ferries and thunderstorms (croatia part 2)

After our short adventure in Split we went to the port and got the ferry to an island called Hvar about 2 hours away. It was boiling hot and the sea was like glass. Coming from Britain I'm used to the sea being like…the sea! You know, actual waves and such…I don't really know how it works…maybe the islands were blocking the waves or something.

The main town on Hvar is also called Hvar. What a coincidence! Its known for its bars and restaurants and is a popular place for rich boat people with private yachts…Having forgotten to pack my yacht we were going to be staying in a quieter town called Stari Grad. 

The ferry conveniently dropped us about a mile from Stari Grad, so while everyone else got on buses to be with the posh Hvar people, me and Tansley walked along the coast into Stari Grad and up the hill to where our apartment for the week was.

The place wasn't hard to find (the building being bright pink) and like the tourists we were we waved our booking confirmation at a lady standing vaguely near the building. She had a look at the paper and a look at the building and shook her head. She called over a man who looked like Pete from Twin Peaks. He had a look at the paper and a look at the building and shook his head. The word I remember being repeated fairly often was 'problem' (imagine it in a Croatian accent, it's better) The building was owned by the couple's neighbour and they didn't think the apartments would be open for another two weeks…

Having paid online for a full week at the apartment this wasn't the best news we could've heard. Either a mistake had been made about the dates or we'd been robbed of our cash! Pete and his wife took us to their house a couple of doors down the road. We sat in their porch while we listened to them make phone calls, wondering exactly what was going on. We were just coming up with a plan to get the next ferry straight back to Split to go to the British Embassy and refuse to move until they'd sorted the problem (or whatever you're supposed to do at these embassy places) when a lady came up the drive to the house. Pete must've called the owner and got her to come and fetch us so we shook his hand and dumbly followed her up to our apartment.

I don't think I have ever felt so thankful in my life! As we sat there laughing with relief, rain started pouring down and there was a good old thunder and lightning storm to welcome us to the island.

tall towers and lots of legs (croatia part 1)

Since leaving university and actually earning enough money to live I wanted to see some more of the world. Nothing fancy like a year off travelling around the world (although I would if I could afford it!) but just a little holiday abroad once in a while to tick off a few countries on my 'to go to' list. All of my holidays except one as a child were in Britain so my list is long. For at least two summers I've said I'm going but then something happens which has meant I can't unless I go on my own (boring)

This year I finally escaped! An early morning at the end of May and some cheap flights later I've arrived in Croatia with my old university housemate Tansley (Tansley McFransley, Fransley, Mr T, Mr Tea, Teatotal, G&T and as many others as I can think of)

The flight took us to Split, the city we were going to stay for two days before getting the ferry to one of the islands. The city is big but its heart is an old palace which later turned into a trading point with winding alleys alongside a cathedral and belltower. A large 'city' wall with an entrance on each side still shows you where the palace is/was…I'd make a rubbish travel writer. Anyway, there's this old square section of the city that the rich guy with the palace used to live.

When we looked online before we went I was surprised to find a little flat to stay in actually within the palace walls. I understood it better when we arrived. If the palace was in London it'd be shut off and you'd have to pay £10 to get in to visit it. In Split it is still living and breathing with cafes, restaurants, apartments and shops occupying the old buildings.

Annoyingly the first thing it did when we arrived in the country was rain. This wasn't a good start to my amazing first proper holiday! At least we were on a bus though and it'd stopped by the time we had to drag our massive backpackers bags (hand luggage only to save money and time) through the old town to get to our little apartment.

It turned out the palace is rather small…we walked past all of the sights I had obsessively printed maps out for before we'd even arrived at the apartment. Walking from one side of the palace to the other took about 2 minutes. Never mind, I was on holiday! Tansley was being wimpy and tired from having left my flat in London at 2am so he went to sleep while I read my book and waited out the grey sky.

We avoided looking properly at all the sights yet again when we went to have dinner that night. It was a place described as being like a 'granny's front room' in the travel guide we took with us. Obviously it was the place to go! It was filled with weird little ornaments and stuffed fish on plaques and the tables were old Singer sewing tables.

