Lucy is back from London and looking forward to going to Durham this Thursday (even though it'll mean leaving home again, which is still something she's not very good at, emotionally speaking). Oh, and she thinks that she will be sans internet for the first few days, so don't be offended if she doesn't reply to messages sent that way.

 

Lucy is tired, and distinctly achy.

 

Lucy is very pleased at the fact that she managed to buy the walking-trainers she'd had her eye on, in the right size, as it's one less thing to do in the next week. (Slippers?)

 

Lucy is actually about to fall asleep at the keyboard...!

 

Lucy is frantically copying down recipes for such delicacies as Vegetable Chilli Pie, Potato and Leek Soup, Bean Burgers, and Chocolate Stuff.

 

Lucy is not packing. Ah well. She figures that a good two-thirds of it has already gone up, and she needs to sleep first before finding out that the remainder doesn't fit and can't be carried.

 

Lucy is still worrying over her sixth module choice.

 

 

Lucy is not communicating very well of late.

 

Lucy is really appreciating the value of friends, and what it means to miss them.

 

It's almost exactly a year since I stopped having clarinet lessons. It's been a bit interesting, at times, keeping it up. Inevitably I've gone through phases in terms of how much playing I've done (- I was about to write 'practising' there, but when you aren't having lessons any more and aren't doing exams, ABRSM, AQA or otherwise, 'practising' seems the wrong description for it!) The thinness of the walls in college certainly didn't aid matters, as it's hopeless trying to play un-selfconsciously when everyone can hear you. Even if they aren't listening, you always imagine that they are, so you never quite relax... and then because you aren't relaxed, your sound quality gets affected and then you worry about it so you relax even less. And don't even go there on the high notes... But being in TOS (Trevelyan Orchestral Society. Yes, we do get referred to as TOSsers!) has been good fun, and has helped give a reason for regular playing which is useful. It's like anything else really - the more you play, the easier and the more enjoyable it gets.

 

What with one thing and another, however, I haven't played much this summer. So I've spent the last week or so trying to build up some lip muscles again, in anticipation of an hour just now when a friend of Dad's came round with his viola in order to play a Mozart trio (K498, for those of you who are interested!). It really was lovely, even if the odd bar here and there wasn't up to all that much in various parts! Mozart is at his best, in my opinion, in chamber music, and he writes so idiomatically for the clarinet that I can understand the celebration of his musical genius much better when playing his music than I can when listening to it. Although maybe it's just the sort of music which doesn't work via electronic recording; I think a lot of people find classical (/Classical, which Mozart is! ) music less immediate for just that reason - that they haven't heard it live and inevitably an electronic guitar will work much better with microphones and amplifiers and so forth than a delicately tuned piano.

 

 

There's something terribly theraputic, as well, about playing any sort of musical instrument - and here I really do mean 'playing' and not 'practising'. It hasn't been the easiest week - not a devestatingly bad week either, and I won't go into stuff here. Just playing has helped things along at times, which is appreciated :-)

 

at the train companies. I discovered a couple of days ago that if I were to go up to Durham next Friday, the cheapest single ticket would cost £39. If, however, I were to go up next Thursday, it would cost £8.60. Naturally, Thursday would seem to be the better option. So after discussing it briefly with my parents, I went to book my ticket just now - and in that delay time, the cheapest ticket showing was now £13.55. I booked it, naturally, as it's still a darn sight better than £39, but that £4.95 would have covered my taxi to the station at this end, with enough for a flapjack left over.

 

I also discovered the other night, courtesy of Dave, that Arriva are taking over that particular route. Now, my hatred of Virgin Trains is well-documented but at least they turn up every now and then... as remarked upon in a thread in the New St. hate group on Facebook, have you ever known the train from Aberystwyth to get through? Nope, didn't think so. (And no, I don't spend way too much time at New St... I have a lot of sympathy with Chris O'Conner of the encyclopaedic knowledge on Facebook...). To quote Dave, 'Arriva go beyond the level at which I can operate sarcasm'. 'pparently they're going to be more expensive as well - which in a way I wouldn't mind, so long as they were consistantly more expensive. What irritates me is the whole penalising-people-for-not-making-up-their-mind-in-advance thing, along with the sheer randomness of ticket prices.

 

And if this is anything to go by, the journies are going to be getting more and more deadly.

 

Basically they're all greedy bastards, and British Rail should never have been de-nationalised in the first place.

 

 

Lucy is also annoyed because she's bored, and lonely, and wants term to start up again.

 

"You're short, aren't you bab?"/"You're a tall lassie!"/etc... - the way to deal with these comments is to look mildly at the customer, look at my feet for a brief moment, then say "...Yes!". As remarked to Suzanne in the glasswash, the more appropriate response would be "No shit!", but you can't say that to a customer. And these comments, while lacking a certain degree of imagination, are rather more preferable to "Fuckin' hell, mate, will y' look at the legs on that?". I wasn't even wearing my short skirt at the time.

 

Customer: "A Castlemaine, please."

Me (inwardly panicking): "A Castlemaine?"

Customer: "Yup, a Castlemaine."

Me: "Certainly." (I go along the bar, checking the taps and the fridge beers and find Jo) "Jo, a Castlemaine?"

(Jo looks suspicious and goes to talk to the guy. Comes back to me, the guy grinning inananely.)

Jo: "He means a Carling, Luce."

(I pour a Carling and charge him for it.)

Customer: "Sorry mate, I was just pullin' your leg! You needn' look so worried! What's your name?"

Me: "Lucy."

Customer: "Hi Kirsty, I'm Ian!"

(Goes away with his drink.)

Jo (behind me): "...and I'm a righ' wanker."

 

Customer: "Do you have a boyfriend?"

Me: "Sorta... It's complicated!" (In fact it is nothing of the sort, but that's a euphemism for 'I don't want to talk about it, and I certainly don't want you perving over me'.)

Customer: "'Cos you could kill a man with them eyes! Bang, dead in a second!"

Me: "Um... thanks...!"

 

Me (completely without thinking): "Mimi, where's the nozzle for this tap, it ent giving any head.."

Mimi: "I don't need a nozzle for that!"

 

Mimi: "I reckon the best way to get tips from customers is to be rude to them. In my last job, I was vile, really vile, y'know wha' I mean, tellin' people to fuck off righ' now 'cos I'm busy, and they gave me tips to sweet-talk me into serving 'em. Then one day my boss had a righ' go at me for it, so I did the whole thank y' very much, sir, please, sir, what can i get y', sir, and y'know how much tip I got that night? Two pence! Two whole miserable pence! So the next day I was back to normal."

(I don't quite take that route. But yes, I do flirt unashamedly with drunk men instead. In case you were wondering!)

 

 

To be continued, no doubt...

 

A much more succesful shopping trip today. I met up with Steph (which was actually the primary reason for going into town in the first place, although once I was there and she'd gone, I thought that I might as well do some jobs), bought a belt, returned the pair of jeans that I had decided against (further to the dilemma of whenever it was, two days ago?), bought some birthday presents for my sister, and got some CDs out of the Music Library. This all worked perfectly because CDs don't have to fit!

 

 

The Central Library (of which the Music Library is an integral part, for those of you who don't know it) never fails to bemuse me, and it's all centered around this: why would such a fantastic cultural, literary and educational resource be housed in one of the ugliest buildings it has ever been Birmingham City Council's pleasure to erect? The same goes for the Conservatoire, famous nationally for its talent and resources - and it's all stuck together in what is essentially a large block of dingy 60s concrete, extending for a good quarter of a mile, I reckon, by the time you've accounted for Paradise Forum (- even more ironic a description than 'New St'). Why? Why?! And as for the bmibaby 'beach' just outside, complete with sand, water sprinklers, deckchairs and palm trees...

 

Inside, though, I love that place! It still feels like it's behind by a few decades, but I've been up there quite a lot since embarking on A Level Music and somehow that's all part of the atmosphere. The Music section contains music books (analysis style: a godsend for research essays), scores, and then a massive listening library - predominantly CDs, but there are a few cassettes and vinyls and the like - with headphone stations so that you can listen to stuff on the spot if you don't want to pay to borrow it. I got out some Vaughan Williams and some Malcolm Arnold for Mum (school assembly time), and then some more Arnold and some Elgar for myself - I'm particularly pleased about the Elgar 'cos the last time I tried to get it out, it was on loan with a waiting list of three people.

 

 

Basically, I'm damn well going to take advantage of living in Birmingham while I'm still here! I've been shopping in decent sized stores, driven places that I could have walked to 'cos I wanted to drive again (yeah, I know, not very environmental...), seen home friends, been to the Music Library... the next thing to do is go for a proper curry, before I subject myself to the slop that they serve up North. And I'm still revelling in the lack of pretentious people (which isn't a feature of the North in general, just of certain sections of Durham University, making it a feature of the South, ironically enough..) :-)

 

The stupidity of the human race never fails to astound me. You would have thought that a Darwinian process of natural selection would enable the survival of the most intelligent life forms on the planet, be that intelligent in terms of survival or intelligent in terms of.. well, just general, y'know, intelligence. Still, large sections of the population always manage to prove one wrong on a regular basis.

 

No, I'm not tetchy. Or sarcastic. Or trying to find clothes that fit. What could have given you that impression?

 

 

I actually wrote those two paragraphs considerably earlier having got off the phone from Topshop in the BullRing, trying to ascertain whether they actually had any of the shirts that I wanted in the right size. They didn't, needless to say, and I was muchly annoyed about it.

 

The problem is that I have a very low tolerance level when it comes to clothes shopping, because it's just so difficult and so depressing that whenever things go wrong (which they do almost infallably), instead of taking the logical attitude of 'c'est la vie', I descend into an internal strop with myself and the world. This gets me nowhere.

 

 

My clothes-shopping list before I go back to university read as follows, this morning: a smart white shirt/blouse, a pair of jeans, a pair of trainers, some autumn/ winter pyjamas. Reasonable enough, I'd've thought. Well I didn't even attempt the trainers. I don't have the energy, quite frankly, and as the big Clarks didn't have anything remotely suitable a week or so ago, I don't see why it would now. Those aren't absolutely urgent so they can wait.

 

A white blouse. I have, at last, found one, although I paid £30 in Gap for the privilege. I bought it because I couldn't not - a smart white blouse is a fairly essential thing to have and I'd looked just about everywhere else - but I really can't afford to be spending that money on a regular basis. Jeans. I found some, eventually, in Oasis, after trailing round all the shops that I'd normally go into and getting absolutely nowhere. I'm between sizes, annoyingly - I bought a pair either way, and will return one when I've had a second opinion on them. But they do vaguely fit (!!), vaguely flatter me (!!), and are a 34" leg length (!! ). Which isn't bad! And autumn pyjamas aren't in the shops yet, although those are urgent for when they are - one of my pairs started to get holes in when I was up in Durham in the summer and although I stitched them up a good couple of times, each time the stitching held for a couple of weeks before falling apart again in the wash and ripping further. So they are now getting worse and worse which is OK for wandering around in at home with underwear underneath, but even Mum has admitted that I might want some new ones for moving into Greencroft.

 

 

The problem is, as usual, my height. And this is where the shops fail me every single time. Because slowly, they are starting to realise that not everyone is the same size and shape. Slowly, petite sections are appearing (not that that's much help for me, but in principle...), and slowly more places are starting to do long length jeans and what have you. The problem is that they're so darn inconsistent.

 

I'll give you an example, and I'll start with jeans, because it illustrates the point fairly nicely. Some shops, not hugely many it has to be said, but some have woken up to the fact that not everyone needs the same length of trouser. As far as they are concerned, this means extending the length of the leg by a couple of inches or so - and this is hugely welcome, don't get me wrong, because too-short trousers look silly and give you cold ankles in the winter. What they don't allow for, however, is proportion. And this is where it starts to go wrong. Because they don't allow any extra material at the top of the jeans, so at worst you can't get into them and at best you are showing your underwear to the world. The equivalent with this in tops is not allowing extra material from the shoulder of the garment to the bust lines (so darts sit awkwardly and bust lines sit on the bust, not under it as required and thus rendering the top unwearable), or indeed doing a longer arm length - although my shirt from Gap covers my waistline nicely, my elbows still sit in the cuffs of what are meant to be three-quarter length sleeves. Ah well.

