Glamour

I'm sorting through a jewellery box that's been in storage for absolutely yonks. After finding the key to the box buried at the bottom of a shoebox full of memories, I cracked it open, and there, glittering beautifully, was an entire chest of silver and sparkles.

I feel as though I've robbed a jewellery store. I rarely wear more than just a single pair of earrings, and occasionally I'll go through a phase of wearing one particular necklace for a long time. The most recent necklace subjected to this ordeal broke and I think I just always assumed that the others collided with the same fate, or got lost along the way. But here in my jewellery box, I've found relics of the past. I sift through it, and memories spring up at me through the glitz. Here and there, the chains have tangled up; I find a delicate pendant from my first boyfriend solidly clinging to a tacky number I bought for a fling with fashion photography. Scattered amongst the silver ropes and cubic zirconia diamonds are a number of earrings, some with partners, some without, and I am surprised when it makes me sad to think of letting any of the lonely ones go. I manage to slowly dig through the collection, untangling as I go, and it feels like no time at all has passed since I began, even though I can feel the darkness settling outside.

Once I'm done I pick up each piece, one after the other, and lay them reverently back down in the box, all in their own neat compartments. I'm almost definitely too sentimental and I know that I probably won't wear half of them ever again. But I remember exactly how each and every one was acquired, and some of the events they accompanied me through. Not all were happy and not all make for the best memories, but most do, and this is what I cling to. Somehow in this box, in these tiny pieces of mostly worthless metal, I've captured memories of good times with friends, and gifts picked out just for me because for one small moment, I was at the forefront of the purchaser's mind.

It makes me feel alive, loved, unique, special...and sorely in need of the ability to throw things away.

B is for Bob

Since arriving back from travelling, life's been pretty tough. The job I was meant to be starting fell through, and somehow everything seems to be going wrong. It's getting harder and harder to find things to be happy about, but this gave me a little boost today:



I'm hopping back on that horse, and plodding on with the job hunt and a search for some sort of direction. And every little thing, is gonna be all right!

Those Chile Miners.

Now, I'm sure you've found it just as wonderful and exciting and lovely as I have watching the 33 miners being rescued (and if this is news to you, where have you BEEN?! Apart from possibly stuck down a mine....), but has anyone else wondered how the media would describe you in two or three lines for a nice, short and snappy newspiece?

Some of the wonderful answers I've received so far:

"Glenn Selwood, 23, will be the 25th man out of the mine. A law student from Britain, we are still not sure how he got there in the first place."

"Suzannah Hastings, 23, will be the 26th person to be rescued from the mine. Little could be gleaned about her personal life, but she was well known for requesting that both cereal and ice cold milk be sent down the mine. It was only later that she remembered a bowl might have been useful."


"Rachel Frigot, 23, will be the 27th person out of the mine. It is believed that she became convinced that the walls were made of icing."
(And later) "A delay in the rescue effort this evening, as it was discovered that Rachel's tongue has fused to the wall of the cave. Specialised prying tools are being sent into the mine"


"Edward Rustin, 29, is the 28th out of the mine. He asked if he could go back please, as it was nice and peaceful down there and he'd just got to a really good bit on his book."


"Charlie Smith, 24, is 29th man to be rescued from the mine. He became trapped after digging his way to Chile during an over-enthusiastic excavation in his back garden."


"Travis Radicke, 25, was reluctantly the 32nd person out of the mine. He was much dissapointed to learn that he wouldn't get to hold the record for being stuck underground for the longest time. Finding the whole circumstance exciting, he asked to ride the phoenix capsule several more times upon being extracted."


"Vladimir Gostrer, 28, will be the 73rd person to be rescued from the mine. It was not known where all those people came from but apparently Vlad kept running around the collapsed mine and finding more people. His first words on the surface were: "Does anyone have a cup of fresh joe? I got tons of things to do."


I'd love to hear some more! Share them with me - it makes me giggle :)

GUESS WHAT I HAVE!

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yes!

My one regret in life is that I'll never have a dog

'To do' list

Tell me a story...

 me:  Tell me a story.

      About a dog.

      Please.

 Peter:  There was this dog and he was walking along the canal side, and as he walked along thinking, 'What a lovely day; that tree smells interesting...' he heard a sound.

It was a splishing, splashing noise and he looked up and saw there was a small child floundering in the water.

