Happy Sunday everyone!
I hope you are all having a lovely weekend.  I've been trying to recuperate after a rather busy week.  Out of Hours opened on Tuesday with a little private view for some of my chums.  Much wine and pizza was consumed and I sold two pieces!  WOO HOO!  Now I just have to do it all over again this week, but perhaps with a little less of the vino...

So apart from cleaning my flat and a spot of DIY (very proud of myself for unblocking my sink all on my own - knitting needles really do have multiple uses) today I'm going to read through novel numero uno again in the first time in, well, about 18 months.  I'm investigating getting it professionally edited and published as an ebook, but want to go through it again myself first to check I'm still happy to put it out there...

So that's pretty much me.  It's been a whirlwind of a week, and work and the flat buying saga haven't exactly been letting up whilst I've been muddling on with my creative pursuits.  Someone tweeted me the other day when I said I'd just paid a solicitor several hundred pounds to do things I didn't really understand, advising me that it was essentially to do not a lot as slowly as possible.  Simon, you have a point... I'm just happy to say that it's the vendor's solicitor who is causing the delay, not mine.  Unfortunately this means there isn't much I can do about it...

Laters!

You know what?  I feel a bit sorry for my man.  Not only has he been stuck with me for longer than I care to admit, but, when he stayed with me down here in London last week, it appeared that the gods were against us.  On Monday we hit Soho to check out Time Out’s vintage shopping trail followed with a goldfish bowl of gin at Star in the Sky – only to discover on our arrival that it was closed.  On Saturday we headed to the Natural History Museum to see the Wildlife Photography Award – but tickets had sold out.  The following day brunch was scuppered by some black pudding that had decided to grow a slimy grey coating whilst still within the use-by date and our Sunday matinee was cut short when my DVD player decided to have a hissy-fit halfway through Three Lions.

The poor lamb.

But, you know what?  These unfortunate incidents turned out to be less disastrous than I thought.  In fact, you could almost call them happy accidents.  Rather than admitting defeat, we swapped gin in Soho for beer in Finsbury Park, and Soho Joe’s for Papagones, who make up for any shortfalls in the pizza department with chocolate and hazelnut ice cream to DIE for.  Photography was replaced with a rather successful shopping trip (especially as HMV had started to accept gift vouchers again), black pudding with the much healthier option of grilled tomatoes (which incidentally go very well with a bit of pepper sauce) and the movie with a games of cards – made all the better by my inevitable victory (ha!).

So, my point?  Well, just because things don’t always turn out the way you hoped doesn’t mean that other good stuff won’t happen.  Last Friday I had a horrendous interview for a job I really wanted.  Needless to say my impersonation of a rabbit caught in headlights did not impress the interview panel and I was not successful.  I admit I was gutted – and telling my workmates was excruciating, especially as everyone expected me to do well.  But, you know what?  Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.  Just like it wasn’t meant to be for me to find a publisher last year, or for me to be discovered by a best-selling glossy, Charles Saatchi or a hip and happening craft shop in Shoreditch.  But that’s okay.  Because something much better is just around the corner.  And I fully intend to have a bit of fun whilst I find it.