 

There is also the issue of sizing. The male readers of this blog (if they have stuck it out this far, haha!) will probably not appreciate the shops' habit of stocking hundreds of size 10s and 12s, considerable numbers of size 8s, and then a few 18s for equal opportunities or something like that, leaving those of us who are not size 8/10/12/18 somewhat stuck. So that's probably an exaggeration, but that's what it feels like at times. Anyway, back to the long-length jeans, I couldn't believe my eyes in Gap today when confronted with a large pile of 34", size 8 pairs of trousers. Because contrary to popular opinion, women's clothes sizes are direct measures, not proportional ones. If I were six inches shorter and still the same shape, I would drop a good couple of clothes sizes because my waist and hips would measure less, being in proportion. Therefore to need 34" leg trousers and still be a size 8, you would need to be seriously skinny. Model proportions, basically, which is not a realistic estimate of most of the population. The fact that Topshop do some of the longest jeans around and yet don't cater for those with hips is a cruel irony, one feels.

 

Next gripe - the pyjamas. Because despite Next, Dotty P's, M&S, Topshop.. now acknowledging, at least to some extent, that some women need longer trousers, only M&S has thought that those same women might need longer pyjamas as well. And I have to say, even those are distinctly chilly of an evening, because they are not of a length to correspond to the said long-length trouser. The logic (or rather the lack thereof) leaves me stupified. It's like shoe shops that do a size 9 range, only to offer clompy black lace-ups and not sandals, because of course tall women can reasonably wear black lace-ups on a beach holiday.

 

And then of course, there's the 70-80% of shops which just don't do anything. And nothing fits. And I get clothes which don't fit properly, which look stupid. And I hate my height even more.

 

Holland it shall have to be. Rant over.

 

I hate being ripped off, especially when what I'm being ripped off by is essentially my own stupidity. I went into Boots just now to get some digital photos printed off - good ones from the year, really, along with a few for Cat and Rachel to give as presents to people while I was at it and doing a bulk order. To cut a long story short, I'd mistakenly assumed that the Kodak Easy Print Photo Machine! would have an option for 24- or 48-hour processing, only to put my order of eighty photos in and discover that it didn't. So I paid just under £20 for what should have been a £6 order. Even more annoyingly, the dimensions of the .jpeg files that come off my camera are not proportional to 6"x4" - having forgotten this earlier in the day when I should have gone (being more organised), I went later and didn't have time to fiddle about checking each individual photo. So I've got a few with somebody's head sliced off at the top, and a couple of distinctly altered compositions, which is a pain.

 

But there are also some really nice shots, including three larger landscape pictures (two from Greece, one from Sheringham), and I look forward to adorning the walls of my new room in Durham with them. I haven't had any photos up for the past two terms; in the first term at university, the wall by my bed was covered in them and I was horrendously homesick so I took them down when I moved. But now I've got a mix of pictures of home friends and university friends and family, and I figure a few here and there can't hurt!

 

 

Off to work again soon, six hours from 7pm like last night. Last night was not a particularly enjoyable experience (as I was anticipating), but I coped with the 1am finish much better than I expected; what got to me was the rush of customers, the constant tripping over fellow bar staff as everyone scrambled to get drinks in extra-quick time, and just the whole noise and the heat and the atmosphere. I can now safely say that I don't like Friday nights from either side of a bar!

 

And I'm still making too many mistakes. But the boss (Dru) clearly asked Sarah about my background when he realised that we knew each other, and she told him and as a result he's been really encouraging. I think he may have realised that I was chucking myself in at the deep end a bit - but he must, then, have realised that I'm working extremely hard to make up the knowledge deficit. The idea is to train me up this month so that I can then go back to work at Christmas when they're in need of extra staff - and I think I'll very probably do that. It may be appallingly paid (£4.90 an hour, wooo!), but it's paid nonetheless, and at the end of the day I know that I'm effectively earning pocket money for university. A lot of the staff there are in permanent jobs on a similar wage to pay for kids' swimming lessons, so...!

 

Pub work. Where to start?!

 

I've done three paid shifts now - a two-hour training session on Monday (which I got money for because it was the second time I was in and I was doing some semi-unsupervised serving), three hours over lunchtime on Tuesday, and then a six-and-a-half hour job yesterday evening. And bloody hell, it felt like more than six-and-a-half hours! It's always quite busy on a Wednesday, being quiz night, but last night was unusually full for some reason - and I didn't stop working from 5pm until we had finished clearing up at 11.30pm. It was particularly unfortunate timing - combined with the lack of food, I was actually going properly faint by an hour from the end. But that should be better tonight, and I'm going to experiment with eating patterns today, having a sandwich lunch at about midday, then cooking myself a main meal to eat at 4pm before I go out for my shift at 5 (- also lasting until closing time). Hopefully it'll be quieter, and I'll be able to grab a bite to eat out the back sometime in the middle.