The dog jumped into the cold water and

swam

swam

swam

across the canal 

and he swam right up to the struggling, gasping child

and kept on swimming to where there was a really awesome stick.

He got the stick and climbed out of the canal, giving him a shake to dry himself.

'What a fab day!' thought the dog, chewing on his stick.

The End

Thank you, Peter, for always being there when I need a really, really good story.

PS No, seriously. Click that link. It goes to his blog and it's rather good.

Kittens

I love A Softer World. Don't miss the scroll-over text either!

The National Home Improvement Show - now with added Su!

Ha. Beware of the people with video cameras, especially if you're most definitely not looking your best!

Full video in all of its glory here, and I'm a third of the way through. I know you're DYING to check it out!

Ecards

October is very much a month full of birthdays for me. Not for me personally, you understand, but for people I know. Just to be clear. Anyway, I'm a bit "2002" when it comes to these things, and I like to send a good old trusty ecard. Now I remember the days when these were all over the internet for free, but these are sadly long gone. The best places like Hallmark or Blue Mountain now charge for most ecards, and those that are free are a bit...well...rubbish, really. As a result, I'm always on the lookout for a new website to pop up out of nowhere.

Imagine my joy when I stumbled across this delightfully 'romantic' ecard. Spelling aside, this is the best thing I've ever seen, probably.

Many many giggles!

Ponderings

Every so often, my brain presents me with a problem that I must do my very best to solve. About a week ago, when I was in Halifax, I woke up with one thought on my mind: Could you give a goldfish a helium balloon for its birthday without the goldfish floating away?

I don't know why the thought appeared, but it did. And since then, I've been questioning others to see what they think. But the opinions of my friends, as lovely as they are, are nothing compared to the power of GOOGLE.

So, a quick search on t'internet provided me with this:
"A mole of air at STP, (for the sake of argument say it's all Nitrogen) will displace ~22.4 L (assuming it's close to ideal gas behavior) and have a mass of 28g. A mole of He will have a mass of 4g. This mass will be somewhat larger as you increase the pressure above atmosphere to fill the balloon. So you can lift ~ 1g/L, including the mass of the balloon; larger balloons should be more efficient if you can maintain a constant wall thickness because the balloon mass will increase like the area, and the lift increases with volume."


Jolly good! It sounds quite sciencey and believeable, and the result is about what other places suggest. So, I have 1 gram of lift per litre of helium. Apparently an averageish helium balloon has a diameter of 10 - 12 inches, which equates to around 10L of helium, give or take. So I can have 10 grams of goldfish, just, if I want it to be able to have its balloon and not float away. Which is sort of like having your cake and eating it, only not.

So, now for the weight of a goldfish.

Bless the google gods (or the 'goodles', if you will). They have given me this.

An averageish goldfish, I am informed, will be about 4 - 5 inches after its first year of life. Which, if we go to the magical calculator, means that it will just be able to be given a balloon for its first birthday as long as it's not an overinflated balloon or a small goldfish, and you have a weighty (but not too weighty!) ribbon to attach the two together. Hurrah!


I'm yet to find rates of goldfish growth, because everywhere is like "it depends". But once I find out, you can bet I won't make a silly mistake like giving a goldfish so many balloons for its birthday that I ensure its early demise.

Take THAT, science!

Incidentally, my googling also told me that a goldfish brain weighs 0.097 grams (size of goldfish was not specified - what type of scientists are these?!). So one helium balloon can lift about 100 goldfish brains. Innnnnteresting....

Dear Universe,

It has not escaped my attention that you recently sent me a letter from my bank, who never normally send me letters.

I was delighted to learn that you've decided to charge me £40 for being £1.67 short of the £9.99 I needed to pay my phone bill for the phone that is, rather comically, somewhere in Cambodia.

It gave me a right old giggle.

Thanks for that!

Scotland, ho!

The time has come, the walrus said, to escort my wee-est sister up to Scotland for her to start the versity of uni. We had a very super train ride up with lots of lovely views:

 

Jo clearly can't control her excitement and glee:

While I, on the other hand, am still sufficiently jet-lagged and missing far away places to convince myself that just sleeping in the sun seems like the best idea:

But we took some time out from our busy schedules for a quick photo opportunity:

Before finally arriving and getting to spend some time with my lovely family. This is the very cute Ryan, my cousin's son:

More soon, and some writey posts upcoming too. Be most excited!

La la la la la la life is wonderful

I can't get the chorus of this song out of my head. Love it!

