The Weekend...
The weekend started on Thursday night when Rick arrived from Manchester to stay. I've been signed off work by the doctor for the last two weeks, and have spent most of it monging around the house, trying to find the energy to do the most basic things, so I was desperate for some good company and an excuse to try and get up and do something. I wanted to cook something new for dinner so I had a go at a vegetable and ginger casserole with rice dumplings. The vegetables turned out under cooked despite the fact that I carefully followed the timings on the recipe, but the dumplings tasted good. I hadn't had a glass of wine for ages so the bottle that R brought with him was welcome but made me tipsy very quickly.
On Friday we went down to Borough Market and stuffed ourselves with expensive, organic food stuffs for lunch. We walked along the south bank and went to the Design Museum, which, as I'd kind of predicted, turned out to be a museum full of chairs. There was a vaguely interesting exhibition of Jamie Hewlett's cartoons and animation for Gorillaz, but other than that it was overpriced and there wasn't much to it. In the evening we went over to the Boogaloo in Highgate to meet up with Amy and Shane. I'm not much of a fan of pubs but I like this one, partly because of the cats that scuttle around under the customers feet or perch themselves on a chair when its quiet, and of course because they have a great duke box. I hadn't seen Amy and Shane for ages either, so it was good to catch up.
On Saturday I took Rick to the Apple shop so that he could advise me on which bit of white plastic would best suit my computer needs (I liked the look of the Mac Mini - cheaper than a laptop but lots more storage, and also very portable if I decide to go and work abroad). We mooched around in Soho and went in search of a vinyl bargains at the Record Exchange, and then we headed up to Primrose Hill and sat for ages and talked. Walked back through Primrose Hill to Chalk Farm where we found Matt Kaufman and friends hiding out in a pub. My friend Matt is off to live on a Kibbutz in Israel for six months, not really because he wants to but because his father suggested that it would be a good way to improve his Jewish credentials, and because, like the rest of us, he's sick to the back teeth of London. I was slightly alarmed when I heard this news, firstly because I can't imagine Matt hanging out with backpacker types and picking olives for six months, and secondly because, well, Israel is not exactly the safest place in the world to be right now. Matt showed a complete disintrest in where he was going and exactly what he was going to be doing, I suppose that when you've served customers in Virgin Megastore for a year, then nothing seems that bad.
Sunday went by without much excitment. Rick disapeared after lunch, and in the afterrnoon my friend Emily phoned to say that she happened to be in the area and could she pop by. Its very rare for friends of mine to be passing through Tottenham, its not really the sort of place that you happen to find yourself in of a Sunday afternoon, and it was lucky that I was in because I hadn't realised that she's off to live in Ibiza for the summer and I won't see her again for ages.
On Monday I was meant to be going to the Closet Mix Tapes celebration of lesbian music organised by my friend Naz, but my body had decided otherwise and thought that having a cold on bank holiday Monday would be a good idea. So I had to pass on my tea making duties to
dansette
and stay in bed instead. Being ill is getting very boring now, I would have thought that two weeks off work would be enough to sort most people out, but I'm returning to work today feeling just as bad as when I left two weeks ago, despite the fact that I have been looking after myself and making incredibly healthy meals to eat, and resting as much as possible. Some days I get very depressed about it, on others I just have a sarcastic I'm-surprised-that-my-leg-hasn't-dropped-off-yet take on everything, but I really can't wait to properly rejoin the outside the world again.