...seemed loose and baggy today.
I've been wearing my new suit on and off over the past few days and it would seem that I have quickly got used to the cut and fit of something actually made to fit me.
Does this mean that everything else I own will now seem shapeless or ill-sized? I hope not! This could get really expensive. But I am re-examining my definition of clothes that fit, and the findings are surprising.
In her creative living blog, Fiona writes that traffic noise can sound like the sea.
I'm sitting in my office enjoying that exact revelation, with the noise of the A329(M) Ocean drifting across the fields and through the open window.
There are wines that can be glugged, whilst chatting with friends, as a second thought, an accompaniment to conversation. They might be bold wines that jump up and smack you in the taste buds, so that you can taste them without thinking about it, and be sure that they're there. Or they might be cheaper wines - table wines, perhaps - that you don't expect to deliver too much, and so don't need to wring pleasure from every drop.
And then there are those wines that must be focused on, demanding attention and rewarding it. I had one such last night, a Rasteau by Chapoutier
Which suits me rather well at the moment, as I've been trying very hard to live in the moment; to do one thing at a time, and savour it, rather than four things at once and missing the point and joy of all of them. So I've been eating my food slowly, without staring at the TV, and sitting down to have my lunch, chewing slowly and deliberately. Tasting.
And noticing the wine in the glass rather than just chugging it down as my mind wanders about the day-just-past.
The social utility that connects you with the people around you has become - for me, at least - LifeSuck 2007. It consumes my time - that most precious commodity - at a rapid, alarming and unprecedented rate.
First there was the acquisitive phase. I collected friends ravenously and indiscriminately, simply to increase the numbers, like picking pebbles from the beach. The vast majority of whom I have not contacted since.
Right now I'm in a read-only phase. I spend my hours checking for friend's updates, rather than writing, rarely originating content. I click around the addictive little acquisition games that serve no purpose except to consume my time, and require no skill or judgement whatsoever.
Facebook does, however, definitely succeed in connecting me with the people around me. When we do speak, we talk about our facebook status, or our progress in the games (what level pirate are you?), the number of friends we have. Friends - real friends - telephone in a flap, concerned about the latest status update.
Maybe this is what the creators of Facebook intended.
Or maybe not.
On the bright side, as an Internet Fad, it won't last for long. Not for me, at any rate.
There's a ghostly ball of light in the sky this morning, glowing orange-yellow through the clouds.
Could it be? Is it?
Is this the fabled Sun?!
Today, I am mostly
My new suit. My made-to-my-measurements bespoke suit.
I love it. I love the look of it (except for the lining, which I dislike), the fit of it, the feel of it. I love that it is mine; that it fits me.
Two things have happened with the suit - the first being the number of people that ask me if I've lost weight. I suspect it's not so much about weight loss as about having clothes that fit in the right way. Which brings me to the second thing.
It's strange wearing clothes that fit. They feel oddly wrong because I've got so used to wearing my regular clothes, which - it turns out - don't actually fit all that well. But they feel really comfortable, and it's striking that something I would normally have regarded as stuffy and formal and awkward is actually really lovely and easy to wear.
I really want another one.
One evening, a young(ish) man, attempting to impress his dinner companion, seized the lobster's foreclaw and twisted it away from its body. In his exhuberant - and, alas, largely sober - state, he failed to take sufficient notice of the spines that ran along the claw, and promptly ripped a long(ish) shallow furrow in his forefinger.
Needless to say, the blood that resulted was not particularly impressive to the young(ish) woman across the table from him.
The End.
So, I ate at Eat Fish in Berkhamsted last night, which has the distinction of being the only restaurant I was ever motivated to right a review about. I was previously - and again last night - impressed by the friendliness and enthusiasm of the staff, and their apparently genuine
interest in the food they were serving.
If you like fish, and are in the Berkhamsted area, you might want to give it a try. Watch out for the lobster, though.
Luckily, I am a fast learner. And I am still whole.
I had a ball. The people were lovely - really, genuinely surprisingly lovely. The dropzone is owned and run by the club members - it's a whole co-operative type arrangement, and the result is a very relaxed, welcoming, family-friendly feel. There's a trampoline at the dropzone, pretty much permanently occupied by the dropzone kids below a certain age. And the dropzone has what is claimed to be the largest sauna on a dropzone in Sweden.