My mistake!

I forgot to add this yesterday! Today's not been super, and finding this when I'd forgotten it existed brought me a little bit of shine. This is me with a fish head. It didn't help to catch any crabs, and so would have failed its purpose had I not changed its purpose to be involved in a (rather sad) kissing theme. Especially lovely is the blood dripping down my hand onto the candy watch I was sporting. Eat it up, YUM!

Kisses

Whilst in Nha Trang in Vietnam, Steph and I visited a very lovely aquarium. It just so happened that this was the location that this lovely picture came into being:

Shortly afterwards on a night out, these two lovely snaps were taken:

After reviewing the pictures a few days later, we decided that it might be rather fun to make the kisses 'a bit of a thing'. Which thereby resulted in a number of pictures which seemed like a good idea at the time.

Kissing piglets in southern Vietnam somewhere along the Mekong Delta.

Not quite a kiss, but spreading the saliva with a snake that protects a cave within a Temple near Chau Doc on the border between Vietnam and Cambodia.

Attempting to make out with an ancient artifact at Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

(Picture of ladyboy in Camodia not inserted!)

I found love at a Wat in Bangkok, Thailand.

Making friends in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.

Returning to the sea theme on Koh Tao island, Thailand.

Sharing the love with Tim in Laos.

Kisses with a Wallaby in Brisbane.

My very favourite emu (also in Brisbane!)

And finally, the very last statue I kissed before leaving Sydney:

Very very very happy days! :)

'Normal service' resumes!

Well. I've not done this in a while.

I've left Asia, but I'm not home just yet. Instead I've made it to Australia for two weeks where I get to spend some time with my family (and lots of internet access!) So I shall begin afresh, with attempts at posting happiness day by day. But there'll (hopefully!) be a fair few with two in one as I recount stories or post pictures from my travels and all the things I should have said before. So if you're one of the five holding out for that ping-pong or skinny dipping story, fear not. It's coming. But I'm too lazy to do it tonight.

Today, this made me extremely happy:

That's right. That's me in a JACUZZI. With my very wonderful cousin, no less. But not naked, despite how it looks. Though I was very tired (and in Brisbane), which is rather how it does look. Pictures can be accurate and inaccurate at the same time, y'see.

(Also, totally check out my weird column and pictures at the sides thing going on! Ooooooooooooooh!)

And for my blast from the past, this is the dog I adopted on Koh Tao. I feel as though I should clarify that she sort of adopted me more than I adopted her by following me around right from the very first morning that I stroked her. We even had a hairy moment once when we went swimming and she was so keen to follow me that she swam a little too far out & had a bit of a panic. Bless her. Her name's Matilda. I miss her.

This is what she looks like fighting me for a giant piece of driftwood on a picturesque beach:

And this is a super hot picture of what she looks like when she's sniffing my armpit:

Isn't she lovely?

Island Life

So, I promised some jolly good stories.

To be honest, I'm not sure whether to start with the ping pong show, the ladyboys, the skinny dipping incident or the tale of the drunken-boy-in-my-bed-so-I-had-to-sleep-outside. Nor am I sure if I have the attention span to write about things in the past right now. But faites vos jeux, cast your votes, and if you're dying to hear any of the above then ask away. I may or may not write a blog post just for you. Or just amble along and wait for me to write in the present, and then recount them at a later date. Maybe. If I remember.

I've spent the last ages on Koh Tao and adopted about 5 stray dogs (which don't act like strays at all. They sit and are very polite and hardly have any fleas at all) and I think I've fallen in love with this place. It's a bugger about all the other tourists though.

I spend most days waking up early and strolling on the beach with my dogs, then hitting the beach for a swim and a snorkel before picking up some friends and finding something fun to do. This really is like a holiday from my holiday.

Most importantly though, I found a coconut on the beach, cracked it open all by myself (thank you pair of scissors!) and ate it all, and it wasn't rotten. I've now checked off another one of the things I have to do before I die. SCORE.

!

I really do have the best family and friends and Ed in the world.

By some amazing scrimping together and generosity, I can carry on travelling and it's working out, and I have leaking eyes because I just heard right this second and they are amazing.

I owe a lot of people some seriously large hugs.

Changing plans...

I do actually have a few very good and interesting stories, but they shall have to wait for now.

I've run out of money and am going home.

I think the word 'gutted' feels appropriate, by which I mean that it feels as though someone has ripped my insides out.

