Where the hell are those thunder storms?

So,

What did I get up to yesterday?

After the still heat of the night, it was the usual routine in the morning, radio, shower, commute into work with one exception....... the news said that we were going to experience thunderstorms yesterday afternoon/evening!

Hoorah! Yipee! Fantastic! Just what I want, a few good heavy thunderstorms to clear the air, get rid of the humidty, get back to a 'normal heat'. Armed with this knowledge it made the commute into work a little more bearable. So, I set about getting stuff done at work eagerly waiting for the ominus darkening of the sky above and the first glorious thunderclap, to which I was going to run out of the office into St James park and bask in the beautiful cold, heavy rain......

And I wait. And wait. And wait........ the only loud noise I heard that afternoon was our fire alarm going off and we all had to evacuate the building. Standing around in St James park in the baking heat like a spare bunch of lemons I join the boys in the cafe in the park; http://www.royalparks.gov.uk/press/current/press_release_64.cfm . I did ask them to get me a nice, cold lager but they got me an Chegworth Apple & Rhubarb juice; http://www.chegworthvalley.com/ making sure that I stick to the 'no alcohol on a weekday rule'. How nice of them.......

We wander back to the office, it's still hot and I swear that it's even hotter inside. How can a building get hotter when there are no people in it??? I'm beginning to think that perhaps this heatwave is a government conspiracy. I'm really pissed of now and very cranky with the heat.

A shining ray of light appears in my day when Anna suggests that instead of going to the gym - now relax, I have not nor have I ever gone to a gym, Anna's the bizzare health freak here, not me! - that we should do cocktails instead! Excellent idea! I decide swap Friday for Thursday on the alcohol ban and everything is now kosha.

We hop on the No. 24 bus and head straight to the Revolution Bar ; http://www.revolution-bars.co.uk/bars.php?bar_id=149 only to find that it's shut for a 'private party'! In all the times I've been there this is a first for me! So we then wander down Wardour St and head to the Intrepid Fox http://ultimatepubguide.com/pubs/info.phtml?pub_id=39 to re live our Rock/Goth days. Easy, swap cocktails for 'Rock'.

Or so I thought...... How was I to know that in the midst of this un-bearable heat and humidty so thick you can almost put a knife through it that there was a power cut in Soho. No power in the pub = no cold beer or draught beer. I settle for a warm bottle of bud, sitting in what has to be the hottest pub in London. It's so hot that there is more 'condensation/sweat' on me than there is on the bottle of beer! Cameron comes and joins us and we make a fast exit to another bar that does have power and air conditioning and more importantly, cocktails!!!!!

Several cocktails later, and another trip to 'rock' Garlic & Shots pub; http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/42/4277/Garlic_and_Shots/Soho . Cameron still had his tie on from work and was asked to remove his tie as 'It isn't that sort of pub mate'. More warm beer was consumed before we headed to another bar for more cocktails - this time I had 'An un-comfortable screw' cocktail, and since it was Cameron's round, he had to go up to the bar and ask the barman for an uncomfortable screw.......

;-)

I am evil at times.

After that, we decided that we actually needed some nutrition that wasn't alcohol based and wandered up onto Dean Street to go to one of my favourite eating places Nusa Dua; http://www.nusadua.co.uk/ for a fab meal washed down with a couple of bottles of white wine.

We depart our seperate ways, I jump onto the No. 73 bus and head home for another hot, sticky restless night. I did hope that perhaps there would be some thunderstorms overnight, but when I awoke this morning..... well, you know the story by now.

:-(

sticky, sweaty and yucky

That about sums up how I feel.

I woke up this morning feeling like that. I step in the cold shower, getting rid of the previous night's sweat & humidity and begin to feel semi-human again. Although, I know that I'm actually kidding myself here because as soon as I step out the shower, I'll feel sticky, sweaty and yucky again.

No, perhaps this time it will be different. Perhaps this time, I'll step out the shower feeling refreshed and that feeling will stay for at least 10 minutes. I slowly step out the shower, holding my breath. Could this be the day the heat finally subsides and I'll feel refreshed? Isn't that what a shower is suppose to do?

I reach for the towel, put it round me, open the bathroom door, so far so good. I walk up the stairs and and head to the bedroom.

Damm, I knew I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. By the time I've got back to the bedroom I can already feel the suppressive sultry heat clinging to my body. It's hot. It's darn hot. And I haven't even started the commute into work yet.