 

So yeah, it's tiring, and it's very physical work, but I am quite enjoying it when all's said and done! There's something satisfying about the tangibility of it and the customer interaction that I wouldn't be getting in an (albeit better paid) office job. I think probably it's the same sort of thing that I found doing voluntary work during sixth form - washing-up may not have been glamourous, but it actually felt like I was doing something useful, and chatting about grandchildren and breast cancer operations with the elderly customers felt so much more worthwhile than two hours spent doing coursework.

 

And I think I'm doing all right. I did make a few mistakes last night - mostly borne of pressure, although a couple through alcoholic ignorance - but as the other staff pointed out, so long as I acknowledge them and learn from them, it doesn't matter in the long run. Even though I haven't told anyone that I was teetotal until just over a year ago, that my family don't drink much and that I live in an area with no pubs, it must be fairly obvious that I haven't been downing lager-and-blacks since the age of whatever. But I'm learning things fast - I now know what a lager-and-black is, how to make one, and how to put it in on the till, so... And my fellow staff, in the main, are really lovely! There's a woman called Suzanne, in her 20s (?), who's been showing me the ropes and she's really patient, which is helpful, and of course when our shifts coincide, Saf is on hand to check that I'm doing all right. I don't think that Claire, one of three managers, particularly likes me, but Saf reckons that it's fine, she's just pissed off with having so many new staff to train up. Most of the staff are female, interestingly, which builds up a certain alliance contre the dirty old men that we occasionally find ourselves serving.

 

It's a pretty big pub, serving meals and well as drinks, and a very nice one in terms of its atmosphere. It's in Rednal, so we get the more middle-class custom from the Lickeys and places, along with people up from Longbridge and Northfield, maybe who've been doing a job out that way. It's a good hard-working pub, as it were - a lot of the talk at the bar is about car parts, of course, and unfortunately about unemployment, although if all else fails, the talk returns to football over a good pint of Carling. I think I'm starting to acquire a bit more of a Brummie accent again! But that's good - I've never quite known how to behave in pubs, so this is good training in that aspect as well as how to pull a pint.

 

And as several people have pointed out, by getting in experience here I'll be opening up casual employement opportunities all over the country, which can't be bad!

 

I've just finished reading Philip Pullman's 'The Amber Spyglass' - following, of course, 'Northern Lights' and 'The Subtle Knife'. I have been meaning to read these books ever since they came out, although ironically, the more that people raved about them and the more that I was told that I should read them, the more determined I became not to, because human nature is perverse like that. But leaving France, with ten hours'-worth of train journey ahead of me and all my (and my sister's!) other reading material exhausted, I decided that I'd give it a try. And I'm very glad that I did!

 

It's not a book, or rather a series of books, that can be put into words easily. Those of you who have read them will understand what I mean. I still think I need some digesting time - maybe I am trying to write this too soon. I would stop short of 'life-changing', which is a judgement that a friend made about them, but there's no doubt that they contain a fundamental truth about them, somehow.

 

And they are also so imaginative and innovative, so emotionally close, so exciting - and indeed so well narrated - that I think that they will stay with me for a long time.

 

I don't want to see the film when it comes out, I'll be honest. Even if it wasn't for my aversion to cinema seats, there are some books that you are just better imagining for yourself, and I have a feeling that this might be one of them!

 

So, Durham was great and I want to go back, sans family; I think I might have found myself a job (behind a bar, ironically enough); and despite it being a fortnight or so since we got back from France, my body-clock is still waking me up at 8am each morning - which would be excellent if I hadn't just found a job behind a bar, because the upshot is that I've had it by nine thirty most evenings.

 

 

We went to see 'Cats' at the Hippodrome last night, and it was fantastic - not emotionally involving, exactly, but just the movement of all of the dancers was so lithe and graceful and feline somehow... and of course the music was ten times better live than a CD could ever convey. My particular favourite piece of choreography coincided with one of my favourite musical settings (Skimbleshanks), so that was all good!

 

 

And there was something else that I was going to write about, but I can't remember what it was...

 

*sigh*

 

I'm trying really hard not to think about the fact that I miss a load of people like crazy.