Compare and contrast

Whoa there - turns out blogging is one tough old business. Who'd have thought it would take time and effort? And lady ain't got no effort ...

So, no motivation. L'historie de ma vie. Far too much time spent on reading other people's awesome adventures; far too little time creating my own. This must stop.

First up: a healthy dose of introspection. This time last year, I was in Stockholm, Sweden, about to board a crazy-ass cruise ship ferry to Helsinki (crazy-ass because we thought that we were simply taking another normal mode of transport: plane, train ferry. However, no ferry that I have ever been on before has opera singers performing il solo mio while dangling from the ceiling. Nor has it ever culminated in a night spent on a casino dance floor (WTF right there) due to the fact that we drank copious amounts of wine met some random Swedish couple who were taking this ferry trip to Helsinki and back FOR. FUN. Crazy Swedes). See, life was an adventure.

Last night I went to a home renovation show and discussed the merits of square sinks versus round sinks with my partner.

So, I had plans, kind of to give this blog a purpose. My brilliant idea was to cook meals for the next four months that reflected where we had been that time last year. Last night's dinner should have been Swedish meatballs with lingonberries. Instead, it was dodgy Chinese buffet gulped down after the home show. (Side note: where the hell do you buy lingonberries in the Antipodes?). Annnnnd, we arrive back full circle: no motivation. Actually, that's not entirely true. Our boring-as life got in the way. Said partner (T) is busy working all hours of the day at a job he finds soul-destroying, because he has a big University education and we have a gimungous mortgage to pay. This wasn't the plan - we are supposed to be entrepreneurs, working from yachts in theMediterranean, proponents of the Four Hour Work Work (love your stuff, Tim Ferriss).

So, instead, I have decided that this is going to be the purpose of the blog. To try to motivate me to break free of our nine-to-five (or in T's case, the nine-to-nine). To chart our progress.

So that hopefully this time next year, I'm cooking Swedish meatballs with lingonberries and I'll wash the dishes with water from who-gives-a-damn taps.

Ferries are for transport, not for fun mes amis.

S

Opening Night

A funny thing happened to me on the way into work today.

I was looking pretty good. A silk velvet dress, a crisp white shirt underneath, black leather belt around my hips, black coat. And black stockings (a key point: remember that). It was a sunny, crisp winter's morning as I left the house with the Captain to do our daily walk in to work. We were walking and chatting (okay, we were bickering in that tight-voice-under-your-breath way that you do in public) over the bridge from the fancy suburb in which we live and down into the main street of our big city.  Half an hour later, I kissed the Captain goodbye halfway down the main street and continued on down to my office. Then, while waiting to cross a very large and very public antipodean Shibuya-style crossing, I noticed a chill around my legs. Hmmm. I looked down.

My goddamn funkster deluxe dress had ridden up to my hips while walking and was hidden under my coat.

F*ck. I had just walked the length of our main street in only my black stockings.

If only I had been wearing the lacey stay-ups.

My life's normally not like this.  Normally it's ordinary: I wake up, eat my rice porridge, work, surf the internet, clock out and walk home. Too ordinary: I want to shake myself out of this existence. I've been contemplating this blog for an age, while debating with myself about its content. Will it be a food blog? Will it be a lifestyle blog? Will it be a make-me-a-crapload-of-money-so-I-can-work-in-my-dressing-down blog? I've decided to just let it be. I'll write. And hopefully, someone out there will read.

Flotsam: the odds and ends of my mind. Oh yeah, it could be a rough ride... or not. I really hope that I haven't raised your expectations with my story of the day as it won't always be like this. In fact, it will very rarely be like this. However, it's a bit of a momentous time of my life right now and spilling it all into the depths of the world wide web may help me to process all of this. Because everyone blogs, right?

Just to show you how ordinary my life is, I must dash: the dishes call.

Always wear the black lace stay-ups, mes amis.

HR xx