(no subject)
Revenge is being enacted upon me for my excesses yesterday (excesses in this case being "I walked 10.8 miles in the freezing cold on under 300 calories and then tried to redress this by drinking a gin cocktail, a pint of cider, and eating a lot of battered fish in various forms"). Revenges include:
+ the infliction of my period somewhat early and with violence and a great deal of pain
+ making me faint and then hallucinate in the bathroom
+ making me faint and also hurt myself and break the door stop in the kitchen
+ making me faint in the kitchen
+ when I'd eaten a nice health sensible lunch in order to try and deal with the fainting, making me throw it back up almost immediately
I am now in bed. I hadn't actually planned on doing anything anyway once the doom period arrived (prior to that I was going to go for a nice brisk walk but I downgraded my plans to 'write some fanfic') and now the fainting keeps happening in spite of taking a hot bath and eating lunch I think I have to downgrade again to 'lie in bed and read'. This is marginally frustrating but I'm also so tired and woozy that I can't be arsed to fight it.
Also the hallucination was straight up terrifying and I really don't want to have to do that twice, never mind the fainting and hitting my head on the door part.
ANYWAY YESTERDAY WAS ENTIRELY WORTH IT.
I met up with Emma at midday and we began the Hidden London Spitalfields & Whitechapel walk, which in the book was supposed to be 4.5 miles but some distractions occurred.
Educational interludes: we learned a lot about the Huguenots, the Jewish East End, Banglatown, the Krays, the rookeries, the Ripper murders, the silk trade, the East India Company, the changing fortunes of the area, the relationship between religious freedom and trade, the area's long-standing reputation for radicalism (we stood on a spot where Lenin, Trotsky, and that shithead Stalin once met for an official thing), discovered that a park I used to eat my lunch in was named after a victim of racist violence in 1978 (his death galvanised the recently-arrived Bangladeshi community of the area into defending themselves and dramatically led to the neutralisation of many shitty right-wing groups), found two Charles Harrison Townshend-designed buildings, saw the oldest manufacturing company in the UK (The Whitechapel Bell Foundry, est. 1570, who made both Big Ben and the Liberty Bell), learned about yet another of Churchill's dumbshit fucking failures - this time the Siege of Sidney Street - and saw the shop where Joseph Merrick used to be paraded about as a freak until he was taken to the hospital opposite.
(art in Spital Square: "Spital" is a contraction of "Hospital", and the area is named have St Mary Spital and the fields around it, which prior to the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII had cared for the sick and needy of the area).
... also nipped into a couple of markets, found a taxidermy owl for a mere £50 - if it's still there when I've started work and getting paid, I'm having that owl - and also a different set of taxidermists who had a GLORIOUSLY awful sense of humour, both young women - they'd decorated a small fake Christmas tree with real stuffed mice curled up into little circles, and they lifted it up to show us and said "MERRY CHRISTMOUSE" and I could have eloped with them both in that moment. YOU ARE MY PEOPLE.
We took a breather at the Vintage Emporium on Bacon Street... just around the corner people were queuing down the block for the Cereal Cafe or whatever but frankly: the Vintage Emporium has live music and mismatched armchairs and massive cakes and candles and is cosy as all hell and has BIG FLUFFY DOGS.
Said dogs were very interested in Emma's cake but also polite enough not to actually try to take any.
When we'd finished the walk we were hungry and tired so struck out for the Gin Joint at the Barbican Centre. The restaurant was fully-booked (which were were told in not exactly friendly tones... I never appear to be dressed acceptably for that place) so we set down for a cocktail before heading off again for The Centre Page on Knightrider Street, where they have no such thing as healthy food but do have MASSIVE sharing platters (very generous ones: despite being starving and two of us, we couldn't finish the damn thing).
Many fun had, much conversation, lots of books and history and social things dissected or joked about, and now I am a sickly lump in repose under a hundred duvets while my body rots. WORTH IT.
+ the infliction of my period somewhat early and with violence and a great deal of pain
+ making me faint and then hallucinate in the bathroom
+ making me faint and also hurt myself and break the door stop in the kitchen
+ making me faint in the kitchen
+ when I'd eaten a nice health sensible lunch in order to try and deal with the fainting, making me throw it back up almost immediately
I am now in bed. I hadn't actually planned on doing anything anyway once the doom period arrived (prior to that I was going to go for a nice brisk walk but I downgraded my plans to 'write some fanfic') and now the fainting keeps happening in spite of taking a hot bath and eating lunch I think I have to downgrade again to 'lie in bed and read'. This is marginally frustrating but I'm also so tired and woozy that I can't be arsed to fight it.
Also the hallucination was straight up terrifying and I really don't want to have to do that twice, never mind the fainting and hitting my head on the door part.
ANYWAY YESTERDAY WAS ENTIRELY WORTH IT.
I met up with Emma at midday and we began the Hidden London Spitalfields & Whitechapel walk, which in the book was supposed to be 4.5 miles but some distractions occurred.
Educational interludes: we learned a lot about the Huguenots, the Jewish East End, Banglatown, the Krays, the rookeries, the Ripper murders, the silk trade, the East India Company, the changing fortunes of the area, the relationship between religious freedom and trade, the area's long-standing reputation for radicalism (we stood on a spot where Lenin, Trotsky, and that shithead Stalin once met for an official thing), discovered that a park I used to eat my lunch in was named after a victim of racist violence in 1978 (his death galvanised the recently-arrived Bangladeshi community of the area into defending themselves and dramatically led to the neutralisation of many shitty right-wing groups), found two Charles Harrison Townshend-designed buildings, saw the oldest manufacturing company in the UK (The Whitechapel Bell Foundry, est. 1570, who made both Big Ben and the Liberty Bell), learned about yet another of Churchill's dumbshit fucking failures - this time the Siege of Sidney Street - and saw the shop where Joseph Merrick used to be paraded about as a freak until he was taken to the hospital opposite.
(art in Spital Square: "Spital" is a contraction of "Hospital", and the area is named have St Mary Spital and the fields around it, which prior to the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII had cared for the sick and needy of the area).
... also nipped into a couple of markets, found a taxidermy owl for a mere £50 - if it's still there when I've started work and getting paid, I'm having that owl - and also a different set of taxidermists who had a GLORIOUSLY awful sense of humour, both young women - they'd decorated a small fake Christmas tree with real stuffed mice curled up into little circles, and they lifted it up to show us and said "MERRY CHRISTMOUSE" and I could have eloped with them both in that moment. YOU ARE MY PEOPLE.
We took a breather at the Vintage Emporium on Bacon Street... just around the corner people were queuing down the block for the Cereal Cafe or whatever but frankly: the Vintage Emporium has live music and mismatched armchairs and massive cakes and candles and is cosy as all hell and has BIG FLUFFY DOGS.
Said dogs were very interested in Emma's cake but also polite enough not to actually try to take any.
When we'd finished the walk we were hungry and tired so struck out for the Gin Joint at the Barbican Centre. The restaurant was fully-booked (which were were told in not exactly friendly tones... I never appear to be dressed acceptably for that place) so we set down for a cocktail before heading off again for The Centre Page on Knightrider Street, where they have no such thing as healthy food but do have MASSIVE sharing platters (very generous ones: despite being starving and two of us, we couldn't finish the damn thing).
Many fun had, much conversation, lots of books and history and social things dissected or joked about, and now I am a sickly lump in repose under a hundred duvets while my body rots. WORTH IT.