Chucked in the deep end with a Croatian menu, with the help of a lovely waiter we both ordered some kind of seafood risotto. I love fish but when faced with prawns and langoustine mostly-vegetarian Tansley and uncultured me didn't really know what to do. My food education comes from watching Come Dine With Me and they don't show you how to eat weird little creatures with shells and legs all over the place! There's probably some simple little trick to do it perfectly but we just hacked away with our knives and forks and hoped for the best. Tansley seemed to get the knack of it after a while and I pretended to as well…accidentally crunching away at the shells and smiling away like I knew what I was doing. The bits I managed to eat were tasty but I had to give up after a while. The actual risotto was the best I'd ever had though so it wasn't a complete disaster!

The next day it was pouring with rain so we had a lie-in before venturing out. Throughout the holiday we actually had really good luck with the weather. The rain seemed to stop every time we stepped outside. We toured the sights properly this time, taking longer so I could take far too many photos. There was a mean looking statue called Gregorius of Nin that was my favourite. For the life of me I can't remember what he was about…something to do with language possibly…Anyway, he had these amazing long gangly fingers and his big toe was a shiny gold from where everyone rubs it for good luck.

We also went up the belltower of the Cathedral of St Domnius. In theory I'm not afraid of heights…but walking up a wobbly metal staircase with open sides wasn't exactly pleasurable. Luckily the bells didn't ring as we went past them because I'm sure my automatic reaction would either have been to jump out of the tower or sit on the stairs and never move again. The view of the city was amazing though and the sun came out just as we reached the top. That was the beginning of the real holiday.

"a book worth reading is worth buying" - John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

"…but a book for free is even better." - Alice Reese (1986 - at least 2086)

The highlight of my working life (and some might say my whole life) was the 'pulp shelf' when I was working as a Jacket Design Assistant at 80 Strand.

Dorling Kindersley is a part of Penguin Group….obviously including Penguin and all of its divisions; Puffin, Beatrix Potter, Ladybird, Rough Guides…etc etc etc. They all live in one big building on the Strand (£220 to buy in Monopoly)

Tucked away on the 7th floor is a magical bookshelf of books that aren't needed any more. Some are in foreign languages, some have old covers, some have a printing or spelling mistake and some just seem to be there for no reason at all. Working there I was allowed to take two of these books home a day and I made sure to go every single day.

2 books a day for 6 months (minus 12 days holiday) = about 240 books…

Looking at that number even surprises me so I've probably gotten my maths wrong…But the general idea is I now have a lot more books!

I'm a sucker for sets of books with matching designs as you can see. It's led to an obsession with rearranging them. I only have so much space on my shelves so every time I find a new book that matches others I have to change my whole system. (All non-matching books have their own separate rainbow coloured coded system obviously)...Extremely sad but extremely enjoyable. Bookshelf Tetris!

I just need to read them all now...

suitcases, suitcases everywhere and not a holiday to go on

eBay is very dangerous, kids. It's like when my boyfriend goes out to buy milk and comes back with milk and beer and out-of-date sandwiches and buy-one-get-one-free biscuits.

Suddenly thanks to my cross-stitch fever and an over-generous Nan I had a load of sewing materials to store somewhere in my room so I decided to buy a sewing box. A sensible idea!…

A nice sewing box does not exist in this world.

Not everyone who sews has bad taste, a liking for floral patterns or is blind (yes, be quiet. I am blind. But only half so it doesn't count!)

My clever solution was to buy a small vintage suitcase from eBay to keep my things in. I already had a few on the top of my wardrobe with other random junk in so it'd fit in well.

However, my tightfisted ways meant I couldn't see the logic in buying one small vintage suitcase for around £30………when I could get 5 of varying sizes for £50! Hideous padded floral box or a large quantity of vintage amazingness? The choice was made when I accidentally on purpose made sure I won the cases by the old 'adding-one-penny-to-a-sensible-maximum-bid' trick. Ha.

It was only slightly mortifying when the man from the postroom had to bring them all to my desk at work in a massive package about a week later. Hmm.

Never mind. I got them home by taking them one by one on the tube in rush hour with the satisfaction they were definitely better than the suitcases dragged along by all the tourists. I can't imagine people in 60 years time having M&S wheelie suitcases on display in their bedrooms…But what do I know? People think it's cool to wear 80's clothes…

xoxox

One day when I was trying to make my leaky Greenwich flat more homely I bought some cheap but nice picture frames to put photos in. Having spent ages trying to decide exactly which photos I was going to put in them (and failing) and then discovering I didn't have any ink in my printer to print them anyhow I abandoned them.

