An Almost Unwanted Encounter

The other night after I left the office, I was walking along the embankment to the station when I spotted a guy in front of me. From the back, he kind of looked a bit like one of my ex's. I almost freaked out.... bumping into any of my ex's is the last thing in the world that I want to happen. Ever. Thankfully, I've been really lucky in this respect because as a personal rule, I've always gone out with guys who didn't live in the same vicinity as me. Unfortunately, I once went out with the biggest loser from South London... and now I live in London, so I guess at some point it's inevitable that I might bump into the lying, cheating, pygmy bastard.

Anyway, I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, I almost freaked out because I thought the guy in front of me might have been my ex. But then I came to my senses, and I realised that there was no way it could possibly have been him..... because...... this guy wasn't carrying a plastic carrier bag with his belongings in!!!

Panic over.

I'm in the mood for ...... making babies

Due to popular demand from my fans, or should that be FAN? I only have one adoring fan, I have decided to write an entry. I haven't updated this blog for ages because.... well, because I have nothing interesting to say. My life is boring and nothing interesting happens in my life. But anyway, Lady of Leisure has been bugging me to update for absolutely ages so to shut her up... here I am.

Had the day off yesterday so spent most of the morning queueing up in Barclays (the shittiest bank in the world) to pay Gas Man's credit card bills. This particular branch has four cashier slots available, but there only ever seems to be two cashiers on duty at any one time, and about eight other people milling behind them pretending to look busy whilst blatantly ignoring the fact that there is a queue of extremely hacked off customers a mile long waiting to be served. On this particular occasion, Cashier No. 1 was serving a lady who had a Sainsbury's Bag for Life full of loose change that she was slooooowly counting out and it took forever. Finally, fourty minutes later I was done and out of Barclays (the shittiest bank in the world). One mission completed, another to go.

My next mission was to go to Mothercare to buy baby gift vouchers. I decided to power walk into the West End. Got there and it was manic, full of bloody tourists and Christmas shoppers. I had no idea where Mothercare was. All I knew was that it was in Marble Arch. I don't even know where Marble Arch is. I have zero sense of direction so it took me ages to find it. Tried to call Gas Man several times for directions, but he must have been busy at work because he kept hanging up on me. Got to Mothercare and was pleasantly surprised that there was hardly anyone in the shop! I expected it to be full of harrassed parents with screaming brats in tow. I have never been in Mothercare before, so I went straight up to the cashier (Asian guy who was shorter than me... and I'm five feet nothing! Ha!) and asked him if they sold gift vouchers. "Yes we do Madam" he replied. "Excellent!" I said and whipped out my envelope of of cash that I'd collected from my colleagues in the office and dumped it all in front of him. "I'll take £135 worth of vouchers please". He counted all my cash and gave me my vouchers in a very unbaby-esque plain silver gift card. "Do you have anything cuter? Something with bunnies or hedgehogs on perhaps?" I enquired. "No Madam, this is all we have". How utterly pants is that? No cute gift cards? Disappointed, I took my gift vouchers and crappy gift card and decided to have a nosey round the shop. Bad idea. Three floors of baby/toddler/young children/maternity goods. They had the cutest little outfits. I loved the cute little bear outfits. They also had baby record books where you can record things like baby's first footprint, baby's first solid food, baby's first poo etc with a photo to go with it. They had one that was based on the "Guess How Much I love You" book and it was soooooo adorable. With so much cute baby stuff around, I couldn't help but become broody. Damn it. I want to squeeze out a baby so I can dress it up in cute bear outfits and buy a baby book.

One thing I found bewildering in Mothercare were the pushchairs. I can't believe how many types of pushcairs you can get nowadays, and how complicated they are. I remember 15-20 years ago, all that was avaiable were prams (huge cot with hood on four huge wheels) or pushchairs which were basically stripey deck chairs mounted onto four little wheels (which went straight ahead or backwards only). But these days you can get pushchairs with wheels that turn 360 degrees, pushchairs with 3 wheels (WTF????), two in one pushchairs..... etc etc. Bloody hell. And the price of them??? £75 for the cheapest most basic pushchair and £300 for an all singing all dancing three wheel pushchair???? It's outragous. What's with the three wheels anyway?

