Category: writing a blog

Like Old Friends

We arranged to meet in Marylebone at 10h30 Saturday morning. I set off early from my home in south east London, caught the tube, fought my way through the thronging mass of tourists outside Madame Tussauds and walked down a quiet side street to our deli meeting place. The moment we met, we were instantly friends. Lovely to meet you, Renee from Life in the Boomerlane!

I walked down this street, which looked lovely in the crisp sunshine

Renee had flown in from DC to spend a week in London with her daughter. She said her daughter found it weird that two blogging buddies from opposite sides of the world were going to meet up for breakfast. I guess, if you put it like that, it was kind of weird. But, despite the fact that we had the novelty of communicating verbally – no laptops to hide behind – we talked like old friends. Nearly three hours went by at lightning speed.

We started off talking about writing and blogging and things we knew we had in common. It wasn’t long before we were talking about everything else and laughing and joking and pointing out interesting people in the deli! I guess that’s what we have in common. We love life, we love people, we love noticing things about others, and we love telling stories.

What a wonderful morning it was, what a lovely person you are, and such fun it was to meet you, Renee. See you next time you fly over this way and until then we’ll continue to chat in the cyber world. LOL.

Enjoying a little glimpse of London sunshine

Sunshine signing off for today!

Sights and Sports

I couldn’t have imagined it happening, but just over a week into my new job and I have another memory to throw into our red box. I’ve also seen a few sights I’ve not seen before, and overheard a conversation that enlightened me about the expressions of young love. As far as first weeks at work go, this one’s been pretty good, thank you.

A tiger in a tree in south east London

I can’t get enough of the fact that I work so close to the River Thames. Any opportunity I get, I take myself down to the water and walk and walk and watch and enthuse. Last Monday lunchtime we launched our walking club from the office: we walked down to the river, walked over the London Millennium Footbridge towards St Paul’s Cathedral, and then walked along the far side of the river as far as Blackfriars Bridge and back to our office.

Bright blue sky and weak sunshine provided a perfect backdrop for the walk. I couldn’t stop looking all around me, soaking in everything that makes London such an amazing place to be. City workers in dark suits sat dotted on benches all along the edge of the river; some eating sandwiches, some reading newspapers, some just sitting and thinking. Runners paced past us in both directions, and tourists were everywhere with cameras in hand capturing the London-ness of the day.

Seated on one of the benches was a musician playing a didgeridoo. I so wished I’d had my camera with me to document such a unique sight – I’ve seen a didgeridoo player in a tube station before, but never out in the waterside sunshine. I was riveted.

Another day I walked the other way along the river, and sat in front of The Globe (Shakespeare theatre) to eat my lunch. I was surrounded by tourists, office workers and schoolchildren all out to enjoy an outing in the chilly sunshine. I walked past a group of primary schoolchildren seated on the riverside wall, with pencils and sketch pads in hand, and they were all drawing pictures of the Globe Theatre. I then walked past a headless statue that was attracting much photographic attention, and many foreign students gathering together to visit the Tate Modern art gallery.

I wrote last week about the conversation I overheard on the bus, and I continue to hear funny things said on the buses almost every day. I enjoy the commute as I have not only a stunning walk to my bus stop, but the ride gives me an opportunity to read, although when I hear something that fascinates me I find it hard to concentrate on my literature. I have just finished Bridget Jones’ Diary, so my eavesdropping has occasionally taken a back seat!

On Thursday, I volunteered at a big fundraising event organised by the charity I work for. They run a calendar full of such fundraising events, and this was their inaugural Sports Quiz evening held at world-famous cricket ground, Lord’s. It was a black tie event, and the draw card for the evening was the presence of a number of British sports celebrities, including cricketers, rugby players, athletes, swimmers, a famous sports broadcaster and a certain Scottish manager of one of the most successful premier league football sides in Europe.

My colleagues were surprised that I had volunteered to help at an event in my first week! Perhaps they don’t know that I suffer from a hereditary condition known as FOMO (fear of missing out) and I am mad about sports. Put those two together, and you literally couldn’t keep me away from Thursday night’s event!

It was such fun and it so didn’t feel like work; the hardest part was running around in a little black dress and high heels. The former England rugby player who hosted the evening and ran the auction was brilliant – so funny and entertaining, it was like being at a comedy show; his banter with fellow sportsmen was fabulous and so well received.