When I finally sorted out my room in the Kilburn flat I found them again and put them up on the wall. The plan was that I would be forced to fill the still-empty frames because who hangs empty ones?

Me, it seems.

I still couldn't choose the pictures to put in them. Photos of myself were self-loving, photos of my family would embarrass them, photos of landscapes were OK but didn't really match the colour of the room, pictures of my cats made me look like a cat-lady…I think about these things too much.

For at least 6 months they were empty on the wall while I tried to figure out this extremely serious problem. Then I had one of my occasional spurts of energy and decided I'd make a cross-stitch for each one. They'd be old-fashioned but modern at the same time and the colours would match the room and they'd be something no-one else had! They would be the answer to the question I had spent months* thinking about.

Obviously I spent another lifetime deciding on and then designing the cross stitch patterns I'd use but to cut a long story short, here they are! Three out of the four frames are now filled…I like to think of the empty one as a tribute to the good old days when they were nothing more than an idea**

*about 30 seconds every week over multiple months…

** not a sign of having become disinterested in cross stitch again.

…another story

Having run away from the Greenwich wilderness I found myself in Kilburn at a building apparently originally used as rich people's pied-à-terres back in the day. I'm not sure which day but there's still an entrance that doesn't really fit cars but would be perfect for a carriage and horses…so those days.

I moved into a flat there to live with two other girls. After two years I'm still here! The other two girls moved on to other places/were driven crazy by me and left so I'm now the flats most seasoned resident (apart from the pot plant I'm desperately trying to revive at the moment)

My room was pretty sad when I first moved in but apparently so long as I don't knock down any walls or paint the walls black or anything like that I can do what I like in my room. I painted the walls but it wasn't enough! Before I had moved in, my flatmate had ripped up the carpet in the living room and sanded the floorboards underneath. My other flatmate did the same in her bedroom. I took this as official permission and decided to do it my bedroom too.

I'm not exactly a DIY expert…I'd actually say I'm a DIY disaster. In secondary school I managed to set fire to a piece of wood whilst drilling it…You get the idea.

I enlisted my little brother to come and help me do it. Ripping up the carpet was fine but sanding the whole floor with one small handheld sander was probably a mistake. It took ages but we finally managed to get it done.

Add in some Mum-made curtains and duvet cover and a load of Dad-put-together furniture and I was set!

Kilburn isn't as scenic as Greenwich but the flat has hot water and heating and lights and a working roof! Luxury.

I'll have moved out before the lettings agents find out about the floor…

(mean)time in Greenwich

After living in a busy house in a noisy area (sleeping on a mattress and listening to the Brick Lane boozers) Greenwich was like heaven.

I had always said that I'd hate to live in London…and here I am after living here for 3 years. It's not my first choice of places to live, being the country bumpkin that I am, but I'm more than surviving.

When I thought of London I thought of places like Brick Lane; exciting to visit but not to a place to stay. I had no idea what Greenwich would be like when I got on the train to visit the flat I'd soon be living in. I don't think even a seasoned Londoner could imagine the flat I moved into to be honest though!

When I knocked on the door of the big old townhouse next to Greenwich Park the first thing I saw was a theatrical looking old lady in dark clothes, with heavy makeup and 'arty' hair….the second thing I saw was the head of a life-size cardboard giraffe peering over the bannister of the stairs in the big hallway…

The lady who greeted me was Ann, my new landlady. She lived in the main part of the house. Cassie and me would be living in the attic flat three floors above. There was also a man living in a basement flat and another woman living in a small flat in the old servants part of the house. Only photos can describe the house properly so I'll post a few. Everywhere was covered in dried flowers and cardboard cut-outs. The landlady's homemade patchwork curtains and framed collages added to the…original feel.

As I sat chatting to Ann in her kitchen I felt like I'd been there before. There was an old sofa stacked with books and every single space on the walls were covered in picture frames and hung plates.

It turned out that the house and its garden had often starred in TV, movies and fashion photoshoots. I recognised the kitchen from 'Driving Lessons' in which Julie Walters (playing a character not dissimilar to Ann) employs Rupert Grint for something or other. I can't remember. I have it on DVD now though!

