else to design under your name, or for the label to cease?"
Unfortunately, whilst trying to listen the answer, I was a bit too busy basking in the glory from Colin McDowell commenting on how extremely excellent my question was. I think the general gist was that he would like the label to cease - but more importantly, I can't be sure, but I swear in the brief moment that our eyes met above the tops of the heads in front - he fell in love with me.

Another chipstick related incident!

Just thought I would share with you another chipstick related incident. Those of you who read this regularly will know about the previous incident. It's not much of an incident, I just cut the roof of my mouth whilst eating a chipstick. It's quite painful actually. I need to stop having savoury snack induced accidents.

Food

I think I should rename by blog, because the main focus of what I write about is either directly, or indirectly related to food. I love food. My diet of late has been awful; because of having 3 deadlines all in a short period of time, I haven't really had the time to cook.
The other day I ate: - An almond croissant
- 3 slices of cold pizza
- A McDonald's cheeseburger, and then a McChicken burger
- A packet of cheese puffs

I did enjoy that day, but in photos that evening, it was evident in my tight t-shirt that I shouldn't have eaten that much, and maybe a few more fruit and vegetables and a lot less cheese wouldn't have gone amiss.

Thinking about food can distract me greatly. Whilst recently Stumbling, I came across a blog which had hundreds of pages of fantastically photographed food http://www.tastespotting.com/. I was on it for ages. If you think you love food as much as me, you will enjoy it.

Also..

I just wanted to apologise for the lack of the grave accent on gruyere on the previous post, unfortunately my keyboard isn't as sophisticated as i'd like it be. I can do this `u, but can't do them at the same time. Maybe i'll write Apple a letter detailing my outrage.

Where's the gruyere?

I was in Tescos the other day, frequenting the chilled, savoury snack section when I came across these two items.After thinking long and hard about about which one to buy, I decided to read the detailed product description. After reading the detailed product description, I realised something. The product information was exactly the same on both quiches, just slightly re-worded.

Now, clearly as most people know, the difference between a cheese and bacon quiche and quiche lorraine is gruyere cheese. I've decided I might write a letter to Tescos, outlining my disgust at their lack of quiche awareness. Or maybe start a petition, so that Tescos know how many people share my concern for quiche truth. If you share my concern please do not hesitate to contact me and we can have a nice discussion about the finer aspects of correct quiche making.

Cloud 9

It has come to my attention recently that pillows are becoming obsolete.

Joel has the worst pillows known to man. Using two sheets of paper would probably be of more use whilst trying to sleep than Joel's pillows. I have secretly been pinching Joel's flatmate's pillows when he's not there, so I can achieve a suitable night's sleep. However, this becomes a problem when Joel's flatmate is in. So as an alternative, I decided to try something a bit radical. Instead of using the traditional pillow, I used a spare single duvet. Joel said (and I quote),
"That is the worst idea I have ever heard", (this is before he tried it).
It, in fact, was the best idea I had ever heard. The fact that it moulds around you with minimal effort and you can get really entwined in it just puts it in a whole other realm. I was very pleasantly surprised, and after Joel tried it he quickly retracted his previous statement, and proceeded to nickname it 'Cloud 9'.

For anyone who feels pillows are soon to become extinct/or who have trouble sleeping , I recommend trying Cloud 9.

A new pencil sharpener and injury.

I bought a new pencil sharpener yesterday which I am really enjoying. It cost 79p. At one end there is a pencil sharpener and at the other there is a rubber! I would like to see more stationery solutions like this. Although the one problem with integrated stationery is if you lose your pencil sharpener you have also lost your rubber, and vice versa. For me I can see this becoming a problem as I am very good at losing things. However, I have quite a collection of rubbers, so I should be ok.

I have another self inflicted injury. Today I fell over in the shower and managed to crack a tile with my elbow. I am going to give blood next week, I hope I didn't catch anything from the tile.

Recent injuries

I don't know whether it's because I am getting older, or whether I am just generally becoming more clumsy, but it seems recently that I have injured myself on more occasions than seems appropriate. The most recent, is something that just happened now which prompted this post.

- I was eating a pack of Chipsticks, and a little crumb fell onto my keyboard (computer keyboard, not the Casio type). Not wanting to poke the crumb further in between the keys, I thought the best thing to do was to try and inhale it into my mouth. However, I may have inhaled too hard as the crumb went to the back of my throat and consequently I choked quite significantly.

Actually I'm not entirely sure whether that would be classed as an actual injury, more of a momentary minor affliction. More recent injuries include:

- Dropping a heavy glass light onto myself in bed which almost smashed on my head.
- Almost breaking my nose whilst playing table football, (in all the excitement of scoring a goal, I smacked my nose on the corner of the table, which has caused a great deal of cartilage damage).
- Burning my fingers on a hot pan (acute blistering).
- Several times catching my shins on the corner of my bed, resulting in blood being drawn.

Notice the frequent use of 'almost', it seems I always cleverly manage to avoid sustaining more serious injuries. To this day I have never broken anything, even though when I was little I jumped out of a first floor window and landed on concrete, 'almost' broke my pelvis. A quite impressive array of injuries!