I listened and laughed and watched and took in as much as I could as I ran in and out of the function room and did what I was told to do. I loved every minute of the evening, and was glad to share a cab ride home just after midnight. My aching feet were relieved of another walk to the tube station.

So, seeing a tiger in a tree on our walk to church this morning was nothing too out of the ordinary. We’ve come to expect the unexpected in London; it’s constantly filled with surprises and as for this week, it was good. Really good.

Sunshine signing off for today!

The Fun of the Commute

(This is a re-post of the second post that I wrote, and one of the main reasons I started blogging!)

If all the world’s a stage, then London public transport is scriptwriter’s paradise. And absolute bliss for a new blogger like me.

From overhearing an animated conversation among a group of priests – yes, as you guessed, they were talking at length and with passion about “Alice in Wonderland in 3D” – to watching a group of overweight, under-talented and slightly less than sober commuters pole dance on the Jubilee line, I’ve observed enough dramas, soap operas, musicals and scary movies on the tubes, trains and buses, to write a library-full of books. And I’m still watching.

A while back I was sat on the tube, waiting to go home at the end of a busy work day (yes, I did have a job then!), when the crowded carriage of Friday commuters was interrupted by the arrival of a young, fresh-faced woman, who ran on the tube in a fashion reminiscent of Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music”.

She literally ran into the tube, her face filled with awe and wonder and amazement; she ran this way, she ran that way, she looked up, she looked down, and then, when all foreign eyes were upon her (local commuters generally don’t look up), she slinked over to the end of the carriage and stood at the window, facing the next compartment.

She opened the window, put her iPod earphones in place, and began to sing at full volume. I thought she was serenading a friend in the next door carriage, but it seemed she was singing for whoever would listen. Occasionally she sounded like someone singing through headphones, at other times like someone auditioning for a reality TV show, but mostly she was singing for the amusement of the commuters in both carriages.

The tube stopped at the next station, and who should walk into our carriage but a busker! Complete with guitar, and skirt made from a Union Jack flag … which wouldn’t be so bad if the busker were female. However, he introduced himself and said he wanted to entertain the evening commuters, asking for 10p per song, and promising he wouldn’t use the money for drink or drugs,
“Although,” he added, “it is Friday, so who knows?”

As he began to sing “Satisfaction”, a song he told us he wrote with Mick Jagger, the giggles of my fellow commuters could no longer be stifled. One person asked where the cameras were, and if the guitarist and “Julie Andrews” were taking the mick. Our in-carriage drama queen said,
“Oh, no. He’s a professional singer. I’m just annoying.”
No kidding?

The busker sang a few songs, walked down the carriage and, while he attracted very little funding to feed his habit, he did attract much mobile phone video attention. He walked down the carriage, singing enthusiastically and occasionally in tune. Miss Sound of Music watched in melodramatic anticipation of his next song, as he jumped off the tube at the next stop.

As the tube moved on, Miss Musical discovered, to her hair-grabbing horror, that she was travelling in the “wrong direction”. Thinking and agonizing out loud, she walked this way and that as she decided what to do about this increasingly tragic situation. After many dramatic utterances of  “OMG!” she alighted at the next tube station, amid flutters of giggles and chatter on the tube, and cynical echoes of her words. It was the first time I saw unity among commuters, albeit at the expense of a would-be dramatic actress and a drug-fuelled singer/songwriter.

And then there was the time I was waiting for my tube at my local station, when I noticed a fairly mousy, innocuous-looking middle-aged woman a little way down the platform from me. When the crammed tube arrived, the doors opened in front of her, and there was not one centimetre to spare; there was literally no way she could possibly consider climbing into that tube. Not even a hardened London commuter would have braved it.

But she was different. She launched herself headfirst on to the tube, only – after some jostling by the heaving mass of in-train commuters – to be spat out on to the platform like a mango pip. Undeterred, she gathered herself on the platform, turned around and forced her way backwards into the tube. She leant back at an acute angle to ensure the doors wouldn’t close on her, and off she went, leaving commuters on the platform open-mouthed, amazed and perplexed at her dogged and surprising determination.

