I wanted to post something last night because I was feeling sad, after two days of trying to keep smiling, and trying to keep everyone in my family smiling, I was all used up. It was a kind of inward sadness, that creeps in from the edges and penetrates your insides, until the pockets of happiness that you keep sacred are in danger of being gobbled up.
This morning however, after having the (unconfirmed) good news that my father's cancer has not spread beyond a nasty tumour in his large bowel, I am genuinely positive that everything is going to be ok. It's christmas after all, and Christmas is when good things happen (this is the exact opposite of what my sister thinks, which is that Christmas is when people DIE, and I have heard this again and again over the last few days as we waited for the results of the CT scan, enough to make me get home last night and scream into a pillow).
So! We'll have no more bad juju, my Dad is positive and so am I. Christmas is going to be another weird one, and 2008 is going to be another hard one, but I am entirely convinced that this is all, with the aid of some awesome doctors, going to go away.
Friday, December 21, 2007
What I wanted to post last night
In a Jo Whylie Stylie:
Rocks and Sucks
What Rocks - Christmas Trees, Christmas Songs, Christmas Presents, unexpected days off, Christmas!
What Sucks - Finding out your father has cancer.
Rocks and Sucks
What Rocks - Christmas Trees, Christmas Songs, Christmas Presents, unexpected days off, Christmas!
What Sucks - Finding out your father has cancer.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Internet shopping
Because my brain has gone, holiday... Christmas! And there shall be nothing in between, those 8 working days? Piffle.
Where is the perfect black waistcoat? I cannot find you, although I am sure you must exist, ASOS? No, although a good selection... Oli? No.. Hang on a second! There! There is the perfect black waiscoat! There it is! I will enlarge and.... NO NO NO NO! IT IS ATTACHED TO FORMAL SHORTS! WHY?! WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!
Search over, the grieving period has begun, let mourning commence.
Where is the perfect black waistcoat? I cannot find you, although I am sure you must exist, ASOS? No, although a good selection... Oli? No.. Hang on a second! There! There is the perfect black waiscoat! There it is! I will enlarge and.... NO NO NO NO! IT IS ATTACHED TO FORMAL SHORTS! WHY?! WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!
Search over, the grieving period has begun, let mourning commence.
My Holiday, by Hannah Davis, Age 26. Part One – Hong Kong
As we left Birmingham it started to snow, this was how we knew that going away was a Very Good Idea. I had started to feel a little nausea the day before, but that’s mainly because flights always give me feelings of impending doom. This was not helped by trying to check into the wrong hotel the night before the flight, or when the lady at the check in desk said, “Hong Kong? Really? Today?”, both these obstacles were successfully tackled though, and the flight to Hong Kong was mercifully uneventful. Actually, Glenn wouldn’t agree with that, as the entertainment system broke down for two hours, this was understandably an horrendous trauma for him. Shrek 2 just wasn’t the same after the interruption.
And so we arrived in Hong Kong and I had my first “Fuck! I’m in CHINA!” moment. Hong Kong is absolutely awesome, just as exciting as you’d expect it to be, in my realm of experience it is matched only by New York in terms of spectacle and, well, height. We arrived at the hotel (on the harbour edge of Kowloon) at about 8am, after an 11 hour flight, and hazily let a tiny Chinese person take our luggage as we staggered towards the entrance. The receptionist knew who we were, which led me to the belief that she was psychic, until Glenn pointed out that the tiny Chinese luggage thief had asked my name. The receptionist said that if we needed a double bed we would have to wait to check in, but if we were happy with a twin, we could check in there and then, I didn’t even look at Glenn, the image of diving into a feather duvet was too close to resist and I happily agreed to the twin.
BUT WE HAD TO STAY AWAKE, which was to be a common theme over the next three weeks, reject the loving arms of sleep and stagger, blinking, into the mid morning sun. We went on a river cruise, and took in the sights of the harbour. I fell asleep when Glenn asked me why a set of sky scrapers towards the edge of the city all looked the same ‘could it be an alien city?’, possibly, but my head was back in that feather duvet and at that moment I couldn’t have cared less. So we headed back to the lovely hotel for a lovely power nap.
After the nap we went for a wander through the shops along the golden mile, and then got dolled up for a night on the tiles of Hong Kong. The hotel we stayed in was really one of a kind, the Intercontinental housed the Chinese branch of Nobu and four other restaurants, a swimming pool on the roof, an infinity pool on the 10th floor, and a piano bar with floor to ceiling windows, allowing for breathtaking views of the harbour. So we started there, watching the laser show from the tops of the sky scrapers with cocktails. Glenn asked the concierge where we could find some food, he asked what kind of food we wanted, Glenn said Chinese food, and, I know it’s a line from ‘Friends’, but he really did look at us like yeah, that’s just food here. He directed us along the golden mile, to a small alley where he said there were a lot of great restaurants, and there were! There were great Italian restaurants, Mexican retaurants, Spanish restaurants, just no Chinese restaurants. So we kept walking, This is what we do in foreign lands, pace the city in search for an ‘authentic’ experience, this is how we ended up walking the streets of Prague for three hours, with aching feet and grumbling tummies. We found a great place though (in Prague and Hong Kong), and ordered duck pancakes, we requested enough for two and half an hour or so later, the largest duck you have ever seen was wheeled into the restaurant, the kind of duck you imagine died out sometime towards the end of the Jurassic period. It was chopped up in front of us and the skin presented, as the meat was wheeled away again. This is apparently how they do it, the skin is used in pancakes, the meat reserved for other dishes, but that didn’t stop Glenn weeping softly as it left the room.
The next day, after we had slept the sleep of the righteous, we went on a tour, with the happiest, smiliest, chirpiest, tiniest Chinese person I have ever seen. We went to the top of Victoria Peak (very high, stunning views), down into Repulse Bay (named after HMS Repulse and the home of my Uncle Ken towards the end of WW2), Stanley Market and a small but perfectly formed jewellery factory where I came very close to buying a diamond ring, but couldn’t bring myself to that big of a treat so early in the holiday.
And that was Hong Kong, in a nutshell, and a very small nutshell. A brief introduction to a city which I’m sure has a lot more to offer. It’s certainly made me hungry to see the rest of China, and it’s made Glenn hungry for duckskin.
And so we arrived in Hong Kong and I had my first “Fuck! I’m in CHINA!” moment. Hong Kong is absolutely awesome, just as exciting as you’d expect it to be, in my realm of experience it is matched only by New York in terms of spectacle and, well, height. We arrived at the hotel (on the harbour edge of Kowloon) at about 8am, after an 11 hour flight, and hazily let a tiny Chinese person take our luggage as we staggered towards the entrance. The receptionist knew who we were, which led me to the belief that she was psychic, until Glenn pointed out that the tiny Chinese luggage thief had asked my name. The receptionist said that if we needed a double bed we would have to wait to check in, but if we were happy with a twin, we could check in there and then, I didn’t even look at Glenn, the image of diving into a feather duvet was too close to resist and I happily agreed to the twin.
BUT WE HAD TO STAY AWAKE, which was to be a common theme over the next three weeks, reject the loving arms of sleep and stagger, blinking, into the mid morning sun. We went on a river cruise, and took in the sights of the harbour. I fell asleep when Glenn asked me why a set of sky scrapers towards the edge of the city all looked the same ‘could it be an alien city?’, possibly, but my head was back in that feather duvet and at that moment I couldn’t have cared less. So we headed back to the lovely hotel for a lovely power nap.
After the nap we went for a wander through the shops along the golden mile, and then got dolled up for a night on the tiles of Hong Kong. The hotel we stayed in was really one of a kind, the Intercontinental housed the Chinese branch of Nobu and four other restaurants, a swimming pool on the roof, an infinity pool on the 10th floor, and a piano bar with floor to ceiling windows, allowing for breathtaking views of the harbour. So we started there, watching the laser show from the tops of the sky scrapers with cocktails. Glenn asked the concierge where we could find some food, he asked what kind of food we wanted, Glenn said Chinese food, and, I know it’s a line from ‘Friends’, but he really did look at us like yeah, that’s just food here. He directed us along the golden mile, to a small alley where he said there were a lot of great restaurants, and there were! There were great Italian restaurants, Mexican retaurants, Spanish restaurants, just no Chinese restaurants. So we kept walking, This is what we do in foreign lands, pace the city in search for an ‘authentic’ experience, this is how we ended up walking the streets of Prague for three hours, with aching feet and grumbling tummies. We found a great place though (in Prague and Hong Kong), and ordered duck pancakes, we requested enough for two and half an hour or so later, the largest duck you have ever seen was wheeled into the restaurant, the kind of duck you imagine died out sometime towards the end of the Jurassic period. It was chopped up in front of us and the skin presented, as the meat was wheeled away again. This is apparently how they do it, the skin is used in pancakes, the meat reserved for other dishes, but that didn’t stop Glenn weeping softly as it left the room.
The next day, after we had slept the sleep of the righteous, we went on a tour, with the happiest, smiliest, chirpiest, tiniest Chinese person I have ever seen. We went to the top of Victoria Peak (very high, stunning views), down into Repulse Bay (named after HMS Repulse and the home of my Uncle Ken towards the end of WW2), Stanley Market and a small but perfectly formed jewellery factory where I came very close to buying a diamond ring, but couldn’t bring myself to that big of a treat so early in the holiday.
And that was Hong Kong, in a nutshell, and a very small nutshell. A brief introduction to a city which I’m sure has a lot more to offer. It’s certainly made me hungry to see the rest of China, and it’s made Glenn hungry for duckskin.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
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