LONDON.

Last week I went to London with my friend Abi. Abi is a girl I've only met this year but I like her a lot. She's sarcastic and very funny and not really all touchy-feely which amuses me. Her parents drove us down and then they left us in our hotel room and we knelt up on the chairs and lent out the window and just kind of went "why has anybody left us on our own in London?" It was a crazy feeling. Then we got the open top bus around the city and it was just sun-setting time on a Sunday night and loads of church bells kept playing and I felt so happy and it was when we were on there, both grinning like loons, we looked at eachother and said "I want to live here." I've had cities do that with me before - New York, Chicago, Boston. That instant connection with a place that makes you feel so completely involved and alive.
We got the Underground all week (the first time for both of us) and by Friday we knew the lines like Londoners. The Tube is a brilliant place. I loved it. The smell and the bustle and the people and the escalators. And, there were lots of pretty gorgeous suited men on the tube, who I kept faling into and having to apologize too.
We did Oxford Street and Topshop and Urban Outfitters and saw Jude Law and Sienna Miller. We bought food from Tesco and ate it in our rooms. Abi tried to dye her hair and then nearly got an allergic reaction and I panicked about taking her to a hospital because the only one I know in London is St. Barts (and we were miles from that.) We had a fire alarm at half six where I panicked again and ran out of the room sans shoes, knickers, bra and room key. And then there were hot firemen (who knew they existed?!) Then we got ourselves so hyped up that night about creepy Simon's in our room and fires that we shat bricks and had to run down stairs in panic, and the concierge laughed and gave us new room keys.
We breakfasted in Costa with good-looking BBC employees and rang people up pretending to be their lesbian girlfriends (it's a long story.) We made bears in Hamley's and got leered at in Selfridges and gorged ourselves on Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
This one day we went to The Globe theatre to see Merry Wives and at the end all the actors were dressed up and dancing and singing around us and I wanted to cry because I just kept thinking "there's this. whatever else happens in my life there's this. there will always be places like this where I feel like myself." I was so happy.
It's hard to explain but it's moments like those where you realise that you have so much joy in your life and you can't bare the thought because you're so filled up with wonder at living.

I'm going to live in London. Everything feels dull in comparison and I want to go back there and start to live my life how it's meant to be. I fell in love with a city and a feeling.

The Family Playlist.

I listen to The Guardian Family Podcast, and each week they get this person (almost always a Guardian Newspaper contributer) to talk about 3 songs that mean something to them about family. So I shall do that now.

1) Frank Sinatra - My Way.
My Dad used to play Frank all the time, since I can remember. It's his voice that is car journey's of my childhood and it makes me feel safe. My Dad can't sing at all but he always tries and gets all the notes wrong, but we're always word perfect. And Frank Sinatra is, like, the bomb. This song in particular is my favourite.

2) Garth Brooks - Friends in Low Places.
Well, first off, this is probably the best song ever. And Garth Brooks can sing. This is also a song that reminds me of my mum and playing so loud in her car that the speakers broke. It's just one of those songs that makes me feel close to her because we just laugh all the time when we're singing it as loudly as possible, especially when we get to the low bit you can't really sing without testicles. She's passed on her love of country music to me and it kind of culminates in this song.

3) Gordon Haskell - Harry's Bar.
His album always used to be playing when my parents had dinner parties when I was a little girl. So I associate it with sitting on the top of the stairs looking through the bannisters at my slightly tipsy parents and their friends. It's a cliched memory but it's true. And his voice... you can tell he means what he's singing.

Exactly. Precisely. Perfectly.

I Love My Mum.

Happy Mothers Day!

I haven't posted in so long, I'm sorry. I have a lot of things going on right now and I wish I could post more but I feel consistently knackered.

Anyway, my Mum.

She's great. She cooks the best food, she loves me to bits and pieces, even when I get annoyed with her I know she only wants the best for me. We argue a lot too. A LOT. She also knows when to give me a really big hug. I just love her.

Mitchell the Vampire I Fancy The Pants Off You.

What comes next has nothing to do with the delectable Mitchell/Aidan Turner. I feel it is important to declare my longing for him though. :)

I found this on Facebook and I rather liked it.
10 things you wish you could say to 10 different people right now:
1) I really quite fancy you, and I'd quite like you to reciprocate that.
2) I know it's not your fault he likes you and not me, and I'm sorry that when I see you I can't help but think 'BITCH' in my head.
3) I really want to be here for you now. And I think you're doing a lot better. And you're still one of my very faveourite people.
4) Blow your nose, please.
5) If I had to pick, you'd probably be my very faveourite. Thankyou for being so wondeful to me. I'm sorry I was horrible when we were 13. I don't know if I'll ever properly forgive myself.
6) I'm ever so sorry that I couldn't be there for you when I should have been.
7) I love you very much, but sometimes I have no idea how we can be related.
8) Sometimes I get scared you're slipping away from me, but then you hug me and I know that you're not. You give the best hugs.
9) You're not as pretty as you think you are.
10) I'm sorry I havn't spoken to you since you were diagnosed. I just don't know what to say to you. I'm really, really scared that by the time I grow up enough to phone, it will be too late.

I'll go for the polite werewolf.

“I do not understand this. Again, its bad boy syndrome isn’t it? It’s very depressing...Girls, stop going for the bad guy. Go for a nice man in the first place. It took me 35 years to learn that, but I am giving you that nugget free, right now, at the beginning of your love lives…”
- J.K. Rowling

Oh, JK.
I LOVE YOU.
(and I'm sorry if you think this is weird.)