All drinks and company heartily welcomed upon my return.

Hmm.

Carlsberg don't do overpriced beach towns that have the potential to be amazing but are instead full of old western men looking for 'love' with young Thai prostitutes, a total lack of night life and not really all that much else. But if they did, they would probably be just like Hua Hin.

Tim and I are doing a run out of here as fast as our little legs can carry us.

The finer points in life

One of the things I love about travelling is how much you can lower your standards and get excited about the most mundane things.

The guest house we're in at the moment has a loo that flushes, its own toilet paper, hooks in the bathroom, almost hot water and a sink you can wash your hands in without simultaneously wetting your feet. There's even soap and a helpful little shelf to put things like your toothpaste and toothbrush above the sink.

The bed has no bed bugs, and they gave me my own towel. And the linen looks almost clean.

I've only seen one cockroach.

I swear I'm in heaven.

Unexpected ego boosts

Siem Reap is a lovely place, but there's a rather disturbing number of ladyboys and prostitutes. Most of the time you can just ignore them, but I'm always game for a bit of banter. So when one girl (? possibly...) came over and started chatting to us, we had quite the conversation.

Imagine my surprise when she then offered ME money ($100, no less!) to partake in unspecified sexual acts.

That wasn't even the weirdest part of what she did that evening, but I'm still recovering from the scars of the second part.

Har har

I like bad jokes. I'd love to be one of those people who's all sophisticated with their sense of humour, but alas! It's not to be. Bad puns and long stories with a disappointing end are some of my favourites, though I'm also rather keen on a bit of gore and/or bad taste. This seems to have it all:

A man was waiting for his wife to give birth. The doctor came and informed the dad that his son was born without a torso, arms, or legs. The son was just a head!

But the dad loved his son and raised him as well as he could. Eighteen years later, the son was old enough for his first drink. The dad took him to a bar, tearfully told him he was proud of him, and ordered the biggest, strongest drink for his boy. With all the bar patrons looking on curiously, the boy took his first sip of alcohol.


Swoooop! A torso popped out!

The bar was dead silent, then burst into a whoop of joy. The father, shocked, begged his son to drink again. The patrons chanted, "Take another drink! Take another drink!" The bartender shook his head in dismay.

Swoooop! Two arms popped out!

The bar went wild. The father, crying and wailing, begged his son to drink again. The patrons chanted, "Take another drink! Take another drink!" But the bartender ignored the whole affair.
By this time, the boy was getting tipsy. With his new hands, he reached down, grabbed the drink, and guzzled the last of it.


Swoooop! Two legs popped out.

The bar was in chaos. The father wept with joy. The boy stood up on his new legs. He stumbled to the left. He stumbled to the right. Then he stumbled through the front door and into the street, where a truck ran him over.

The bar fell silent. The father moaned with grief. The bartender merely sighed and said, "He should have quit while he was a head."

A bit of a long one (but worth it!)

Siem Reap is a weirdly lovely town. It's got a fantastic night life, the people are all super friendly and we've been staying in the nicest hostel we've been in for a while. After my last post, I was feeling pretty positive about the world in general. Yes, it can be a horrible place where people do nasty things to one another, but I think that there's inherent good in everyone, even if you have to search extremely hard to find it. Buoyed by all the positive thinking (and always up for a party), we tested out the main bar street and acquired some new friends, who we took back to our hostel for a slightly more low key evening. It was a really good night - the sort where you all share deep secrets about yourself that you never knew before and will probably forget afterwards, though the people who you shared them with will remember them long after you lose touch. As is the way when you reach the small hours of the morning, most suggestions seem like a good idea at the time, which is why at about 2 a.m. three of us trooped out to the supermarket to buy snacks and cigarettes (not for me, Mum, promise!). On the way, Maggie warned us that there would probably be children outside asking for you to buy them some food, or some formula for the babies they sometimes had with them. Unfortunately, this is a long-standing scam here, where the formula actually gets sold on rather than being used for the children you think you've bought it for, so the only option really is to buy crackers or similar and open the bag yourself before giving it to them.

