I arrived back in Bristol on Saturday morning and then set off to watch Gloucester clinch top spot in the Premiership with a win over Bristol at Ashton gate. After the game I get back to my folks’ house at about 6. I’m tired, and very hungry but happy after an enjoyable afternoon. I consider going up the local fish and chip shop, but then I decide that I can’t face the small but significant amount of effort it would take to put my shoes on and go outside.
A thirty minute power-nap later and Im searching in a giant chest freezer for something to eat. Im deep into the frozen products, maybe a foot and a half under the recently added top layer. This is nearly permafrost down here and I struggle to scrape the ice off each box and read what it is. I finally find something to go with the chips and peas found half way through this frozen transect, but the fish fingers look like they might be from the 1980’s. On the box Captain Birdseye looks like a fresh faced twenty-five year old.
Later on and I’m out in Bristol for a birthday celebration. We’re sat in the White Lion in Clifton village which has a beer garden (though they probably call it an outdoor terrace in these posh parts) that has a cool view of the Clifton Suspension Bridge. It’s a picture postcard scene, and with the garden heater warming my back I’m almost completely over the fact that it was £6.90 for a pint and a Corona.
A friend of a friend is out, along with her twin sister. I find it strange that I don’t find Twin 2 anywhere near as attractive as Twin 1. They’re identical, but there is just something about T1 that T2 the other hasn’t got. This interests me. Could it be the familiarity? (I’ve met T1 before, but not T2). Or fashion sense? (they’re not identically dressed and T1’s legs do look good in her leggins) Or smell? (Ive not consciously smelt either, but I bet somewhere in my brain I know what they both smell like). Maybe it’s this ‘chemistry’ thing people mention but never satisfactorily explain? Or perhaps my looks assessment is being affected by the fact that I thought T2 was a bit stupid after speaking to her.
Later on I meet T1’s boyfriend, who also seems a bit stupid and I wish he was with T2 instead. He doesn’t want to come to the club, but T2 is up for it. T1 eventually decides to accompany her sister to the regular Bristol nightclub, and leaves her boyfriend in a huff. For the time being T1 seems happier now she’s away from the boyfriend and we have a good chat. She insists I give her a piggyback across some cobbles on the way and as we enter the club my mind is racing. Then after being inside for about two and a half minutes they decide they’re leaving as someone (the boyfriend, I think, but not sure) is upset.
Another friend who is normally really composed looses the plot. She was chatting to her ex-boyfriend and she saw his female housemate getting upset while she was talking to him. Now my friend and the other girl are both crying and its time to get home. I don’t think ill ever understand female minds, and there’s no way Ill ever make sense of a female who has been drinking.
Good night though.
Monday 30 April 2007
Wednesday 25 April 2007
3 Spiders, man
Not too looking forward to Spiderman 3 pleeeease.
I was playing on Facebook yesterday evening. Just as I thinking of something amusing to write on a friend’s wall, I saw a frantic movement rush out from behind my temporarily-placed cork board. I made an involuntary yelp (which was, lets be honest, a scream), stumbled backwards, tipping over my chair and desperately fought with the wicker and metal as I tried to escape the monstrosity that had invaded my relaxed calm. I partially composed myself and considered if I was brave enough to catch this wild savage in a pint glass and throw his eight-legged ass out of my room.
In the end, after some more nervous laughing and involuntary nosies, the spider - an easy category 2 – went out the window and crashed onto the driveway outside my room.
Not that I’m scared of spiders.
As part of my new job I'm off to the Amazon to collect samples from wild discus fish. I will fly with the PhD student to Manaus in Amazonia, Brazil, then get a 1 day boat trip up the Rio negro to a town called Barcelos. This is one of the main hubs from where discus fish are caught to be sent off to aquarium shops, and will be our base for about 6 weeks. Ive been writing the risk assessment for the trip and have had some fun in the dangerous animals section.
Basically, if you want to meet a nasty end at the hands (or mouth) of a wild animal, the sheer diversity of killers offered by the Amazon makes it the number 1 choice.
There are, of course anacondas:
and caimens (though the anacondas look a bigger threat):
.jpg)
But in amongst them are the real nasties, like vampire bats- which seem to be experiencing a rabies pandemic and (unusually) attacking humans (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4398660.stm), toothpick fish- which detects the urea of your urine and swims up your urethra (thinking it’s a fish’s gill; http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=797) Brrrrrrrrrrr.
Not forgetting piranhas, electric eels, bullet ants, scorpions and spiders. The Amazonian forest is in fact home to the Goliath Bird-eating Spider- but he sounds like a right tiddler.
Still, its OK as I ain't scared of spiders.