Another time, I noticed on my crowded tube that one of the commuters was travelling on a different tube from everyone else. His tube was much bouncier than the one the rest of us were travelling on, and every so often his went over a particularly bumpy patch. No-one around him noticed, especially not the city suit next to him, who was moving and swaying to the rhythm of his personal entertainment centre, nor the chap nearby launching battle in a deadly game of snooker on his mobile phone.

It’s all there, folks – and I’ll keep telling you about it!

Sunshine signing off for today!

All Things Bright and New to Me

As I stood in the shower this morning, I thought about the fact that I just pressed a button and a torrent of hot water jetted instantly out of the shower rose. “Power showers”, as they are known here in the UK, were such a novelty for us when we first got to London.

I then thought about everything else in our day-to-day lives that fascinated me when I first arrived here. Two months after we arrived here, I emailed my family a list of things that were different from what I knew. I had another look at the list today, and thought I would post it here.

Please note that this is my perspective and my opinion; some of these things might be familiar to those who live in South Africa, and perhaps not everything I have seen is typical of London. These are purely my observations of things that I found different.

Interesting, as I read through it, I realised how inured I have become to most of the items on the list. I found myself thinking, “Oh, right – that was new to us back then”.

We call this guy "Neil". Long story
  1. We saw a fox in our car park the other evening.
  2. We have heaters in both of our bathrooms, and even in our kitchen. (And in the lounge and bedrooms, of course.)
  3. We have power showers in our bathrooms: you turn on a power switch on the bathroom wall, and then press the “on” button on the shower, and out comes hot water, instantly.
  4. At Tesco (supermarket) you pack your own groceries into bags. And you get “green points” (like extra loyalty points) on your Tesco card if you bring and re-use your own bags.
  5. The shopping trolleys at our local Tesco have a sign on them that reads: “These trolleys are programmed to stop automatically when pushed beyond the red zone.” The perimeter of the shopping centre (i.e. the car park) is colour-coded, with the red zone being the outermost zone. If you push a trolley over that line, it will literally stop. We discovered through experience, and wondered why the trolley stopped suddenly, jarringly, and would not budge a further inch.
  6. [I did see a shopping trolley on top of the bus stop a few months ago – not sure how it got beyond not only the “red zone” but how it was lifted to such a height. I think drunkenness might give you extra powers and imagination.]
  7. Despite commonly held beliefs, Londoners can be pretty friendly and helpful.
  8. It seems to be OK to swear on television (not on the news though).
  9. It’s a crime to beg. [The crime is “Begging and summoning alms.”]
  10. You can get arrested, or at least a warning, for peeing in public.
  11. Some buses won’t stop at the bus stop you’re standing at unless you flag them down.
  12. If you’re travelling on the bus, you need to ring the bell for it to stop at the next bus stop. Unless someone flags it down from the bus stop or a passenger rings the bell, it will not stop.
  13. Some bus drivers will wait for you if they see you running for the bus.
  14. At some shops you can scan and pay for your purchases yourself – i.e. no cashier involved.
  15. Sometimes it costs you 30p to spend a penny [go to a public rest room].
  16. You can buy booze on Sundays and you can buy wine and beer and spirits in the supermarkets. [In South Africa you cannot buy alcohol in a supermarket on a Sunday.]
  17. Wherever you go in London, you will encounter people from a huge variety of nationalities. It is truly a multicultural society, quite remarkable. I thought we lived and worked in a multi-cultural world in Cape Town, but honestly – we know nothing compared to a city like London.
  18. You can’t buy green (Sunlight-type) soap, and the local mayonnaise generally tastes junk. You can’t buy margarine in the UK – it is an illegal product. And you can’t buy cane spirit in the UK because it destroys your memory.
  19. What was I saying?
  20. You can get about 80 channels on Freeview television. But a TV licence costs about ZAR1,500 a year [£145.50].
  21. On weather reports on TV and the radio, they use terms like “bright”, “breezy” and “dull”.
  22. You can get free daily newspapers (Metro and the London Evening Standard) at the tube stations – with the result that most commuters are up on the latest news, like “has Simon Cowell shaved his hands?”
  23. We have mobile phones, from which we send texts. (Not cell phones, nor sms’s.)

I continue to notice new things, as you know, and I usually blog about them. I’ll never be a Londoner, but I can now make my way around a city that initially felt so wildly “forrin” to me.

Sunshine signing off for today!