The 'natural' air conditioning in work was on top form today - I'm beginning to think that this is perhaps indeed hell. I try to find any excuse to be away from my desk, as I have the sheer mis-fortune to have a desk with a window that opens into the open area that is in effect a greenhouse. One can mistake this for Dante's 6 level of hell (Lower Hell: Violence & Fraud) - The City of Dis

"Before you are fields full of distress and torment terrible. Burning tombs are littered about the landscape. Inside these flaming sepulchers suffer the heretics, failing to believe in God and the afterlife, who make themselves audible by doleful sighs. You will join the wicked that lie here, and will be offered no respite. The three infernal Furies stained with blood, with limbs of women and hair of serpents, dwell in this circle of Hell."

What I wouldn't give to be in at least Dante's 3rd level of hell (Upper Hell: the Incontinent) - at least it's nice and cool there!

"In the third circle, you find yourself amidst eternal rain, maledict, cold, and heavy. The gluttons are punished here, lying in the filthy mixture of shadows and of putrid water. Because you consumed in excess, you meet your fate beneath the cold, dirty rain, amidst the other souls that there lay unhappily in the stinking mud. Cerebus, a canine monster cruel and uncouth with his three heads and red eyes, dwells in this level. He growls and tears at the damned with his teeth and claws."

Mind you given those descriptions - they could be describing any workplace! If you are interested, you can actually take Dante's inferno test. http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-test.mv

I did, and found that I'm such a bad, bad person I would be ending up in Dante's 7th level of hell:

"Guarded by the Minotaur, who snarls in fury, and encircled within the river Phlegethon, filled with boiling blood, is the Seventh Level of Hell. The violent, the assasins, the tyrants, and the war-mongers lament their pitiless mischiefs in the river, while centaurs armed with bows and arrows shoot those who try to escape their punishment. The stench here is overpowering. This level is also home to the wood of the suicides- stunted and gnarled trees with twisting branches and poisoned fruit. At the time of final judgement, their bodies will hang from their branches. In those branches the Harpies, foul birdlike creatures with human faces, make their nests. Beyond the wood is scorching sand where those who committed violence against God and nature are showered with flakes of fire that rain down against their naked bodies. Blasphemers and sodomites writhe in pain, their tongues more loosed to lamentation, and out of their eyes gushes forth their woe. Usurers, who followed neither nature nor art, also share company in the Seventh Level."

Hmmm, that's nice to know.... and here's me thinking that I'm not really that bad a person.... obviously Dante disagrees.

Just walking from my desk to the printer and back I can feel the muggy sweat trickling down my back. It's going to be a long, long day today.

As mentioned before I try to spend as little time as possible at my desk, I have wee meetings down in the canteen as that's the only place in the building that the air conditioning actually works! Struggling with the rest of the day, I get an e-mail from Kate asking about beer.

It's hot, I'm tempted, and the walk alone from work to the Cruddy bar is enough to work up a raging thirst in this heat. It's time to down tools and take the long walk - okay I'm using a bit of artistic license here... but you get the picture! - to the Cruddy bar. I then proceed to have;

• 1x pint of grapefruit juice and lemonade.
• 1x sparkling water with one slice of lime
• 1x sparkling water with two slices of lime
• 1x sparkling water with three slices of lime
• 1x fresh orange juice with lemonade

I know what you are thinking. What's with the lime? Well, I can't have the same drink more than twice can I? That would be sad....... okay, I'm trying to sound convincing here, but as I type this I realise that actually perhaps I should just stop digging this hole. When you are in a hole, just stop digging!

Meanwhile, Kate had a lager and 4 x dry white wines - I could only sit and watch and remember what that was once like! ;-)

After which, we departed our seperate ways. I was lucky enough to catch a no. 24 bus straight up to Tottenham Court Road, switch to a no. 10 bus going to Euston, before jumping on the 476 bus to take me the last part of my journey home.

Here was me thinking, 'Wow', no waiting for buses, I'll be home in a jiffy. I should have learnt by now, not to have such thoughts, I only end up jinxing myself! As soon as the 476 left Euston station and turned back onto Euston road - complete gridlock.

How many times, can they bloody dig up Kings Cross??? Grrrrr.

Several minutes i.e. 15 mins stuck on Euston Road, later the bus finally moved and I was speeding home for the rest of my journey.

Back to my lovely, hot, sticky, humid flat. Back to yet another night of trying to keep cool, with all the windows open, sleeping on top of the covers falling asleep to the radio......

Comedy in the heat

Och, it's not long after midnight and my room is swealtering.

It was another un-remarkable day in the office today, same old same old 'natural' air conditioning. Hmmmm..... that's why I was on my 5th bottle of water and still sweating like I've just spent 5hrs moshing away to rock and metal.

One of ray of light though, Sunil suggested that we head down to Canary Wharf (yes the place with all the big buildings) otherwise known as 'Torchwood Towers' - although I couldn't quite see any Daleks or Cybermen.......

Glen and I headed down to a pub on the Wharf to meet Cameron, and yes I was still sticking to no beer on a week day, with me on the grapefruit and lemonade with Glen enjoying a nice cold Kronenberg. Cameron turned up later , and I had another sparking water.

After which, we strolled up to Canada Sq for the Open Air Comedy Night, meeting up with Sunil and his wife Sabina.
http://www.mycanarywharf.com/whatson/calendar.html "Stand-up comedian, singer, songwriter and winner of the Time Out Comedy Award, Richard Morton will be your master of ceremonies for this special edition of the Canary Wharf Comedy Club. Outdoors for the first time, expect the same top-notch laughs that sell-out Cabot Hall. Featuring Terry Alderton, Michael McIntyre, Adam Bloom, and the brilliant Adam Hills. "

When we finally found Sunil & Sabina - as you can tell by the photo, loads of people sitting on a square of grass, kinda difficult to spot people! We sat down, had a picnic of cheese, dips, breads etc. Very tasty as there was a Waitrose across the road to beef up our supplies! And well, this can be classed as a 'special event' so I had a couple of cans of Pimms and lemonade.

I must say for a free event, it was bloody good. Lots of laughs, and even the Australian comedian was funny....

After spending most of Sunday sitting on my arse on the grass in Greenwich, my back didn't take to kindly to sitting on the hard grass again for another three hours - so inbetween sets I had a nice lie down staring up at the fluffy little clouds (if only there were some!) and at the big tall buildings.

So, here I am, back home courtesty of TfL's bus service, in bed, in the heat, listening to Planet Rock on my DAB Radio.

Time for sleep I think!

Where did it go?

Yet another hot day.

Worked lated in the office, left about 6:30ish to go catch the No. 24 bus up to Warren St Tube station where I was meeting Tim for a quick drink before home.

Spent nearly 15mins waiting on a bloody 24 bus. I got to the bus stop (which is right outside work by cutting through HMRC onto Parliment St) , and saw that the LED sign was saying 15 mins for a no. 24 bus. Surely that can't be right? It's still rush hour, and after checking the timetable there should have been a bus every 8-10mins.

There is a massive crowd at the bus stop - I just resign myself to the fact that on this blistering hot day, I will crammed like a sardine into a portable oven till Warren Street. And yes, the bus was packed.

Finally got to Warren Street, peeled myself off of the seat and grabbed a paper to read whilst I waited for Tim. And waited. And waited. I didn't realise that the Victoria line had been suspended between Walthamstow & Seven Sisters because of a person underneath the train, causing severe delays to the rest of the line.

Really. If you are wanting to end your life, do you have to do it at rush hour on one of the main tubes lines? How inconsiderate to your fellow travelers who, unlike the person under the train have decided to keep on living and go on with their daily lives. There's inconvenience, and then there's inconvenience.

Anyway, I digress. Finally met up, and I made the mistake (a glaring 'school boy error'), of choosing a pub that had the cricket on.

Result?

Not a lot of conversation as Tim's transfixed by the TV - I'm sitting there with my grapefruit and lemonade swealtering in the non-air conditioned pub.

Headed home after that, jumping on the No.10 bus to Euston, then onto the 73, and I actually managed to find a seat! Kinda got hungry on the journey home and was debating with myself to either a shish kebab, chinese or a pizza from La Barca.

I'd settled on the pizza as I'd never got round to getting one on last Saturday. By this time it's nearly 9pm, I'm hot, tierd, thirsty - got home, opened the door to find that it wasn't any cooler, infact it was hotter inside the house than outside! So, after munching away, drinking juice, watching some telly, downloading e-mail etc etc I decide to go to sleep.

All through-out the evening, I'm keeping an ear out for this suicidal mozzie that enjoyed nearly a pint of my blood the evening before. This time I'm armed with newspaper and fly/wasp spray. Just let the little bastard come near me and it's dead.

I'm starting to doze off, but am still keeping an ear out for this damm mozzie. Next thing I know, it's morning. I check over for any new bites - but seem to be mozzie bite clear!

Where the hell did it go?

Perhaps it found a tastier victim? Not that I'm complaining!

War is declared

Fine.

Great.

I was awoken last night in the swealtering heat, semi concious by a high pitch noise. No it wasn't the crazy wifie from across the road, nor was it that idiot boy on a scooter running up and down the streets - I think from now on he shall be christend 'Scooter Twat'.

I thought I was dreaming, thought nothing of it, turned over and fell back into a restless slumber................I awoke this morning (slowly), as most mornings to the radio with the lovely Alice Cooper and his own brand of humour, as I lent back in bed I realised my upper right arm was sore. What the hell was wrong with me?

On closer inspection I discovered that I'd been bitten. Not only on my arm, but also twice on my hip.

It wasn't a dream last night. That high pitched noise? A blimin Mosquito!! I've now got three huge itchy lumps! I don't react well to mozzy bites. War is declared.

That mozzy had better have enjoyed it's last meal last night, cause when I find it, it's gonna be splatted so hard my blood will be pernamently embedded into the wall of the flat, and no amount of cleaning will shift it!

I am on the war path. It's bad enough having to put up the heat, the pollution, the over crowding, TfL - but mozzies? I will obliterate every single last mozzy I find. It is a dead mozzy, it just doesn't know it yet.

Back from Greenwich, it's 1:30am....

Hullo out there.

It's now 01:45am, I've not long got back from Greenwich from the Stella Artois Film Festival and had forgotten that I'd left my laptop on, busy downloading some stuff (it's nowhere near finished, and at this rate it's still gonna take another 2 days to download! - I know, geek), so I thought I'd do a quick update to the blog before I go to bed and fall asleep listening to one of my favourite DAB stations "Planet Rock" http://www.planetrock.com/.

Bring it on! Waking up to Alice Cooper in the mornings - what more could a girl want?

Anyway, I digress..... this isn't meant to be a long blog - need to sleep at some point before the delights of work tomorrow, or is that work in 9hrs time?..

So, what can I tell you about the festival? Well, it didn't start off to well as when we got there, we find out we couldn't bring any booze into the sectioned off bit of the park - Grrrrr, so we had an 'beginners' picnic in the park polishing off our Bucksfizz and two bottles of Red Wine with some munchies to hand. But once that was done, we headed into the main part.

80's extravaganza man! Fantastic music - I felt like I was transported back to my childhood back in the Greenfield Community Centre after schoo,l playing uni hoc and running around on my roller boots to Madonna.

Plus we were also treated to the National Symphony Orchestra playing film scores from movies from that decade - everyone was jumping up to 'Ghost Busters'! Then we had the pleasure of 'guilty pleasures' , http://www.guiltypleasures.co.uk - one of the most funny wee act's I've seen in a long while.

Basically it was three scantly clad blokes (who should have covered up a wee bit more!) - doing some fantastic dance routines to 80's music. Absoultly brilliant. Teresa and I went down to the front stage and danced along, plus they also let out these huuuuuuuuge balloons which were ping ponging throught the crowd, with everyone scrambling to punch the balloons!

Afterwards Teresa and I headed back up to our patch of grass to sit down and watch 'Ferris Bueller's Day off' on the big screen. http://www.slightly-bonkers.net/dayoff/ What a classic 80's movie! Sitting in the park, wine, picnic, half naked men and movie. What a perfect Sunday.

Now for the hard part. The movie finished around the back of 11pm. By the time we got down to the DLR stop it was absoultely hoaching. Now bear with me here - you would think that, hello, wait a minute, a couple of thousand people all leaving the park at the same time - perhaps, maybe, perhaps that TfL & the organisers would have had the foresight to perhaps lay on extra transport, or run the tubes a little bit later?

Nooooooo. Stupid girl. What was I thinking? Let's make over 2000 people find new and exciting way's home from Greenwich at 11:30pm on a Sunday night.

All the DLR's were going to Poplar. Does anybody even live there? Nothing was going to Bank as the last Westbound/North bound tubes had all left Canary Wharf by the time we got there. Luckily, living in Stokey with no tube, there is an excellent bus network. So off we jumped off at Canary Wharf, popped onto the 277 bus up to Essex Road, then onto the 73 for 5 more stops to get home.

And that is where I leave you ladies and gentlemen. Home, Bed, Sleep!

Till next time amigos

-S