Walking 'home' in the rain

Dear insightful and tolerantly patient (or patiently tolerant) reader,

There's something just so deliciously sad and lonely and yet epic and heart-warming about walking 'home' to a beautiful high-ceilinged flat on Gloucester Road in the rain, listening to this after an evening out alone, in a deserted bar in central west London. It's drizzly like only London can be, the strings in the song I'm listening to are swirling, I'm click-clacking away in my boots that have holes in so my feet are getting distinctly wet. It wasn't raining when I came out, so I took a chance, but just like on my birthday night, it drizzled and softly rained just enough to create small puddles that meant my boots, my lovely green and grey and white striped boots, let in the water and made half my foot soaking wet by the time I got home.

I know that it would be better to be holding the hand of someone brave enough to tell me he loves me. Someone who would be proud to be with me, which I know deep down I would be thrilled to have, but this is ok, almost delightful even. In its own way. I don't fear walking alone at night at all. It's rather uplifting and I even feel elated to raise my head to the sky and have rain fall on my eyelashes and surely spread the mascara I'm wearing across my cold, wine-rosed cheeks. The warmth of the lovely Malbec I had is still comforting me even in this sense of loneliness as I walk home without a warm hand to put mine into. On one glass, I am suitably softened, but not heavily blurred. I think that if I were to return to London, there would be hope of finding someone who might venture to roll the dice with me as a companion. Someone who might listen to the things I had to say and be inspired and intrigued by them. Someone who might want to hug me with all their strength for the love that I could exude from just a deep glance into his eyes. I'm sure I am capable of it, because I had the gift of having it, for many years, in the past. I know that I have things to offer, something to give that could be as warming as the wine and as soothing as the delicate feeling of the light rain falling on my face.

But not tonight. Sleep will be the only entity embracing my body tonight. And that's ok, because I am tired and a little damp from the drizzle.

So, for now, without any attempt to catch-up on other events, I must stop and pack and prepare for another journey. The platform at Paddington awaits.

Goodnight reader, wherever you are.

Ms. Platform Edge

Adventures in Deutschland

What can I write in 10 minutes, bearing in mind I really need to get some sleep before I have to be up bright and early at 6, and munching some breakfast in order to be able to plan things for further meetings by 7.30/8am ish?

Well, let's see, I curled my hair and wore wholly inappropriate shoes to the restaurant the architect and I went to for his birthday on Friday.  He liked the results of both the curling-tong-ed hair and the shoes and kept staring at me all evening as a result.  

Then on Saturday we ran away to a tiny village north of Prague near 'Česká Lípa'.  And on Sunday we went to a place called 'Luž' and crossed the German border, where they call it 'Lausche' and much fun was had by all.  Including realising I had forgotten the word for 'mushroom' in German and that even linking words, like 'like' in German had gone out of my head and had been entirely replaced by their Czech equivalents.  Thus resulting in an Identity crisis for the girl who got an 'A' in her German 'A' level (before A* existed).

Here is photographic evidence of having made it to Germany (though what 'Stiftung' in the main sentence means is currently beyond me, but sounds suspicious nonetheless)*:

Here's a sign that proves Germans are the epitome of efficiency and forward planning with notices for everything imaginable, including the 'free-time area' for sitting and eating your packed lunch, overlooking a podium where one could stage a small performance of Shakespeare, should one so wish, though you can't see it in the photo:

And here are some German cows (though the zooming in only made them look even more like chickens instead of cows, but oh well...I tried) that the architect remarked were too clean to be Czech ones: 

And this is the beautiful lush green hill in Germany overlooking both Germany and some strangely German-sounding town in the Czech republic named 'Varnsdorf', that reminded me of the T'ai Chi scene in Calendar Girls where someone ends up suggesting, "Does anyone fancy some chips?", to which I would happily have replied, "hell yes!" had I been given the opportunity:

And with that, I have been writing for over half an hour and shall suffer for it tomorrow morning when I will not be happy about how my body feels post-aerobics and only 5 hours' sleep.  But "that's life, eh?"  Or rather, "to je život, že jo?"

(*According to Google translate, it means 'foundation' or 'establishment'.)

