Saturday was a beautiful day. As I strolled through what is commonly known as the Park of Peace I enjoyed ducks, geese, sunshine and spring flowers. Lovely. I was reminded of how much a dislike Wordsworth (daffodils) and how under-rated the crocus is. The ducks seemed to be having a grand afternoon, quacking around in the sun. In fact, I'm certain that a few of them were deliberately sunbathing. The ducks and I enjoy an interesting and rather tempestuous relationship. In the winter they are convinced that I carry bread in my pockets at all times and are inclined to follow me with beady eyes and beaks. As spring sets in (with the exception of a day or two of snow...) they adopt a more relaxed attitude to Park of Peace trespassers such as myself and allow me in the domain of the duck without demanding wheaty payments. The sunshine makes them altogether less tense and more inclined to be at peace with the world. Even the geese.

This post is a tribute to lovers of the duck, particularly Susie and Lucy who are ardent fans of our feathered friends.

It has come to my attention that the blog has been sadly neglected as of late. I've been plodding along in a rather woolly fashion for a week or so now. I often find myself attempting a gallop, but thankfully as you well know, woolly mammoths prefer to amble. So it doesn't last long.

So I'm going to be a student next year. I had an email today offering me a place on the taught MA in English Literature at the University of Birmingham. It made me very happy, and the fact that the sun was shining made me feel even happier. However, it also feels quite strange to actually have a plan for next year. I've been living in this strange world of lots of changes and wobbling around in this new city and new life for so long that it's odd to have a definite plan. Good odd though.

Woop!

With me, things are either at one end of an extreme. I'm either happy or sad. Things are either great or absolutely pants. My prospects are either fantastically sunny or doomed forever. There are benefits to being like this, like when I set my mind to a task I will go at it like a mad woman, arms failing etc. The flipside is that life is never very stable. One minute I'm running with something at a hundred miles per hour, and the next I'm face down on the floor. My mind creates its own rollercoaster.

(interlude: Jonathan brings me a Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference choc chip cookie and coffee. This is the life! What a fantastic way to spend a morning. How lovely... Sorry, I'm off again)

Recently I'm realising the benefits of the previously unfamiliar art of plodding. To plod is to take life at a more even pace. There are no very extreme ups and downs. It's sustainable. It's more even. I'm like a woolly mammoth who, seeing a stretch of prehistoric meadow, sets off at a steady pace to reach it's herd. If it were to race off like a jet-propelled mammoth, in a blur of brown woolly fur, it would certainly lose steam halfway across, while the rest of its woolly friends frolicked together as mammoths in prehistoric times did. The trick, as the wise mammoth surely knows, is to plod. Set off at a steady pace and soon you will be reunited with your herd. When faced with a task that seems insurmountable, try plodding along, and it doesn't seem too bad.

Not that it would be right to change who I actually am. But I recommend sampling the benefits of woolly mammoth-style plodding when necessary. It's amazing how far you can plod.

The definition of an intellectual:

'someone who, when left alone in a room with a woolly teacosy, resists the urge to put it on their head'

I'm slightly worried about the implications of this statement... Especially as I'm not even alone.

Probably the most exciting thing that has happened recently is that my friend Gisele has asked me to be her bridesmaid! Gisele is marrying Edward on 1st September this year, and I feel so privileged to be asked to follow her down the isle. Still more exciting is the fact that I’m going to be wearing a traditional Vietnamese bridesmaids dress! Gisele was born in France but her family is originally from Vietnam…and she’s getting married in Birmingham. So it’s going to be a wonderful mixture of cultures, colours and languages. I can't wait!

There is something horrible in our living room. It's big, scary, untamed. It's dangerous, dirty and mean. It's unmanageable, unsightly and unstoppable. And it's spreading. It is the pile of 'stuff' in the corner of our living room. Actually, it's not a mere pile of stuff in the corner... It has metamorphosed into a 'stuff monster' of mythical proportions. It's massive and mighty, and it is slowly taking over our house. You know the story. What started as a little box of odds and ends became a couple of boxes. A couple of boxes became a pile of 'suff'. And a pile of 'stuff' became the monster. There are piles of books, files, paper, pens, pencils, DVDs, videos, CDs, guitars, cables and wires, bags, wedding gifts, cards, photos, wrapping paper, birthday cards, gifts, big toys, broken toys, comic books, cook books, shoes and many many random odds and ends. The final straw was the giant red inflatable chair.

The monster had to go.

On Tuesday I fought the monster. Psyching myself up, I attacked it from the rear. I plunged head-first into the mess. I sorted, boxed, stacked, packed, filed, piled and exiled. I shifted, lifted, pushed, pulled, bagged, organised, cleared and cleaned. Sweating, body aching but determined to slay the beast. I battled on until it was reduced to a harmless stack of boxes, TV unit and stand of guitars. The beast was no more.

We now have out living room back. No longer are there boxes to stub the toe on, mini model super heroes to stand on with bear feet or inflatable chair to fall over. We are free.

Free for now... 

I surprised myself by making some really nice carrot soup over the weekend. It was the perfect detox after a week of eating random foods at random times (including lots of pizza, biscuits, choclate many cups of coffee). It's really simple but surprisingly nice, and good for a dank and gloomy February day...

Carrot soup (serves 1)

2 medium carrots

1 small onion

1 clove of garlic

3 small slices of chorizo sausage

half a chicken stock cube

To make: heat a tiny bit of olive oil and fry the onion and garlic until soft, then add the carrot for a couple of minutes. Cover with boiling water, add the chorizo and crumble the stock cube in. Simmer for about 10-15 mins. Blend until smooth and season with pepper.

Yum!