Chameleon

I don't know whether it is to do with being deeply unfashionable in my teenage years (that said, isn't everyone?) but I tend to go for camouflage. I don't mean that I troll round wearing desert fatigues and combats in the Kent town where I current reside (though to be honest I'm not sure that would actually cause anyone's eyebrows to raise), but that I use my clothes to hide. When I can wear what amounts to a uniform, I will. For work this amounts to black trousers and a top of some description, for home, it's jeans. To think that I spent my formative years wearing my school uniform skirt short, my shirt untucked and my tie the wrong way round in an attempt (along with everyone else in my school) to stamp some personality on it. As the crowd in The Life of Brian shout "I'm an individual!"

Except... except that now I have lost weight I am rediscovering clothes. Kind of. I am not exactly rushing out and wearing mini skirts to the office (too draughty, too impractical and too difficult to sit with your legs curled up under the desk in what is frankly a DVT threat but oh so comfy). Yet I am now thinking more about what I wear and how I look. Yes, you will still find me in jeans, but sometimes, just sometimes, I'll maybe surprise you.

Jasper - a jewel worth queuing for

So today Kate and I went to hear Jasper Fforde talking about his new book 'One of our Thursdays is Missing'. As usual he was interesting and came across as the sort of person you would really like to have at a dinner party. It does make me vaguely wonder how much of this personality is an act 'JF the author' and what the real person is like - or if he is really as he seems. I never really question interviews with actors in papers, I just assume that they are as they portray themselves.

Anyway the excerpts that Jasper read sounded brilliant and I am looking forward to reading the new book (I am obviously not a complete JF addict as I haven't put down my current book to read it!). Could possibly have done without his comment when he was signing and stamping the books about being a frustrated librarian though...

Mr(s) Messy

There are many benefits to sharing a house but there are, however, equally many - or possibly more - drawbacks.

After sharing this house with these flatmates for some months, I was coming to the conclusion that perhaps I was an incredibly, scary neat freak - however yesterday I met up with a friend who I shared a house with at university for several years and she pointed out that I wasn't. She'd lived with me and while I was quite tidy, I wasn't anywhere near as tidy as she was. She also didn't think I was mad. Then I described the house to her.

The living room is permanently covered in the wet washing of one flatmate (everyone else manages to get their stuff to dry in their bedrooms, despite their rooms being smaller than hers). It gives the place such a lived in touch, having the living room resembling a laundry. There's that, the fact that all her work is always strewn across the dining room table so you always have to move her stuff to eat there. Admittedly she says that's fine, just shove her stuff out of the way but tbh I think it's kind of missing the point. Surely if it ever occurred to her to clear up after herself then I wouldn't find myself daily clearing a path for myself in order to use a work surface in the kitchen, trying to ignore the mountainous pile of washing up (and if she actually does that, she ignores the towering pile on the draining board as she has never cleared that - I think she believes that fairies do that), emptying the washing machine so I can use it because her washing has been in it for two days, moving her stuff so I can use the table..

However this is all my problem because no-one in the house is bothered. I have been labelled as a neat freak by her and my other flatmates who just accept and add to the mess. Even my ex who isn't the tidiest guy in the world was shocked by the state of the place.

I think I will need to either find a place where I share with someone normal or live alone...

Fame

Recently I have joined an amateur dramatic society. In doing so, I have discovered several things. It is very different being a mover than it is being a dancer, being a singer is different to being a mover and it is extremely frustrating joining the cast late when everyone knows everyone else and all the parts have been given out. I was already aware from years of hiding my (lack of) dancing prowess in large groups of fellow females that I wasn't going to be a star dancer. These dancers are always at the front of the stage in any appropriate (and not so appropriate) song showing off their moves. The movers on the other hand are allowed to bumble along at the back doing simple repetitive actions as long as they don't get in the way of the dancers. Oh and everyone has to sing at the same time. Now singing and dancing (or rather moving) has never been a problem for me before - at clubs, in my room, whatever, but when I realised I actually had to do the same movements at the same time as everyone else I came to a grinding halt. Which is where I currently am.

Learning the songs isn't really a problem - I have the music (yes, I know I technically can't read music but I can feel where it goes if you see what I mean) and I also have the Broadway musical soundtrack, which is the version we are doing. So that's fine - or at least it would be, if people made a final decision on whether we were singing something, or if it was going to just be the dancers singing it, or the principal cast members...and so it goes on.

Hopefully by the end of all this we should have a great show. I really hope so as it's on for several days, including a matinee.