I was playing on Facebook yesterday evening. Just as I thinking of something amusing to write on a friend’s wall, I saw a frantic movement rush out from behind my temporarily-placed cork board. I made an involuntary yelp (which was, lets be honest, a scream), stumbled backwards, tipping over my chair and desperately fought with the wicker and metal as I tried to escape the monstrosity that had invaded my relaxed calm. I partially composed myself and considered if I was brave enough to catch this wild savage in a pint glass and throw his eight-legged ass out of my room.
In the end, after some more nervous laughing and involuntary nosies, the spider - an easy category 2 – went out the window and crashed onto the driveway outside my room.
Not that I’m scared of spiders.
As part of my new job I'm off to the Amazon to collect samples from wild discus fish. I will fly with the PhD student to Manaus in Amazonia, Brazil, then get a 1 day boat trip up the Rio negro to a town called Barcelos. This is one of the main hubs from where discus fish are caught to be sent off to aquarium shops, and will be our base for about 6 weeks. Ive been writing the risk assessment for the trip and have had some fun in the dangerous animals section.
Basically, if you want to meet a nasty end at the hands (or mouth) of a wild animal, the sheer diversity of killers offered by the Amazon makes it the number 1 choice.
There are, of course anacondas:
and caimens (though the anacondas look a bigger threat):
.jpg)
But in amongst them are the real nasties, like vampire bats- which seem to be experiencing a rabies pandemic and (unusually) attacking humans (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4398660.stm), toothpick fish- which detects the urea of your urine and swims up your urethra (thinking it’s a fish’s gill; http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=797) Brrrrrrrrrrr.
Not forgetting piranhas, electric eels, bullet ants, scorpions and spiders. The Amazonian forest is in fact home to the Goliath Bird-eating Spider- but he sounds like a right tiddler.
Still, its OK as I ain't scared of spiders.
Sunday 15 April 2007
These are my judgemental judgements.
One week on from my black hole gripped mood on Sunday evening and things are smelling quite sweet again. I think that with the added perspective the past week has provided I’m able to see with grater clarity the pure form of enjoyment I experienced on a weekend that ended all too soon. The panic, then resignation that gripped my spirit as I ploughed off the edge of my emotional cliff was made even more unpalatable in a dangerous cocktail of sunstroke, fatigue and cuties wearing vest tops in my car.
They say nothing can escape a black hole once you’re in its downward spiral of gravity. But that’s bollocks as I'm feeling *king good. The weather has been warm all week and Ive been having good fun making rash judgements about my housemates.
There are 7 of us all together.
Couple F, should be eating frogs legs and saying ‘Hooonk-eeee-hoooonk’ all the time are actually very nice. I am in the process of rapidly changing my logic and assumptions about the F. He’s a car mechanic, good fun and came out for some beers on Friday night. She’s doing a business degree type thing that involves her doing stints of work abroad. Her current status in the house is testament to a successful English leg of one such contract.
Ive not met Gay A properly. Though he is clearly a super camp something, and that something is, by all accounts a waiter. He has, according to F man and L upstairs a wine-drinking problem. He is also, apparently, was a Slovakian TV presenter, having got his face known on a Big Brother type show. I think that’s more than enough supposition for now.
L upstairs is sound. When I first heard her described as a young religious education teacher I feared the worse, but there isn’t a cardigan or a guitar chorus of ‘I cant smile without you… I cant smile….’ in sight.
M downstairs is a late thirties semi rough bird and comes complete with N downstairs - a mid twenties guy who is, I’m reliably assured is her bit of stuff. This is funny for several reasons. She’s a (on first impressions, admittedly) bossy, controlling, not very attractive middle aged woman and he’s the sort of guy you’d arrange to see next Tuesday. In one of my attempts to get a conversation going with him, I said, while watching the Man U – Watford game,
‘Hey N downstairs, are you in to football at all?’
‘Nah, I'm more into my extreme sports’ he replied.
This is amusing. There is no way this guys ever done anything extreme in his life - apart, maybe, for being extremely *king average. I don’t want to make him look as stupid as he is, so I think about how to say, ‘oh yeah so what extreme sports do you do?’ without promting the inevitable reply of ‘oh no I don’t actually do any’
‘Oh cool. So, er, what sort of sports do you like?’
‘Oh, I like anything extreme really, like snowboarding’
Hmmm. ‘Have you got up that dry slope much then?’ I refer to a dry ski slope visible as you come into plymouth on the A38. Its got a well thought out decoration of differing dry slope colours that spells out 'SKI'
‘Nah. I think its spose to be better on the snow’
Oh. So you’ve never been then. It turns out he likes snowboarding on the TV. What a cock. This is similar to some other conversations Ive had with him which are right up there at the top of my all time crap conversation league.
