A belated happy 2014 everyone!
(...pauses for odd stares)
Ahem. I realise I am beyond late, but quite how we're nearly mid-February I'm not sure. Last time I blinked it was New Year, and I was stood in the wind and rain and cold as close to the South Bank as I could get (not very, since we got waylaid by a pub and had to make do with watching the fireworks through gaps in the London skyline).
Now I'm home, home home, back in the North, and my London life feels like a dream. August to the end of November, as well as a hefty chunk of January - gone in a flash. I had the busiest and best, best, best time, making new friends and reconnecting with a whole bunch of people from University. There was an immediate shift daan Saauff (that's 'down south' for those who don't understand my pretty accurate imitation of my dire southern accent) in September 2012, after graduation, but I was part of the second wave - people who, like me, had been figuring things out for a year, or had been tied up in a four year course.
Jumping in at the deep end, I stayed with a friend of mine for the first week while I checked out potential rooms, and ended up living in the quiet area of Raynes Park with three complete strangers, who turned out to be ridiculously nice. Bonus! For a city-phobe like myself it was perfect - a fast train route straight into Waterloo, enough shops in nearby Wimbledon and Kingston for me to spend my non-existant income, and my best friend close enough for after-work visits. Yes, my darling Elf made the jump down in the September, and together we explored Clapham (Infernos and Aquum owe me some of my dignity), ate incredible food in Balham (and most other places actually) and spent a ridiculously fun afternoon meeting one of my writing heroes in Kensington at a film and comic convention.
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| Oh Aquum... |
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| My adoptive southern family |
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| Elf (R), her friend Natalie (L) and myself |
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| My adorable little Raynes Park room |
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| A family trip to Kew Gardens in the summer, when my parents brought down (more of) my stuff |
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| Yes, yes he does. One of my favourite PR stunts, I moved down only a couple of weeks after Murray's historic Wimbledon win, to find that the local Morrisons had replaced their name to acknowledge his achievement. |
I couch-surfed for longer than I probably should have in January - it's a good job Elf's housemates have practically adopted me at this point - until I had to realise that my drained bank account spelled out only one thing: H-O-M-E-T-I-M-E.
So with two more solid PR placements under my belt, I must admit I was disappointed to leave London empty-handed in terms of a job. A couple of near misses and several 'let's keep in touch' open endings have me furiously applying while supplementing myself with freelance work for my first placement.
[FYI, if you're interested in beauty and want to get some amazing behind-the-scenes interviews with top make-up artists, from Bourjois and Bobbi Brown to the legend behind The Lord of the Rings (I genuinely nearly died of excitement when he wrote back to me), then check out Warpaint, which I write for!]
SO, while I recalibrate myself and dust off the ol' blog (and journal, and writing notebooks - they've all been in a drought too), I'll leave you with a couple of songs which are currently being repeatedly blasted from my room, much to my family's
They've missed me really. xo.
'Can't Remember to Forget You' - Shakira ft. Rihanna. Two of the sexiest ladies on the planet, and two of my favourite female vocalists. Joy!
'SuperLove' - Charli XCX. Bubblegum pop perfection.
'Girls' - The 1975. I caught these guys at Dot to Dot Festival last spring, and they were amazing, even though they were suffering with sound tech problems.
'Happy' - Pharrell Williams. Because who doesn't love this song?