The Otherness of Being

Our family moved around a lot when I was a child. Every new place we went to, I had to adjust to a new school and make new friends. My parents did the rest. I learnt quickly to adjust, to settle in and to feel like I belonged. It’s not so easy when you’re older.

Some years ago, I worked for a non-government organisation in Cape Town. I worked there from 1993 to 2000, straddling the regime change in the South African government to a welcome democracy. Apart from the work that the organisation did, it focused keenly on organisation development; ensuring that the work it did, as well as they way it did the work, transformed appropriately in line with bigger changes in the country. Change was something we could always depend on.

We did loads of workshops and bosberade (literally “bush councils” – meetings in isolated venues to focus on a particular topic), learnt massively about ourselves as an organisation and as individuals, and laughed and cried as we grew in so many different ways. It was an incredible time in my life, and I learnt much that I loved and hated about myself.

Accordingly I changed in ways I hadn’t recognised even needed changing. It was about shining the mirror clean to get a clearer reflection of myself. I will always be a work in progress, but having the opportunity to develop a consciousness of that is something for which I am eternally grateful.

One workshop we did was presented by a daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. An amazing speaker and awesome personality, she gripped our attention for the entire day. I don’t remember what the workshop was called but she delved into loads of different awarenesses of self.

The strongest learning point for me was in identifying my own primary identity. I am totally oversimplifying this, but she told us that once we understood our own primary identity, we could understand how we view the rest of the world. And we tend to view the rest of the world in relation to that identity. So if I see myself primarily as a woman, I see everyone else as the “same” or “other”. Equally, if I see myself primarily as white, I see everyone else as the “same” or “other”.

It’s something that I have regularly been challenged to look at afresh in my own life. As a Christian, I am secure in my identity as a child of God. It’s finding my identity in my humanness that is my biggest struggle right now.

It’s no secret how much I miss my sons who are both back in Cape Town. Being a mother is a huge part of my identity, as is being part of a loving and close-knit nuclear family. We speak often, our love for each other is unquestioned, but we’re far apart. A month or two ago, a young couple in our church had their baby son dedicated. Both of their extended families filled our church for the service. I looked at them all together and I wept like a child with longing for my own family.

It is a conscious battle for me to choose not to find my identity in my work. Having worked constantly since I graduated from university (apart from a few years when my sons were born), I find it difficult to reconcile my identity as an unemployed person in London. Because of my job hunting nightmare here, I tend to view others from that perspective, and I find I see everyone around me as employed or with an income or livelihood of some description.

Finding my identity as a friend extends me too. I have wonderful, close friends back home – ones I hang out with regularly, talk with deeply, laugh with incessantly. They know who I am; I share a history with them. I have lovely friends here too, but I’m only just beginning a journey with them. That’s not a bad thing; I’m just trying to find where it all fits.

Starting a blog has been an amazing and positive experience for me. I love to write, to tell stories and share experiences and adventures with a growing community of wonderful writers, many of whom have also become friends. I haven’t quite found my identity through this yet; sometimes I see myself as a writer until I read the work of real writers, and I realise I am just a blogger. That’s okay too, and it keeps me reading and learning and growing and honing.

As you well know, life is not all bad in London! It continues to be an amazing adventure for my husband and me; we explore the city; we walk and we talk and we laugh; we grow memories and share a life here that we could never have imagined for ourselves. I know there is a deeper purpose in all of this for me and only with hindsight will I recognise what it is.

I don’t really know where I belong right now; I’m an absent Saffa and a visitor in London. Mostly I’m okay with that, but this topic has toiled through my mind for the whole weekend, circling and circling like a dog in a basket. I think it has now found its comfortable space and is ready to surrender to welcome sleep. As for me, I couldn’t have found rest until I wrote this.

Sunshine signing off for today.

Now I’m the Cat’s Pyjamas

Last week, our church small group had a social evening where we played a bunch of games. One game involved passing a small, ticking grenade from player to player as you each had your turn. Yesterday, my “friend” Maura, threw me a grenade from Ohio.

Right. The game we played last week goes by the subtle moniker of Pass the Bomb. You have a deck of cards, each card has two or three letters on it, and you have to think of a word that uses those letters in order but not necessarily consecutively. You may not repeat a word – obviously, duh – but you may modify the word by making it a plural or adding –ing or whatever. Or you can be entirely original and think of your own word.