Despite bracing myself for the worst, I wasn't quite prepared for what happened next. There weren't very many children at all, though one girl of about 8 or 9 was holding a tiny baby boy who could only have been a few weeks old. This was pretty heart wrenching in itself - obviously there were parents around somewhere, but it was the children who were carrying babies up and down the street early in the morning in order to make a few dollars. Maggie bought some food to give to them and started trying to hand it out. The young girl was quite savvy, and had obviously clocked that I had a bit of a weakness for her and the newborn she was carrying. She turned down Maggie's offers of food, and instead clung onto my dress with one hand and demanded some formula. I had absolutely nothing on me - no bag or money or anything so I wouldn't have been able to buy some formula for her even if I'd wanted to. I did my best to make her let go of me but she persisted, and in the slight scuffle the little boy woke up and began to cry. Without much time to think, I took the baby from her, figuring that if she was going to cling onto me it was much better for me to carry the boy in both my arms than in her one free one. I'm definitely not the sort to get broody - I'd rather have a dog than a child at this point in my life, but nevertheless I rocked him gently to sleep and almost melted. My attention was solely focused on him, though after he nodded off I realised that the girl had let go of my dress and was instead just watching me. It was definitely time to leave. I went to pass the boy back to her, but she turned her back on me. I tried again and the same happened. Desperate, I attempted to hand the boy back to some of the other children and was met with the same reaction. I did this over and over, and still none of them would take him from me. I thought that if I started to walk away they'd follow and take him from me, but they didn't.

It's a bizarre night when it gets to about four in the morning and you're left holding a tiny baby in the middle of a foreign country that nobody will take back from you. It pretty much broke my heart. I can't quite convey just how tiny he was, and I seriously began to consider what I could do with him if they actually didn't take him back at all. There are orphanages here, but I didn't think I could leave him. I honestly thought that if it came to it, I'd have to adopt him and work out a plan somehow. It breaks me to think that there didn't seem to be anyone in the world who loved him, and he was instead just being paraded up and down a street late at night in order to make some money. It's just not something that should happen in the world. When I told another friend this story, she said that once when she was travelling she visited a place so devastated by poverty that the mothers there offered to give their babies away in exchange for almost anything. I know now that it was probably a naive view, but before I always kind of thought that you were at least guaranteed love from your mother, and if she couldn't love you she'd still at least have the humanity to make sure you had a decent shot at life. My 'inherent goodness' view is mostly held together by the thought that everyone is able to love and show kindness to someone in their life, be it their child, parent, lover or someone else. Even Hitler had a family and he was a right old bastard. I still have that view, but it's been shaken a lot because of what happened.

Eventually by chance, some of the people who work at my hostel were out riding around on motorbikes, and they managed to fix the situation by shouting a lot in Khmer and handing over a modest amount of money to the children. The boy was unceremoniously taken from me and given back to the children, and I hopped on the back of a bike and got a ride home where I had a bit of a cry. I think we all did. The morning after I wanted nothing more than to leave Siem Reap and head straight to the beaches in Thailand where I could put it all out of my mind. We booked a bus that left the next morning and had a chilled day visiting an off-the-beaten-track temple, then went out for a rather delicious Mexican meal in the evening. I'm yet to go anywhere here without meeting millions of people and chatting away to them, and last night was no exception. I bumped into someone who's volunteering at an orphanage here for three weeks. After chatting to him for a bit and swapping contact details, we sauntered home to bed for our 7:30 a.m. set off to Bangkok in the morning.

Which is why it's now almost 1:30 in the afternoon, and I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Siem Reap waiting for him to email me back so I can go and volunteer at the orphanage for a few days. I've very little money to spare and no refund on my unused ticket, but when I woke up this morning it just felt like the right thing to do. Here's hoping it doesn't leave me as traumatised as the other night!

Life's a funny old thing.

Thinkings...

As I travel, I continue to ponder what happiness is and how to obtain it, and what obtaining it really means.

The past few days have been heavy going. We're in Cambodia now, and whilst in Phnom Penh we sort of had to do the not-so-nice historical bits, like the Killing Fields and S21. These two places left me a little bit lost for words, and all Steph and I could do was to walk around with our arms linked despite the heat and keep very very quiet. It's difficult to describe what happened without it losing some of the meaning - words can convey a lot, but at the end of the day they're still words. I'm always amazed how people can read the newspaper on the tube or over breakfast or anywhere, and gloss over figures like ''27 people killed in blast'' without balking at it. I know I'm probably over-sensitive, but when I read that I imagine my old class at school being entirely wiped out, or 27 family members. I've not had very many people I've known die - perhaps only 4 or 5 - but each one has shook me a little, and reminded me of my own mortality and the fragility of life. To say that there were thousands of people killed, or 450 all put into one grave the size of a room is something that breaks me, especially when I think that all of those deaths were unnecessary.

