Today

Posted on by
Reply

Image

 

Today I will not exchange cross words, not scowl at strangers on the pavement when they block my way. I will not let frustration get the better of me, nor allow negative thoughts to cloud the vista of my being. I will not judge, but rather accept that all things and all beings are as they are and as they should be.

Today I will take time to be thankful for each and every blessing that has been bestowed upon me. I will open my eyes to possibilities, shed doubt and regret like unwanted garments on a hot summer’s day. I shall rejoice for all that’s beautiful in the world, instead of wallowing in all that is bad.
 
And, most of all, today I will look up at the bright blue sky, think of the wonderful souls who have gone before us and who watch over us still, and I will smile.

For Pauly xx

Posted on by
Reply

Tomorrow is the funeral of the wonderful Paul Wickerson, who came into my life with his beautiful girlfriend Sarah eight weeks ago at the wedding of our mutual friends Harry and Emma, and who left it a mere two weeks after that.

I’m struggling to find the words to describe how I feel as I sit here and consider all that’s happened in the past few weeks. We only knew Paul for a weekend, and yet he has made a lasting impact on our lives. His gentleness of spirit and sense of fun were plain to see from our first meeting, and I’ll treasure the memory of the four of us spending several cycles in the Jacuzzi (naughty) before launching ourselves down the children’s water slide. I will also always remember the fry up Paul cooked for us before we left that sunny Sunday, sharing the food he’d brought as we hadn’t had the forethought to bring our own.

When I think of Paul it will always be in that beautiful five star lodge besides a lush green golf course, a big smile plastered on his face. And I, in turn, shall make sure I have a big smile plastered on mine.

I wish I could write more eloquently but my sadness prohibits me saying more. Instead I have taken the below picture, which I hope encapsulates Pauly’s love of fancy dress, fun and silliness. And I am posting the following poem which I read at my grandma’s funeral and which, whilst heartbreakingly sad, I believe with all my heart:

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there; I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sun on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there; I did not die.

God bless Pauly. The world’s a less colourful place without you in it.

Just B

Posted on by
Reply

As today is my 32nd (gulp) birthday, I thought I’d entertain the idea that time travel was possible, and write a letter to the ‘Me’ of ten years ago:

Dear 22 year old Belle,

This is your older (and far wiser) self, writing to tell you a few things that might help you in the years to come.

Right now you are happy and believe you have found love, but things will take a turn for the worse four years from now. It will be the toughest time you will have faced up to that point, but it will be the making of you in ways you couldn’t previously conceive. You will find a strength you never knew you possessed, and you will discover what it is to be truly happy in your own skin, without the claustrophobic need for companionship you currently experience. One day, after your fragile heart has healed, you will meet someone with whom you can be entirely yourself, someone who treats you with a level of respect you never thought possible, who will show you what it feels like to be truly and unconditionally loved. Wait for that day in good faith, and trust that you need to experience the hard times to truly appreciate the amazing ones that will follow.

But enough on that, now a few words on your career: As your future self I feel duty-bound to tell you it seems possible you may never know what you want to be when you ‘grow up.’ You’ll drift from job to job and never quite feel you belong. The only constant in your life will be writing, and this is something you must do at every opportunity. Don’t doubt yourself or your ability, simply write and see where it leads you. Never give up, for it is only in persistence that success can be found.

Some general life advice: Don’t have regrets or harbour grudges; all they’ll do is eat you up inside. Instead please trust that things will happen as they should. ‘What’s for you won’t go by you’ is a phrase that you should heed. Love your family and your friends with all your heart. Be honest, open and sincere. Don’t let the bad times cancel out the good. Be adventurous, bold and brave. Love life and live it to the full, for every soul who didn’t have the chance to.

Don’t sweat the small stuff. Help people. Read widely. Travel the world. Make a difference. Believe in yourself. Live. Love. Pray. Be.

Yours,

32 year old Belle.

Bank Rage: Part Two

Posted on by
Reply

Whilst I can’t deny some part of today’s struggle has been self-inflicted as a result of the weekend’s birthday festivities, I am nonetheless in wonder at the absolute FUCKTARDERY (excuse my French) of some organisations when it comes to customer ‘service.’ I ranted the other day about Bank of Scotland but today they’ve excelled themselves even further, keeping me on the phone for a SECOND FORTY FIVE MINUTE PREMIUM RATE PHONE CALL (and breathe…), at the end of which they were not only no closer to finding out what the problem is with my account that is preventing the balance transfer for which I applied for this card in the first place, they also managed to accidentally hang up on me. In my frankly irate state I completed a rage-filled complaint form and was duly called back by someone in the complaints team (a new one to add to the repertoire of players I’ve been fobbed off with in the past week), who has assured me she is now dealing personally with the matter. No doubt tomorrow will bring further anger-inducing developments in this painful saga. Stay tuned, folks…(and please trust me when I advise you never, ever to apply for a credit card with the Royal Bank of Scotland).