You have to think quickly; the grenade is ticking and you don’t want to be left holding the bomb when it explodes. Well, when it fizzles, really. Each time you set the grenade a-ticking, it ticks for a random length of time, so you never know when it’ll go.

The grenade got thrown around the circle at such pace, some of us got shrapnel injuries. It seems that the Memetastic award is doing the same.

So, thank you dearest 36×37 aka Maura (who is, in fact, one of the most gifted writers I know, disguised as a friend) for throwing the kitty-bomb my way. I am eternally indebted to you for passing this extraordinary honour to me. I am taking it back taken aback. I’m glad you think so much of me. Or not.

So here’s the deal. I’ve been Memetastic-ed. And read quickly, because I don’t want to be left holding the grenade.

Jill, at Yeah, Good Times, created this Award. Thank you, Jill. Thank you very much.

The Memetastic Rules

The Memetastic Award

1. You must proudly display the graphic (above), which Jill describes as “absolutely disgusting.” According to Jill: “It’s so bad that not only did I use COMIC SANS, but there’s even a little jumping, celebrating kitten down there at the bottom. It’s horrifying! But its presence in your award celebration is crucial to the memetastic process we’re creating here.”

2. You must list five things about yourself, and four of them must be bold-faced lies. Quality is not important.

3. You must pass this award to five bloggers you either like or don’t like or don’t really have much of an opinion about. As spoken by the great Jill: “I don’t care who you pick, and nobody needs to know why. You can give a reason if you want, but I don’t really care.”

4. If you fail to follow any of the above rules, Jill will hunt you down and harass you incessantly until, according to her, “you either block me on Twitter or ban my IP address from visiting your blog. I don’t know if you can actually do that last thing, but I will become so annoying to you that you will actually go out and hire an IT professional to train you on how to ban IP addresses just so that I’ll leave you alone. I’m serious. I’m going to do these things.”

5. Once you do the above, please link up to the Memetastic Hop so that Jill can keep track of where this thing goes and figure out who she needs to stalk.

Excited? I thought so.

Here is my offering:

  1. I have often been mistaken for a ballet dancer. However, when people study my style, they realize that my motif is more contemporary slash jazzart, if you will. Interpretive dance is my preferred movement.

    Dance (via societies.cam.ac.uk)
  2. I am easily bored and take little interest in anything around me. Especially other people.

    Boring (via jmorganmarketing.com)
  3. Nothing relaxes me more than sitting down with a mug of hot cocoa and a jolly good game of Sudoku.

    Sudoku, or as I say, "let the fun roll" (via stellalunaa.xanga.com)
  4. I wish I was funny enough and brave enough to be a stand-up comedian.

    To stand up or to sit down (via dailycomedy.com)
  5. I love applying for jobs and going for interviews. These are the funnest things you can do in London.

    Ah, mad fun at interviews (via utahtechjobs.com)

So, study these points carefully because hidden among them is a truth about me that you would never be able to guess.

Maura, you’re fantastic – thanks for sharing this award with me. Jill, you’re the bomb. Pleased to meet you.

I think I am going to cop out of chucking the grenade towards anyone in particular, as I know many of you have had this honour already. If anyone reading this feels so inclined and wants to grab the mic, or the grenade, or the kitty – knock yourself out. But beware … the ticking starts now.

Sunshine signing off for today!

I Blog. Therefore I Am

Apologies to Descartes. This post is in no way related to him. Nor in any way philosophical. (He was, but this post isn’t.) This is my contribution to blogging terminology. Not that I see myself as a post-er girl for blogging, it’s just that I love words and being silly. And not necessarily in that order.

This is my 100th post. I didn’t realise, when I pressed publish on that day in mid-August last year, what fun this blogging ride was going to be. I didn’t expect to be living my life out loud like this; I didn’t really know what to expect, but the friends and the support and the love I have encountered have been at the same time humbling and overwhelming. I’ve made wonderful friends, and I learn from your amazing writing every day and I recognise the depth of my passion for writing. And the act of writing every day has made me hungry to hone my skills.This is true community and I love it.

