Letters of Complaint, and Very Bad Singing...

Dear Mr Virgin Pendolino Operator,

In future when I book my train ticket and you ask if I wish to sit facing forwards, would you mind awfully if I actually DID sit facing forwards? Oh, and if it's all the same to you could you please turn off the air con as, rightly or wrongly, I do rather value the feeling in my fingers and toes.

Many Thanks,

Disgruntled Train Customer

P.s If I may also be so bold as to ask for a seat that's not virtually IN the toilet that would also be a bonus.

Having just spent the best part of an hour dancing around my room singing at the top of my voice to Mariah Carey classics, I'm now forced to admit if I auditioned for X Factor I'd stand a very good chance of being laughed off the stage. The depressing realisation of my almost total lack of aural talent [sic?] is tempered slightly by my at times questionable but nonetheless existent written talent, however I am currently in mourning for the stage fame I will never have, so please excuse my self-indulgent ramblings.

Hmm, what else is there to say on this unseasonably warm September day? At the risk of sounding completely self obsessed I shall list, in no particular order, the things that have been occupying space in my head over the past few days:

1) Work - I've been doing a lot of it, which is good, as I happen to be enjoying it at the minute (a particular highlight being our recent golf fundraiser in Spain - honestly, it's a hard life, but someone has to do it)

2) Writing - have decided to do NaNoWriMo again in November and am slowly but surely feeling fired up to start making notes. Watch this space..

3) Travelling - have made a conscious decision to start saving towards a trip abroad at some point in the next 2 years. No more clarity than that, for now, but knowing I'm definitely going to do it makes me happy.

4) Reading - currently reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which I'm thoroughly enjoying (enjoying reading again full stop, in fact, it's been too long since I immersed myself in a good book. Also read One Day by David Nichols on hol which was brilliant).

5) Men - well it wouldn't be 'To Bitterness and Beyond' without the obligatory man slagging now would it?! Recently had a promising string of dates with a friend of a friend who, I was assured, would 'never treat a girl badly' and was the epitome of gentlemanly charm. Not so, it would seem, as my personal experience of aforementioned man was that he was good at laying on the charm for about 6 weeks, after which his attention span failed to last the duration of our two consecutive holidays and he clearly decided it was not worth his time to continue our liaison. Thankfully I was having doubts about the whole thing anyway, so the emotional fallout has been little more than wounded pride on my part, though that's not to say I'm not disappointed that yet another one has proven himself to be a grade A coward.

6) Blogging - I read with interest the premise of the forthcoming film, Julie and Julia, about a woman who decided to spice up her mundane life and break into writing by cooking her way through a recipe book in 365 days and blogging about it (she ended up with 100,000 readers!) It's actually got me thinking about what I could write about besides my own self-indulgent existence, and a few ideas have sprung to mind, one of which is to find a different activity/event to take part in/attend every week for a year that gets under the skin of London life and is unlike anything I would do in my everyday life. Hmm, I can see I'm going to have to explain that rather better if this idea's going to be a goer, but you get my drift. Again, I would implore you, gentle reader, to watch this space (rather a lot of watching of spaces going on in this post, but I will get back to you! I promise!)

I've also been on a fantastic holiday to Majorca since last I wrote, with three of my lovely girlfriends. We spent six days chilling by the pool before flying to Ibiza for 48 hours of madness (and a brief but oh so wonderful dalliance with last year's holiday romance - yes, the 21 year old, sigh...) and then back to Majorca to recover before flying home. Not sure I'm ever going to outgrow clubbing, but is that really such a terrible thing?!

That's all for now!

B x