... Was a tad crazy. Was getting ready for a blogger affair (of the food not extra marital kind) and the husband who HAD volunteered to do the laundry in addition to collecting and minding Aaron for the evening asked me "how many jobs have you applied for today?". He was apopleptic when I replied "none".... So much so that whilst trying to get ready I applied for FOUR jobs (and didn't GHD my hair) and needless to say, with all sympathy gone out the window, yes he collected Aaron, but laundry.... What laundry!
So off I dashed to the station to go and meet other bloggers also lucky enough to look forward to an evening of being wined and dined. I arrived at Highbury and Islington at 6 pm only to find that when you most need them, smart phones are not smart (and neither are their users if they expect anything more from said phone when it was charged a mere hour from dead).
So I know @domesticgoddesq and @transatlantimom are tweeting me and do you think Twitter will upload? No! So I stand there for 30 minutes watching it say "loading" and showing me tweets 31 minutes old. I am fit to cry.
How useless we are when our phones don't work - I've now decided we rely far too heavily on them!
So I go to Gmail and I can see emails as they're stored locally and I read the invite. I try to call the host @thelondonfoodie and the PHONE won't work either. One can live without Twitter (did I really say that?) but NOT a phone.
So the email says you can get a 271 bus so after waiting at the station 30 mins, that's what I did but the email did not say where to get off so... I feverishly kept trying "maps" to no avail.
As the destination was to be 0.7 miles from the station I figured 3 stops would do it.... Little did I know there was a bus diversion and once leaving the bus I was now at Essex Road (further from my destination)....
So I went into a shop (6 in total) acting like a lady lost abroad and none of them helped me. In the end I was so tearful I thought HOW could I have lived in London all my life? A girl in the final shop took pity on me (because I said I've been lost for 45 minutes - I truly said it like somebody was dying) and looked things up on her iphone but it only proved how very far away I was. I hysterically ran up to a black taxi and he didn't have a clue where my destination was and was grumpy and non communicative in the extreme.
He drove away and when I saw him 100 metres away stuck at a red light I ran after him and jumped in. I know he thought get this loon out of my taxi but I did not care.
He then hid the fact that he was looking up the destination on HIS smartphone which given by then I hated the blooming things I felt like he was talking to the enemy. The fact that he had the metre running whilst doing so had my simmering blood boiling.
I then looked everywhere for his ID number to no avail but luckily they have chargers in the back which I wouldn't otherwise have noticed... So my phone got 5 mins of juice so that it could further tease me by sometimes working during the following few hours.
I got to the event all flustered which was not a nice way to enter someone's home but all the while was thinking "there's a blog post in this".
The first person to greet me other than @thelondonfoodie himself, was the now infamous "the bottom of the ironing basket". I say infamous as she featured in the Mail on Sunday Liz Jones' article about bloggers. I am glad she was feautured there as her blog is stunning. Makes you want to stay and have a good look around. No wonder she makes money from the blog - she has a website to be proud of!
When @domesticgoddesq and @transatlantimom arrived I felt terrible as they had waited for me. THANK YOU GIRLS, and sorry.
We went downstairs to dinner and that deserves a whole post of its own...
I texted the husband at about 21:13 to say we were eating dessert so that he'd know to come and collect me as planned. He didn't understand the text (ggrr) so phoned me, and when I answered I could not hear a thing so fast fwd to us leaving and I called him on @transatlantimom 's phone. No answer. My phone decided to work for a mo and I called again only to get RAGE that he didn't know what my text meant and that I should "get a cab" (words he literally SPAT out) so I got the bus with the girls and then parted ways at the station where they went Southbound... (You know what? I went to bed mad at him, but to get the TIME of my text I just read it and eeeek what it ACTUALLY said was "we haven't had dessert yet" - NO WONDER he didn't get in the car to be outside when we left (with rather a super goodie bag let me tell you).
