Cabbage = Whinging and Winding

So it's been almost a year and what have i achieved? 

Well I'm still powerplating and secretly bleaching my facial hair when he indoors is outdoors and I'm still working hard and eating chocolate even harder.

And this last point is why i'm back, as i've embarked on a 4 day raw juice and soup detox to counteract the wonderful badness i've been consuming that not even my powerplate lessons can wibble out of me, and today my friends is my maiden voyage.

So far I am impressed with both the delivery of "goodies" that showed up at my door last night - consisting of 8 smoothies (although that makes them sounds tasty, which is false advertising), 8 little packets of vacuum packed soups (which granted look better as soup is meant to be green) and a daily array of pills and teas. Yummy.

So I lept out of bed this morning with the vigour of a 2 month old golden retriever, only to realise that today's pills were far to big to swallow whole, gulp. Having released the delicious powdery brown and white fillings into a glass of water I did the hold your nose and neck it trick. My tail wagging slowed.

Part 2 was a carrot juice. Just carrot. No really, just carrot. Now don't get me wrong I'm a fan of a carrot dipped in hoummus or pureed into a soup but just the little fella raw, naked and pureed does not taste good. Well not for half a litre anyway!

And now it's lunchtime. I've just manged a rather tasty "magic cabbage soup" which was a nice surprise. Nowhere nearly enough to keep the tummy drummers at bay but nice all the same.

I'm dreading 3.30 when I get to enjoy a "Green machine" (aforementioned green smoothie) but then dinner is carrot and sweet potato, which should redeem itself again.

I'll keep you posted, unless I blast off before I get the chance as there is quite the breeze...

Doctor Jessen here I come...

Hello pickles, long time no blog.

I've started a new job you see and it's keeping me rather busy, and frustrated in equal measures.

You may remember that I was on the "smug" eating plan a while back, which I was doing moderately well at sticking to, however the commencement of my "dream job" has turned my healthy eating into something of a nightmare.

I love chocolate. I need chocolate. In hindsight I should really have taken a career path in chocolate tasting / sourcing / producing (is there a degree in that?). But as I missed that sugary boat the next best thing is working on one of the world's biggest and best chocolate brands. "Heavenly" I hear you cry, and yes it would be if I wasn't on this sodding healthy eating plan.

Every day is a test of will, requiring an ungodly amount of restraint, as not only am I talking about, writing about and looking at pictures of chocolate but I'm also surrounded by it.

To illustrate this point around half a tonne of chocolate turned up just this morning for "office consumption" and such is the fervor of today's specific craving that I don't trust myself to even unpack it and lock it into the cupboard of lovliness.

I feel jealous when people around me eat it with such abandon. However I know that chocolate is my nicotine so I fear that once I open the door to it, even just a crack, I will become obsessed with it, stealing cheeky bites out of a bar in my desk drawer when no-one is looking or going outside to guzzle without judgement.

Right now I don't know how this story will play out, but I can only hope that I don't end up on "embarassing fat bodies" with a BMI of 35 and an inability to see my monkey's forehead. Pray for me.

God I miss chocolate

I have embarked on an epic journey of self-deprivation. Fact.

In the quest for a better, leaner, stronger body I've decided to partake in the first "controlled eating regime" of my life and boy do I not like it one little bit.

It's strange as whilst it's entirely my choice to enter into this challenge I can't help but feel cheated (tricked even) out of the things I love and look to for a carb-loaded lift on a daily basis.

But whilst avoiding delicious crusty bread is hard, the whopping great elephant in the room is chocolate. I know it's such a cliche that a girl can't live without chocolate but I believe that nature has chosen cocoa as my methomania and that soft-centred dark chocolate trunk keeps tapping me on the shoulder at regular intervals... PISS OFF DUMBO!

I will try, however, to perk myself up with the smugness that eating well permits. Why only yesterday I managed to spend £18 in my local greengrocer (where it's impossible to spend more than a tenner) and took home my very own harvest festival, imagine my joy!

However it's only day 2 and already I've folded on the no-alcohol rule (but on the flip-side red wine reduces your risk of a heart attack so it's cheating to save my life) but I will self-regulate and eat nothing but steamed veg and a portion of "protein" tonight and no doubt go to bed smug, hungry and a touch more windy than usual.

When OCD met M.E.S.E. (a modern day love story)

Picture the scene; a simply beautiful flat, original features lovingly restored to their victoriana days. Painstakingly chosen colour schemes, fabrics and accessories. Not a spec of dusk in sight, a place for everything and everything (i mean everything) in it's place.