So, on to my post for today: my entries into the great, universal, blogging lexicon. A bloxicon, if you will:

  1. bloggard n one who boasts endlessly in her posts
  2. introblogger n one who thinks before she blogs
  3. extroblogger n one who blogs before she thinks
  4. blinge v to moan or whinge
  5. bligot n a blogging bigot
  6. blog envy n an overwhelming wish that you’d written the post you’ve just read
  7. flashblog n an event that drives readers to your post, for example, being Freshly Pressed
  8. blog-noser n one who compliments your writing because she wants something from you, for example, to steal your readers. See also blog envy.
  9. blogiarism n the act of stealing someone else’s post
  10. blogue n a post to avoid like the plague; could also mean a post about shoes
  11. blogotist n a blogger whose life and posts and comments revolve around her
  12. blaff v to spill your coffee or spurt milk out of your nose while you read a funny post
  13. blarf v to spill your coffee or spurt milk out of your nose while you read a disgusting post
  14. blibble v to allow saliva to spill from your mouth while reading a food post
  15. blingxiety n a fear that your blog may be too posh
  16. overblogging n the sharing of too much information
  17. blol n an acronym for “false laugh false laugh”
  18. blomb n a post that goes nowhere
  19. bloax n a fake post, or a post by a fake blogger
  20. hyperbloggilate v to use too much punctuation
  21. amblogilent adj to be in two minds about a post, or to be in two blogs at once
  22. bloring adj dull, unimaginative, usually refers to a post
  23. postitute n a blogger who will write anything to get comments
  24. bliyotch n a not very nice blogging female
  25. wannablog n someone who wishes they could blog
  26. blog-standard adj ordinary, common, everyday
  27. Bloghty n the country I blog from
  28. blong n bells and whistles you might attach to your blog
  29. bollogs n nonsense, rubbish. (Not to be confused with the dog’s bollogs, which can sometimes be used as a compliment.)
  30. writer’s blog n an affliction rendering you unable to think of what to post about next
  31. OCB n obsessive compulsive blogging; can manifest itself in many ways, for example the overwhelming need to post at the exact same time every day, or the need to ensure you use a word starting with each letter of the alphabet, in order, in every post
  32. blob n a post that does nothing, just sits there; a couch potato post
  33. blogged down adj to get side-tracked with too much detail
  34. bloggy-no-mates n a blog post with no comments. This is a sad word.
  35. ASBLOG n an order for posting social offensive material (derived from ASBO – a civil order , in use in the UK, made against someone displaying anti-social behaviour)
  36. blovvered adj what you are not, if someone leaves an unnecessarily nasty comment on your post. Example: Face? Blovvered? (Possibly originates from Catherine Tate, British comedienne.)
  37. BA n Bloggers Anonymous
  38. blingo n blog slang; could also mean a numbers game played via blog posts, but this is not very popular.
  39. colonoscopost n a post that, when you read it, makes you feel very uncomfortable
  40. beatblox v it’s a rap

I have used the feminine version of words and pronouns to avoid having to write he/she, which can get very boring.

I hope this has enlightened, edified and educated you today. If not, I hope it made you blaff. Please send me your additions – I’ve no doubt there are plenty of wonderful words to add to the bloxicon.

In the words of my favourite Cape Town comedian, Marc Lottering’s character, Aunty Merle, “Ooh, I can be so foolish.”

Sunshine signing off for today!

 

The Colour of Monday

There’s some doubt in the media about whether or not today is Blue Monday. Heck, from where I sit, Monday is blue, grey and drizzly. Downright miserable, if you ask me, with not much at all to redeem it. Navy Blue Monday.

When I was at boarding school, and probably through my high school and university years too, I used to get the Sunday night blues. That mild feeling of dread that the weekend was over – and, as a boarder, that often meant a weekend away from the hostel   – and Monday would bring with it a bunch of its friends – four other weekdays – to work through until the next weekend. I loved school and sport, but my slight dis-ease related more to the freedom and generally school-rule-free abandon that a weekend away allowed me. Even if I didn’t go out, boarding school rules were quite relaxed at weekends. And we got to listen to our radios, have “free” swimming and have a roast for lunch on Sundays.

When our sons were at school, our weekends were just fabulous: most Saturdays were spent watching our boys play rugby or water-polo, depending on the season, and the rest of the weekend revolved around our family. Sunday evenings always brought that ripple of disappointment as I acknowledged the end of a weekend and the dawning of a busy week where we all went in different directions.