The attic was a little more normal but normality in that house was still crazy compared to flats that were actually normal. My bedroom had bright green walls and a shiny silver ceiling… I loved the place straight away. It was weird and different and Greenwich felt like a little village away from real London.

Francois the Bike

That summer was brilliant and comfortable. The flat had it's flaws (the woman in the flat downstairs was mental, the 'double glazing' consisted of pieces of glass wedged into the window frame over the original windows, the fuses were dodgy and the shower temperamental) but it was still a novelty and sunshine always filled the rooms.

I even had an old bike called Francois to cycle around the park. 

Wintertime was when the place lost its appeal. The screechy neighbour was now irritating, the windows didn't close fully, the lights didn't work properly and the shower committed suicide. I don't know about you but the last thing I want to do after a days work is sit in the dark in an icy breeze listening to the drunkard neighbour after a cold shower…

To make things even more 'exciting' the roof to my bedroom sprung three streaming leaks in one evening. I had to drag my bed into the middle of the room to avoid being drowned in the night.

The upside was that when it snowed that February the whole of Greenwich was cut off from public transport so I had to stay home from work for two days. I was still cold though.

Anyway, I decided one winter was enough and gave myself the deadline of the next Christmas to be living somewhere less interesting but more sensible. After a long and boring search I eventually found the place I live in now and waved goodbye to Greenwich just before my deadline. After carrying all my stuff down three floors of narrow winding stairs and loading it into a van, I made my way to my new adventures in North London (but that's another story)

look! it's moving. it's alive. it's alive!

Err…so…that was another rather long gap….My record I think. I officially have no chance of catching up now.


I can't be bothered to talk about work (as you may have noticed) I'll do the highlights! I have to write less and you have to trawl through less rubbish. Everyone wins! Deal? 


I've managed to work out how to change my blog name to something much more relevant/accurate. It gives me an excuse for when I don't post something for 3 months…or 3 years. 


Here is my 3-year work-life catch-up! 


...completed my 2 week work placement without getting killed. I stayed at my lovely friend Katy's flat in St Pauls while I was in London. 
...had the placement extended for another 2 weeks…as a result I had to drag my bag with only 2 weeks worth of stuff to Brick Lane where I slept on a mattress on the floor of a big house where my other lovely friends Mike, Ellie and Daniel lived. I shared the floor with Stacey the mouse. 
...had my extended placement extended to a 6 month contract. Now needed somewhere to live urgently. 2 weeks worth of stuff still being washed and recycled. Stacey the mouse still hadn't moved out. 
...not being a Londoner, visited flatshares in the worst parts of London to try and find a room. Still sleeping on a mattress… 
...was saved by yet another lovely friend Cassie who was also moving homes and offered me a bedroom in an attic flat in an old house in Greenwich. Said goodbye to Ellie and Mike and Daniel and Stacey and moved to my own place at last! 2 weeks worth of stuff still going strong… 
...started work properly at Zag, a brand and product invention company. It's best described in terms of Dragons Den…Someone would come up with an idea, we'd find a factory to make the product, design the packaging and logos etc and try to get it into shops. 
...spent 2 and a half years at Zag. It was a crazy environment, especially as it only had 2 graphic designers and 1 product designer. Had my brain frazzled and learnt a lot. 
...was made redundant at Christmas 2010. Not the best timing but at least I could retreat to St Ives for a family Christmas and Mum's cooking. 
...having some time to think about exactly what I wanted to do with my life I decided to escape the world of branding and move into publishing or products for children…ideally children's publishing! 
...visited the Job Centre a few times and was only vaguely surprised at the number of drunk people on Kilburn High Road in the middle of the day. 
...after a month of unemployment (including a lazy Xmas week or so) I got a 6 month post at Dorling Kindersley as an Assistant Jacket Designer in the travel guides department. This was so I could get my foot in the door in the publishing world and also learn the publishing basics as I went. It was a good job as I got to be a designer as well as see behind the scenes by attending the meetings with some quite senior people. 
...the 6 months has just come to an end so now I am unemployed again! (Oh, you thought I'd suddenly got a load of energy to write my blog again? Actually a load of time) 


See? That was boring even when shortened! No wonder I put it off for so long... 

