Witterings of joy!

Hi all

Been a while since I updated – life has been demented and wonderful of late. Highlights include fabulous CULES balls, visits from marvellous and special people, getting into the swing of life at Court, climbing mountains of paperwork and wooshing down the other side, and building a flat's worth of Ikea furniture. I'm jolly happy at present, though of course I miss everyone, so come and see the pretty sights of Luxembourg! And, er, me.

Yarr!

Still haven't stopped smiling from this weekend. For those of you who want to know, it went something like this...

Lifesized puppet horses! Marvellous and wondrous stories! Comedy geese! London skylines! Middle class soup! Jasmine tea flowers! Rubbish sci fi! Demented swampdwellers! Hats and big pink fluffy wigs! Futon-based hugs! Inadequate gravy! Hand-dryers! Channels called Dave! Heckles at Stardust! Joy joy joy joy joy!

Am all happy now. Yarr.

After wanting to seriously kill Aladdin for the last two weeks, I find that now I have stopped writing I have a serious surfeit of creativity. Damnit!

I need a new project. Something joyous to keep me amused of an evening. Ideas on a postcard. Otherwise I will be tempted to write a spoof of that book meme.

After a month and a half of scrabbling for my notebook every time something vaguely amusing popped into my head, after a month and a half of spinning out puns as far as they could go, after a month and a half of occupied evenings, of demented weekends, of making strange strangulated cat noises in the shower, and of waking up in the middle of the night to write out things that amused me in my dreams....Aladdin is written.

...I had the most fabulous walk to work. I live about 15 minutes from the court, and have to walk across the bridge which straddles the Lx Grund valley.
Today, the valley was full of mist, with thinner mist covering the bridge, and shafts of glittering sunlight everywhere. It felt like walking in a cloud - absolutely marvellous!

Hi all
Today I purchased a kettle. The apartment now feels like home, and cooking time has been cut in half. I had an interesting time this morning, trying to make the shower work, and then, er, trying to stop it working so well - all over the bathroom. Oh well. It’s dry now.

Walked to work this morning, very invigorating. Might need my coat tomorrow, as it is getting cold here already. Luxembourg, despite being a severely boring town (as anyone who has ever been here will testify), appears to be quite a nice place to live – a bit like Belgium. Also the Lx radios appear to have gone on a charm offensive, as they are playing Queen everywhere I go :-) Happy Polly! I’ve decided to tune my radio to some random German channel, in the hope that I might be able to pick up some German that way. Ooh, it’s just started playing a song by Queen…

But I digress. Work is going well – got my first project today. It’s all about tax law. I think that I am going to be working quite hard this weekend. Around returning to Belgium to retrieve my sodding mobile phone, and the rest of my junk. I really have too much stuff. Especially clothes. When I get back to the UK, I am going to have an open wardrobe day, where all my friends (or light entertainment costume mistresses) are permitted to take whatever they like from that which I no longer wear. The rest will go to Oxfam. Am sick of carting round things I never wear!

Right, that is all you are getting for today. Pip pip!

Hello all :-)

Well despite my muppetry, I now have a new address. Once again, I was lucky. After making more phone calls on the hotel phone than I care to think about, I got an appointment to look at a room. Went up there, and it was gorgeous. And only three minutes’ walk from court. And, er, had no kitchen . Nor, er, any way of washing any clothes….and, er, it had a lunatic proprietor who shouted at me when I said that I might perhaps want to do things like wash my clothes….!
So not that one, then.

The second lot of people I got through to, however, were a different story altogether, and when I went to see the apartment, I decided, straight away, that I would take it. A grand, french-style two bedroom apartment (the other bedroom’s not let yet, so let’s hope I end up living with someone nice), with a lounge and kitchen attached. The landlady is extremely personable, and lives on the floor below. She doesn’t want loud parties happening, but then again, I wasn’t really intending to have any! And it means that any potentially loud party type flatmates will look elsewhere. It’s not quite as fit as the fit apartment I had in Brussels, but it will do just fine.

So, what else can be said for this apartment? It’s about twenty minutes’ walk from the court, and in a decent area, which is also only about twenty minutes from the town centre. Shops, cinema and park close by – in general pretty much ideal. Downsides to the apartment are only really that there is no internet (though there is at work), and no TV (not a great loss as Lx TV is terrible), and that the kitchen is an electric-hob affair, with no oven, microwave or….kettle! Though the tenancy is only for three months, the lattermost problem will without doubt be rectified as soon as humanly possible. The upsides? Marvellous room, and as for rent - it’s about half of what I was expecting to pay, which means that I can almost certainly afford to come back for the cules annual dinner. This has made me very bubbly.

