Poorly but productive

I'm still not well enough to go out, and thoroughly miserable, bored and grumpy as a result.

However I have used my day productively and had a massive eBay blitz from my sick bed. I sell clothes generally. Mainly my used stuff that I've got bored of, but also some unused bits.

My friend DD is a print designer for the big high street names, and a few times a month they are given access to the sample cupboard where every piece costs £1. The sample cupboard is packed full of clothes and shoes from the designers have bought from other retailers to inspire their work. Some are absolute tat, but some are real finds.

He always gets me a huge bag of stuff each time he goes in which I look forward to receiving each month. Once he got me and amazing pair of tan leather brogue style lace up shoe boots, that I absolutely adore. Another time he found me a gorgeous black bubble hemmed mini dress.

Of course, not all the stuff he finds me will fit or be to my taste, so up it goes straight on eBay, along with my old clothes and anything else I'm selling at the time.

Once you get going with eBay and the money starts coming into your account it's pretty addictive. In the last month so far I have made £250 and that is not including all the pieces I have listed today.

It's a good feeling to have managed to get something productive done today, but it doesn't make up for the fact that I'm still sitting here in the flat, still in my house clothes and that I can't go out tonight. We're on the guestlist for the fabulous Punk in Soho tonight and I'm currently helping my housemate SH get ready. She is trying to tempt me out giving me alcohol to drink and playing tempting tunes, but I'm not budging. I'm still not feeling well and if I go out and get drunk like this I'll still be feeling poorly next weekend.

A lonesome night in for this little one tonight again then.

I Swallowed a Cactus

I am feeling quite sorry for myself this morning. I have had a sore throat all week, but it got so bad yesterday, along with a fever, that I didn't go in to work, and I am still in bed now. My tongue has swollen up, and now my ear is starting to ache. All on the right hand side of my head/mouth/throat. Wah I hate sore throats.

And it's even worse because I don't have anyone to look after me, or go to the shop and get me orange juice and ice lollies. I would kill for some Ben & Jerry's cookie dough right now. And a biiiig glass of tropicana (with bits obviously).

It has also made me realise I really need to end what is left of my holiday romance with D. I spoke to him yesterday morning and told him how i felt really ill and was in bed, off work etc. Then when we spoke later on in the evening he didn't ask me how I was feeling at all, and after about ten minutes even asked me how work had been - he had totally forgotten or had just not been listening in the first place. It just made me wonder why I bother. If you have been seeing someone for nearly five months it would be nice if they actually made some effort with you.

I've been in a bit of a grump with the situation since Christmas really, he didn't get me a present or make any effort to meet up before I left for two weeks. Then, when we met up a week after I got back we had a stupid argument about the Israel/Palestine situation, and he really wound me up because it felt more like he was just trying to argue for the sake of arguing about something rather than because he felt strongly about it/had any real understanding of it.

I think basically he is just too young for me - and I have felt this all along but there was never really any issues, but over time I have started to notice I have different priorities. He just acts like a twenty-year-old, which is no bad thing by any means, but just not what I need. He is a good person, and it was nice to keep a bit if Ibiza alive for a while, but I think it has well and truly fizzled.

God my throat is hurting. I think sore throat is my least favorite illness and it means I get dehydrated quickly because it hurts to swallow, even water.

Has anyone got any pearls of wisdom for me to cheer me up a little? And if someone could pop round with a fruit pastel ice lolly that would be great.

Bit of a moan about the student loan

I graduated from university and entered the word of work a year and a half ago, beginning the repayment of my student loan pretty much straight away. Each month a percentage of my salary is deducted for the repayment before it even hits my bank account, and I never really give it much thought.

I realised this morning it had been some time since I had seen a statement from Student Loan Company, and also that I actually had no idea what my total debt was. After a quick rummage in my very organised filing system (bottom drawer along with birth certificate, photo albums and some unidentified computer cables), I managed to find a statement. Dated June 2006. With the address listed as my second student house. Oops.

What about online statements I hear you say. Ah yes, online statements! Good idea. Ok, please enter ART ID. What the deuce is an ART ID? Oh that could be it. Yes. Password. Ok most likely this. Now, just for the Secret Answer Question... In what city did you meet your partner? Partner? I don't have a partner! I have a university history of various flings and short relationships, but at no point would I have called anyone my 'partner'. Surely I can't have chosen this question? Maybe I was drunk. I proberbly chose it when drunk back in 2006 and that is why I can't remember it.

Time to call a human I think.

So, after a helpful conversation with a lovely Scotsman I am now armed with my ART ID number (completely different to what I thought it was), email resetting my online password and the total balance of my debt. I owe a grand total of £13,133. Which is not actually as bad as I thought it would be, especially for a Classics degree from one of the top 5 departments in the country. I had it in my head that the debt was over £18,000, so it is quite a relief really.

Another nugget of information I found out from my telephone conversation was that even though repayments are deducted straight from my wage on a monthly basis, my employer does not pass that money on to the SLC until the end of the tax year. Meaning my employer is earning interest my money! This had made me somewhat annoyed. And apparently it is not possible to opt out of the wage deductions if there is still an outstanding balance on the loan.

If they only require one lump payment to be made a year then I surely I should be able to put that money aside in a savings account and earn interest on it - not my employer.

Hard times and January blues

It has been a particularly slow Monday today. I'm not entirely certain where my head is at, but I think it got left behind somewhere this morning when I ran out of the door nearly late, as usual. Work passed by in a sort of daze. I sat through two meetings more interested in picking bobbles off the gorgeous angora cardigan my mother got me for Christmas, than contributing in any useful way, and pretty much dozed my way through a lunch date with E, my works partner in crime.

