Tum Te Tum

5 things that cheer me up at work

1 Chatting to my sister or Emma on IM (actually spoke to my dad on it this morning as well!)
2 Eating my very first mince pie of the season and listening to really loud music
3 6pm
4 Getting a travelogue email from Rob
5 Working very hard on an important project and getting the personal satisfaction of a job well done. *

*last ditch attempt not to sound like loafer who spends all her time at work emailing her friends. Right, must crack on. Crikey, is that the time?

Desperately Seeking Sarah

5 Things About Long Lost People

Linda
I was in East Sussex over the weekend seeing various family members who I otherwise won’t get the chance to see over Xmas. Ma, Pa, aunt Bea & husband Neil, cousin Jacob and girlfriend Phil. Lovely to see them all and we all met up with a very old friend of my parents’, Linda.

She recently had some personal tragedy, and my parents, particularly my dad have been very supportive of her, which is how the friendship has become rekindled.

It turns out I haven’t seen Linda for 24 years and the last time we met I was a cute, blonde thing with chubby cheeks and fat thighs (hey, not everything changes!). She was lovely and bought us all lunch at her local pub and opened champagne for no particular reason. Which is always my favourite reason for drinking champagne.

Mattyo
Mattyo is one of my oldest friends. He and I went to secondary school together and, I think, went out for about half an hour once at a school disco when we were about 12 years old (I hid in the toilets for the whole time because I was scared). Somehow, we’ve just kept in touch, while I’ve moved to London and he’s been to various universities, studied in Spain, finally got that first he deserves and got a proper job. We communicate every couple of months and see each other barely once a year, but I somehow know we’ll never lose touch entirely. He emailed me last week and we’re going to meet up over Christmas. Hooray!

Sarah
Two years ago, my very good friend from school, Sarah, sent me a sweet Christmas card with her phone number in it saying how much she’d like to hear from me. I utterly failed to call her. I don’t know why, but every time I looked at the card stuck to the fridge I thought, “I must do that soon” until it just seemed far too late. This year I have finally overcome my guilt and embarrassment and yesterday I wrote her a short card apologising and suggesting I go and see her while I’m back in the country over Xmas. She was always a bit mad, very funny and the same height as me at the age of 13, which meant we could scare all the boys at school.

Ross
Ross is my oldest friend. Or he would be if we were still in touch. He and I went to playschool together and became good friends again as teenagers. We used to do things like drink cider on Eastbourne beach at 3am, nick flashing bollards then take them up to his room, turn all the lights off and listen to Soundgarden really loudly. Pretty cool, no? I’m sure his mum thought so, anyway.

We kept in contact for a few years, but sadly for the last five years or so we’ve completely dropped contact. I’m quite sad about this, but so far old email addresses and Friends Reunited have proved fruitless, so I may just have to accept it.

My sister
I haven’t spoken to her for, like, two whole days! Except for Instant Messenger, of course. Tsk.

They Say The Neon Lights Are Bright...

5 Things About New York

Food

The Stage Deli on 7th
Originally uploaded by Becky.

When you’re somewhere as exciting as New York for less than three days, every moment is precious. It’s very easy to spend your time wondering if you’re doing the right thing. Perhaps you should be in the restaurant opposite or the next street along to get the full experience? So we were very pleased to have had great eating experiences! On Friday we encountered the Stage Deli, on 7th, a proper old Jewish New York deli, and somewhere renowned for its huge portions, even in NY. I had hot borscht followed by potato pancakes with apple-sauce and sour cream. And a giant gherkin. On Saturday we found Camaje, a tiny bistro in Greenwich Village, where the chef gave cookery classes, so the food was really excellent. And on Sunday, tired and not looking forward to getting up at 5am to catch our flight back to the UK, we found a great Italian place, opposite Carnegie Hall, where the waiter remembered my mum’s seven selection anti-pasti order without writing it down and my dad had the biggest slice of panettone I’ve ever seen.


Weather

Central Park in the Snow
Originally uploaded by Becky.

Cold and bright on Saturday, we were surprised and delighted to find on Sunday morning that everything was covered in a couple of inches of snow. We forewent the ferry trip to see the Statue of Liberty in the belief that we’d all freeze and miserable so instead went for a crisp walk through Central Park. It was beautiful and we were entertained by horses and carts, fat squirrels and small children experiencing their first snow-ball fights. I also got Ma with one in the back. Heh heh heh.


People
Lizzie’s NY guide book opens with a joke, “Q. How many courteous New Yorkers does it take to change a light-bulb? A. Both of them.” If it’s true that New Yorkers are rude, then we barely saw it (apart from one girl in the Guggenheim Museum, but the less said about her the better!) and everyone was chatty, polite and friendly. All of our waiters wanted to talk, the shop staff were friendly and we chatted to all sorts of people. This, for my non-stop family, was perfect. The rudest people I encountered, in fact, were two British women getting out of the lift at the hotel.

Sights

Times Square
Originally uploaded by Becky.

After being used to London and small villages in England, I was unprepared for the long, straight streets of New York. Looking left from our hotel we could see Central Park and right we could Times Square with it’s huge buildings stretching up out of my camera screen. Just walking around New York was a sensory overdose that regularly took my whelm-levels to tipping point!

To see the whole city we visited the Empire State Building on Sunday evening. This was a wise choice, as it was completely empty and, judging by the roped queue areas we cut across, it must take hours to get up there when it’s busy. The observation deck gave us stunning views of the sparkling city stretched out below us but the bitingly cold wind that meant we could only stand it for a minute and scurried into the gift shop to buy skyline mugs and cocktail glasses. I’ll never forget it though.


Shops

Bloomingdales
Originally uploaded by Becky.

I was a bad Christmas shopper. The main things I bought in New York were a pair of purple suede Camper boots and an old-style black and gold MTV t-shirt. Both for myself. Oops.

We planned to visit the famous stores. Our first was Macy’s, which we very quickly decided was just Debenhams on steroids and we hated it. There were queues for the escalators so we left after a few minutes.

Bloomingdales was more fun, including the restaurant, as was FAO Schwarz, where they had a fantastic selection of cool toys of the kind Aron loves, like Kid Robot and Ugly Dolls. We didn’t venture into Barneys, although we took pictures of the Charles and Camilla windows and spent a good half an hour in the Virgin Megastore and Toys R Us at Times Square.

It was such a short time to spend there that of course I’m going to feel like I didn’t get to do everything I wanted, but it was a wonderful gift and a fantastic taster that gives me enough knowledge to properly plan my next visit!