the extreme laziness of me

Forgot to write last time that whilst I was in St Ives I missed results day at uni. Everyone crowded back to High Wycombe to climb over each other in a corridor to read a little bit of paper with their futures written on it. It was a shame I missed it, but I imagine going to it would've been a nightmare anyway. Concerned parents shoving their kids to the front and taking embarrassing photographs, crying girls who didn't get what they wanted, crying girls who got what they wanted, big-headed people getting out their iPhones to shout loudly to their mates about how great their result was... I, on the other hand, didn't even have to put shoes on that day because I was on holiday and it was sunny and you're allowed to roam the streets in bare feet when there's a beach within 2 minutes away. My mind is not the type that can forget about something important going on though, so in the previous few days I had employed three people to independently get my result for me rather than wait until I was back from holiday to read a letter. I wanted my result as soon as possible so unknown to them it was a race to the results. Good plan eh? I didn't tell them about each other just in case they came up with an evil scheme to tell me I'd failed. I have such lovely friends...they are very capable of evil.

I passed! Three years of study, messy housemates and a massive massive student debt...Worth it? Hopefully.

Anyway...

Stood at the door I wished not for the first time that someone else had got the place. What was I doing?! I should be at home in Bath eating Shreddies, getting ready for a long day out in the garden reading a book. Maybe in 6 months I might remember to apply for a few tiny jobs and end up designing Powerpoint presentations for businessmen and drawing pictures for my Mum in return for enough money to buy a new t-shirt.
The other people were better anyway. They knew how to use computers properly, talk to people without stuttering like a nervous idiot and were way taller...But I was here now and unless I got out of the doorway I was going to be mown down by high-flying advertisers charging into work.
I got past the first obstacle of Victor the Stern Security Guard and entered the mystical hall of glass I had been in just a few months before. I was wearing a big VISITOR sticker just to point out even more clearly to people that I was an outsider and hadn't got a clue what I was doing. That plan was foiled though when I took off my coat and the sticker miraculously disappeared. Point 1 to Alice.
And now I've gotten to that place where I actually have to put effort into writing something proper...The stage that always puts me off and forces me to leave a cliffhanger.................

Goodbye.

the day of reckoning

So...we have finally gotten back to the blog entry I posted all the way back in June...I won't even bother trying to convince you that I'm ever going to catch up and get back to 'real-time' in this blog. It'll be a bitter disappointment* if I claim it and then don't achieve it. And a happy surprise if I ever do! Pessimism eh? I find it handy.

I was in St Ives having two weeks of freedom before my dreaded London visit for my two week work placement. Not a lovely little beginners placement at a tiny graphics agency in an unknown town. This was BBH. In London of all places! That place where more than 10 people walk down the same road at the same time! Yes, I am a country bumpkin at heart. Oi woodden be a proper darter o' Zummerzet if oi din crave a bit o' grarse** (That wasn't rude)
BBH does all the advertising for Levis, Audi and a bunch of other famous names. They're the ones who did the famous hunky-man-in-a-laundrette-washing-his-jeans-to-sexy-music advert. So...it was quite intimidating thinking about going into the den of advertising all on my lonesome with no idea what I'd be expected to do (That wasn't rude either)

I left Bath with my bag stuffed full of 2 weeks worth of clothes and my trusty laptop and dragged it to London. Luckily I'd been able to arrange to stay with a friend in a beautiful flat for very little rent. Bargain! The best bit was I knew I'd be coming home at the end of the day to a familiar and friendly face after a no-doubt scary day.
I had a couple of days in London before I started my placement so I could attempt to calm down a bit. Mainly by memorising the way to the tube station.
I was getting a little worried when the day before I was due to go in I still hadn't heard from them any details like when I was supposed to arrive by, whether I needed to bring in my laptop to work on etc etc. I had asked but had no reply...More worryingly, the woman who had offered me the placement in the first place was now on maternity leave...So maybe no-one even knew I was supposed to be arriving the next day...Maybe they'd just look at me like I was an idiot and chuck me out...

Sugar lumps.

I set off the next day in my very first London rush hour in the middle of summer (a lovely experience) to find out my fate...

*nano-second of a blip in your brain...maybe.
** translation: 'I wouldn't be a proper daughter of Somerset if I didn't crave a bit of grass.'