Before we parted I agreed with @domesticgoddesq to meet at the Brit Mums coffee morning this morning but I soon changed my mind when I got home....
The husband and Aaron had spent the time I'd spent travelling drying home from Grandma's and they'd only just got in... Aaron looked exhausted and had for first time in his life blood shot eyes. When I commented on it the husband had a fit because he'd stayed out with intention of collecting me... he said if it wasn't for his plan to collect me he'd have left Grandma's ages ago and Aaron would indeed be in bed.
So by the time I organised PJs and bedtime bottle Aaron was asleep some time shortly after ELEVEN....
I knew I could not get him up early so that he could be at nursery at 8 and me at The Crypt to meet BritMums and the girls at 10:30. I also knew I had an interview at 4 that I needed to prepare for and yesterday's laundry to do... (dry at Laundrette - yeah classy I am not!)
With a heavy heart I decided we would get up whenever Aaron would wake...
It meant I went to bed last night, whereas if I'd decided to try and do it all the other girl in Sliding Doors in an alternative reality would have (a) stayed up last night preparing for the interview (b) would have got up at 05:30 instead of 08:30 (c) would have had to meet Britmums et al in interview clothes and then (d) had time to shop in the city to kill time between meetup and interview.
Instead this brunette lady woke at 8:30... I didn't drop him to nursery till 10 a.m.!!! So perhaps only blondes can have it all.
Then it was straight back home to collect all the laundry and take it to get it all dried.
I was sat at the computer preparing for the interview by midday.
I was gutted to have missed the Britmums meetup but Mumsnet Blogfest took over my weekend and yesterday a bloggers' meetup for food (for Discovery and Benito's Hat) deservedly took over my evening, so it was only right that I prioritised my job hunt - needs must and I felt quite virtuous for doing so.
Sometimes we really can't have it all, and last night and this morning would have been rather hectic had I tried to do it all - the girl who pulled it off would be the blonde one in MY Sliding Doors movie. Don't get me wrong, I still wonder IF I could have done it, but you know what, Aaron didn't need my stress depriving him of sleep either. So from now on I am a Mum first, a job hunter second and a blogger third. But here I am, yet again, blogging, but then it is very cathartic for me and keeps me sane, even if I don't know who my readers are (other than 50% of them are in the States)...
This was me, on the train on the way to the interview, and when I arrived at the destination, my SMART phone WORKED! This time I was sensible enough to fully charge it before I left home. This time I felt like a confident Londoner whereas yesterday I was like a damsel in distress twat with an uncharged phone who had not a clue where she was headed!!!
What a difference 24 hours and a hair straightener can make :-)
So off I dashed to the station to go and meet other bloggers also lucky enough to look forward to an evening of being wined and dined. I arrived at Highbury and Islington at 6 pm only to find that when you most need them, smart phones are not smart (and neither are their users if they expect anything more from said phone when it was charged a mere hour from dead).
So I know @domesticgoddesq and @transatlantimom are tweeting me and do you think Twitter will upload? No! So I stand there for 30 minutes watching it say "loading" and showing me tweets 31 minutes old. I am fit to cry.
How useless we are when our phones don't work - I've now decided we rely far too heavily on them!
So I go to Gmail and I can see emails as they're stored locally and I read the invite. I try to call the host @thelondonfoodie and the PHONE won't work either. One can live without Twitter (did I really say that?) but NOT a phone.
So the email says you can get a 271 bus so after waiting at the station 30 mins, that's what I did but the email did not say where to get off so... I feverishly kept trying "maps" to no avail.
As the destination was to be 0.7 miles from the station I figured 3 stops would do it.... Little did I know there was a bus diversion and once leaving the bus I was now at Essex Road (further from my destination)....
So I went into a shop (6 in total) acting like a lady lost abroad and none of them helped me. In the end I was so tearful I thought HOW could I have lived in London all my life? A girl in the final shop took pity on me (because I said I've been lost for 45 minutes - I truly said it like somebody was dying) and looked things up on her iphone but it only proved how very far away I was. I hysterically ran up to a black taxi and he didn't have a clue where my destination was and was grumpy and non communicative in the extreme.
