London is serving up a feast of fodder for my book. It all started last weekend when Ben asked those golden words “Who wants to go to the Rugby at Twickenham tomorrow?” Now, I love a good rugby game at the best of times – but it just so happened that only that day I had been writing a scene at a rugby match in London. True story. Synchronicity in action my friends.
And these weren’t just any old tickets either – they were tickets to the XYZ corporate suite (I thought I should leave Ben’s company anonymous, I wouldn’t want to get him fired for inappropriate use of company resources in case someone from XYZ ever read this blog). So for several hours last Saturday I had to pretend I was Corporate Girl again – which turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. I’m a bit rusty on the old corporate small talk. I realised early on that saying “Australia” when asked “And you’re from….?” was not the correct response – they were looking for company, not country. My dazzling smile alone did not distract them. So I fumbled my way through some sketchy story about being in London for work, and was just grateful that no one asked me anything like where our office in London is actually located, as that would really have blown my cover because I have absolutely no idea.
I seemed to get away with it though, and settled back to drink some fine Australian wine and listen to the poms singing Sweet Chariot which was pretty amazing in fact. Almost made me want to be English. But not quite. I even managed to rub shoulders with Zara Phillips! You know, Princess Anne’s daughter, the one who’s marrying Mike Tindall, the England Rugby Captain (whose nose has been broken so many times it nearly sits parallel to his face). She was there to cheer him on, and I saw her on the big screen. So we were in the same stadium at the same time, which is rubbing shoulders in my books, even if there were 70,000 other people there.
Of course Valentine’s Day rolled around again this week as well – another year bereft of any heartfelt love poetry, exorbitantly priced flowers and meal deals at Italian restaurants. Not even a card from my Mum! Thank God. I still haven’t forgiven her for the time about 15 years ago when she got some customer in the newsagency to write on a Valentine’s Day card for me so I wouldn’t recognise the handwriting, then didn’t tell me that she was behind it for a whole week. Practically grounds for parental divorce that one.
As a single girl, I think I am kind of expected to feel a bit sorry for myself on Valentine’s Day, to maybe want to slit my wrists or hang myself from the Tower of London. But as many other singles can attest, if you have escaped a bad matching in the past, sometimes I think Valentine’s Day should double up as Thank-God-for-my-lucky-escape Day. Simone Warne or Elin Woods could be the pin up girls.
Tuesday night brought about my first major foray into the London nightlife scene – at the Bloomsbury bowling lanes for the World Series of Pong. Thanks to old Brissie boy Phil Dutton for the invite – it was highly entertaining. Thanks also to my fabulous Ping Pong skills, my team The Ting Tongs made the semi finals! Granted I hardly hit the ball, but I blame it on the bad lighting not my complete lack of coordination. Lucky my ping ponging partner Alex was a bit of a gun. It took the Brothers Tan, who looked like they played for the Taiwanese Olympic team, to knock us out.
Unfortunately though this week has been one of both highs and lows – I got news from home yesterday that my brother-in-law Damo is quite sick and is in hospital. Which has suddenly made me feel a very long way from home. Ali tells me he is in good spirits though – apparently the thing he is most upset about is he may have to cut salt out of his diet. Which for Damo would narrow his preferred cuisine choices down to not-much-at-all. Bye bye Colonel Sanders, it’s been nice knowing you. Hopefully we will know more over the next couple of days – until then, I am trying not to worry too much (which given I own a copy of a book called “Women who think too much” is unlikely), instead focusing on getting my three chapters and synopsis finalised to send to Maggie Alderson. I have a self imposed deadline of this weekend.
First though, my stay in Knightsbridge with Ben, Jane and Bella the dog comes to an end today (without a single sighting of Kate Middleton – apparently she lunches around these parts all the time) and I am back to Barbitopia with Lizzie and Paul, who have very kindly invited me along to a fundraiser dinner tonight for a Zambian charity of sorts. I am pretty lucky to get an invite actually – Paul usually invites his mates-with-money so they can actually chip in for the charity (given that is the purpose and all) – at the last such dinner, their table raised 80,000 pounds. I have told Paul that I might be able to chip in 50 quid if they get desperate. After all, I am practically a charity case myself these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment