Slowly becoming croaky..

Posted on March 11, 2009 by nicdempsey

…last Friday I woke up with a sore throat, I ignored it, it was fine by the end of the day

Every morning over the weekend my throat has been slightly worse than it was the morning before but ok during the day.

On Monday, I realised I had another cold.

I’m at a loss, I eat well, I take vitamins but this is the third time in 6 months, I’m fed up and as a consequence not giving into it.  I don’t feel dreadful and I’m only a bit bunged up.  I am, however, gradually getting croaky, which should be fun for everyone else.  I always hope to sound like Mariella Frostrup but I always end up sounding like a dying toad or frog (take your pick).

At least everyone else will get some peace and quiet!

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The Bibliomancer’s Dream

Posted on March 7, 2009 by nicdempsey

So I didn’t get to see David Hare talk about the Berlin Wall (thanks, First Great Western!) and it was decided that as I we had both had a tough week, we’d go to Skylon and have dinner.  Walking through the Royal Festival Hall, I noticed the exhibit in the Clore Ballroom.  It looks like a library and you’re supposed to go in pick a book, pick a line from a book and write it on one of the scroll stations. I only had my phone with me, so couldn’t get anything like a good enough photo of it, but I have to go back and spend an afternoon wondering through it.

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What? Why? Grrr….

Posted on February 27, 2009 by nicdempsey

It’s been a pretty good week.  I went to the theatre, I went out for drinks, I got loads of work done.

But…

She’s doing it again.  Having a go at me about stuff that isn’t my fault. At various points in the various ‘conversations’ we’ve had this week, I’ve wanted to scream and shout that it was nothing to do with me, I’ve wanted to point out the holes in her logic, I’ve wanted to slap her silly.  I’ve been reminded of how like Stef’s mother she is.  Mostly, I’ve wanted her to stop.

I know why she feels like she does, I get it.

I just wish she didn’t put it all on me.

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Cake

Posted on February 16, 2009 by nicdempsey

So I decided that for Grace cafe, I would make cake, lots of cake.  I love to bake but don’t often because I really shouldn’t eat cake.

So I baked for Grace and they ate the cake.  I made, apple cake, chocolate guiness loaf cake and muffins, blueberry and raspberry crumb bars and lime cheesecake.

All from Smitten Kitchen

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Mama told me there’d be days like this…

Posted on February 13, 2009 by nicdempsey

What a week.

It’s been full of petty frustrations.  The thing about being able to do difficult things, is that people keep asking you to do them.  And no-one ever asks to to do the hard stuff when you are feeling calm and under control.

My poor mother, I think that all our conversations this week have started with my saying “Why?  What? Grrrrr…”

And you know that even though it has been a very frustrating week, there have been some things that didn’t frustrate, annoy and irate me.

Theatre, not having to cook dinner last night, the book I reading at the moment being so funny, I’ve been cracking up on the train.

I just have to remember that…

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Snow

Posted on February 5, 2009 by nicdempsey

So on Sunday night and Monday morning, there was proper snow in London.  Everything stopped working.  I did get into work.  Getting home was more interesting and on Tuesday, I gave up the fight and worked from home.

I also took a walk in Brompton Cemetery, with my camera (of course).  It all looked beautiful and suitably Christmas card-ish, there were some great snowman (and dogs).

When I walk there in the summer, I am always quite shocked by the semi-naked sunbathers (I know that other less savoury stuff goes on too, but I try not to think about that!), it seems disrespectful somehow to be lying in a graveyard in a bikini, but people making snowmen and playing in the snow, (and for that matter, taking photos) are not only not shocking but seem completely apt…

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Cheeky

Posted on January 31, 2009 by nicdempsey

At Dionne’s tonight to see her new flat (which is marvellous and still surprisingly tidy).  Aidan is on top form, witness this:

Dionne: You’re right Aidan, I stand corrected

Aidan: No you don’t Mummy, you stand wrong.  I stand correct.