That's all a bit morbid, but really I came to share something happy. I've been mulling all of this over since Phnom Penh and wondering how a nation can even begin to recover from something like that, even though nations somehow do it all the time, over and over. Vietnam and Cambodia have both touched me in that, despite their histories, the people are amazingly positive, and always have a smile at the ready. Smiles count for a lot in my world. Last night I was chatting to a very lovely local girl I'd met here about some of this and she said that no matter what had happened in the past or anything, she had her friends and that counted for more than any money or anything at all. I questioned this - everyone needs a basic standard of living and that's not really possible with no money at all. She laughed at me and said, ''When I'm sad, I call my friends and we go for a walk together. If I need money, we'll go to the riverside. One of my friends will bring a bottle of wine, and we'll all sit down together and make a plan. If something's wrong in my family, I can talk with them. I can tell them anything and they'll share it as if it were their own problem." She said that Cambodia works so well because people all look after each other, whether they know them or not.

It's something we've seen a little of whilst here - in the streets people will stop and chat to you, just to see how you are and where you've come from. At first I was wary, thinking that everyone was trying to sell me something or distract me while a friend sneakily nicked my stuff, but I've been wrong more often than not. It's heartening that in the places where I've witnessed the scars from the darker sides of the human psyche, I've also been shown how much more people have to offer without expecting anything in return.

Boating on

So, we've spent the last couple of days doing a tour through the Mekong Delta at an impressive speed. Not only have we managed to visit the huuuge floating market, many temples & pagodas and various small businesses to see how they run (mostly involving rice and coconuts, apparently), but we've also managed to find a whole host of animals.

Whilst the crocodiles were about as friendly as a handbag, the kittens and piglets were much, much more so. Happiness comes in kitten and piglet sized packages. But not in the 'future Gucci product' sort of way.

Still plodding!

I've almost posted a lot of times, but then I haven't.

There are three in the bag though. Wait for me.

We're in Saigon today (after arriving at 4:30 this morning on quite possibly the most horrendous bus I've ever been on) and there are motorbikes EVERYWHERE. That's not that different to the rest of Vietnam, but it's like the rest of Vietnam all squished into one city.

On the plus side, I absolutely looooove bikes. Not when they hit me or when I try to cross the road, but when I do a day's riding around some of the most beautiful mountains on an awesome 'easy rider' tour. Even if every time I see them/think about them/etc it makes me start singing 'Baby Driver'.

Travelling vs the real world

Steph and I have formulated a list of things that are acceptable whilst travelling that aren't so acceptable in the 'real world'. We can personally testify to all of these occurring...

• Speaking to strangers in the street, whether they're locals or foreigners. And then having dinner with them. As you do.
• All forms of loo talk, all the time, even with just-met strangers over dinner. (e.g. I just had the most awesome crap! It's the first one in dayyys! You guys should have seen it! And the smell - that's one to be proud of!)
• Asking the price of absolutely everything. Like someone's earrings? Ask how much they cost. On the same bus? How much did they pay for their ticket? And what about their shoes? And their flights?
• Smelling your clothes in public (and if getting dressed, choosing to wear the ones that made you pull the least bad face when you sniff them)
• Wearing dirty clothes, all the time, constantly, for days in a row.
• Looking like a complete slob all the time, and if you don't, you feel especially proud (e.g. MY UNDERWEAR MATCHES AND IT'S ALL CLEAN!)
• Having a hair style is a thing of the past.
• Hopping on the first motorbike that offers you a lift to somewhere you've vaguely heard of.
• Losing all modesty ('So, yes, we met yesterday. Don't mind me while I strip over here. Ooh actually, while I'm almost naked, I have this bite on my arse. Does it look bad to you? Could you rub some cream on it for me?')
• Being proud of the various parasites that now use you as a host and showing them off to people.
• In countries with water shortages, rarely showering. In countries without, showering alllll the time. It's the only time of day I feel cool over here...
• EDIT: Deet and sunscreen are legitimate deodorants.

That's all for now. But I expect there are at least a few hundred more.

A change in outlook

We went to the spectacular My Son ruins a few days ago. They were truly beautiful, but that wasn't the highlight for me.

In the bus on the way there, our guide gave us a long chat about what we'd do during the day.
"When we arrive outside My Son, we spend 15 minute break after bus arrive. Then you go to happy room. People go in, not happy. Come out very happy. Happy room very nice."

