today while sitting in the library, i jotted down ‘valium’ instead of ‘valiant’.

i think my sub-conscious is trying to tell me something.

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it’s been a strange month. lots of upheavals and downturns, but also lots of optimism shot through with sunshine. it’s also been a great month of listening to music – drive-by truckers, ryan bingham, alabama 3, midlake, david bowie and, as always, explosions in the sky.

there’s been floating, there’s been running, there’s been hand-holding, there’s been.

and sometimes i wanna go home and stay out of sight for a long time.

i think summer’s here.

the sunshine is bright and piercing, i have to squint my eyes when i walk around outside. i’ve bought a hat. yes, a hat!

i know summer’s here when i see the flowers out and the bees a-buzzing.

it felt like bunking off school. like when we used to sneak out the back gate of the mount sinai campus and walk hurriedly across the hdb estate and over the bridge, heaving a sigh of relief only when we reached the bus-stop or holland village.

but yes, just like bunking off school. except it was work, and i had permission to leave the building since no work was going to be done while the lights were flickering on and off and the data connections were on the blink.

so i went shopping – a new pair of shoes, some new shirts and a pair of wide-legged trousers for SS08. all done in under an hour. impressive, non?

and then there was the picking-up of lunch from carluccio;s and delivering them to a man who was laid up in bed with ‘general grottyness’. eating lunch and reading the newspapers in bed, chatting and doing things on the internet (him) and reading a book rather unsuccessfully (me). very decadent indeed. and also so much fun.

it was a stolen afternoon. so many free hours plucked out of the air so suddenly, and so coincidental a matching of free time.

we have PLANS, my friend and i.

parisian plans, berliner plans, moving in together plans.

but the best plans we’ve made so far are the ones involving red wine and good food. oh, and endless cups of machiato made by real italian men.

hmm… well payday came and went.

i’ve blown a large chunk of it booking a holiday for easter weekend in paris, so it’s all about careful spending from now on, until next payday. i wonder how people with mortgages go on holidays. maybe they don’t. maybe people on my paypacket don’t have mortgages AND go on holiday at the same time.

in other news, it’s been a strange couple of weeks. both emotionally and vocationally. but one’s looking up, and the other’s starting to get back to an even keel, so it’s all good.

right now i’m off to go celebrate a leap year bebe’s birthday. woot!

it’s payday tomorrow.

i’ll discuss my experience of getting my first full salary as a trainee solicitor soon.

but, for the moment, here’s what i’m going to do with it:
+ book a tres expensive easter weekend in paris
+ buy a couple of books and dvds i’ve been eyeing
+ get a ready-for-spring classic trenchcoat
+ etc

i can’t wait!

there’s a coffee@ on the way to work in the mornings, and i stop there to get my small soya cappucino, a quick glance at the morning headlines and and bit of the chat to the baristas (and baristress?). i get along particularly well with one of them, a girl from auckland.

this evening i popped in on the way back to buy some food to supplement my dinner and she popped her head out and ran towards me and gave me a high-five exclaiming that they’d found the PERFECT flat in highbury islington. i was genuinely happy for her, and we stood around the counter chatting about this place she’d found.

it made me smile, as i walked out, thinking how amazing it really is, this intersection of our lives - we’re not complete strangers, we can talk about her new flat, and yet i still don’t know her name. or she mine.