Sarah

If I lived in Brighton, I would join the sea swimming section of the Brighton Swimming club. I think people who sea swim everyday of the year are cool (but only if they do it solo). I think sea swimming is cool and a bit exciting and dangerous. I think sea swimming might be the new smoking.

What are the good points and bad points of sea swimming?

Good

Bad

um….

I just got my start time for the triathlon: 10:44.45

So set your alarms for that time, Sun 9th May and think of me having a bit of a swim, bit of a cycle and a bit of a run, as fast as I can.

oh no! I have turned into an angry citizen. First bus have increased their fares again which made me ANGRY so I wrote a letter to the local paper and they printed it. It has actually made me feel a bit better about life.

Oh what a lovely family, I really did love everything about them (this is sarcasm - I am disturbed to realise that my sarcasm doesn’t come through in text and mum thought I really did like them). From their daughter having a classic strop “I want an icecream for ME and I want it NOW and if I don’t get it I’m not going to talk to you”, to their matching rugby tops, hers with “Fine Filly” on the back and his with “Old Rogue”. It was great entertainment while eating our lunch in front of the lovely Wells cathedral. Thanks.

I am home from a enjoyable BBQ at Tom Smith and Paul’s house. I know it is summer(ish) because it is hot enough to sit here with my front window open and hear the drunkeness at the Tobacco Factory kicking out time. I love the sound of being in the middle of nowhere when I am there but the sound of 23.29 in my flat is just laughing and clearing up glasses and I will miss it when I move from here.

The sound of 23.46 means just a few people left to get taxis and the staff in the tobacco factory, having cleared up, play really loud bad music so then it’s time to move to the back room.

I thoroughly recommend a look round Justin Quinnell’s site it is brilliant. I particularly like his attempt to photograph famous buildings, such as the Empire state building through a polo mint.

You should also look at the best photograph of the World Trade Centre I have ever seen, The World Trade Centre with Bubble Gum.

How exciting. I am up at 7.45am on a Saturday morning, listening to the Today programme and they tell me that it is national pin hole camera day tomorrow. Then Tom’s friend Justin Quinnell was interviewed as a pin hole camera expert, which he is, and he said he was taking a pin hole picture of the Today studio which is taking him 2 hours. I think it might be a bit blurry as you couldn’t stay still for 2 hours.

I sent Tom a text when Justin came on. I wonder if he appreciated it so early on a saturday morning.

Oh dear…. Text from Tom: “ooh I am so asleep! sleep..sleep..” I’m sure he can take advantage of the listen again function on radio 4. I must think before I text.

My mum and dad flew to venice today and oh how excited I am for them! Venice makes my heart go funny, it really is my favourite place in the world. As a child I used to dream that I could live in a water world and swim to school and to the shops and then I went to venice and realised that someone had made a place like that!

Best moments in Venice include:

My first ever trip down the Grande Canal with Kate, my first trip down the Grande Canal with Tom in the dark (I like the Grande Canal), eating delicate cakes and drinking espresso, buying wine in plastic water bottles, visiting deserted venetian islands in April in a blizzard, sitting on Peggy Guggenheim’s patio (on the Grande Canal) in the July sunshine and hearing about all the champagne she used to drink there (they only found out when the canal was dredged and thousands of glasses and bottles were found), walking through Venice at 6am and watching the boat dustmen drinking brandy, visiting in the cold just before Christmas and watching christmas trees being delivered by boat.

I wouldn’t want to live there though, there isn’t really that much to do and the water is too dirty to swim to school.

On the bus this morning I remembered the worse food I ever ate. A friend made Tangerine terrine which had no sugar in it, just tangerine and whatever the terrine bit is made from. It was in that disturbing middle ground between sweet and savory.

I just ordered a new cashpoint card as the woman in the optiticans broke mine during a particularly vigorous swipe. It is going to take 5-7 working days for them to send it to me! I don’t know how to get cash if I don’t have a cash card, plus I can’t get to an open bank. Luckily I don’t have any money to get to.

I saw an adshell ad for Mobile bristol on my way to work this morning. Mobile bristol is a collective….well I can’t quite work out exactly what it is, but they are having an event in Queens square….and I really don’t know what that is either. I think they need to be a bit clearer on their website and their ads.

It looks quite interesting but I want to know what I have to do.

Update I know what I have to do now and it looks really cool. They have updated their site.

McDonalds were out in force at the marathon on Sunday shouting “get healthy with McDonalds, have one of our free apples”. I really couldn’t bring myself to take one even though an apple would have been nice as to me their brand will always be associated with fat and unnecessary ingredients injected into food and in my mind that apple was an unhealthy fatty apple.

From How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier

“Both maps portray population size, but the choropleth map at the right is misleading because its area symbols suggest intensity, not magnitude.”

Instructions:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

Taken from Join the dots

The marathon was fun but I saw no loss of bodily functioning except for lots of bleeding nipples which is REALLY DISTURBING. Only on men. Women seem to be aware of nipples but I can imagine how a man will forget about them and therefore forget to put masking tape over them, as my cousin mark does. Mark was speedy and completed the course in 3.15.14, but then he has discovered the joy of proplus as a marathon aid. Apparently 300mg of caffeine really helps you along, 6 tablets in total, 2 before the start and then at 2 other occasions throughout the run.

I have a picture of Mark pulling his nipple tape off.

I caught a megabus today to London. Originally I thought I had booked the 3.30 one then for some reason I knew it was 1.30 and planned my time around that, which is why at 11.35 this morning I decided to check my ticket and had a bit of a freak when I realised it was at 12pm. I packed in 5 mins and then ran all the way, arrived just as they were about to leave looking very red and prompting the driver to ask me if I was embarrassed. I think now running is funny and I’d like to run every where with a rucksack, it’s just so much quicker. Tom’s friend at University runs to lectures.

I’m going to watch the London Marathon tomorrow so I think I might be on Tower Bridge between 10.30am and 11.30am if you want to tune in a watch me. I may even be interviewed. I’m just really worried because everyone keeps talking about how runners lose all control of bodily functions after about 18miles and start pooing and puking. I really don’t want to see that.

Tom just said to me “haha wouldn’t it be funny if you were on death row and you requested a really nice last meal but by accident they gave you Souffled Sole Creams with Champagne Sauce and Salmon Caviar?”

Yes Tom, I’d really like that.

Little Delia can think again on the carrot cake issue. Mum gave me a much better Cranks recipe.

There isn’t a a fishmonger in bristol. There are two in Westbury and one in Easton but that is it, so my only option is to go to sainsburys.

As a child we used to buy our fish from Macfisheries a national chain of fishmonger. Probably they were as bad as Mountstevens but at least there was another option than sainsburys frozen fish counter.

The History

Macfisheries became established in the early 1900’s as a well known chain of fishmongers. The company originated in Scotland but was soon a familiar sight, with almost every town in Britain having a high street branch of Macfisheries. Due to the increasing popularity of supermarkets sweeping Britain during the 1960’s the Macfisheries shops gradually closed.

Someone needs to open a nice independent one on my street. I moved to a city to have access to bigger and better things but it seems that the smaller market towns I visit like Cirencester and lewes are far better equipped than Bristol. Fishmongers galore there.