Working Girl

I had to decide in favour of sleep over writing last night, being that I really had to get up at 6 and I wasn't able to get to bed till 12.  As usual.  However, I did have a marvellous rarity of an evening out, talking to a friend, half in English, half Czech.  I realise it did me good to have a proper chat about things, since I've not had the 'meal out with a friend' experience in quite some time and in fact, I hadn't seen her in months, so we had a lot of catching up to do.

In typical Czech fashion, the glass of red wine I had was a disappointment, but the pizza was good.  It was boiling hot, sticky and humid, until about half an hour after we got there, when it chucked it down with torrential rain in a kind of apocalyptic way that made us glad we hadn't sat outside.  Even under a big umbrella, as that wouldn't have been enough.

And today, well, today has been a funny one really...I suppose the main part of it was rather successful.  I am currently about to abandon ship from an institution I've been working for, and it seems some fellow 'holidaymakers on the cruise' want to follow suit.  So I had a clandestine meeting with two of them, in which I was honoured to be told that I was the best at my job she had ever encountered.  Which was rather lovely, obviously.  

And I did something I don't normally do.  When asked of my fee for further meetings, I actually said the figure I really wanted, not the polite version.  Not my usual, 'taking all things into consideration', kind of answer.  It just came out of my mouth, like a pro, and I'm so glad, because the more I think about it, the more I realise how stupid it would have been to say any less and I would have been kicking myself if I hadn't said what I did.  I think they both admire my entrepreneurial spirit, as they are of the same ilk, and truly, there seem to be rather few people here who think like this.  The norm here is just to trundle along, expecting more from government funding.  But that just isn't going to work in these financial crisis, (and indeed, non-communist!) times.

It was in fact rather useful and a big confidence boost for me to meet up with my friend yesterday.  Having not seen me for a few months, she did a sort of 'rounding up of events' out loud as she tried to add up what things I've done over the last few months.  She pointed out that 'I've come a long way' which I agree with (though I always feel a tap of caution on the shoulder at any point like this, when it looks like I'm getting big-headed) because of the depths of despair I reached in the lead up to moving here, and indeed in the process of getting settled (a bit) here.  Some of it is personal stuff, that isn't so much an achievement, as simply dumb luck (the architect) or at least a leap of faith taken because of some good fortune.  However, some of it is sheer hard work.

I've worked for two different places, but built up enough business on my own to be able to charge higher rates and move beyond the confines of the limited degree of promotion I could have got at either place.  Now, I've got meet-ees abandoning ship to be able to continue working with me.  I feel like Melanie Griffith's character in 'Working Girl'.  Having said that, I fear the retribution and backlash that may come from having done something as seemingly underhanded (it isn't at all, but I'm sensitive to these things, so breaking some kind of moral code and lying a bit is enough) as Tess McGill and I wonder what price I will eventually have to pay.  

I did aerobics again today and as I was prancing about to Michael Jackson's 'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', I felt a swell of achievement and a hint of 80s hope and dedication to the entrepreneurial spirit I've shown.  "I could have money too!" I thought.  But of course, that is hardly the case here.  Even if things work out for the best and I get some more meet-ees at a higher rate, I will still struggle to have enough time to not go insane working myself like a dog to keep enough money coming in.  And everything will change once I'm looking at the joy of paying health insurance.  And I'm hardly getting any swanky new office with a view of Manhattan out of this.  Not even an office with a view of Prague.

What I do have though, is a somewhat more toned, fit and healthy body, thanks to my extra workout this week, and to the 'apples and cereal' for breakfast/lunch that I've been limiting myself to.  You never know, my new Marilyn Monroe-style 50s swimming costume might even look good on me at some point soon.  (Though I mustn't get ahead of myself here...) 

And in the meantime, as per a couple of weeks ago, I should enjoy this rare moment of feeling like there's hope, because, as sure as the rain here is continually following the hot sunshine, I'm bound to feel differently tomorrow.  Or even in the next half an hour, knowing me.