I am the first to admit that i have a healthy smattering of OCD, in the sense that i can't sleep until everything is either back in the wardrobe or the laundry bin, the wardrobe doors have to be fully closed, the curtain-tie backs level with each other and the bedside table meticulous arranged in order of expected importance in the night (phone-water-tissue-book).
 
However this harmony has been distrupted by an alien body, one so intent on spoiling the right angles of the coasters and the hair-free environment of the bath that it hurts to even say it's name.... chris (ouch).

This said the positives are that i will never again:

1) Abandon a too-tight jar
2) Stare longingly at high things in cupboards 
3) Stay out of a room because a spider has moved in
4) Talk to myself (as much)


But on the flip it's going to make it tough to find a moment to bleach facial hair, sing to the glee soundtrack and wax my bikini line as these things are not meant for sharing...

Onwards and upwards
 

Is it just me who gets bored at exhibitions?

Today, in search of more culture than our normal sloth-like Saturday, we met some friends at the Wellcome collection on Euston Road in London in search of some enlightenment and mental stimulation.

Now the thing is that much as i think i like museums and galleries i'm starting to realise that my attention span is not where perhaps it should be, especially given that this was something that i chose to visit.

I think today, however, i finally accepted just what does manage to hold my attention, and quite frankly it's not pretty or girly...

From a child i've always been fascinated by forensic psychology, crime thrillers and fairly gruesome stuff, even though I don't have the stomach for it. For example my favourite film is The Silence of the Lambs and i must admit to enjoying a Patricia Cornwall autopsy-led thriller (not exactly taxing fiction i appreciate). So today when i found myself ambling through an exhibition on Modern Medicine trying to force myself to read articles on god knows what there was one thing that stopped me in my track. And that was a glass case full of amputation saws. Yes yes i know this is wrong on so many levels but item R15 -"finger amputation saw with bone handle" made me return to the case several times with wide-eyed and tight-stomach'd fascination.

Now i don't think i have a problem, more an "interest" that i find hard to explain to decent, non-gore loving individuals. However thinking about it this is certainly not a one off as the exhibition i've enjoyed the most in recent-ish years (after the annual BP Portrait Award - which i know doesn't fit my hypothesis) was Dr Gunthers BodyWorlds at the O2. For those who didn't visit this exhibition had people fainting with shock - but to me yes it was at times yucky to look at but overall was bloody fascinating! (no pun intented)

So i go to bed tonight afriad of spider, burglars and injections but knowing that when it comes to exhibitions the more dark the material, the more i enjoy it - charming.

www.wellcomecollection.org
http://www.npg.org.uk/index.php?id=6757

Hair and pelt, not hairpelt

Not at all helped by the fact that fur has been huge this season, recent weeks have seen the emergence of a horrible horrible fashion faux-pas: matching your hair to your clothes.

Now we all know that coordination, done in moderation, can make an outfit however when that co-ordination is between your barnet and an animal (faux or otherwise) that has got to be a serious no-no, mais no?

Take the lady to the left, captured on the 73 bus near Angel. She was my first "spot" but from that cringe enducing moment i've begun to notice it more and more. From a more subtle fur trim of a hood to a full on snood of pelt, it's just completely unacceptable!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not averse to blondes wearing cream and brunnettes brown, in fact i think this can look super-sophisticated, it's just matching human hair to mammal hair - really?!

So i'd like you to join me in a crusade against hair matching. Next time you see this crime against fashion (and believe me you'll notice it now) and crime against all that is decent in the world, rise up and shout "hair and fur should never match, you womanimal!"

Until next time..

Jx

Fringe update

It's got longer

I've had my first under-fringe spot

I definately don't like it first thing in the morning - very odd angles

It looks better with makeup

It's changed my dress-sense - i'm a bit more quirky now

And finally, my mum still hates it... She came around yesterday, could hardly look at me and kept saying "Ooh it's horrible, where's my little girl gone".. Jesus, build a bridge mum!

Fringe benefits

I've been considering a change in appearance for a while and given that i'm petrified of needles and scalpels (and feel it would be spitting in the face of my mother to defy my genes too much) my hair was one of the few tools I had to play with.

Growing a moustache was out (give it a few more years) so back through the family albums I went to glean inspiration of what might have suited me once upon a time.

My answer: a fringe. My logic: i looked cute with a fringe when i was 6. I did however ignore the fact that I looked hideous with (or indeed without i imagine) a fringe at the age of 12, but hey the brace has gone and the spots don't command eye contact these days.

Off to the hairdressers I poodled with a rather optimistic photo of Zooey Deschanel and a dream of a better life to follow. Snip snip snip.

Now is it me or is it a bad sign when people either hesitate when asked if they like something or choose not to even mention the fact that you've had a radical appearance-altering haircut? I ask because these were my first 6 encounters post fringe (here-on-in refered to as PF). Granted my hairdresser has an obsession with straighteners so it was more Worzel than Zooey to start but still, i'd at least have liked a big of feigned fringe-appreciation.

                                             Zooey - The girl who launched a thousand fringes

Over the next 3 days fringe-loathing took up my every waking thought: it's too hot, it's wonkey, i'm going to get spots, i look 6 years old... but as my hair came out of shock and i went back to work for the first time PF the bang loving began. It certainly helps that i work in advertising where fringes are super cool and it's almost good to look odd/ugly/androgynous whereas i have no doubt that had i worked in another industry (or indeed not in London) i would have been met with silence or refused acknowledgement.

I am now almost embarrased at the fringe love, it's raining down like a torrent of petals every step i take (well kind of) however on meeting my mother the other day, the women for whom i disregarded botox or a chin implant let us not forget, pre even "hello" I was met with "i hate it, it doesn't suit you". But give it time and even she'll find it hard to remember life pre-Fringe.

Dog Judo anyone?

A playful little something has entered my life and brightened my working day.... "Dog Judo"

http://www.dogjudo.com/

I can't remember how i came across it but all i know is that i'm hooked. Is it the awkward animation, maybe. Perhaps it's the sadistic Rexley, or could it just be the fact that i tweeted Roy (yes, i messaged a fictional dog) and am now the proud owner of dog judo badges, t-shirt and a postcard of Roy's dad - Rik Mayall.

Yes yes this all sounds a bit mutts, sorry nuts, but check it out and if you don't like it you must be barking.

Over and out

(Team Roy)

Ben 10 my shoulders ache!

Wanted: One eager couple. Must love little boys more than little girls. Proven experience necessary in playing with cars, pretending to be horse and painting. Knowledge of zoo animals and Toy Story a bonus.

Stepping out of our adult-only bubble we spent the weekend in Diss with a good friend of mine Maria, her husband Paul and Max (5), Oscar (3) & Lucas (1) (kids not dogs i must stress).

With the boys growing up quicker even than i'm developing wrinkles, they remember me from visit to visit so it takes far less time for them to go from shy to shoulders. This was, however, the first time I subjected my boyfriend Chris to the delectable madness and the result was impressive.. 

Whilst i consider myself a fairly child-friendly character it appears that Chris was born to be a horse, give shoulder rides, play mind-numbing games with balls and cardboard and tell whopping lies to small children. The result: a rather noisy and certainly strange legacy left on the already hectic household.

In the space of 24 hours he had the 2 boys who are old enough to talk screaming "Zulu" at the top of their lungs without knowing why or when this was appropriate. He taught them to mimic in a strangely posh accent "oooh have a banana" which quickly changed from banana into just about anything (that's not going to get annoying mum and dad - honest) and he had them believing that he ate spiders for breakfast, lunch and dinner (apart from Saturdays when he was allowed to substitute arachnids for a Chicken Biriyani).

But my favourite moment of the whole weekend came whilst Oscar, the angelic (for 24 hours) 3 year old, was sitting on my lap on a rather futuristic looking see-saw in the park. Chris stretched himself across the plaything to get it moving at which point Oscar turned to me and whispered "Oooh, Chris is so long", and to be fair to the lad why would the opposite of short not be long?!

So back and slightly bruised our bubble is once more in place. And next time we visit all 3 will be walking, talking and still guilible...

My favourite jewellery designer...

When looking for something special and sparkly for my recent 30th birthday i came across Jessica de Lotz and instantly fell in love with her "The Love Story. Paris 1946" collection. So much so that my lovely group of mates got me a "J" necklace in rose gold. Jess makes them all to order and the wax seal can be designed to your own brief. Take a peek next time you want that special something for that special someone (or yourself!).

http://www.jessicadelotz.co.uk/

I'm only as good as my hair..

I love glamour. I love walking out of the house feeling well groomed and ready to face the world. This probably explains my adoration of 1940’s fashion. And whilst for some people this air of polish comes very naturally (i.e. my immaculate client at IKEA) for me, at this time of year, the perfect hair and makeup are often a world away.

See I’ve been “blessed” with wavy hair, hair that loves to show-off how reactive it is to moisture. So whilst the summer months go by without many disasters, as the nights draw in and the air dampens my mane becomes my nemesis. Take this morning for instance; up early for a powerplate class so had a quick shower, put serum through my locks and went on my way. Fast forward 45 minutes and I’m standing waiting for the bus with hair that can only be described as Phil Spector-esque... joy

Thankfully most people are kind. The people on my team rarely point and laugh and my mum, bless her, actually prefers me with mountainous hair. Even my boyfriend thinks it looks “nice” and “natural”, but he’s a very good liar.

So I say please roll on Spring or at the least a 1940's headscarf revival!

  

http://www.johnfrieda.com/products/product_family.asp?productLine=frizz_ease

The wheels on the bus go round and round

Is stalking illegal? What about if it's unintentional?

The reason i ask is that not 2 weeks ago i found myself in a stalker situation, and i swear i did not see it coming.

Sat happily one morning on the #73 i spotted a guy who had rather good dress sense. Being a fan of people who attempt to break the fashion mold, and given that my boyfriend considers himself a bit of a trend-setter, i decided to covertly take a photo of said man in question to show chris. (Stalker behaviour #1)

Now this would have been fine as an isolated incident however we got the bus together the very next day to see the same guy sat in the same seat. We obviously stared and debated his fashion merit and then it hit us; This was not just some dapper member of the public, but was non-other than a member of danish pop band sensation "Alphabeat". Wow, i hear you cry! (and yes, technically he is a celebrity)


On getting into work that day i excitedly told my team, who rather than saying "oh that's a good "on the way to work" story" twisted my tale to question why, a normally well behaved citizen, was photographing a stranger in the first place (erm, for the love of fashion i protested!) 

I unproductively (unless you're a professional stalker) spent a big chunk of that day trawling the net to deny or confirm that it was said Dane and ascertain why they were in the N5 vicinity! (Stalker behaviour #2)


In doing so i found that a strange interest and warmth towards Alphabeat was rekindled - Fascination was the song that distracted me through many a petrifying internal flight across China, and to this day i thank them for that. Sadly i haven't seen him since however i'm on their mailing lists and following their progress in London... so with any luck i'll qualify for a restraining order soon.

http://www.thisisalphabeat.com/

Am I overly suspicious of lone men in cemetaries?

So first things first, i'm not weird. Yes this blog name refers to death, yes i think black is a great colour (very slimming and sophisticated) but no i don't spend a lot of time in cemetaries.

However there are some beautiful old cemetaries in North London that every now and again i'll take a wander through on a bright Sunday afternoon (Rule #1 - Never go into a cemetary when it's not sunny as it goes from interesting and "ooh look at the dappled light" to eerie and "i may never get out of here alive"). 

Abney Park Chapel - a little eerie in my book

In my limited experience I have however found there to be an unnatural amount of lone, middle-aged men sitting on benches in these dead centres of town. And on a particularly disturbing recent visit to Abney Park Cemetary in Stoke Newington I could swear that the same 3 men kept appearing in different parts of the grounds, despite there not being time for them to get there before we did (Rule #2 - don't go to cemetaries if you have a vivid imagination).

My paranoia was not helped by the fact that i had no sense of the cemetary's size or boundaries so we preceeded to get deeper and deeper into the park until the the trees thickened overhead, the comforting noise of traffic faded and the pathways became less trodden. (Rule #3 - take breadcrumbs)

I don't think i've ever been so relieved to see both a woman with a dog and a park map so with the haste of a possessed greyhound we got the hell out of there and didn't look back. (Don't let me put you off Abney Park Cemetary though as it's truely beautiful if you follow the rules above)

P.S. In case you were wondering the answer to my question, I've since found out that the cemetary is a popular gay dogging spot so yes I am right to be suspicious of lone men in cemetaries. (In this instance I'm also lucky not to be a man or you could be reading a far more traumatic ending.....)

http://www.abney-park.org.uk

Me & My Courgettes - a cautionary tale

There is nothing quite like the thrill of picking your very first home grown veg (apart from the end of a powerplate class..) And for the past 3 months I have been proud mother to a healthy, happy brood of courgettes, a moody bunch of tomatoes and a downright boorish crop of peppers. 

The funny thing is that whilst I am proud that I’ve managed to keep at least one breed of veg alive I think my neighbours have had far more enjoyment from my vegetable plot than I have. This is mostly because I am a wimp and if anything other than organic matter touches me I totally freak out.

So imagine my neighbour’s (a middle age man who lives next door but to whom I’ve only ever waved at) delight when whilst casually looking out the window witnesses a Beadle classic of me screaming being “chased” around my garden by a HUGE frog. Now I’m not exactly scared of frogs however when they are purposely camouflaging themselves as a courgette leaf ready to pounce, they’re not going to make it onto my Christmas card list.

Fast forward a week and once move I naively ventured down to get the penultimate courgette (sniff sniff) of the season and proudly entered my plot. Within seconds I knew I had been violated. To my horror I’d walked through what can only be described as an arachnids lair and had the mother of all 8-legged creatures trying to bite my calf. I have never thrown such crazy shapes as I did at the exact point that I preceded to strip off my clothes. The rest is not a pretty story but let’s just say by the time I got back into my front door I was just in my smalls hitting myself indiscriminately.. yes I know, i'm so cool.

So the moral of the story is vegetables = ritual humiliation. You have been warned.

Powerplates - wait for the massage...

Try as i might to be inspired by the notion of exercise, i'm a couch potato with a penchant for pork rind in a relatively slim persons body, so it's only a matter of time until the saturated time bomb goes off.

I therefore managed to convince myself that at precisely the moment i turned 30 my metabolism had turned on me and i was going to need a whole new wardrobe if i didn't act fast.

So as i've previously mentioned my bike had the cobwebs dusted off it and i braved the traffic but i still felt that this wasn't drastic enough action. It was then that i heard about the Powerplate and people's war story crys of "my god it hurts", " it's like 2 hours of toning in 25 mins" and thought i've got to get me some of this!

With my lycra armour on and inhaler in hand i booked in for a session and wow was it tough. Genuinely these things are like evil machines sent to make you have a whole new respect for 60 seconds but you've got to assume it's doing you good.


All this aside, the most interesting thing about the whole experience is the last 3 minutes, as this is the "massage" part. Picture the scene: your muscles are aching, you're relieved that it's nearly over and you're feeling pretty damn pleased with yourself. The instructor tells you to sit on the edge of the plate, with your legs wide, and they press the massage function button... Now i'm not going to give you a female anatomy lesson but lets just say that it hits a certain spot that you don't expect to hit in a brutal exercise class. But you know what,  I just like to think it's the machine-bots way of saying "well done..."

Cycling: Good for the body, bad for the nervous system

The good old government cycle to work scheme bestowed a bike upon me about 18 months ago. At first it sat there gathering dust, as the thought of venturing off the pavements into the roar and dirt of the traffic was nothing short of terrifying (i'm a complete wimp btw).
Add to this the emotional blackmail i received from my mother - something like this: I cycle = I might die = I'd ruin mum's life - and is it any wonder that i stuck to the safety of the bendy bus.

However a change was brought about by a bike service which turned my slowmo sloth into a super-charged speed demon, and the addition of a natty little basket, which is just plain handy. So now i actually quite enjoy a bit of pure fear to kick start my body and mind in the morning. Yes i'm still scared by the bits of my journey when i have to make a right turn (as, in a Zoolander-esque way, i can only signal left convincingly) or leave the relative safety of the cycle lane, but i feel that if it doesn't kill me (fingers crossed mum) it will only make me stronger. Also the recent introduction of Boris' super-bikes makes me happy as they are the only chaps i can actually overtake as i have more gears than them... Boom!


So i'd certainly say give it a go. You won't win any prizes for cool with your helmet, fluro vest and gloves (a must for avoiding callouses!) but you'll start your day energised and just pleased to be alive.

Now for the journey home...

Fancy taking your neighbour's motor for a spin?

Since moving into my flat about a year ago i have made it my mission to actually get to know my neighbours, rather than just avoid eye contact and hope i never need their help. My road is full of varied occupants; most friendly, some slightly odd and one downright rude, however the good certainly outweight the bad. Anyway, i'm completely digressing. The reason for this waffle is that i'm a HUGE advocate of schemes like freecycle (www.freecycle.org) where you get to give and receive items that are now longer wanted within your neighbourhood (and it's often some cracking items although i did once see "one left shoe" and "keys to the kingdom of god" on there..) However through various sofa giveaways and chest of drawer pickups i've come to realise the  value in these type of mutually beneficial exchanges. 

So imagine my delight when, as a neighbour loving fan of sustainable things, i came across Whipcar (www.whipcar.com). The concept is simple, lots of people around you have cars and not everyone needs their car all of the time, so why not make a bit of cash by effectively renting out your car. The vehicle owner benefits from some extra cash and the hirer gets the freedom of having the occasional use of a car without all the ties that ownership brings.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Some of my favourite things

* Sea salt caramels from Paul A Young in Camden Passage (N1 8EA) - but don't eat too many at once, you've been told....

* My new hungarian goose down duvet - worth every pretty penny

* Grilled courgettes with Marks special sauce (not what it sounds like) it's a chilli and lime delight

* Getting parcels at work, even though i'm expecting them

* Being stopped and asked where i got something i'm wearing from - and even more so if they're from somewhere that makes me sound worldly wise (even though i'm really not!)
* Pork scratchings. yes yes the hairier the better