So I moved most of my stuff into the apartment this afternoon, then cooked myself some food, before returning to the hotel in order to get an early night before heading off to court. Am getting really very excited indeed about starting work tomorrow. With any luck, that will all go well too. So, wish me luck….

Hello all

It has been a while since I updated, so here is an account of my life over the past few months. Because I am delightful, I have made a

( cut for length )

Anyway, finally finished packing for Luxembourg this morning, and headed off on an epic journey, which has taken the entirety of today. I’m currently sitting in a bland hotel room, not far from Lx station, with my back aching and aching, and my head spinning at the enormity of the task of finding accommodation. Not easy to do, especially as I have managed to conveniently forget my mobile phone…..in Belgium. I picked up about half my stuff from Chris’ house, and thought I would be clever and save time by charging up my phone….and you can guess the rest. Ah well, Polly style muppetry strikes again. Wish me luck, boys and girls, as I am going to need all the luck I can possibly get!

Right, I think that is enough wittering at you for now. Sweeties and gin go to anyone who has bothered to read this far. I’ll keep you updated on the excitement of life at court (and I am excited, wildly excited, about that! despite worrying my little socks off about it all, I’m very pleased to be out here), but at this moment in time, what I need is a good old sleep.

Well, that's it. Yesterday I packed my many bags, left some in a nook at the house I've been staying at, shouldered my unfeasibly large rucksack, stepped aboard the Eurostar, and once more changed countries. I've returned to the UK for summer, before I head off to Luxembourg in autumn.

My contract with the Commission ended on Tuesday, and it must be said that I have had the time of my life - doing exciting European and International Public Law, learning more than I could have ever imagined, finding new challenges, working with lovely colleagues, discovering two new languages. It's been everything I could have hoped, and much more.

So I have decided to apply for a permanent job out in Europe, as soon as there is a recruitment competition. I do want to practise at the Bar at some point in the future, but I think my heart - for the moment - lies in Europe.

But for now, I am sitting at Ben's computer, drinking tea and eating some random pastry, and contemplating the joys of the summer. I've downloaded the Edinburgh survival manual, I'm transcribing a plotline for the next oules panto, and I'm attempting to fend off the cats from jumping on the keyboard. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and my heart is full of joy.

Opinions please...
I am thinking of getting The Yearly Haircut of Doom on Saturday. I cannot decide between getting a trim (safe and practical), getting a general shortening (like in my user icon - prettiful and probably not disastrous) and getting seriously short hair (sort of 2inches kinda thing, enough to spike up and look cool - potential disaster quite high but will swiftly grow to more general shortening levels). Or something else.
I know this is not a life-changing post, but you all know I'm rubbish at making decisions especially when surrounded by a plethora of intimidating hairdressers. Please help!

Calling on all my joyous geek friends:
A colleague and I are having a dispute about what the correct term is for accessing a neighbour's WiFi network without authorisation. I thought it was just "hacking", he seems to think it's "snooping" and my supervisor thinks it's "diving". Any other terms?

Roll up, roll up! Come one, come all - Two Shades of Blue is pleased
to invite all and sundry to

AUDITIONS

for our Edinburgh shows, which will be performed during the week of
13th August 2007. These shows are:

THE MATRIX: THE PANTOMIME (a marvellous panto based on The Matrix)

and

COMEDY AND CAKE (a joyous revue of joy)

"So when will these wondrous auditions be?" I hear you cry... Well
this year there will be three sets of auditions, held at the following
places:

LONDON - 6pm to 8pm at Ben's house in Herne Hill, Sunday May 6th
CAMBRIDGE - 4pm to 7pm in the Green Room, Caius, Saturday May 12th
OXFORD - from 2pm to 5pm in the Mordan Hall, St Hugh's, Sunday May 13th

( Details )

If you would like to audition but can't make any of the above dates,
get in touch and we will try to sort out an alternative.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

This weekend just disappeared into quiet and peaceful calm, punctuated by an afternoon’s joyous stage fighting. No set agenda – just a report to start drafting, some washing to do and a little bit of writing. And I’m glad of this pause, as this coming week is already getting demented...

Hello all, here are some more ramblings.