Luckily, after a while he gets called away by his mum, sorry girlfriend, and I only say girlfriend as I don’t think oldwomanfriend is a real word.
I might contiune this as their characters emerge.
I wonder what they think of me…
They say nothing can escape a black hole once you’re in its downward spiral of gravity. But that’s bollocks as I'm feeling *king good. The weather has been warm all week and Ive been having good fun making rash judgements about my housemates.
There are 7 of us all together.
Couple F, should be eating frogs legs and saying ‘Hooonk-eeee-hoooonk’ all the time are actually very nice. I am in the process of rapidly changing my logic and assumptions about the F. He’s a car mechanic, good fun and came out for some beers on Friday night. She’s doing a business degree type thing that involves her doing stints of work abroad. Her current status in the house is testament to a successful English leg of one such contract.
Ive not met Gay A properly. Though he is clearly a super camp something, and that something is, by all accounts a waiter. He has, according to F man and L upstairs a wine-drinking problem. He is also, apparently, was a Slovakian TV presenter, having got his face known on a Big Brother type show. I think that’s more than enough supposition for now.
L upstairs is sound. When I first heard her described as a young religious education teacher I feared the worse, but there isn’t a cardigan or a guitar chorus of ‘I cant smile without you… I cant smile….’ in sight.
M downstairs is a late thirties semi rough bird and comes complete with N downstairs - a mid twenties guy who is, I’m reliably assured is her bit of stuff. This is funny for several reasons. She’s a (on first impressions, admittedly) bossy, controlling, not very attractive middle aged woman and he’s the sort of guy you’d arrange to see next Tuesday. In one of my attempts to get a conversation going with him, I said, while watching the Man U – Watford game,
‘Hey N downstairs, are you in to football at all?’
‘Nah, I'm more into my extreme sports’ he replied.
This is amusing. There is no way this guys ever done anything extreme in his life - apart, maybe, for being extremely *king average. I don’t want to make him look as stupid as he is, so I think about how to say, ‘oh yeah so what extreme sports do you do?’ without promting the inevitable reply of ‘oh no I don’t actually do any’
‘Oh cool. So, er, what sort of sports do you like?’
‘Oh, I like anything extreme really, like snowboarding’
Hmmm. ‘Have you got up that dry slope much then?’ I refer to a dry ski slope visible as you come into plymouth on the A38. Its got a well thought out decoration of differing dry slope colours that spells out 'SKI'
‘Nah. I think its spose to be better on the snow’
Oh. So you’ve never been then. It turns out he likes snowboarding on the TV. What a cock. This is similar to some other conversations Ive had with him which are right up there at the top of my all time crap conversation league.
Luckily, after a while he gets called away by his mum, sorry girlfriend, and I only say girlfriend as I don’t think oldwomanfriend is a real word.
I might contiune this as their characters emerge.
I wonder what they think of me…
Monday 9 April 2007
Emotional Easter
I'm really tired. I feel drained, worn out and I have so many things I need to think about. I think i feel worse as over the weekend Ive been on such a high. Its been another whirlwind fortnight and while I'm 'in' my new house in Plymouth, I feel like I'm starting off on a marathon of my new life having just got completely ruined the night before. For this moment at least i feel annoyed that i don't know anyone here, Ive uncovered some of the same insecurities i had when i first moved up to the lakes. Ill try to explain.
I got back from Kong and did the Bath half marathon. I did a 1.30.something so was quite pleased considering it was my first race for a year and my second best ever half marathon time. I had a week of messing about, viewed a few houses in Plym, but no great shakes really.
The next week I got a house sorted on Monday, drove back and forth to 'Stol a few times gathering my stuff and on Thursday I moved in, and got my first day at work out of the way - which I remember going quite well. Then Friday I got back into the car and drove down to meet some friends near Penzance, where we had hired a cottage for Fri-to-Mon of the Easter weekend.
The house was brilliant- a modern, super-comfortable 8 birth in a quiet little road just off the coast. It was a good mix of friends, 11 in all, most of which i knew well, some very well, some not so much. There were, inevitably a few cute girls, but most were what Id consider my 'friends' and pretty much off limits. I feel ridiculous trying to explain this a few paragraphs, but I had a great time, we did absolutely loads, including trips to St Ives, Praa sands, Portreath, Sennen, and the Minack Theatre, all of which have enough material for their own posts in the future. I felt surges of adrenaline when climbing down a cliff at Lands end to go fishing, a deep down chill to the bone after swimming for 15 minutes in the sea with no wetsuit and a moment of pure happiness coupled with intense brain activity analysing the significance of one of the aforementioned hotties resting their feet on my legs while we had a late night beer and film. This, in particular, I find amazing. Such a small, probably completely innocent, action on one persons part can lead to me thinking about it for days, and even writing it here.
