Success

I seem to have fixed my blog. But I'm not too sure how.

Well, hello again, my little bloglets.
How are YOU today? I don't ask you enough!

I'm killing time before my last EVER shift as a permanent employee at Birmingham Children's. It will, however, be anticlimactic, as I return on shift the very next day (we are paid extra to cover any unfilled shifts). Woo hoo :(

I don't think we've really chatted since I went to Wales to visit Claire. May I draw you a mental image of what a perfect few days it was?

The journey:
I set off up the Hagely Road, one of the big vessels through Birmingham. I am stuck in traffic. It is grey outside. The trees have shed their orange and yellow leaves and they gather on the road and in the drains. The rain slooshes as my wipers lazily wipe it away. I have the heat cranked and I am warm and toasty. As brake and indicator lights blink at me through the haze, and it gets almost imperceptably darker and darker, I watch everyone on the streets around me, dashing through the rain, rushing with black umbrellas raised, stopping to chat with newspapers raised above their heads. On the radio: Damien Rice, 9 Crimes. Could there BE a more perfect soundtrack for being cozy and people watching? If you are unscrupulous like le moi, download it and listen while you read this. You will see what I mean.




Down the motorway:
I am cruising at 80mph down the motorway, my little Micra Jessie May huming happily like a mosquito to be out and on the road again. I am accompanying Amy Winehouse to her fab new song, Rehab. I can't stop bopping as I drive along. Diva, moi.

The arrival:

It is dark as I stop in Abergavenny for gas and to grab a bottle of nice red wine and some flowers for Claire. For my non-British readers, you may not have heard a mid-Wales accent, but it just grabs you and pulls you into a big welcoming hug! As I wait to pay for my stuff, the locals around me are making idle chit-chat and I wish desperately that I could be one of them, living in their beautiful town in one of their cozy grey houses, gathering with them in their local pub for a beer near the fire every evening.

(Though, in retrospect, away from the welcoming glow, I suppose that would mean having grown up in mid-Wales which is certainly far down below even Calgary on the list of exciting places to be reared!)

I pull up outside the farm where she is staying, having turned off the main road long ago and followed an endless two-tire track for miles and miles. This place could be a in a movie. A rambling stone farm house, surrounded by fields and field of sheep and a barn with 6 fluffy grey dogs, snouts through the crack in the barn door to, woofing for all they're worth to herald my arrival.

She welcomes me inside with a big hug - we haven't seen each other in a long time. For those who don't know, Claire was my flatmate at University. She is amazing. I lived with two Claires, BrownHair Claire and Crazy Clare. This is not Crazy Clare.

I will spare you the details of our in-depth girly chats but we sat by a HUGE hearth, drinking wine, eating steak, a cat curled up on a pillow next to us and some of the fluffy grey dogs snoozing at our feet. At bedtime, we mounted stone stairs, through this mansion with tapestries on the wall and lofty balcolnies teeming with every book imaginable, and I crept into a four poster bed and snuggled down, listening to the wind howling and lashing the windows as I fell asleep. Bliss.

Who says winter sucks?

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Soundtrack for this blogging session:
Damien Rice - 9 Crimes

Amy Winehouse - Rehab

Lily Allen - Little Things

All Saints - Rock Steady