As a working person, I did find that Monday had a charm all of its own. For most of my working career, I’ve loved my jobs and Monday brought with it new and exciting opportunities.

Now that we’re in London, and empty-nesters for now, Mondays are a different animal all together.  Some Mondays I wake up with hope and excitement and a renewed sense of enthusiasm for all that the week holds. Other Mondays not so much. Today is one of the latter.

Last week I wrote about my start to 2011 as a ride on the backwards rollercoaster and in the dark. I don’t know if this is supposed to tell me something, but I lost 15 subscribers that day. Just like that! I don’t think I’ve gained that many in a day, so to lose them seemed quite careless! Who were they, and where did they go? And was my post that bleak that they just unsubscribed on the spot?

At the beginning of January, I got an email from WordPress giving me a summary of my statistics for the five months I’ve been blogging. In the email they congratulated me for my busiest day ever – 3 December 2010 – when I got 2 views. This was the second half of my Freshly Pressed day, and how they lost 2,861 from that day and a good couple of thousand from the day before, I’m not entirely sure. If I thought losing 15 subscribers was careless, this, WordPress, was entirely irresponsible.

The media tells us there are things we can do to feel better on a Blue Monday: sing a song, sit in the sunshine, listen to the sea, listen to the birds, or go for a walk. In drizzly, grey London, where I am nowhere near the sea nor sunshine, and I don’t fancy a walk in the rain, I could stand on my head and whistle Dixie through my a*** and it won’t change a jot about Monday. I’ll live with it for today and tomorrow it will be Tuesday.

And Tuesday will hold its own charm. It brings me the privilege to write my 100th post. I can’t quite believe I’m hitting the ton, and I’m really excited to be doing so. There’ll be no mention of Blue Monday, no whingeing, no whining. I hope it will be pure Sunshine in London – lame humour served with a lashing of optimism. Actually, it’ll just be lame humour. Sorry I can’t find either today. I wonder what colour Tuesday will be?

Sunshine signing off for today!

 

Big blogger’s watching you

A few years ago I did a short sound-bite for national television news. As media spokesperson for our organisation, I had to provide comment on a tragic incident that had dominated the media that day. It wasn’t my first or only such interview.

The reporter and cameraman arrived at our offices. The reporter chatted to me while the cameraman set up his camera in the corner of the room. Reporter and I stood next to each other, like the two old men in the Muppets. She and I engaged in small talk without looking at each other. If I’d been a guy, I guess I would have hooked my thumbs into my belt, altered my stance to an at ease one, and with chin down I would have looked through the top of my eyes and spoken in a slightly deep, nasally version of my own voice. I did the female version of that, and stood with bent elbows and hands on the back of my hips.

Cameraman gave us the go, and we sat down, did a quick sound check and made sure I was sitting within good eyeshot of the camera. Reporter asked me a few questions. I stumbled over my words a bit to begin with but knew that would be edited out. I knew what message I needed to get across, and I knew that I needed to use snappy, information-rich sentences because, heck, I’d probably get 15 seconds of airtime. I knew all of that. What I hadn’t thought about was …

Watching television news that night, with customary cushion in front of face because I hate watching myself in any kind of video, my heart started racing as the piece came up. As the news anchor read the back story, what should come on screen but her nibs with hands on hips… And with the gormless expression of one engaged in small talk. Like a Muppet. It seemed like I was on the screen like that for hours before they cut to the interview, which, by the way, came across just fine. (Although why don’t they use soft focus and bring a make-up person along with them? Just asking.)

I know the golden rules of there being no such thing in dealing with the media as off the record and that when doing television interviews, you watch what you say from the moment the camera starts rolling because anything can be used. What I hadn’t thought about was that the camera was rolling as the cameraman was setting up, and I was caught with my, well, hands on hips. And it didn’t look too good. Or elegant. I was just glad I hadn’t had an inelegant scratch or picked my nose. Not that I would, but just imagine?

Fast forward to two weeks ago, and my blog post about the Van Morrison concert. Effusive would be an insipid term for my descriptions of the man and the concert. That blog post, in its entirety and, fortunately with correct attribution and a link to my blog, appeared on a Van Morrison news blog that day. I still can’t decide whether I am thrilled about that or not.