Just let that sink in for a moment: the dropzone has a sauna. And it's possibly the largest dropzone sauna in Sweden. Yowser.
Not to labour the point, but the dropzone has a lot of facilities that make it a great place to stay. There's a bunk house, which is pretty much what it says on the tin, and a huge kitchen where visitors and skydivers alike are practically encouraged to cook for themselves. If that's not your bag, the dropzone's diner-restaurant does a lunch and dinner every day - substantial food at a sensible price.
There's two permanent aircraft: a Twin Otter, and an AN-28. And did I mention that the people are lovely?
One of the most curious things about the DZ is that the weekend opening hours are shorter than in the week - what's that about? The other is that - in common with much of that part of the world, I'm told - the showers (and indeed the sauna) are open-plan, co-educational. Mixed. And there's no shower curtain.
Well okay, there's one shower cubicle with a curtain - it might as well have a Union Jack design on it - in the rest of the open-plan curtainless wetroom. With access to the outside via a permanently-open door.
Which I guess is just peachy-fine if you're from Scandinavian stock, and have a relaxed attitude to nudity. You're probably quite happy with your own naked body, and the public nudity of others. If, on the other hand, you're a native of the Rainy Isles, and somewhat more reserved about the unclothed human form, it does mean that showers become hasty first-thing-in-the-morning affairs, conducted in a scurrying-hurrying fashion before anyone else is awake or around.
And because the changing area is also co-educational, most of your post-shower routine is going to be conducted with your face to the wall, and your head bowed, continually repeated to yourself: Don't look 'round. Don't look 'round. Don't look 'round.
Once - and once only - I was lured into so diverting a conversation that I actually put my glasses on, turned around, and addressed the other party for a couple of sentences before I realised what I had done, and my eyes started to drift, and I felt the blush spread over - well, pretty much everywhere.
Let's just say that I didn't have the opportunity to try the sauna.
A great dropzone, though. Give it a try somtime.
A few days ago, I mentioned that I'd bought Fiona's book, A Year of Questions. I've been dipping into it regularly over the past few days, and I'm really enjoying it.
Fiona writes humourously, and authoritatively, with a personal touch.
I thoroughly recommend it.
...came up with the idea of licorice ice cream?!
Strolling along the picturesque Stockholm harbourside today, I was filled with the joys of sunshine and travel. Spying a conveniently-located ice cream vendor, I ambled over and asked the grumpy kiosk lady for an ice cream called "Pepe". On the picture it looks like it's a waffle cone filled with vanilla ice cream and some tasty crunchy bits, all covered with a really dark shell that suggests fine chocolate, or perhaps some blackberry-flavoured chocolatey delight.
Remembering the Swedish fondness for exotic-sounding berries, I chose it in a moment. I'd never seen the like before, and - filled with the spirit of travel and adventure - I was determined to try something new.
With trembling fingers I tore open the packet - carefully disposing of it in the waste receptacle provided - and set the sweet treat free into the world.
Imagine my surprise and horror when, on biting into the perfectly-crunchy coating, I realised - too late! - that it was neither dark chocolate nor blackberry, but licorice.
Yes friends, an ice cream with a crunchy salt licorice shell. It is, not putting too fine a point on it, fecking disgusting. Sick-makingly awful. Vomit-inducingly terrible. Especially so if you don't like licorice, and weren't expecting it on your tastebuds.
In my involuntary gagging disgust, I'm ashamed to say that I reflexively spat the foul stuff out onto the pavement - not my shirt, thankfully! - before I realised how rude that must seem. So, taking scant refuge in the fact that I must seem like an ignorant tourist, I began to strip the remainder of the licorice coating from the ice cream and surreptitiously toss it into the harbour, or "accidentally" drop it onto the floor. Oh, there goes another piece. Oops, silly me.
Finally, having stripped the majority of it away, I was able to force myself to eat the ice cream, and remove the rank taste from my mouth. The emotional scars, I am afraid, run far deeper, and will doubtless trouble me for some time.
For the wary traveller, there's a picture on the GB Glace website.
Of course, if you actually like licorice, you might enjoy it. Freak.
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