He drove away and when I saw him 100 metres away stuck at a red light I ran after him and jumped in. I know he thought get this loon out of my taxi but I did not care.
He then hid the fact that he was looking up the destination on HIS smartphone which given by then I hated the blooming things I felt like he was talking to the enemy. The fact that he had the metre running whilst doing so had my simmering blood boiling.
I then looked everywhere for his ID number to no avail but luckily they have chargers in the back which I wouldn't otherwise have noticed... So my phone got 5 mins of juice so that it could further tease me by sometimes working during the following few hours.
I got to the event all flustered which was not a nice way to enter someone's home but all the while was thinking "there's a blog post in this".
The first person to greet me other than @thelondonfoodie himself, was the now infamous "the bottom of the ironing basket". I say infamous as she featured in the Mail on Sunday Liz Jones' article about bloggers. I am glad she was feautured there as her blog is stunning. Makes you want to stay and have a good look around. No wonder she makes money from the blog - she has a website to be proud of!
When @domesticgoddesq and @transatlantimom arrived I felt terrible as they had waited for me. THANK YOU GIRLS, and sorry.
We went downstairs to dinner and that deserves a whole post of its own...
 |
| NewMumOnline (me) plus Felipe (Head Chef at Benito's Hat) |
Before we parted I agreed with @domesticgoddesq to meet at the Brit Mums coffee morning this morning but I soon changed my mind when I got home....
The husband and Aaron had spent the time I'd spent travelling drying home from Grandma's and they'd only just got in... Aaron looked exhausted and had for first time in his life blood shot eyes. When I commented on it the husband had a fit because he'd stayed out with intention of collecting me... he said if it wasn't for his plan to collect me he'd have left Grandma's ages ago and Aaron would indeed be in bed.
So by the time I organised PJs and bedtime bottle Aaron was asleep some time shortly after ELEVEN....
I knew I could not get him up early so that he could be at nursery at 8 and me at The Crypt to meet BritMums and the girls at 10:30. I also knew I had an interview at 4 that I needed to prepare for and yesterday's laundry to do... (dry at Laundrette - yeah classy I am not!)
With a heavy heart I decided we would get up whenever Aaron would wake...
It meant I went to bed last night, whereas if I'd decided to try and do it all the other girl in Sliding Doors in an alternative reality would have (a) stayed up last night preparing for the interview (b) would have got up at 05:30 instead of 08:30 (c) would have had to meet Britmums et al in interview clothes and then (d) had time to shop in the city to kill time between meetup and interview.
Instead this brunette lady woke at 8:30... I didn't drop him to nursery till 10 a.m.!!! So perhaps only blondes can have it all.
Then it was straight back home to collect all the laundry and take it to get it all dried.
I was sat at the computer preparing for the interview by midday.
I was gutted to have missed the Britmums meetup but Mumsnet Blogfest took over my weekend and yesterday a bloggers' meetup for food (for Discovery and Benito's Hat) deservedly took over my evening, so it was only right that I prioritised my job hunt - needs must and I felt quite virtuous for doing so.
Sometimes we really can't have it all, and last night and this morning would have been rather hectic had I tried to do it all - the girl who pulled it off would be the blonde one in MY Sliding Doors movie. Don't get me wrong, I still wonder IF I could have done it, but you know what, Aaron didn't need my stress depriving him of sleep either. So from now on I am a Mum first, a job hunter second and a blogger third. But here I am, yet again, blogging, but then it is very cathartic for me and keeps me sane, even if I don't know who my readers are (other than 50% of them are in the States)...
 |
| Self portrait taken with my Sony Bloggie on the way to today's interview |
What a difference 24 hours and a hair straightener can make :-)
Gorgeous hair. And am sure we'll catch you at the next BritMums gig!
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