Meanwhile, the writing magazine website I recently subscribed to for the princely sum of £9.99 per quarter is also having trouble with identifying my account as a subscriber account, barring my access to the subscriber-only writing competitions that were a big part of why I signed up in the first place.

I honestly don’t know what I’ve done to offend the god of technology, but it must be something pretty awful to warrant all this torment….

Oktoberfest in London: Epic times

Posted on by
Reply

When I convinced fifty one of my friends to accompany me to Oktoberfest in London to celebrate my birthday, I must admit I was a bit concerned it wouldn’t live up to my expectations. After going to the ‘real’ Oktoberfest in Munich in 2010 the bar was set extremely high, and I wasn’t convinced the true spirit of the event would translate all that well in an English context. But fortunately I was wrong, and as soon as we walked into the tent and saw hundreds of people dancing on the tables holding giant steins of beer I knew we had made a good decision to come. Before long we were dancing on our table too, singing along to all the cheesy songs and sloshing beer around with the best of them. It really was rip roaring fun, despite the ridiculous lack of beer taps and staff, which led to enormous queues for the bar and ultimately to our leaving early and returning to the pub we started in to continue the festivities. But by far the best bit of the day for me, besides seeing all my friends in Bavarian fancy dress, was when an East End gangster strolled into the pub and bought my entire party shots of jager bomb for my birthday. Utterly, utterly surreal, and absolutely bloody fantastic. Maybe thirty two won’t be so bad after all…

Prost!!

Posted on by
Reply

Today is my thirty second birthday party and, true to form, I have arranged a suitably ridiculous event to mark this auspicious occasion. From 1pm, fifty two lederhosen and dirndl-clad men and women, all between the ages of twenty five and thirty five, will be gathering in a pub somewhere near Greenwich. Once the motley crew has assembled, we will make our way to Milwall Park to collect our tickets for Oktoberfest London, where we will proceed to dance, make merry, drink beer and eat stew like they’re going out of fashion. If we can’t go to the real Oktoberfest in Germany this is the next best thing. As they say, if you can’t bring Mohammed to the mountain, bring the mountain to Mohammed. And if you can’t dress up and be silly on your birthday when can you?

Food glorious food

Posted on by
Reply

My love affair with food is a long standing one, but in recent days I’ve been teetering on the brink of overdoing it with foods so rich and fatty I was starting to feel unhealthy. Take last night, for example, when I was treated to an early birthday dinner by my best friend. After consuming a fair amount of cheese and red meat earlier in the week I decided I would order neither. And yet, when the waiter came over, I found myself ordering deep fried brie followed by duck in red wine sauce. When it arrived, the wedge of brie was almost the same size as one you’d buy in a supermarket, but did I leave some of it? What do you take me for? By the time I got three quarters of the way through the duck, however, I had to admit defeat – a rare occurrence, as those that know me will attest to.

Today I decided to start afresh with the healthy eating plan. At lunch we all went to an Italian restaurant for someone’s leaving do where I was determined to order a salad. But as soon as I clocked the £8.95 lunch deal – applicable only for pasta and pizza – I shelved my plans for a salad and went for a pizza instead. Lashings of melted cheese? Tick. Bloating and self-loathing on the side? Tick. In short, it seems I have a serious problem with self-control where food is concerned. But never mind, it’s nothing that cooking an indulgent three-course meal for friends tonight won’t cure….

Customer service? You must be joking

Posted on by
Reply

Having recently become aware of the existence of 0% balance transfer credit cards (yes, I know, I have apparently been living in a cave for most of my adult life) I decided (obviously) to apply for one. After doing my research (thanks Money Saving Expert) it seemed the Royal Bank of Scotland’s 24 month 0% transfer card was the one for me. I duly went online to apply. Halfway through the balance transfer process, however, my computer crashed, and so I thought I’d wait for the card to arrive before trying again. Two weeks later the card still hadn’t arrived, and when I called to find out why it transpired there had been a problem with Royal Mail (naturally) and it had been returned to sender. They dispatched another card, which did arrive. All well and good.