Its ridiculous. Its incredible.
I woke up this morning with a slight cold and felt weak after too many days of too many beers and not enough sleep. I say 'too many' but id not swap the days for anything, i really wouldn't. Memories of sunny Easter weekends with friends are rare. Even now i find myself remembering the memories as some elite time in my life- but while they are happening they just seem to be happening. Good, but not as good as they are quickly recalled to be if that makes any sense. Maybe there is some built in human thing that stops us appreciating things as they happen - or maybe its just me that needs perspective to put things in the place they should be after the event.
Girl A, who seemed happy to be around me, and I had some good jokes with got a lift back to the train station with me, but there was no evidence of the possible previous flirting being born out. That said we were both tired and there was no previous opportunity, at least none big enough for me to take advantage of during the trip (no club visit with lots of alcohol, for example) so I guess ill never really know how she feels. Shes now back in the big smoke, 350 miles away (interestingly enough this was confirmed by text just as i wrote that...). I guess i should either enjoy the memory... or hope for a trip to London to present itself. Though I imagine that will sound somewhat stupid when i re-read this next week.
I had such a good time, I was enjoying myself so much, that i guess its inevitable for there to be a low now its over. Ive gone from a group of close friends to the 'new guy' in a share house- and I've done that so many times the novelty has worn off. But, that said, I feel better now than i did 40 minutes ago when starting this post. Though my brain is still ruined- I have 20 new faces to store in my head from work and Ive still got to meet (and hopefully like) some more housemates tomorrow - I have a feeling the new day will bring new hope.
I got back from Kong and did the Bath half marathon. I did a 1.30.something so was quite pleased considering it was my first race for a year and my second best ever half marathon time. I had a week of messing about, viewed a few houses in Plym, but no great shakes really.
The next week I got a house sorted on Monday, drove back and forth to 'Stol a few times gathering my stuff and on Thursday I moved in, and got my first day at work out of the way - which I remember going quite well. Then Friday I got back into the car and drove down to meet some friends near Penzance, where we had hired a cottage for Fri-to-Mon of the Easter weekend.
The house was brilliant- a modern, super-comfortable 8 birth in a quiet little road just off the coast. It was a good mix of friends, 11 in all, most of which i knew well, some very well, some not so much. There were, inevitably a few cute girls, but most were what Id consider my 'friends' and pretty much off limits. I feel ridiculous trying to explain this a few paragraphs, but I had a great time, we did absolutely loads, including trips to St Ives, Praa sands, Portreath, Sennen, and the Minack Theatre, all of which have enough material for their own posts in the future. I felt surges of adrenaline when climbing down a cliff at Lands end to go fishing, a deep down chill to the bone after swimming for 15 minutes in the sea with no wetsuit and a moment of pure happiness coupled with intense brain activity analysing the significance of one of the aforementioned hotties resting their feet on my legs while we had a late night beer and film. This, in particular, I find amazing. Such a small, probably completely innocent, action on one persons part can lead to me thinking about it for days, and even writing it here.
Its ridiculous. Its incredible.
I woke up this morning with a slight cold and felt weak after too many days of too many beers and not enough sleep. I say 'too many' but id not swap the days for anything, i really wouldn't. Memories of sunny Easter weekends with friends are rare. Even now i find myself remembering the memories as some elite time in my life- but while they are happening they just seem to be happening. Good, but not as good as they are quickly recalled to be if that makes any sense. Maybe there is some built in human thing that stops us appreciating things as they happen - or maybe its just me that needs perspective to put things in the place they should be after the event.
Girl A, who seemed happy to be around me, and I had some good jokes with got a lift back to the train station with me, but there was no evidence of the possible previous flirting being born out. That said we were both tired and there was no previous opportunity, at least none big enough for me to take advantage of during the trip (no club visit with lots of alcohol, for example) so I guess ill never really know how she feels. Shes now back in the big smoke, 350 miles away (interestingly enough this was confirmed by text just as i wrote that...). I guess i should either enjoy the memory... or hope for a trip to London to present itself. Though I imagine that will sound somewhat stupid when i re-read this next week.
I had such a good time, I was enjoying myself so much, that i guess its inevitable for there to be a low now its over. Ive gone from a group of close friends to the 'new guy' in a share house- and I've done that so many times the novelty has worn off. But, that said, I feel better now than i did 40 minutes ago when starting this post. Though my brain is still ruined- I have 20 new faces to store in my head from work and Ive still got to meet (and hopefully like) some more housemates tomorrow - I have a feeling the new day will bring new hope.
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