( Musketeers are like busses. )

Spent Sunday afternoon doing something which I have really missed since coming across to Brux. Taught a load of kids how to beat each other up. Then choreographed a jive-dance-come-stage-fight, which was utterly joyous.

So, life is still good at the moment. Work is great fun as ever, I have a new office, which gets afternoon sunshine and the sweet voices of any protesters who happen to be outside the Council building. It’s funny how protesters sound the same in pretty much any language.

Edinburgh things are also happening. We did our lovely application to theatres this weekend, hopefully twill all work out well. I’m currently working on various bits and pieces for the Teatime Revue (Comedy and Cake) which TSoB are taking up this year. Any ideas for sketches or songs would be very much welcomed. Maybe I will make this into one of these memes. If you love me, you’ll give me one idea, even one word, for a sketch or a song. If I then write something from it, it’ll be in your honour. If you don’t, you will be dropped into the bog of eternal stench. Or I will take your silence as a testimony that actually you secretly hate me and I will cry. So there.

Right that’s quite enough for now. Pip pip!

Hullo all

Just thought I would drop you a line; have had a joyous, relaxing weekend, with a vast amount of sleep nearly making up for the sadness at missing the CULES dinner. Nice weekend spent writing and drawing pretty lighting designs was just what I needed.

Right, best get on with that work thing, then :-)

You would have thought that pretending to be a serious person, living a fairly grown-up life in another country, would stop me from ending up getting roped into helping out in a show.

Ah well. Wrong again :-D

I've just noticed you can sing "Have some Madeira, m'dear" to the tune of "How much is that doggie in the window".

I'm disproportionately pleased by this.

In other news, we have our wonderful conference tomorrow, and all I need to do is sort out the wine, the water, the food, the badges, the guestlist, the information packs, the venue team and everything else needed by the 200 or so people involved. In the words of an oules producer, "it'll be fiiiiiiiiiine..."!

Hullo all
Another Monday, another witter. Am rather on the busy side of things, but...
( text )

Other than that, my life continues as usual. I had a visit from my darling friend Eoghan (and not forgetting the also-joyous Liam) over the w/e, and I completely failed to get on with writing my application form which REALLY needs to be submitted to this set tomorrow. Yargh, I hate being nice about myself.

Right, that's all you're getting from me for now, pip pip!

So, January already, and I’ve not updated any of you on my exciting antics over Christmas and the New Year…so here goes; I’m currently sitting on my bed in my apartment in Bruxelles, with the telly on and a cup of rose tea by my side, and I’ve decided to treat you all to a post. Now aren’t I nice? (On second thoughts, don’t answer that…)

( Cut for lengthy waffle about Christmas holidays )

So…now here I am, back in Bruxelles. I’ve been working hard all week, as not only is there a backlog of work to be done, but we’re also in court next week, which is going to be cool. Everything feels slightly like it’s back to normal; mad and joyous, tha…

Well – that sentence was typed a week ago, and was going to end “thankfully this w/e will give me some breathing space” or something of that ilk. But as I was typing that, I got a text from the lovely Hannah, announcing that she wanted to come and stay. Honestly, sometimes I think my life is actually a play of some kind, everything seems to happen at just the right time. Anyway, ceasing to witter, and to get back to the point, Hannah came across that very evening from Paris to relax in the quieter climes of Bruxelles. So my first chance to write this update – and finally get some rest! – has been delayed for a week. Couldn’t be for a better reason, though; Hannah was a delightful guest and brought much sunshine and silliness with her.

Er, so, further updates are in order…the main event this week was yet another visit to Luxembourg. Court hearing was amazing; incredibly interesting and on an exceptionally complex and abstract point of law. Rest of week was slightly less bonkers, though my supervisor is now clearing off his desk, which means a lot of the smaller projects I’ve been working on quietly are being taken up now, so many work for the moment. All very cool though; I’m loving it as ever.

Other than that, er, not much else happening in my life. Sorry. Gosh, this is a boring LJ. Why are you reading it? *Racks brains for news…* Er, ooh I know… I’m trying to get the details of a not-very-short story straight in my head, but I’m not sure that it’s working at the moment. Might post it if it ever gets written. Perhaps. Hrm. That wasn’t very interesting either.

Right, I had better go and sort out this analysis note, then cook some curry. I appear to have acquired more spinach than I know what to do with, in a “relatively small compared to other things in the supermarket” mistake, similar to my error with pumpkin last year. However, on the upside I do like spinach. Any recipes welcomed, though.

Right, bye for now, speak soon….