que pasa, NY?
Well, three days to go now before embarking on this years’ Big Trip (last years being Jersey I suppose, if travel by air is one of the main criteria), and I have spent today happily organising warm clothing in accordance with the weather forecast (desirably and reassuringly chilly) composing ipod playlists and Kindle collections and most importantly, ensuring my ever-glowing record in the environmental arena by eating almost the entire contents of the refrigerator and cupboards with ample time to go, both virtuously avoiding wastefulness and neatly affording myself carte blanche to live on takeaways for the rest of the week. Yay!
The half-term holiday has been unexpectedly steady visitor-wise, and I have been no less astonished by the volume of queries arriving daily from across the pond since I resolved my wrestlings with Eros last week – it would seem that short, curvy and English is a winning combination! I have almost completed my plans for shopping and sightseeing plus the all important restaurant list, the apartment is neat and fishes are plumply fed and newly cleaned, with the only job left to drop in their one-week food sticks (my housesitter, whilst perfectly capable in every way of collecting post, watering houseplants and opening/closing the curtains, is not trusted with the huge responsibility of accurately portioning fish flakes, and to this end the tub is to be carefully hidden in the sock drawer just in case).
I am also ashamed to admit that the insidious feelings of dread which heralded the return of Zumba time (following last weeks first attempt) became too much for me by three pm, and a sheepish cancellation was made in favour of a couple of solitary hours with the usual machines, weights and up-and-down in the pool as usual. The enthusiastic post-Christmas rash of new memberships appears to be well and truly over and to my delight I had many of the facilities to myself for a time, allowing me to not only read all of the daily newspapers undisturbed (since I do not apply this category to either the Mail or the Express, this didn’t take as long as it might) but take up as much bench space as I wanted in the steam room, and after enjoying a good half hour doing exactly that I set off for home resembling a cross between Crystal Tipps and one of those Mongolian lamb cushions most economically obtained in TK Maxx (and most unconvincingly faked by Matalan).
My trip, frankly, cannot come soon enough following the various stresses and strains of Christmas, birthday (or more specifically the three days of Exorcist-style illness) and the various machinations of the last few weeks – the prospect of leaving it all behind for a while in order to stroll through Central Park on a bright wintry day, take in the collections at the Guggenheim and MoMA, eat my body weight in red meat with cheese on it, and most importantly kick up my heels with as many of the charming local gentlemen as I can fit in my BlackBerry is a far more enticing one than even I had thought during those early investigating stages way back in October. I am even bizarrely excited at the prospect of staying in a Premier Inn the night before my flight, although I expect this will wear off before my hastily-grabbed-at-St-Pancras M&S bed picnic is even out of its wrappers, apart from my current favourite Tropical Fruit & Ripping Raspberry Jelly Heaven, which is singularly unlikely to make it even as far as the (keycarded) lift.
So, since my availability before the weekend is currently zero, and I intend to spend the entirety of Saturday in packing and self-refurbishment I will bid my UK readers farewell for a few days! Thanks to the joys of free wi-fi and Vaio portability I will be technically online to answer enquiries during the week, but please bear in mind I will not be hanging around the computer all day, nor will I be using my BlackBerry for email so anybody wishing to make enquiries for appointments after my return, please be patient. Needless to say my UK work phone will not be accompanying me, and since precisely two of the last twenty or so calls have resulted in actual meetings, both of these with people I already know (pretty much the diametrical opposite of the email enquiries, in other words) a break from the Can’t-Read-Won’t-Reads, Hey-Babes and Details-Loves will be akin to ten hours sleep, an aromatherapy bath and a top-to-toe massage on it’s own. I tentatively await the New York versions…
Progress report midweek (and maybe pictures, if you’re good)…
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