1) Should I drink gin tonight/ever? I had half a glass of gin and slimline tonic over the weekend and I liked it A LOT. Also, it sort of sounds like a sneaky way to avoid cals. Slimline tonic, if you please.

AND

2) Is hoummus/hummus/hummmmmoooouuussss whatever, healthy? IS IT? Because it is my food discovery of 2006. (2005, as you may well remember, Emma fans, was PESTO.) But maybe I oughtn't eat as much of it as I do. I just convinced myself chickpeas = thin.

They are lulling us into a false sense of security...

Anyway, remember when I had that ridiculous problem of having to go for a swim after my jacuzzi instead of going in the steam room cos I was still wearing my diamond engagement ring? Well, this morning I had another 'oh WOE IS ME' problem. I was tootling down Carnaby Street at half nine, aghast because all the shops were still closed so I would be later into the office than I said.

Reason #3423 why I love this job

Boss: Em, we've got £XX for this leaving present, and you're the best at shopping, so would it be okay if you went into town Friday morning before coming in to get something nice?
Me: OKAY!

So I've been swanking it up in Liberty and all sorts this morning. And I may have bought myself a teeny weeny something or other. But I forgot to go in Lush so I'm a bit miffed. WOE!

Also: Do you think I would like Frappucinos? Cos I don't like tea or coffee but it might be because they're hot. Or maybe not. I don't like iced tea, after all. And I guess it would be silly to become a hummus guzzling teetotaller and then get all hepped up on caffeine. Yah.

It's Friday and I'm going for lunch with a spunky hunk. Woo!

My blog looks just like it used to almost three years ago!

Anyway, I had a brill weekend. On Friday I had a picnic in Greenwich with my colleagues for a leaving do. We played rounders and ate hummus and listened to Nick Drake and then went to a pub. IT. WAS. BRILLIANT. Although getting stuck in Peckham on the way home was not so brilliant. Remind me not to move to Peckham. That would be keeping it a bit too real.

On Saturday me and the Streatham masseeve (i.e. L + I) went round to Katey's roof terrace and swanked about drinking gin with her and Ciggy. We were having such a nice time I don't think we headed off to LL til about half nine. And London Loves TOTALLY ROCKED - I had the most fun there I've had in a long time. I saw one of my old bessies and Stu saw loooooads of his, and I think because we met up later rather than getting pissed together by the time we saw each other we missed each other a bit so we were well loved up. It was a loved up evening all in all. I did fall off my massive platforms though, but before I got there so it was okay. We got to bed at about four o'clock with me (apparently) shouting 'yeah baby! we've still go it! four a.m. - woo! we're hardcore!'

Then the next day we went up to Uxbridge and saw Chaunce's great niece, who rather appropriately, is great. Very giggly and dribbly. He's totally in love with her. I drank almost a whole bottle of wine. I blame his Dad for only ever buying my favourite favourite wine. I could drink it like water.

To sum up: Gin seems to not effect me too adversely; I love babies but not enough to have one and ruin all my new tops / handmade bracelets; Chaunce et famille are just the best thing for me ever ever ever.

 ... I'm more popular than Jesus now:

Mornin, mornin

I have loads all swooshing round in my brain today (one of them is: why do I always get in a ben when drunk on public transport with Chaunce? There is never any reason for it. Another is: why did I say I'd get that task done 'easily' by lunchtime when it's Friday and I'm hot and am clearly going to spend an hour or so eating my breakfast and going through my inbox?)

But that's not whay I'm going to blog about. NO! I have been inspired - inspired, I tell you - by La Bobbletta and her world cup run down. Also sort of inspired by the fact that I got a call from The (ex)Boyf at five to eight this morning (although, you know, props to him for getting me out of bed) in order to disseminate A CHOICE BIT OF GOSSIP from the Reading masseeve. Or what used to be the Reading masseeve but are now scattered across Berkshire and beyond. Daz, email me and I'll tell you. It is BRILLIANT. And also a little bit inspired because I had this crazy dream last night about N (without whom, this blog would not exist) which was totally bizarre because I'd pretty much forgotten him completely. It wasn't rude or anything. It was all about borrowing pens. I know...

Anyway. So. Here it is. My Previous World Cups:

1994: In 1994 I was... fourteen. Ahahahahaha! FOURTEEN. Anyway, I was fourteen. I don't remember the World Cup at all this year, because I spent it all lying in bed and crying. Why? I don't know. I was sad about something, I suppose. I had dyed black hair. Luckily by Euro '96 I'd dyed it blonde and was old enough to go out drinking. That's the first tournament I remember really enjoying.

1998: Was the summer I left college, the summer I got my A-level results, the summer before I went to Uni. Thus, it was brilliant. I remember being stood downstairs at the bar in a pub when England scored and bit of plaster falling into my pint because the big screen was upstairs and everyone was leaping up and down. I was on a bus home when we went out and some guy on the bus had a radio and we were all like, 'what's happening? what's happening? oh no!!'

2002: In a (four year) blink of the eye I had been chewed up by university and spat out in Reading sans degree but plus crazy-ass boyfriend. I'd got myself a job flogging kitchens over the phone, we lived in The (ex)Boyf's alcoholic boss' dingy flat, and I basically should have felt like killing myself (I only have long drawn out suicidal fantasies when I should be feeling A-OKAY for some reason) but didn't. After one match (who knows which one) I cheered myself up by shagging some 18 year old from work on that bit of grass by the Hexagon. Too much information? Probably. Anyway, it was a bad time. We had one of those fill-it-in-yourself posters up in the kitchen charting the progress of the tournament and I often imagine Gus Grissom* squirting his little flouro blood gun and saying 'hmmmm, the blood spatter ends abruptly here ... something must have been in the way ... wait, what's this? what does that say? turkey?'

And now it is four years later and the idea I could have a fight with my lover in the kitchen which caused BLOOD TO SPATTER ON THE WALL is crazy. My kitchen is far too small now. Ha ha h a a a. And the idea of London as this wonderful escapist place where everything was beautiful and perfect and nothing could touch me ... hang on, actually, I do still think of London like that. But, you know. When I was gossiping talking with The (ex)Boyf this morning it was weird. It's far enough away now for me to remember the time before we were living together, when we were really just mates who were sleeping together, and that he is okay sometimes. That he is a decent enough chap, just really really extraordinarily bad at being my boyfriend. And I was pretty damn bad at being his girlfriend. But I do so love a relationship that isn't easy. It is my favourite sort. Obviously.

Over dinner (I know we should stop going out for dinner every two seconds but it was only Pizza Express. I love that Pizza Express on the river so much) me and Chaunce were kind of thinking about what'll be going on next World Cup. We will be married. I will be nearly 30. I foresee (whatever we end up doing, I just have this premonition) I foresee we'll be filling in a lot of forms. But it'll be good. Things with that man might get a bit crazy and mixed up and difficult but that's why I'm enjoying it so much. He could never be boring.

* I know it's Gil. It is an in-joke.

Mostly I spent this weekend feeling VERY VERY GRUMPY. Annoyingly, I can only get things done when I am grumpy. I was grumpowered to work this morning by five to eight. Five. To Eight. In the morning.

What am I grumpy about? Who knows.

I have got to write half of this 20 minute play by Wednesday night and I don't even know any more what I'm going to write about, so... yeh, that is a bit stressful I guess, but not much. How hard can it be to write ten minutes? Not that tough.

I have to make sure I'm totally on top of these mitigating circumstances forms by next Monday. I sort of am. It'll be okay. Nothing quite like being responsible for a whole bunch of degrees is there? Nope.

My boyfriend is broken, which is a bit crap and the man he got to fix him seems to be a total cowboy. Diazepam anyone? For a fucking frozen shoulder. Cunt.

It's hot. Also. And I can't stop spending money, which isn't that bad (I do have money to spend) but means I end up having a tenner in my bank account before payday each month. I am never going to be able to save money. I think maybe I should just keep on splurging for the rest of the year and then be good in 2007. Getting a kick up the arse and back on track in 2005 worked pretty well. So, moving just keeps moving further and further to the back of my mind.

And, err, yeah. And I'm not eating that well at the moment. So I'm convinced I'm fat, even though technically I am not that fat. I tried on some stuff in TopShop yesterday, FFS. TopShop, motherfuckers!

So, good things:

I bought some stuff yesterday. Chauncey will kill me when he finds out what though, so keep it quiet.
I have loads of Ebay stuff due.
I saw L + I yesterday cos I'm going to catsit for them and we had a laugh.
My friend FINALLY left her husband and came out and rang me gleefully from Brighton and she genuinely sounds so so so so so happy, I could not be more pleased for her.
Most of my friends are having a wicked time at the mo' (apart from Han - GET WELL HAN. TAKE IT EASY, WOMAN!)
I'm going to Hummus Bros tomorrow (wooooo!)

And

at least when I am unhappy I can go and lay on my back in the garden (see below) and feel small and remember that I am a fucking lucky lady. I need me from 2003 to swing by and shake her head at me.