Things I Love...Friday

Yes, yes, I know I'm a day late this week -- and I also know that I really should update more.  But without any further ado, it's Things I Love Thursday -- special Friday edition!  An idea shamelessly ripped off from Lulu, who in turn was inspired by Gala Darling.

The first item is an obvious one.  It's been

Things I Love Thursday

I've been bad at this recently, but we are back once more with "Things I Love Thursday" shamelessly ripped off from Lulu, who in turn lovingly borrowed it from Gala Darling.

The most obvious and most important thing I love this week: the girl is coming home.  After 4 months in exile and without pay, my favourite West Australian fisherman's daughter is coming back to England.  It's hard to believe after it took so long for her company's licence to sponsor her -- but her visa was approved within 24 hours of receipt of her passport, and a week on from there her flight back is booked.  We already have dinner plans for the day she comes home.  There's lots of songs like "Leaving on a Jet Plane" but are there an equally moving songs about people coming back?

What I also love this week is my hat.  It is big and furry and I feel happy when I wear it because I look so damn cool.  I bought it for myself two years ago as a Christmas present to myself.  It may not be a Mau Mau hat, and I could ideally do with having a larger head (since the hat only comes in one size) because it has a tendency to slip over my eyes when I'm walking, and I have no peripheral vision.

But none of these things matter because it is the absolute coolest hat in the world!  It keeps me so incredibly warm, and it is perfect for when you want to sleep on the train to work -- it gives my head padding against the train window, muffles the sound and I can pull it over my eyes.  What's not to like?  Also, it reminds me of this advert with Rich Hall.

I also love London this week.  It may not be the prettiest city in the world, and it might not have quite the charm of European cities like Paris, or Rome, or Barcelona, or Prague, or the original colonial style of some buildings in Australian cities I have seen -- but it has a charm and history that many modern cities lack, almost by definition.  As I mentioned in my last post, London has grown organically from various smaller towns and almost anywhere you go in the city you can turn a corner away from Starbucks and McDonald's and still find old cobbled streets and disused gas street lamps.   London has a personality and a history that is undeniable, and unrivalled.

I guess following on from my love of London is my love of Europe.  There are still vast areas of Europe I haven't seen, but I love living in Europe this week -- I love that I can call people in France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Scandinavia and with the exception of the last one I can usually at least say "good morning" and with French and Spanish "Do you speak English?".  I speak to these people and see bookings for them travelling across Europe to come to London, and they think nothing of it.  Then I'll speak to someone in the north of England and they will balk at the idea of coming down to London for the day.  There is so much anti-Europe sentiment in England, but I embrace it -- how can you not, when you can drive in to a foreign country in less time that it takes to drive to places in Britain?

Finally what I love this week is being one of life's winners!  A competition I entered randomly one day, as I do so often, actually came through for me -- I got an unexpected email telling me that I had won a place, plus one, on the guest list to see Har Mar Superstar at the start of December.  Of course, I am taking the girl as my plus one since I know she likes his music, too, and it can be another celebration of her coming home.

And I guess that wraps her up this week -- not a vast list of things, but I think the first is quite important.  Followed, albeit at a distance, by a good looking hat.

Things I Love Thursday

Once again, it's time for "Things I Love" Thursday -- inspired by Lulu's posts by the same name.  Today's post is a much-needed antidote to my last, about the folk singer Taylor Mitchell.  If you're new here, you can see last week's TILT here.  And for a wholly-different kind of themed Thursday, why not visit Live It, LOVE It and check out TMI Thursday.

This post is harder than the last, since it hasn't been a week filled with things I love -- but that is all the more reason to write it.  To celebrate the little things, and all that.  I'm going to try and make an effort each week not to repeat things from the last time, even if they are still current and relevant, just to try and add some variety.  So, while this week I still love the warm autumn days, and the cats are still adorable, they aren't making the list.

Top of the love pile this week comes swimming.  I've enjoyed swimming for as long as I can remember -- and though I love it significantly less when the local pool is busy and obnoxious people get in my way, I still enjoy going.  I love what good exercise it is, and for a lazy person like me how it's good exercise for what feels like little effort.  I like the zen of it, when the pool is quiet -- the way the smooth, still water parts for me, and then surges softly back when I pass.  I even enjoy the clean smell of chlorine on my skin, which is no doubt an anchor -- the good feeling I get from the endorphins becoming associated with the smell.  But hey, it works for me. 

I also love this week the kindness of random strangers.  Walking home in the dark the other night, my plastic bag split, spilling my worldly belongings onto the street.  Luckily, I was able to retrieve my glasses, my wallet, my keys and my book without any of them being damaged.  Unfortunately, I didn't realise at the time I had lost my spare mobile -- with the special sim card for cheap overseas calls that I use for calling the girl.  It was some time later down the road I noticed the phone was missing, but I couldn't recall if it had ever been in my bag, or if I might have just left it at the college where I'd been on my personal development course.  I considered retracing my steps, but didn't know where I had been when the bag had split or if I would be able to find a black mobile phone in the dark.  Or even if I had lost it.  I resolved to call the college the next day to ask if it was left there.  Expecting not to see the phone again, I ordered a replacement sim card and looked into the possibility of another handset.