Fast forward to this morning, when I called the Bank of Scotland to arrange the balance transfer. The woman in the activation team was very friendly and took all of my details before transferring me to a man in the balance transfer team. He was very friendly too, until he got to the final screen and saw an error message on my account. I explained the issues I’d had with the computer crashing when I initially applied and then the first card being sent back. He informed me he would have to transfer me to another team who would be able to unblock the card and complete the transfer. The next lady was very friendly too. She talked me through all of the same details and security questions, reassuring me she would absolutely be able to help – until she too came up against a block on the final screen. Cue five minutes on hold as she talked to yet another specialist team to try to remove the block. THIRTY FIVE MINUTES after I called the premium rate number, about two seconds before my brain exploded from the ear-bleed-instigating hold music, she informed me they couldn’t remove the block and, essentially, were unable to help me.

Clearly after wasting over half an hour on the phone to these cretins I was not going to take this lying down, and nor did I. When this fact became obvious to the woman on the end of the line she duly transferred me to another team (what a wonderful chance to further improve my social skills, thought I!), who tried to appease me by offering to refund the cost of the call. Eventually, after further perseverance, I was transferred to the fraud department, who asked me all the same questions I’d already been asked plus another set to make sure I was who I was claiming to be. Finally (finally!) I was told the block had been removed, and I was free to arrange the transfer – except it couldn’t be done on this call because it would take a further fifteen minutes to action the request to remove the block so COULD I CALL BACK?????

In truth I’ve been so traumatised by the experience that yet another day has passed transfer-less. Now I know how footballers feel…

Why I will (sadly) never play the Dane

Posted on by
Reply

This may well be my time of the month talking (they don’t call it ‘The Curse’ for nothing, boys. Sorry, too much information), but over the past couple of days I’ve found myself musing on the nature of ambition and, well, wondering how it is that somewhere along the way I managed to lose mine. Don’t get me wrong, I still have crazy dreams of writing a best-selling novel and retiring by the age of forty (forty five at a push) with millions in the bank. But back in the real world – the one where I have to work to earn money to put a roof over my head, avoid starvation and so forth – as my best friends forge ahead with their careers, so my drive to excel in the field in which I work has all but dried up.

Thinking back I’m not sure I ever was enormously ambitious in a wanting-to-set-up-my-own-company-and-be-a-CEO sort of way. I just had a quiet confidence that I would eventually establish a niche for myself and be happy. And, after a few blips along the way, I’m glad to report the happiness part is very much a feature of my life as it is today. The niche, however, has very much still to be carved and, much as I try to deny it, this is much to my chagrin.

There was, a few years back, a moment when I stood (metaphorically speaking) at a fork in the road and surveyed my options. The road on the left would take me further along the corporate path I was treading, with higher financial rewards but, in return, higher personal sacrifice. The road on the right would see me take an altogether more altruistic journey. Of course my moral compass won out and, on the whole, I don’t regret my decision. Working in the charity sector has its rewards – how many people can honestly say they care about what they do? – but it’s not without its limitations.

Next week I’ll turn thirty two – gulp – and yet I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up, not really. What I do know, with depressing clarity, is how Montague Withnail felt when he said the following:

“It is the most shattering experience of a young man’s life, when one morning he awakes, and quite reasonably says to himself: I will never play the Dane.”

Hey Shorty…

Posted on by
Reply

After the success that was my first experience of a US blues rock band, Vintage Trouble, tonight my musical odyssey continues with a gig at Koko in Camden by New Orleans trumpet and trombone player, Trombone Shorty. Both recommendations came courtesy of my friend and travelling (now also gig) partner Gabrielle, whose finger is pushing hard on a pulse I never knew existed (my own music collection to date comprising a handful of woefully old drum and bass albums and a random assortment of chart music so cheesy even Steps would have refused to sing it).

The Vintage Trouble gig was a few weeks ago now, but I can still remember the energy of the crowd and the phenomenal stage presence of the (not unattractive, which always helps) band members. Their charisma, confidence and catchy tunes sliced through my Monday blues like a well-oiled knife, which is exactly what I’m hoping Trombone Shorty will succeed in replicating this evening after what has been a frankly shocking day. Gabrielle assures me Vintage Trouble were but a warm up for this, the main event. Trombone Shorty, my man, you’ve got your work cut out tonight, let me tell you-see you Short-ly (see what I did there? I’m here all week).

Trombone%20Shorty%2001