It's quite hard to type with a plaster on your typing finger.
How are y'all doing with your 101 things lists? Some of you must be nearly finished! I've got less than a year to go with mine, and I know that I'm not going to manage all 101 things (some of which I've lost interest in anyway. Perhaps I shall never have a giant papier mache head). But I should at least try!
In the wrong order:
6. Go to a metal gig. DONE! Well, I went to see Isis - that counts, right? There was head-banging and growly shouting and a lot of men who smelt of beer, so I think so. It was excellent. Also, Ultra-Cool Girl from work spotted me there and it turned out Isis were her favourite band, and so we have now bonded to the extent that she gave me a free Pavement album.
29. Get round the Capital Ring. DONE! Ewan and I have walked all the way round London, and are now very knowledgeable about zone 3. Most of the walks in West London involved walking through some kind of flood. Most of the walks in North London involved mock-Tudor houses. One of the walks in East London practically went past my house. The walk from Beckton to Woolwich, never cheery at the best of times, featured horizontal sheets of rain. There is nothing of note between Eltham and Crystal Palace except for a wood and a Harvester. It was really a lot of fun and I thoroughly recommend it.
39. Get a full-time job. DONE! Phew.
50. Get my deposit back from my Battersea landlord. DONE! Another one I couldn't actually imagine happening when I wrote this list...
87. Go camping. DONE! We stayed in a tent for two whole nights at the End Of The Road festival, and it was fine! I can wear wellies and wee in a bush and live on cheese sandwiches like anyone else! That's probably enough camping for the time being though.
98. Go to a drumming workshop. DONE! I went to a samba class with drummygirl last month. It was ace - must try and go to another one.
25. Go to Nottingham and visit annasilverlight. DONE! We went up last weekend, for it was her birthday, and stayed in a bicycle factory. I only got a fleeting impression of what Nottingham is like, but it has trams and every other shop is a fancy dress shop, oh yes and there was a castle but it didn't look much like the place where Alan Rickman lives. We had a good time visiting an aviary full of cockatoos, luminous yellow canaries and a perturbed chaffinch, and eating in a really good vegetarian restaurant. We also mistakenly went to a bar full of glamorously-dressed blonde women talking very loudly and bopping to Jamiroquai, which I found very entertaining but made annasilverlight quite cross. I also saw an ice cream van which had Mickey Mouse painted onto the side, dressed as Robin Hood and shooting an ice cream cone with a longbow. I think I like Nottingham.
13. Give some blood. I did it this evening! I saw a poster in my lunch break, so I went to the Battersea Arts Centre on my way home and added my blood to a big middle-class pool. I'd never done it before and it was all a bit of an ordeal, having to fill in a questionnaire and be interviewed by a nurse about my suitability, at the end of which she suddenly poked me in the finger with a needle! And while needles don't bother me, sitting in a hall waiting for my turn for 45 minutes, wondering whether I'd faint and watching people lying on makeshift beds with tubes of blood coming out of their arms while the radio played the Twin Peaks theme tune was all a bit nerve-wracking... But I figured that this wasn't going to be the hardest thing I'll do in my life, and soon enough I had a matter-of-fact, maternal nurse complimenting me on my veins and whisking off a bag of blood which I made! It was purple! I'm probably half royal. It didn't hurt me and I didn't fall over on the way home (which I often do on an average day anyway), and only felt woozy after I'd been standing in my kitchen chopping vegetables for a while, so I will do it again. I hope this encourages people who are similarly faint of heart - you do get to feel quite smug and pleased with yourself afterwards, and isn't that a grand feeling?
Grand total: 48 out of 101 things DONE! Er, that's not even half...
In the wrong order:
6. Go to a metal gig. DONE! Well, I went to see Isis - that counts, right? There was head-banging and growly shouting and a lot of men who smelt of beer, so I think so. It was excellent. Also, Ultra-Cool Girl from work spotted me there and it turned out Isis were her favourite band, and so we have now bonded to the extent that she gave me a free Pavement album.
29. Get round the Capital Ring. DONE! Ewan and I have walked all the way round London, and are now very knowledgeable about zone 3. Most of the walks in West London involved walking through some kind of flood. Most of the walks in North London involved mock-Tudor houses. One of the walks in East London practically went past my house. The walk from Beckton to Woolwich, never cheery at the best of times, featured horizontal sheets of rain. There is nothing of note between Eltham and Crystal Palace except for a wood and a Harvester. It was really a lot of fun and I thoroughly recommend it.
39. Get a full-time job. DONE! Phew.
50. Get my deposit back from my Battersea landlord. DONE! Another one I couldn't actually imagine happening when I wrote this list...
87. Go camping. DONE! We stayed in a tent for two whole nights at the End Of The Road festival, and it was fine! I can wear wellies and wee in a bush and live on cheese sandwiches like anyone else! That's probably enough camping for the time being though.
98. Go to a drumming workshop. DONE! I went to a samba class with drummygirl last month. It was ace - must try and go to another one.
25. Go to Nottingham and visit annasilverlight. DONE! We went up last weekend, for it was her birthday, and stayed in a bicycle factory. I only got a fleeting impression of what Nottingham is like, but it has trams and every other shop is a fancy dress shop, oh yes and there was a castle but it didn't look much like the place where Alan Rickman lives. We had a good time visiting an aviary full of cockatoos, luminous yellow canaries and a perturbed chaffinch, and eating in a really good vegetarian restaurant. We also mistakenly went to a bar full of glamorously-dressed blonde women talking very loudly and bopping to Jamiroquai, which I found very entertaining but made annasilverlight quite cross. I also saw an ice cream van which had Mickey Mouse painted onto the side, dressed as Robin Hood and shooting an ice cream cone with a longbow. I think I like Nottingham.
13. Give some blood. I did it this evening! I saw a poster in my lunch break, so I went to the Battersea Arts Centre on my way home and added my blood to a big middle-class pool. I'd never done it before and it was all a bit of an ordeal, having to fill in a questionnaire and be interviewed by a nurse about my suitability, at the end of which she suddenly poked me in the finger with a needle! And while needles don't bother me, sitting in a hall waiting for my turn for 45 minutes, wondering whether I'd faint and watching people lying on makeshift beds with tubes of blood coming out of their arms while the radio played the Twin Peaks theme tune was all a bit nerve-wracking... But I figured that this wasn't going to be the hardest thing I'll do in my life, and soon enough I had a matter-of-fact, maternal nurse complimenting me on my veins and whisking off a bag of blood which I made! It was purple! I'm probably half royal. It didn't hurt me and I didn't fall over on the way home (which I often do on an average day anyway), and only felt woozy after I'd been standing in my kitchen chopping vegetables for a while, so I will do it again. I hope this encourages people who are similarly faint of heart - you do get to feel quite smug and pleased with yourself afterwards, and isn't that a grand feeling?
Grand total: 48 out of 101 things DONE! Er, that's not even half...