The day afterwards I'm singing Faure's Requiem.

Always was a glutton for punishment

Six months on

Well I have been sadly neglecting this blog. Sorry. Not intentional but I've been doing other stuff (assignments and reading for my Masters, reading for fun, and rehearsals for the amateur dramatic society I decided to join in a moment of pure insanity). So six months on is everything in the flat all lovely?

Since my last posting, nothing has really changed in the flat (things that didn't work still don't, things that might have been working now probably don't). I've gone from writing cross emails about it to being resigned about the situation. There are only so many times that you can ask for someone stop water coming through the living room wall. However I have said on Twitter and to people I know that are thinking of renting, not to use our lettings agent and mentioned the treatment (or lack of) we've had. So yet again I will be looking for somewhere to live this summer, me and my bookcases.

In the meantime I'll be working on my dissertation. My plan is to write one on libraries and librarians in contemporary fiction - although at present I am still working on my proposal. I have never had to write a dissertation before and am feeling more than slightly intimidated. When I was in the first year of my Masters the dissertation was aeons away - I could barely see it, and so it didn't worry me at all. Now it is here and the final term finishes in six weeks. It is only after the end of term that the proposal is due - and although we will have supervisory meetings, we won't actually have that much contact with anyone. I am already nervous and I know that I am not the only one. I am not sure if this is a comfort or not tbh.

So think of me, writing these two final assignments, then facing the monumental dissertation. It'll be fine, I know it will, but atm my brain is having a problem accepting it.

Moved in

...well after the rather long pause between blog postings, I can safely report that neither my bookcases nor I became homeless.

Not that the move has been the painless and smooth transition that I in my naivety hoped for. This may have been due to my new Landlord departing for sunnier climes (Dubai) or the influence of my new Lettings Agents (usual helpful phrase: 'It's nothing to do with us').

So I, and my fellow flatmates are installed in what was, according to the Landlord, a flat suitable for 'Professionals'. I am not entirely sure what type of 'Professionals' they had in mind but there was a red light in one of the rooms... This flat used to be rented out to Students and has since been done up, had a new bathroom installed, been repainted and made appropriate for its new occupants. I might be being a little picky, but I would have thought that the new brand bathroom shouldn't have a broken bath panel and maybe they could have removed the labels from all the new bathroom suite...

Perhaps they could have finished plastering and painting the ceiling in the hallway and installing the wiring. Atm there is a security light hanging from the ceiling, not actually attached, and no bulb in the light fitting - we don't know if the wiring is finished, and can't reach it anyway. This isn't actually a big problem. The water is.

We have water coming in underneath the windowsills. My flatmate had it coming in her ceiling after a particularly heavy rainstorm - and only after threatening the Lettings Agents with the CAB and Media exposure managed to get them to send someone to fix it. We now notice that there are water stains on most of the ceilings. Apparently the roof on my flatmate's part of the flat needs replacing. I suspect that this won't happen and that the temporary patch will remain in place for the duration of our rental.

There are other problems - many of which have been fixed by either my Dad (thanks Dad) or my flatmate's husband (thanks Nigel). This isn't really the point. The Lettings Agent have repeatedly told us that they didn't realise the state of the flat when they took it over. Surely they should have done a proper check? The flat could be absolutely lovely, and the improvements that we have made to it in the month that we have been here - tho only cosmetic - have made a real difference. We get on as flatmates and we want to stay here. We just want the Lettings Agents to get the mess sorted. Sadly they don't seem to be willing to do this.

The Search Goes On...

So in the last few weeks I have been searching for a new home. I am getting rather better at translating room adverts - single (box room), small double (single), double (single but we've crammed a double bed in though don't expect to be able to tread on the floor or open the bedroom door properly).

I've met a variety of prospective landlords and landladies, and been given lists of rules by some even before I've seen the rooms. Others have said how lovely all their tenants have found their places - this while I am looking at filthy curtains, trying to avoid wrinkling my nose up at the stale smell of smoke and wondering what on earth I've just trodden in.

Admittedly I come with baggage. Well, furniture to be precise. I'm looking for a room that is big enough to house me, my two bookcases and my desk (as well as the usual bedroom furniture). So far I've only found two rooms that could do so. One had a cat (I'm allergic), the other needed someone to move in immediately (I need to move at the start of July).

Am rather hoping that one of the places I've asked about this week might prove to be my new home. Let's face it - it would be a shame to make bookcases homeless. Maybe I should try and reside in a library?