I got a call a few hours later from the girl, to say that a man had found the phone in the street and called her, since she was the last dialled number.  He didn't know it was 4am in Western Australia when he called her.
To skip to the end, I spoke to the guy and then drove over to his house and got the phone back.  I had originally expected the odds of seeing it again if I had lost in the street to be fairly low -- but the kindness of a stranger proved me wrong.

The Time Traveller's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger.  Yes, it's a bit of an old book now, and yes almost everyone we know has already read it, but I just started rereading it.  I've recently been reading another book called Between Inner Space and Outer Space which is incredibly interesting, but also at times a little hard going.  After I dreamed one night of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, I decided that this book wasn't suitable bedtime reading.  Which is where Ms Niffenegger's novel comes in -- I wanted something to read last night, it was there, and it was a better choice than Slinky Malinki which I had just bought for my nephew.  So why is it listed as a thing I love?  I had forgotten how good it is.  Not just the story, but the writing itself.  I went through a phase of reading every book twice -- as soon as I finished it, I would start again, so that I could appreciate the writing and not just the story.  I don't remember why I stopped doing it, but The Time Traveller's Wife is a good candidate for this behaviour.

And, finally, I guess this week I just love the little things.  It's easy for me to get bogged down when things seem to be going badly -- I had to tell our landlord that the girl and I are moving out.  It made me sad to do, and to think of leaving the house.  But I love that I have a loving family that will take us both in.  I love that in a few months we will find a new place of our own to live in London.  I love that I am not sleeping rough on the streets.  I love that I am very fortunate indeed, that while people are dying in daily attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I am safe and cared for, and that my troubles pale in signifcance to what so many people face.

"Things I Love" Thursday

A concept I have taken from Lulu, whom I believe also took inspiration from someone else, this is the first post of hopefully many on "Things I Love" Thursday.  Following on from such theme days as "Musical Monday", "Serial Killer Sunday" and "News-Day Tuesday", this is just a snapshot of the things that are making me happy this week, or just today.  I think everyone will be in agreement this is far more palatable than the idea of me indulging in "Half-Nekkid Thursday", as seen elsewhere in the Blogosphere.

Without any further ado, things I love today:

Sunny Autumn days. Just when you think winter has made a premature entrance, when the days have turned cold and it is pouring with rain, Autumn taps you on the shoulder and lets you know it's not done yet.  Today it is warm and sunny, the sun is singing, the birds are shining, and you can throw open the windows to let the air in.  OK, so you're never going to mistake it for a summer day -- but the Autumn sunlight has an elegant charm all of its own.  And the cats like it, too.

Which brings me onto my next point:

Cats!  I know some people have a real grudge against the feline members of society -- and let me remind you that a hatred of cats is latent misogyny -- but I think responsible owners make respectable cats, and none moreso than the kitten tearaways that have come to live with my parents in recent months.  These two show you what there is to enjoy in life -- and approach almost everything with complete abandonment, which often leads to them rolling about on the floor trying to bite each other.  Except no matter how fiercely they seem to be fighting, neither of them minds, and you'll often find them curled up asleep together.  They really need a whole post of their own.

You know what else I love?

Not having to go to the job centre!  I can now give that hateful place the two-finger salute.  No more filling in a record of what I have been doing to look for work, and no more relying on the pittance of job seeker's allowance.  I now rejoin the ranks of the gainfully employed.

The internet.  I know, I should really send a "thank you" card to Tim Berners-Lee for such a wonderful thing it is.  Without the internet, instant messenger conversations would be quite one-sided, web cam shows somewhat dull, and web browsers not an awful lot of use.  Blogging would also be a lot more like Doogie Howser MD, writing a diary on his computer.  But really, what I love most about the internet this week is people.  Last week, I was invited out for China Blue's birthday celebrations, and by the mixture of the people who came along and showed their love I was reminded what a fantastic tool for meeting people the internet really is.  They say that the invention of the bicycle was a big thing for genetics, since it allowed people easier travel to nearby towns and from there access to more people from outside their own gene pool.  The internet is second only to teleportation and inter-stellar space travel, I think, with its contribution here -- people now communicate with each other in real time from all over the world, and with it make friends, fall in love and perpetuate the whole human comedy.

Weekends at the seaside.  It's not the same without the girl, but I still love the sea, I love going to the seaside on a Friday, and I love going to the seaside even more when we're seeing family.  It's my brother's birthday this weekend, so I get to see my brother, and my sister in law, and my four year old nephew and in between I get to throw stones into the sea and look for shells. 

And that about wraps her all up for today -- I want to keep this as just thoughts today, and not an exhaustive list of all the things in the world ever that I love, and certainly couldn't begin to express myself if I was to start including individuals on the list.

But we'll be back next week with more...