Month: April 2019

Blooming Lovely.

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I don’t know what’s prettier; the cherry blossoms on the trees or the petals when they fall. The streets were covered in puddles of pink today, like tiny colour satured seas of beauty. It didn’t last; the windy rain came and washed all away, untill it all starts again in 12 months. It’s bittersweet to say it, and it feels risky, because I do not know if I’m going to be around next year. Like when my old neighbour went to India for medical treatment and never returned. And when february brought the next season of snowdrops to his front porch I felt sad that he wouldn’t see them, that few months before he didn’t know he wouldn’t live to see them and with the realisation that every spring could be our last.

The way beauty changes and morphs into different things, though. It’s like some of my oldest friendships, who have changed and evolved and grown into different things just like we have changed, evolved and grown into different people, but the love and the reasons why we’re in each other lives remain consistent. I’m grateful for every year with the same well loved faces around me, and I dearly hope they’ll be around for many more.

Book keeping.

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Quase saio sem pagar esse café porque meu cartão de débito não estava sendo lido pela máquina (e eu não tinha um centavo em cash). O cara já tinha enchido a xícara, então “deixou pra lá” com uma cara de bunda imensa, e eu me perguntei se ele era o dono e estava regulando mixaria (café é basicamente água, ele não ia falir por oferecer um de graça quando a culpa nem era minha) ou se era empregado e tinha um patrão regulador de mixaria que ia obrigá-lo a pagar 2.75 do próprio salário.

Dali a 10 minutos ele voltou com a máquina e pediu pra eu “tentar de novo”. Juro que se eu carregasse ID ia sugerir que ele ficasse com ela até eu achar um caixa rápido, porque puta que pariu. Felizmente para todos a máquina dessa vez funcionou como devia e ele conseguiu me cobrar.

Anotei no meu bullet que é pra nunca mais sair de casa sem moedinhas. Tá louco.

Dumpster diving.

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Fomos ao lixão jogar a geladeira velha fora quando me deparo com alguém jogando no lixo o exato baú que eu queria usar como mesa na biblioteca. Pedi para um funcionário tirar do meio dos entulhos, coloquei no carro, passei um paninho e tá novo. Now it has a home.

Cream tea in the country.

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The day was lovely and I fancied cream tea, so took a trip to Finchingfield (apparently the most beautiful village in the country; yes, it is lovely, but I *think* I would dispute that claim). This is one the nicest scones I’ve ever had, though; so much fruit it makes it a bit crumbly, but the crumbs are heavenly too. From the Picture Pot tea room on the green. It’s small inside and there aren’t a lot of seats, but weather being nice the best thing is to take your tea outside, the row of colourful houses and duck pond on the background, and endlessly blue english skies above you.

Nothing beats England in the spring. Nothing.

Sun’s out.

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Primeiro dia do ano com cara de verão. Não estou bem certa se aprovo, mas curtimos uma excelente caminhada, cerveja geladíssima, churrasco de cordeiro, chá com bolo como sobremesa sentados do lado de fora, cerejeiras em plena floração, Pimm’s caseiro e um encontro casual com o CU de Londres (Coventry University, that is…).

Van Goghs for the price of a hospital wing.

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post office clerks put up signs saying “position closed”
and secretaries turn off typewriters and put on their coats
and janitors padlock the gates for security guards to patrol
and bachelors phone up their friends for a drink
while the married ones turn on a chat show
and they’ll all be lonely tonight and lonely tomorrow

gentlemen, time please, you know we can’t serve anymore
now the traffic lights change to stop, when there’s nothing to go
and by five o’clock everything’s dead
and every third car is a cab
and ignorant people sleep in their beds
like the doped white mice in the college lab

telephone exchanges click while there’s nobody there
the Martians could land in the car park and no one would care
close-circuit cameras in department stores shoot the same movie every day
and the stars of these films neither die nor get killed
just survive constant action replay

and bill holdings advertise products that nobody needs
while angry from Manchester writes to complain about all the repeats on T.V.
and computer terminals report some gains on the values of copper and tin
while american businessmen snap up van goghs for the price of a hospital wing

and nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all
the needle returns to the start of the song
and we all sing along like before
and we’ll all be lonely tonight and lonely tomorrow

and nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all
they’ll burn down the synagogues at six o’clock
and we’ll all go along like before
and we’ll all be lonely tonight and lonely tomorrow

I call you by you’re not worth the dime.

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E começa a farofada de páscoa.
Não me sentindo muito criativa hoje decidi almoçar num italiano em Hampstead Village – me arrasa quando as batatas fritas não estão boas, mas a carne valeu a pena – e depois visitamos o Real Ale Fest em Essex. Nada de ale pra mim, no entanto; bebi um excelente Pimm’s (apesar de caríssimo para um copo tão pequeno) e uma mais excelente ainda garrafa de Magnus Classic Pear Cider.

Acho que essa é a minha cidra preferida no momento. Cansada dos xaropes extra açucarados pra quem não gosta de beber e que se tornaram populares alguns verões atrás. Diabetes engarrafada. Chegou enfim meu momento de  beber com responsabilidade.

A feeling that you have that could change your life.

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Besides boring work commitments, my Thursday included a somewhat failed trip to Selfridges to buy something they didn’t have (and I had one of the worst coffees ever at Lola’s cupcakes, but I did look at pretty books and expensive decor and used their toilets – always so clean). 

Fell in love with jelly sandals at F21, had iced tea at Yumchaa and walked around empty streets due to the climate change protesters blocking Oxford Street and Regent Street. Lots of big words being shouted from megaphones and people smelling a bit. Shops were still full, though; the consumerist machine is ON and well oiled and perhaps more than big words are needed. 

Or do we really need anything at all? Then I felt a bit sick and rushed home for a healing glass of pinot grigio.

Wanstead Village

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took myself out to breakfast at gail’s. we’ve been giving way too much money to these folk and enabling them to take over london. on the other hand, i’d rather have more of them around than any more starbucks or costas. for one thing their food is so much better. i’m addicted to that banana and pecan caramel cake and i don’t even like nuts.

i need to remember to pay a visit to that pie and mash shop before it becomes yet another one to bite the dust, since millennials and middle class people don’t care much for old fashioned food anymore. and i might be one of them because i have never been to a pie and mash shop in my entire life.

i love these flowers, i love these floors and colored doors, i love the ambulance sound in the distance fighting for airplay with the birds. i love old houses and red teapots, and beautiful hipster couples stomping the pavement in chunky boots and old ladies with their shopping carts filled with bananas and bisto, i love tall church spires piercing the air and the pompom blossoms hanging from branches like yarn balls and the oak trees starting to wake up from their winter slumber unfurling translucent leaves. i love when the milk hits hot tea weaving swirly patterns on the liquid like an abstract painting and the first mouthful of a delicious sandwich in a brioche bun. life’s been ok, and oftentimes more than ok if i care to remember.

We could sit for years staring at our fears.

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The neighbourhood is blossoming nicely. ♥

highlights of the saturday: going to pizza hut with my gourmet friends just for the cookie dough (best in town so far), conservatory weather again and being able to go out in a cardigan. bad decision of the saturday: denin skirts. i hate them. why do i even bother.

Annie, let’s not wait, let’s cross the river now
We could sit for years staring at our fears
Oh, they’re such pretty things they’re so cute
But our dreams are all we really need to grow