B is for...

BOY, LOVELY

Lovely Boy and I had a date on Saturday afternoon. More an attempt to re-engage with life in London than re-kindle any lost in the early days of marriage romance, we ventured out on Saturday afternoon with a plan....

BRITISH MUSEUM (see also: Perry, Grayson)

First stop was the British Museum. I've been wanting to take Lovely Boy to see the Grayson Perry exhibition since I saw it last year and this week I managed to wangle some free tickets and so we were off. And we were off, dressed in all our finest fleecy layers, anticipating the forecasted snow. But so, it turned out, was everybloodyone else.

As his teddy bear Alan Measles, Perry writes a very sardonic, very funny blog that takes pointed aim at the fatuousness of much of the art/celebrity world and there's a beautiful vase in his exhibition, titled You Are Here (2011) that lampoons the myriad reasons why people might flock to his show. Whatever their reason of choice on Saturday, it was so busy that despite our free tickets we couldn't get in. And so we've had to raincheck it for next Saturday. Which takes care of next week's date....

Grayson Perry, You Are Here, 2011. (detail below)
Image courtesy: Victoria Miro

But because we were there, and because Lovely Boy had never been beyond the gift shop on a lunch break, and because the last time I was there I was an awkward, chubby, homesick teenager, we decided to have a wander. We spent maybe an hour perusing the sculptures in the Greek halls before heading up to the fourth floor to ogle the Egyptian mummies. And then having had enough of that we headed on to the next part of our little London date.

BOOZE (see also: Tate Modern members bar)

Catching the tube to London Bridge we warmed our mitts with a mug of mulled wine before heading on to Tate. One of our wedding presents was a 12 month membership and I lured Lovely Boy there on the promise of a drink at the sixth floor members bar. If we saw any art it was completely by accident. The two hours we spent there were passed sitting in rock star position against the windows where Lovely Boy sipped an ale and I had a fat glass of pink wine while we watched the snow roll in over St Paul's. If it wasn't already one of my favourite London views it would absolutely be now. It was low key and cool and breath-taking all at once. And by the time we left there was snow already settling.

BOROUGH

Heading back to Borough I took LB to Elliot's, an unpretentious, welcoming, busy restaurant on Stoney St a couple of doors down from Monmouth. I've never been for breakfast - Tor has - but she took me here late last year for a pre-wedding, carb-free, supper. We ate four different entrees from a menu dictated by the freshest produce available at the market that day and washed it down with a big glass of wine. It was a great date. And one I wanted to have again - with Lovely Boy. And boy did it not disappoint. Fried squid with mouthwatering black spelt, homemade garlic flatbread, charcuterie and cheesy cauliflower. All before the kind of hot chocolate cake with butterscotch sauce and homemade vanilla ice cream that leaves you both rapturous and lost for words. I'll be going again. I suspect Lovely Boy will be too.

B is for... SNOW?

OK obviously B is not for snow but in the interests of a linear narrative snow needs to come next so suck it up and read on...

Well, really, there isn't much else to say except that it snowed and it was exciting and by the time we got home we looked like a Mr and Mrs pair of snowpeople. Until we started to melt. And then drip. But still, there is something so inherently joyous about snow. I don't know if it's the novelty factor of seeing your street turn into a monochrome canvas of white, if it's the gratitude for distraction from the just-plain-old-grey cold or if it's the satisfying squeaky scrunch of footprints that break that beautiful pervading quiet that comes with snowfall. Perhaps it's just seeing your husband declare his love for you in the middle of the road.

BLUEBERRY PANCAKES

The first time Lovely Boy cooked me pancakes I was so hungover I was probably still drunk. I'd arrived home at 3.30am, unable to articulate and sliding along the walls with a rare lucid gratitude for their capacity to keep me upright. That was Hen's Party Version London. And I think that's where blueberry pancakes as my new breakfast happy places comes from. Even when I'm full to bilious I still have to eat until there's nothing left. But I do draw the line at licking the plate if that's any consolation....

BUDGET

Welcome to Misery Sunday. Try though they might, not even the blueberry pancakes could stave off the depression that came with sitting down to do a grown up version of a budget only to discover that when it comes to my financial situation, income - expenses = balance........ EQUALS NOTHING. The spreadsheet would have cried with me if I'd added in expensive face cream, occasional flowers and my bi-monthly purchase of Chanel's espresso-coloured waterproof eyeliner.

Things are about to change drastically around here if we are to have any hope of travelling anywhere this year that's not simply to and from work. It's kind of depressing. And the kind of grown up that is frankly B for boring and far from fun. So thank goodness for free tickets to Grayson Perry next weekend?..... I wonder if that reason is on the vase somewhere....

