A Good Excuse

I got a call from one of my friends yesterday saying ‘I need help with something I am doing for work’.

At which point mild panic sets in. What does she want? Will it be painful? Will it involve sitting for hours stuffing envelopes or putting stickers on envelopes?

And then she says she needs me to meet her after work for the Jazz evening at Christophers. Things are looking up.

And they get even better when she explains what is happening. Her large private sector organisation is about to do a new advertising campaign and is in need of some talent. And that evening, they were looking out for cute young male talent.

So I was needed to go to Christophers, to sit down with a drink, listen to live jazz, and discuss the merits of the different men in the room. So far, sounds like a regular girls night out. But this time we had an excuse – if we saw any men we liked, we had a legitimate reason to approach them and get their contact details and a photo.

Excellent.

So being the good friend I am, I went and helped her. And we found some good talent! Now that’s a good way to get rid of the blues.

And in case any one is interested, the band was good!

Feeling off colour

I’m having one of those days when nothing is wrong, but I’m not quite right. You know, when you had a good night’s sleep, but you are feeling tired. When you are doing something at work which is interesting, but you can’t quite concentrate. When you are hungry, but nothing appeals. When you end up picking fights with someone, but there is no real reason. When you want to listen to music, but everything you try sounds boring.

The most annoying bit of it all? You don’t know what’s wrong, so you can’t make it right.

And to add to it all, no one seems to have updated their blogs so I’ve got nothing new to read!

I’m having one of those days today – and I am looking forward to going to bed tonight so I can get up tomorrow on the other side of the bed and try it all again.

From the mouths of children

I walked into work this morning and saw a little girl standing there. Her mum had obviously come to the office for something and left her standing there by the door. She looked about 3 or 4.

The reason she was standing there was pretty obvious – she was talking on her cell phone. Well, by cell phone I mean one of those you get with sweets inside it, not a real one. But the fact that it wasn’t real didn’t hinder her in any way. She was standing outside to get better reception apparently.

I could hear some of her side of the conversation which went something like this…

‘Where yuh deh?’
‘Oh, me deh a town’
‘No, me caan afford dat, me no get di money yet.’
”Im say it soon come, but me no inna dat’
‘So me say’
‘Me credit soon done so later’

She has clearly been listening lots and knows what you say on the cell phone well!

Starting to get bored

I’m not well. I ate something at the weekend which obviously didn’t want to be eaten by me. It is now getting revenge by making my legs feel like jelly, giving me cramps worse than any period and causing me to make frequently trips to the bathroom. I’ve had to stay home from work and do nothing.

But I must be getting better now as I am starting to get bored at home. My head hurts so my concentration span is zero which means that I can’t manage to read a book and I can’t follow the plot of any movie whcih I don’t already know by heart. I have had to resort to watching lots of MTV and falling asleep during the tennis which is on at the moment. And I keep having strange dreams… which I’d tell you about but I think I have now been on the computer for long enough as the screen is starting to blur!

Online Petition

I usually avoid discussing overly serious things here. But I’m going to break my rule this time. Here is a link. Please follow it. It’s a petition calling for a ceasefire in Lebannon and Israel. I’m not sure how much good these things actually do, but at this point, I figure anything is worth a go.

So please, click here and go and add your name.

Thanks

Weekend Break

Sorry I haven’t posted – I’ve been away from computers. I’ve been in Negril. Well, I suppose there are computers in Negril, I just choose not to use them!

Negril was busy this weekend as it was a public holiday, Monday was Independence Day. and to celebrate this great occassion, a group of young entrepreneurs comes together to thrown 10 parties in 4 days, occasions for rich kids to drink all they want, make lots of noise and party in their bikins! I restrained myself and didn’t go to a single party – I was too busy sleeping in the sun in the days to go anywhere and too busy sleeping after the sun in the evenings to move. And when I did feel energetic, I had my new camera to play with… results of which playing are shown above!

However, after three days of sunsets and rum punches with three happily married couples looking cozy and me saton my own, I need reminding of the joys of being unmarried! So any ideas on this subject would be gratefully received…

More dreaming!

I hope this works – I’m stealing ideas from cream today!

create your own visited country map

Seeing this makes my feet itchy. It reminds me that there is so much of the world left for me to visit! Until then, some notes on my limited travels…

I think that my favourite city would have to be Barcelona. It is just so alive and so colourful, and the food is great!

I’ll admit that I have kinda cheated with one bit of colouring – Kenya. I haven’t been outside of the airport. But I did spend an enjoyable 6 hours or so there in the departure lounge which was also in use by their national rugby team… mmmmm. Need to go back properly. I was tempted but didn’t cheat by putting in Zimbabwe as I never actually got out of the plane there!

I think that the place I found ‘most foreign’ to me was the Ukraine. Coming from the Caribbean where we place so much emphasis on education as the way out of poverty, I found it hard to comprehend that there were people sitting around who were unemployed despite having PhDs in Physics and other similar areas.

I tried to come up with a best memory but I couldn’t narrow it down! Options included riding a camal in the Sahara, watching the sun rise after trecking for hours up a mountain in Malawi, dancing salsa in Prague, drinking too many cocktails in New York, just sitting and watching the world go by in Amsterdam and too many more.

And when I think of those memories, I realise that I am making the right decisions again – other people mnay have expensive cars and lots of clothes, but I’d rather have those memories and be able to look forward to making more!

So next on the list is Cuba…

So, where do you love?

Memories

I can’t quite put my finger on why exactly it happened this morning, but as I drove out of my gate I was suddenly reminded of Greece. Maybe it was the bright bright blue sky, the incredibly vivid green of the bushes, the red of the poinciana standing out as I came down the hill. Or maybe it was a song on the radio that brought it all back, or a reminient of a dream that I had had. Maybe it was the smell in the air, that hot yet clean smell you get after rain.

Whatever the reason, I was suddenly struck with memories. Memories of my one and only trip to Greece, a week in Kefalonia about 5 years ago. I could almost taste the fresh salads you got with your meals – if you were able to convince the restaurant that although you had a british accent, you didn’t need chips with every meal. I could feel the hot sea and the sand between my toes. I could smell the lethal ouzo – smelling it was enough for me. I remembered the twin beds in our room, and falling through the gap that always developed in the night after we’d pushed the beds together.

I hadn’t thought of that holiday for ages. It was packaged away at the back of my mind – like much of the rest of the two years I spent with that boyfriend. Yet this morning, it decided to come out. And despite having moved on from him a long time ago, it made me smile.