Could this be the answer to everything I've been searching for?

We arrived. He pointed the way to the happy room. I was amazingly, ridiculously excited.


It was a toilet.

Happiness

The biggest problem I´m finding in Vietnam is that people seem to hit me right in the heart, where unfortunately my purse strings are attached.

Instead of just the normal hassling to buy things (which I`m totally immune to after lots of travelling), they approach it in a different way. They say, "If you buy this, I happy. I happy, you happy. You have souvenir, I have money for eat and be happy. Buy and I be happy."

It`s totally not working though. I`ve barely bought anything. Definitely not a bracelet, four dresses, a pair of flip flops, a pointless paper lantern and a wealth of other things.

Not. At. All.

Beaches

This is where I'm going today.

Oh yes!

Oops.

I think I migt have accidentally eaten dog today.

This is really upsetting.

But what's more upsetting is that I found it REALLY tasty.

I hope it wasn't dog.

Please don't tell Rusty.

Vietnam...

is AMAZING!

That is all. (For now)

So...

This is  probably the point where I should boast about Hanoi and upload lots of exciting pictures. Instead, it feels like I'm in a sauna all the time and I now look like a rice farmer after buying a new hat.

Happy hot days!!

The End

Holidays

It's funny. Whenever anyone tells me to enjoy my holiday, I have to remind myself it's a holiday. It feels like a new life. It doesn't feel like a 'leaving normal life for a break', but rather a whole new adventure of a wonderful new and exciting part of everyday normality. Three months is like a whole quarter of a year. I think in my mind, holidays are two week things to not very far away where you can either ski or sit in the sun. We're going to drown in the humidity and then get very wet when it rains, and then hot and wet when it stops, and then the rain will all evaporate and we'll be briefly hot and dry, and then hot and humid and wet. People can be humid too.

We almost have visas. I almost have money. I've almost packed (or will do after I go to York tomorrow (!) and get my backpack and see my family and try to remember important things from there like my travel towel and my raincoat and my me). I totally almost have immunisation. It'll be fiiiiiiine.

We fly tomorrow evening at 10:15 from Terminal 3, arrive the next day at 3:45pm in Bangkok, and then sit in the airport until 6 something in the morning when we fly from there to Hanoi.

It's still not quite almost real, but I can feel all the excitement building like oooooh, ooooooooh, oooooooooh! Which will be lovely when it replaces eeeee, eeeeeee, eeeeeeeee!

Dog Slobber

Rusty is mine no more. WOE. Although it is pretty cool to be able to vacuum, use the coffee grinder, sleep and eat tasty meat products without a dog getting involved in all of them.

The past few days have been really tough with my broken head, and he really helped to keep me a touch more upbeat. Dogs force you to take responsibility and go out to get some exercise. Rusty also made me talk to strange people a lot (Yes, sorry, that little one is mine. Yes, he has had the snip. Honest. Even though he's...oh no, Rusty! Not the poor dog's face! At least get the right END even if you can't get the right sex...) which is something I love doing, but isn't too easy to do when your broken head is telling you that the world is crumbling apart.

I might sort of miss him. Maybe. But then I can't decide if I love this or hate it:

Mornings

Because of the medicine I'm on at the moment, I often don't sleep very well. I'm all right with this fact for the most part - my body adjusts quite quickly and it's quite lovely and peaceful being up at night sometimes - I often wander around, make myself a cup of tea and stare out of a window with the hope of catching sight of a fox:

No no, not that sort.

Much better!

ANYWAY, being awake is all well and good, except when (because I am supremely organised) I've left it a few days before getting my new prescription, which means that my body is all like I LOVE SLEEP after I start on the meds again, leaving me rather tired and grumpy.

Last night was a night like that. I didn't sleep very well from about 3 a.m. onwards. Why am I telling you this? Well...

Remember Rusty? That lovely cute bundle of fur and energy?

He decided at 7 this morning that it was a good day for barking. ROROROROROFFF! RUFF! RUFF! ROROROFF! I tried my very best to ignore him. I really did. Then I let him into the bedroom to sit on the bed (which goes against all my rules, but I thought that if I did that he might sleep so that I could too). He didn't sleep. Instead, he barked in my ear and licked my mouth and nose until I had to hide under the pillow, whereupon he found my toes and licked those instead.