Perennial problems and lime trees

My meet-ee brought me a sort of cutting from the Czech national emblem tree today.  The lime tree.  Its tiny flowers smelled sweet and it felt like a little romantic gesture, in an innocently platonic setting.  It was sweet, though also funny (both 'ha, ha' and peculiar) to start the day like that.  But I soon got into the swing of being disciplined and back 'down to earth' but I think the miserable-looking sky helped with that.  If it had been sunny, maybe I would have been more inclined to be rebellious and just talk, if not run away to hold the meeting at the zoo or something, instead.

I'm becoming more reckless and stubborn though, I've noticed.  I just want to do things 'my way' and I just haven't the patience for someone else's agenda.  I want to be able to take some days off, even though my bank balance would urge me that this is VERY UNWISE (if it could talk) because I need to have time to do some reading, and of course, writing, but above all, I need THINKING time.  I need the luxury of sitting and thinking and wondering what to do and being able to choose my creative methods for the morning and pursue them.  Then I can find out afterwards if they were a good idea or not.

This is what I had to explain to another meet-ee today.  The fact that most creative people don't know exactly what they're setting out to achieve when they start on a painting or a poem or a song.  They start with a little idea and follow it to see if it will take them anywhere interesting.  So if you read poetry with the hope of uncovering the 'key argument or opinion' of what the author was trying to say, you could be missing the point entirely.  Maybe the author didn't really know until she finished it.  Perhaps the goal became a mixture of several things, not one clear-cut landmark.  My poor meet-ee had been berating himself for 'not understanding poetry'.  Surely the point is, it depends which poem, and which mood the author was in when they wrote it, that will determine if there are indeed specific 'points' to be uncovered and 'understood' or not.  And if you end up berating yourself for 'not getting it' then maybe that particular piece of work just isn't for you.

I think perhaps I am simply too tired to say anything more definitive or, alas, interesting than that.  It's that perennial dilemma: is a boring blog post better than no post at all?  Probably not.  Just like getting bills and bank statements does nothing to fulfil the desire to get some 'post' in the letterbox addressed to you, so this blog post is a dismal disappointment.  Sorry, that's all I could manage on 5 hours' sleep.

Trips, toil and traffic jams

I found out that the Czech expression for 'traffic jam' involves the use of the word 'constipation'.  So Czechs say ,,dopravní zácpa" [transport constipation].  How delightful.

I went on a rather marvellous little trip at the weekend, to a ruined castle of sorts.  The kind of small-scale place I used to have pointless fantasies about owning one day.  I would of course have to put a piano in it.  I figured it would look good in this 'room' with the view to die for out of the windows, as well as a view in on where the piano should be:

The view:

I went with the architect of course, knowing that next weekend, all semblance of normal life would have changed, due to a visitor.  In the meantime, I have unfortunately been caught up in a skewed, work-filled time-space continuum whereby no matter how much extra work I do instead of sleep, I still have about three more hours of work to do than I think when I start again the next day. 

Hence the absence over the last few days.  Still, I might actually get to wander around Prague and remind myself I'm here and not in some factory workhouse, riding the conveyor belt of tedium and toil, for once, now that I have to show someone else around the place.

Clichés, wishes and motorbikes

Today has been a lesson in stating clearly what you need.  I'm not usually very good at this.  Mainly because I loathe the word 'needs' and cannot reconcile myself with relying on anyone.  However, I have had to resolve to ask for what I actually need, for once, instead of putting forward the polite, edited version and I'm awaiting the barrage of emails of complaint as a result tomorrow.  But if you don't ask, you don't get, right?  So far that has definitely proved to be true in about 80% of cases.

I've had enough of burning the candle at both ends to find I don't even have any matches left, let alone a candle, so we're reaching rock bottom here.  But Spring really might be on its way and I have a few wishes.  If I send them out into the ether, maybe one or two might get answered?

Here are my top 5:

1) I'd really like more than 5 or 6 hours' sleep every night.

2) Give me some time to do music again.  Please.

3) Let all those people who've been ill recently be ok again.

4) Let those who crave fine, Italian ice-cream (or Magnums of the classic or white chocolate variety, when your options are limited) get them in abundance.

5) Let me be able to run away with the architect very soon, preferably on his motorbike and with some kind of sunset involved, just for sheer fulfilment of a cliché.  (I actually got to rev up his bike today, and I really rather enjoyed it.)  

Perhaps some clichés are worth wishing for.