Later in the evening, I met up with Mr Wagamama and Lady of Leisure for dinner. Met up with Mr Wagamama first and we went for a cup of tea and natter in a nearby coffee shop. I've taken to drinking tea instead of hot chocolate now whenever I'm out as tea has less calories than hot chocolate, but unfortunately, it keeps me up at night. Bah. Anyway, Lady of Leisure finally turned up an hour later, and after much debate we decided to go to a cheap and supposedly cheerful little English restaurant called The Stockpot. You can get a three course meal for £7.50 there! Although, Mr Wagamama told me that back in the days when he was a scummy student, it was £5.00 for a three course meal. I ordered a Leek and Potato Soup, Cumberland Sausage and Mash and Toffee Sponge Pudding with Custard for dessert. The Portions are very generous so you get a lot of value for your money. But the food wasn't up to my standards. The leek and potato soup was watery and an odd dark green colour and looked like it had been re-boiled God knows how many times. The only time I've ever had leek and potato soup it was thick and creamy - like a puree, so that was what I was expecting. Not this watered down rubbish. The Cumberland sausage turned out to be two dark brown sausages. I don't think they were Cumberland sausages. The peas looked like they'd been boiled for hours, the carrots I think were Sainsburys 17p ready to eat chopped carrots in a can. The mash was quite nice though and I had some of Lady of Leisure's chips (real chips not nasty little French Fries) which were nice. The pudding was nice too.

We went to Costa Coffee afterwards for tea and then I went home an hour later.

An update on my money making exploits and my week-end

Just logged in to check my Ebay account and this morning I've sold four items for a grand total of ... duh duh duh..... £20.09. I've got 6 more items listed, two of which have bids on for £5.48. I'm loving Ebay. Now I just need to find more unwanted goodies to sell.

Yesterday I ventured into China Town to meet Mr. B for dim sum. I got lost on the way there. Again. (A whole year of living in London and I still can't find my way around!). And Mr B had to come and find me. I almost didn't recognise him at first as he's had his hair cut short since the last time I saw him.

After lunch, we jumped on a bus and headed over to Camden for "inspiration". I found inspiration in the form of a light fitting which seemed to be made out of dried prawn crackers. Sounds awful I know, but it actually looks quite good. Wish I'd taken my camera with me to take a photo. So now I have the urge to go to the Chinese supermarket and buy a box of dried prawn crackers and create my own unique light fitting. Will have a root around Gas Man's tool box later for more inspiration. Hmm.... I wonder if my dried prawn cracker light fittings would sell well on Ebay?

I walked home last night. We got the bus back into town and got off at Tottenham Court Road. The queues at the bus stops were huge and there were no signs of any buses coming anytime soon so I thought sod this and walked all the way back to Islington. I did it in about 35 minutes, hiccuping all the way! Walking off the dim sum I ate for lunch felt sooooo good, and it made me realise how much I miss walking. I should try and walk more.

I have nothing else to report.

Money making exploits

I am currently trying to make as much money as possible through various channels (namely Ebay) in order to pay for my legal fees and other moving in costs. My friend Lady of Leisure is also trying to do the same. Her aim is to make £10K in the next month. I'd also love to make £10k in the next few months, but I think this is extremely unlikely. I have nothing left of my own to sell, and I've already sold most of GM's stuff and am nowhere near the £1K mark let alone £10K.

Good news is that I'm £16.50 closer to my target thanks to an obsessive Jean Paul Gaultier freak in Belgium. Last night I listed a JPG Le Male washbag together with four samples on Ebay for £3.99. This morning the JPG obsessive emailed me and asked me if I'd sell him just two of the samples on their own for £10 plus postage. Result! But I felt a bit bad because the samples are only 5ml in size each and in my opinion, not worth £10. So I replied and offered to sell him the whole lot for £10 plus postage. A few more emails were exchanged, and he ended up agreeing to pay me £16.50 into my Paypal account. Now, I don't understand how he managed to come to a price of £16.50, but I'm not complaining!

On the way to work Specsavers were handing out freebies so I managed to pick up a free clear plastic spectacles case with a voucher for a free eye test (a saving of £19.50) inside. I've been meaning to get my eyes tested for ages and now I can for free! Phoned them up this afternoon and have made an appointment for Thursday afternoon. I really hope that I don't need to get new lenses. I asked how much they cost and was told they cost £99.

PS2 friend or foe?

Another lazy Sunday yesterday. Spent some time shopping in the West End and then spent the evening at my boyfriend's (Gas Man) house. Gas Man spent most of the night neglecting me and playing a new Yakuza game that he'd recently downloaded for his PS2. Usually, it really pisses me off when he plays on his PS2 because I hate being ignored. But I've recently discovered that this can be a good thing.

Before:

WWNS: Hunny, can I sell this on Ebay?
Gas Man: NO!
WWNS: Why not?
Gas Man: Because I need it.
WWNS: No you don't. You never use it. Oh go on, let me sell it on Ebay?
Gas Man: NOOOOOO

Now:

WWNS: Hunny, can I sell this on Ebay?
Gas Man: *distracted by PS2* Huh? What?
WWNS: Can I sell this on Ebay? You never use it....
Gas Man: *still distracted by PS2* glances briefly at whatever I'm holding in my hand.... yeah ok babes

Result!

Test.