I thought it might be a hint - sometimes he gets panicked when he needs to do his business, and if he's really desperate, he's not patient enough to scratch at the door. So I heaved myself up, threw some jeans and a coat on over my pyjamas and ventured into the outside world.

Now, you might not have known this because you're a normal person, but it's really quite cold outside that early in the morning. Also, the only other people awake are insane commuters who work too hard (ha! That used to be me!) who are all dressed in suits, and so give you strange looks for having crazy bed hair:

Rusty went into the bushes. I was supremely grateful. Despite him forcing me to leave my bed, he wasn't going to make me smell and handle his excrement so early in the morning. The poo bags in my pocket would remain unused. He'd do his thing, and we could go back to bed. I loved him.

However, he went into the bushes with his lead on. As I've affectionately come to say, Rusty is like the rain man, only not smart. So he got a little confused when he got all tangled up in the branches. Never mind, I thought, he'll work it out in a moment. If I just tug softly he'll know which way to go. I should be so lucky. Instead, he panicked and starting whining.

So I climbed into a bush at about 7:15 this morning, still in my pyjamas and with bed hair, to drag a confused and whimpery dog out of the bush that he'd climbed into.

Where I discovered a patch of wet earth with my left hand.

My sleep-deprived brain twigged what it was. Bugger.

So I moved the lead handle into the pee hand, and grabbed the dog's collar with my right. He then decided he was no longer afraid and could find his way out back the way he'd come in. I let go of his collar, and he pushed past me. This caused me to overbalance slightly and put a free hand down to steady myself.

Whereupon I discovered his other excretions.

I love mornings.

Bafana Bafana!

I absolutely love this video by Leon Schuster for the world cup:

Schuster's very well known in and around South Africa as being this strange old chap who can dress up as someone of a different race without it being racist, most often to play practical jokes on people. He's done a few movies too. Ahhh, maybe it's time for me to watch this again.

SQUEE!

I leave for SE Asia in just over a week and I'm ALL BOOKED.

And now very poor.

But ALL BOOKED, nonetheless!

Fork you.

I met up with the lovely Chris today and we picnicked on tasty foods not too far from King's Cross. My salad came with this:

Is it sad to be this excited about a foldable fork?

It's like MAGIC!

But Chris wasn't quite as excited as I was. Awww.

My still ugly what?

I spotted this poor man on the tube and had to take a sneaky picture:

I hope one day he realises what he's done. Or maybe it's intentional and I'm missing out on some amazing joke. I don't know which I'd prefer, but this makes my eyes burn.

I love my mind

You might remember that I'm looking after this chap at the moment:

I was in a very mopey mood earlier and said to myself, "The only one who listens to me at the moment is the dog, and he doesn't even understand me!"

Then my mind quipped, "Maybe that's because he doesn't understand you, WhingeyPants?"

I laughed myself all better.

Yo DAWG!

Rusty's owners have gone away on a cruise for two weeks.

Let me repeat: two weeks!

I totally have my own dog! And he's hyper ALL THE TIME

...except when he crashes at the end of the day.

Bless him!

Camden Market

I like it when I can go to a new place and meet an exciting lady with exciting cupcakes

persuade Ed to stop being so serious

get eaten by a giant horse

and change my hair colour!

Camden market gets my vote for BEING AWESOME. I was going to draw it a badge, but then I didn't because it seemed like a lot of effort. Maybe next time?

More iSketch

If you're not aware, iSketch is a nifty little game which is basically like online pictionary. Of late, I've become rather addicted. This wonderful drawing by Ben is one of my favourites to date:

You guessed it: catfish. Or a sexy beast. Either one gets my vote!

Picnics and sunshine and dogs, oh my!

I have a friend. GO ME!

Anyway, I mean, as I was saying: I have a friend who's visiting at the moment who is rather spectacular. He's called Ben.

I've another friend (Yes, TWO!) who's called Alex. He's superduper.

Because I'm exceedingly lucky, I also have access to a wonderful dog called Rusty who occasionally exercises me instead of his real life owners.

We started off our day by walking Rusty in Waterlow Park, where he and Ben became very good friends.

As a somewhat spur of the moment decision, we decided to head off and have a picnic on the heath today to make use of the wonderful sunshine before it ran away again.

It was SPLENDIFEROUS (which I'd like to remind you is a real word), and I'm pleased to report that a rather fabulous time was had by all.

And we even managed to tire Rusty out!