And here’s the thing: in my blog post, I wrote about the “chirpy Dutch chappy in checked shirt” who sat next to me and helped me with the song titles. He read my blog post on the other site. He commented after the post, “Hey Sunshine in London, I’m the cheery Dutch guy you wrote about. I didn’t realise you were writing a review, let alone that you would mention me.”

I sat open-mouthed as I read that, thinking how grateful I was that I had written what I had about him. What if the “stiff-lipped English couple” on the other side of me had read that blog post? They could well have, I don’t know.

When I got to my zumba class last week, the first person I locked eyes with was the person I had described, a few weeks back, perhaps not as well as I could have. Actually, I wrote that she couldn’t dance. I smiled coyly at her and slunk to the back of the class thinking, “I-hope-she-doesn’t-read-my-blog-I-hope-she-doesn’t-read-my-blog.” I guess there is no reason she would, but who knows?

The beauty of blogging and citizen journalism is that everything is out there. We all have our opinions, and we all comment on social issues, events, political issues, whatever takes our fancy. But the flipside of it is also that everything is out there. Here in the UK, with CCTV cameras everywhere, there is also someone watching you all the time – just ask the thoughtless cat in the wheelie bin lady.

My television news interview that day was a lesson to me. And I introduced it into my media training workshops for my colleagues, much to their amusement. The Van blog post incident was a lesson to me too. I tend not to write about friends or family; I don’t want anyone to think they have to watch their words because what they say will end up in my blog. I tend also to write within the boundaries of my interests and knowledge, and heck, if it makes me laugh and falls within these boundaries, I’ll write about it. My intention is never to mock or be nasty, but living my life out loud in this way means anyone – and everyone – can read what I write.

So here I stand, with hands on hips, not wanting to censor the fun out of my blog posts, but wanting to acknowledge the public face of blogging. It just makes me think.

Sunshine signing off for today.

Do the write thing

Writing makes me feel connected. I think I have always known that on a deeper level, but I never realised, until I moved to the other side of the world and so much of my life changed, just how true and significant that was for me.

When my boys were little, I kept a book for each of them. I would write the funny things they would say and yes, there were plenty! But I would also write a journal of what it was like to be their mother, to witness their lives through a mother’s eyes, and how it felt to watch each of them becoming who they are today, two kind, beautiful and caring young men.

In my work, I have always had to write – newsletters, annual reports, media releases and website content. The writing that brought me alive was always where I took a chance and wrote about my experience of what I had to do or write about. Like my perspective on taking a journalist deep into the townships in Cape Town to interview a couple about the business they started from their humble shack. While the journalist was looking for hard news, I knew that the story was deeper than their business. So as the journalist was about to turn her back on them, I started to ask questions and their answers intrigued her. She took out her notebook and started to write and she left with an amazing, heart-warming story. And the story I wrote of that experience is one of which I am very proud.

Since we’ve been in London, I have written an email to my family every week. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, every week.  Until I started blogging – a whole two months ago! – I guess my weekly email was my family-blog. My darling family get all the goss, the low-down, the inside stories and the things that make me crack up. Bless them for not unsubscribing. (Not that I’ve ever given them the option!) But the writing and sharing of information with them is important to me. It keeps me connected to them and it makes me feel like I am carrying them along with me on this adventure, which sometimes feels like a roller-coaster ride, but it never feels like I am alone.

Now I get to do that – censored, to a certain extent – with all of you. And I realised the other day that my blogging world connection is my water cooler conversation every day. Working from home, as I do – in a manner of speaking, if you call writing articles about “trimming your goatee with a nose trimmer” a job, it’s fun and it pays for, um, postage stamps – I miss the connection with other people. My husband always comments on how much of a social person I am, how I love meeting other people, I’m always so interested in getting to know other people, finding out about them and then telling them my jokes. And I guess that’s what I do with all of you.

Writing in this fashion is one way of connecting with other people. And it’s never a one-way experience. I love the interaction with each of you lovely, loyal readers of my blog – your comments make my day, your sharing of my journey makes my day, and I love getting to know each of you. I so enjoy reading your blogs too, getting to know you and engaging with you through what you write. You share so much of who you are through what you write. I learn from you, I learn what great writing looks like, and you’re becoming my new friends and colleagues.

This post has turned into something different from what I had planned. I guess it’s become a tribute to writing. And to you. Thank you.

Sunshine signing off for today.