I think the January Blues have officially set in. The festive season bled me dry financially and physically. And although the damage done to my liver is now slowly repairing itself, I unfortunately have two weeks to go until the damage to my bank account has any chance of healing.

An empty bank account means an empty diary, and while I'd normally be busying myself with post work drinks, shopping and dinner dates with friends, all I have to look forward to in January is the weary trudge home to whatever measly dinner I can pull together from my emergency rations.

Now don't worry, I'm pretty good at battening down the hatches when times are about to get tough. It's in fact quite the running joke amongst my flatmates, who call me the 'little stockpiler'. At the first sign of any financial challenge on the horizon my immediate response is to do a massive, but cheap, online food shop from Tesco. And this month was no different. My cupboards are filled with can upon can of chopped tomatoes, baked beans, kidney beans, butter beans, some other kinds of beans, some tuna and a few more kinds of beans. I've got potatoes, onions, garlic, pasta, cous-cous and rice. I've got a large amount of chicken thighs bagged up in the freezer, along with salmon and fish cakes. I've got vegetables to last me nearly to the end, and then a £5 stash for the final few days. And of course I have tea bags and coffee.

So you see, I won't starve, I will be living on casseroles and still getting my coffee in the morning. Lunch at work will be hassle free and brought from home every day. My oyster card is paid up until March so I can get to and from work. Everything important is taken care or, all bills are paid and up-to-date so it's fine, really it's fine. But, without the distractions of a hectic social life it is easy to start feeling a little blue, and it's not like I have a boyfriend to keep me company on the sofa. I just thank goodness the last purchase I treated myself to was the Sex and the City box set, heavily discounted in the Zavvi closing down sale.

And that is where I shall sign off now, tucked up in bed with my cosiest winter warmers, full up from bean casserole and off to immerse myself in the joys of Carrie and the girls in season three.

Life could be worse... but roll on February!

The joys of London transport

People on London trains can really piss me off. There a few types of offenders...

Firstly, people who sit on the outside seat and then tut when you say "excuse me please" to sit down on the free seat by the window. When there are about a thousand people all battling for an inch of space I think it is rather rude to assume it is acceptable to take up two seats all to oneself.

Secondly, people who don't move down. Again, when there are a thousand people all trying to squeeze into one carriage I think it is extremely rude for someone to stand half down the aisle and tut when you try and squeeze past them to make more room for the folk stuck on the platform.

Thirdly, (and this is more of an "I laugh at you because you are fucking stupid" kind of annoyance) people who run down the platform to get on the train that isn't due to leave for nearly another ten minutes. And even more annoyingly the lemming effect of others noticing someone running, and starting to run too. Chill out people! These types of offenders are usually those who do the commute wearing scruffy trainers with their office attire, and possibly carry backpacks. Another of my pet hates. Urgh!

I am off work sick, I am literally sick. About three times this morning to be precise. I think Pizza Express may have poisoned me. Bastards.

I hate being sick. It's not so bad when you are sick from drinking too much, because you are generally too drunk to be fully aware of what's happening and you generally pass out afterwards. But when you are poorly sick you just regress to the vulnerability of your childhood days. I want my mum, and i want to lie on the sofa in my sleeping bag, be allowed to watch TV all day and be nursed with soup and ice lollys. Actually scratch that, I don't think i could hold food down right now. But having my mum would be nice, rather than my empty flat with not even a flatmate around give me sympathy.

Oh well, I'm a big girl now and will have to survive. I have managed to drag myself to the shop for emergency supplies of ginger beer and wholemeal bread before the weakness sets in. Ginger Beer? I hear you say, but this is a gem of Tabby family wisdom, passed down from generation to generation. Well from my Dad. but anyway, ginger beer is the most perfect tonic for sickness. Ginger settles your stomach and ginger in ginger beer form is the ideal way to take it. This, along with dry wholemeal toast, will save you from death via sickness I guarantee.
At any other time I would find it hard to walk into a shop and buy ginger beer and keep a straight face. Ginger beer is the strange forgotten drink that sits in the bottom of the fridge. It lives in the pages of Enid Blyton and your grandad probably used to drink it. But when ever I have sickness there I am, with a face of grim determination, stocking up on the stuff.

Oh and all my lovely new clothes from ASOS will be be arriving today, arriving to my work address. I am sulking.

So, sympathy is neeeded today people, and feel free to share your pearls of wisdom and rescue remedies with me.

London in October

I have woken up this morning to the sound of heavy rain on the roof, and it is enough to make me want to just dive straight back under the duvet and ignore the day. Sounds dramatic I know, but Autumn rain really depresses me.

Everyone rushes everywhere in the rain, and pays their fellow pedestrian even less attention than is normal for London. People just seem push and shove past each other, with no care for the danger their brollies pose to the other pavement users.

And aside from the health and safety risk of London rain, there is just the fact it hinders most plans! Going for a night out? Will need to take brolly to protect carefully styled hair; but where is one to put the dripping wet umbrellavwhich is far larger than one's disco purse? Shopping in the rain? Forget it; no hands free to hold the shopping bags.

Then there is the risk of spray from passing cars and lorrys in the roads, and the fact that while an umbrella protects the top of your head it does little to keep the rain off your legs. Soaked jeans anyone? And a downpour results in over crowded buses, crammed full of damp miserable commuters who normally walk the few streets from the tube.

So you see, I may sound like a moaning girl on this, but I really feel my dislike of London rain is justified. However, I am not going to let it ruin my day completely. Rain makes perfect weather for checking out a museum or gallery, which is exactly what I plan to do today.