Do you laugh or tell him off for being cheeky?

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Holidays I have known

Posted on January 21, 2009 by nicdempsey

I don’t really do holidays.  I don’t have the knack of that much forward planning.  It might be because growing up, we didn’t have family holidays.  You know, where Mum, Dad and kids go away for 2 weeks every year.  We did that 4 times.  All of them a nightmare, let me count the ways:

1) Norfolk – Camping

Why? No-where to plug in her hairdryer, no fridge for ice to put in the gin.  Mum was not amused, my Dad was irritable and my brother managed to stick his hand in a fruit machine, it got stuck, it was nasty, I think there may have been a trip to A&E.

2) Devon – Don’t smack your lips

Notable for Dad being irritable (apparently Ben and I were noisy eaters) and leaving us in the car, on a beach, as the tide came in (Mum couldn’t drive).  Fun.  Also I got sunburnt, really, really sunburnt….

3) Mallorca – We nearly died

Grandad came. Dad forgot that they drive on the other side of the road, he remembered as the lorry came towards us.  Grandad nearly had a heart atttack. Dad was irritable.

4) Cornwall – The triumph of hope over experience

There had been a gap of 10 years or so, I was 16, Ben was 14. Dad was irritable.  I think we must have listened to the Greatest Hits of Don McLean, a thousand times, also The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and more worryingly, Rod Stewart.

I did go on holidays though, I went on PGL holidays every summer, school trips, Ireland with my aunt a couple of times, summer camp, so it wasn’t a holiday deprived childhood.

As an adult, I just never got around to sorting out a holiday.  It was almost as if, I thought that holidays weren’t something that grown-ups did.  And when I did go away, I didn’t get excited about it in the same way my friends did all that counting the ‘sleeps’ etc.

This year, though I am going on a Holiday, with a captial H.  I am going to see Josephine in the Cote d’Ivoire, in May.  Tickets have been booked, I’m off to have a Yellow Fever injection in a couple of weeks and all I have to do now is apply for a visa.

And I am quite excited, not counting the days excited, but getting close.  I might have to go a bake a cake to celebrate…

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Republic

Posted on January 21, 2009 by nicdempsey

I watched my first presidential inauguration back in the 90’s (I was doing politics A level and choose the US political system option), and then and every time I have watched one since I am amazed by how moved I am by it (yes even when it was Bush).

It’s a powerful symbol of what is best about America.

People choosing who represents them.  America chose to be represented by Barrack Obama, they feel that he represents the best of them.

That makes me hopeful.

But it also makes me jealous.  I want a say in who represents me, I don’t want it to be the Queen and I certainly don’t want it to be Prince Charles.  (I also want to live in a country where the Church and State are separate and religious schools aren’t funded by the State but that’s another argument).

In the UK, we are subjects to the Queen.  You can argue that these are only a form of words and aren’t really true anymore.  I disagree.  I think the form of things is powerful and we absorb the form of things.

I’ve been reading about the English Civil War, where the idea of religious freedom, led to the ideas of the Levellers and was struck again by the power of Thomas Rainsborough’s statement in the Putney Debates in 1647

“For really I think that the poorest he that is in England have a life to live, as the greatest he: and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government.”

In the UK, the people exercise the right to vote and the Queen then invites the leader of the party with the most seats in the Commons to form a government.  The government of the UK is Her Majesty’s, not the people’s.  The armed forces are HRM not the people’s.

Can you truly believe in equality when the role of the Head of State is decided by if you were related to the last one?

I don’t think you can.

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Hummingbird Bakery

Posted on January 13, 2009 by nicdempsey

So Sarah and I finally got together the Sunday before last and we were going to go the the V & A but ended up eating cake at the Hummingbird Bakery.

Conversation included Sarah’s new hoodie, Christmas, how bloody cold it was and Ralph Fiennes being twitchy in Oedipus (which I had seen the day before – and my he was twitchy!)

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