Whatever the case it's time to get fiscally creative.

Poultry. And Grayson Perry.

I haven't felt inclined to write much this last month. Grappling with a series of deep seated, stubborn emotional achilles heels, all of which have been strummed with the urgency of a coked out rocker these last two months, well, it's been the kind of introspective, ugly, basically really fucking depressing stuff that I find hard to share even with my Lovely Boy at times. Never mind manage to write about in a vaguely pithy manner. Sadness, hurt and disappointment are really enervating emotions and not much fun to read about so less conscious decision and more lack of will has meant less of blog. But things are a'changing.

There have been some lovely outings and moments in the midst of it all, and several significant work accomplishments too, but it's been an otherwise quiet time. And as is often my way I've been quietly and inadvertently stockpiling small moments of wonder, beauty and occasional humour as the seasons have done their thing and sacrificed warmth for colour for cold....

Yellow leaves that radiant sunshine
against a rare blue sky...

Proof apparent that I'm not the only cool person who
hangs out in the backstreets of Hammersmith...

A totally bizarre, low hanging, Blue Mountains-esque cloud formation

Home is all but imminent - three weeks tomorrow until we fly out and I Cannot Wait. I really am feeling a physical ache for home and can already feel the regenerative powers of sunshine, light, family love and friends start to stir. I'm just so excited.

Wedding bits and pieces are all coming together. Decorations are now sorted, the ceremony has been written, my name card craft project is under way and the RSVPs are drifting in. We've chosen the music, sorted the rings and my triceps are shaping up nicely...

I went to the gym with Tor yesterday morning and we doubled up on our cardio by talking AND cross-training before she put me through my paces with some serious weights. Every grimace, every stifled whimper was tempered by one very persuasive whisper from the woman with magnificent muscles of her own: "bride arms." "World peace" couldn't be two less potent words compared to "bride arms."

Think of the dress. Be the Dress.

The blooms I bought with the surprise
"flower allowance" Lovely Boy put in my account

The tree in the SLG courtyard with but 10 leaves left.

The other exciting wedding-related activity is the looming party season. The "I'm getting married party" Version London and Version Sydney. I can't bring myself to call it a hen party because it makes me think of a) dumb sluts wearing L plates and sashes and b) a gaggle of noisy idiotic chooks and neither vision is especially complimentary of the female sex. It both baffles and bothers me that men get to be stags and bucks while women get to be a rotisserie meat that has the option of a side of chips.

For me, when I think about my girlfriends, when I think about all the love, support, encouragement, comfort and hilarity they have brought to my life and given me over the last ten years, farmyard animals don't even come close.

"I'm Getting Married Version London" is happening this weekend. Cleo is flying in from Cologne tomorrow and has planned a very fabulous, very fun, very grown up, penis paraphernalia-free celebration for seven of us and I can't wait. I'm hoping it will be the start of a really happy, special next six weeks and permission to finally let myself embrace the whole experience and not feel sad or anxious about wanting to be happy and for it to be happy. It should be a brilliant, very special, highly memorable weekend. Bring It On.

I have tomorrow off work in honour of Cleo's arrival and am looking forward to a three day weekend. Work has been really busy and exciting and as a result, hugely satisfying, and I'm excited about what next year holds and all that I'm going to get to see, do, experience and learn. And who I'm going to meet.

Grayson Perry, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, British Museum

Today was a classic case of ilovemyjob. We ran an opportunity last month for people on the website to win a private tour of Grayson Perry's major exhibition at the British Museum by Grayson himself and today we got to go. The sun even shone it knew it was a special occasion.

Grayson explaining that the first feedback he got
from the Museum about the image of the pot for the
poster was that he'd spelled "titillation" wrong...

The exhibition was extraordinary and it was such an incredible privilege to meet Grayson and hear him talk about how he approached the show and about his own practice. And to hear his thoughts on everything from photography to celebrity culture to shamanism and sex. I've always really appreciated his work - for its self awareness, its defiant beauty and magic in the face of ugly themes like addiction and consumerism, and its wit.

Seeing his work in the context of 170 objects from the British Museum's EXTENSIVE collection only enlivened the already sophisticated notions of value, artistry, history, craftsmanship and contemporariness that exist in his work. It could have so easily been glib, or worse, fashionable, but for me it really drew on my understanding of Perry as a sort of visual-social anthropologist.

Little bit starstruck....

It could have gone down hill after that but the rest of the day was productive and I left at six, went to the gym and came home to a clean house courtesy of Lovely Boy. A day for the books really. And there's still the weekend to come. Chickens, hens and all.