Backwards In High Heels

See that corner, I'm aiming on turning it

Oh heck, I've been having a road to Damascus time of late and am making (not so) startling revelations about what I want, what I'm worth and who I want to be!

To put it concisely I have decided to put myself first. This means making changes regarding work, my priorities and time. Time is quite a biggie here - I've let myself be leached of my time by others. You may find this hard to believe but a lot of the time I have been far too bloody nice! In fact someone I work with pointed it out to me a little while back, it maybe because we are very similar and he gives me the advice he needs to take himself too! I think we may be co-dependant people pleasers!

Anyway after a wonderful time working at the Download Festival and being surrounded by friends and people who are loving, open minded, talented, non-judgemental, supportive and inspiring a small ember that was already burning was given more oxygen.

So this new timetable needs to be practical (I need to earn money) but I have to put a value on my time. More time for writing, more time for working in slightly different avenues than I have in the past and the time to study these new opportunities and the skills I need. I suspect it may lead me back to blogging (hurrah!), I feel I'm going to be ranting and panicking and worrying before returning to ranting - what better place to do that than on a self-indulgent blog?!.

But enough of using this as a free therapy session. Did I mention how wonderful Download was?

Well here's one bit from the weekend. To explain, The Blackout were playing over the weekend and having not given them a great deal of time they totally won me other. Part of this was when I was invited to the Radio 1 live broadcast where they played a couple of acoustic numbers and impressed me both with the songs but also their fantastically amiable personalities.

The day after I interviewed Sean (one of the singers). Now the interview was just on dictaphone and for my notes as opposed to be broadcast. During the interview we sidelined and he wrote a note and autograph to my friend's niece (I tell you - lovely lad!). We were talking about their acoustic performance the day before (which followed Corey Taylor from Slipknot appearing on the radio broadcast). Now, I have tried (feebly as I don't really know what I'm doing!) to edit it down so you can hear some of the interview with Sean, so not great quality and not a great interviewer (I just waffle at people!) but enjoy!

London Curse - Beaten!

The London curse did not rear its ugly head - it had a good go but I slayed it and on Monday I got to the BBC comedy workshop. It was well worth it, we had a brilliant set of script editors guiding us through the day and were made to feel very welcome and inspired. That said I still managed to botch the end of my sketch but it did get its fair share of laughs at the evening performance.

I certainly came back feeling like I had a kick up the behind, in a good way. Perhaps it's old age but I am getting less tolerant of people taking advantage of my good nature (yes I do have one, don't pull faces) and I have to give more time and credance to following my ambitions. Ever notice the more you give of yourself, the takers actually show less apprecitation?

Well, no more. I am looking at my life as timetable and blocking off me time (I wonder if other freelance people who work from home identify with this?).

But let's not turn this into a moan of a blog when Monday was so helpful and positive. It was so good to be able to pick the brains of them that does and share a table with others who want to!

The evening performance was great fun and as well as having our sketches performed Lawrence & Gus tried out some of their new material which we'd been hearing rehearsed in the background back at the comedy dept. What we hadn't realised at the time was it was Lawrence & Gus, we thought it was the other half of the workshop who were just a lot better than us...

Workshop aside, there wasn't much time for anything else but  loved the view from the hotel thanks to being on the 14th floor and even managed to find a few minutes for retail therapy and food at St Pancras which is looking great after its upgrade. The last time I was in London, St Pancras was still a worksite.

Oh and for good measure - 2 Japanese tourists walked past me with face masks on and two French school children ran up to them and went 'aitchoo, aitchoo, aitchoo'.

 

 

The Magic Miele & Messy Carpet Test (Catchy, eh?)

So two weeks on and the Miele (without changing a bag - they're deceptively large) was still sucking like a <too rude a simile>.

I decided it would be fun to do a quick test. We've all seen them on the TV adverts were things are cleaned with one wipe. Well on a test piece of carpet I put talc, sugar and rolled oats. But no I didn't just sprinkle them on, I stood on them then got down on my hands and knees and worked it in with my fingers.  I was just going to take some before and after shots for fun but as you'll see two problems:

1 - Peggy decided to try the rolled oats (and add a few cats hairs for good measure)

2 - the talc dust in the air and the light reflecting from the mirror was causing orbs in the pictures which made it look like a scene from Most Haunted.

So, I filmed it with the mobile phone - hence not Spielberg quality but you get the impression. It didn't pose a problem for the Miele at all. What I really like (and anyone who has stray cat litter or biscuits will appreciate this!) is it doesn't 'spit' out at the sides when it vacuums up such things - look how it just sucks up the rolled oats.

Mum, she of the herniated discs and fibromyalgia, is 'driving' in the video and as you can see the cleaner really flows and corners easily, which is why she too would have happily kidnapped it for good. Whilst it stayed with us she put it right up behind our regular cleaner in the understairs cupbaord - I think she was hoping they'd mate.

Back to the messy carpet test - just a few lengths of vacuuming, back on my hands and knees, and there wasn't a speck of talc, sugar or oat to be found.

It went back today :( . I *heart* that cleaner.