Lowlight of the day - Checking the TfL website to plan my journey home to my parents' house for Easter Sunday the following day to find that Southeastern trains, in typical reliable style, have cancelled all trains to my local station on both Sunday and Monday (covering my return journey) which leaves me with a two-tube-one-DLR-one-bus fun combo. Oh joy.

Embarrassing moment of the day - Being at home with the parents and "More Sex Please We're British" coming on, with opening scenes of people removing massive dildos from boxes...'nuff said.

I went home to my parents' for Easter Sunday.  I say it was not very Easter-like, though, as we didn't do anything particularly Eastery.  I'm a bit old for Easter eggs, we don't watch the Easter hymns like at Christmas when we watch the carols, as we just don't know the Easter hymns (I was hoping for Oats and Beans and Barley Grow, but apparently that's neither a hymn nor an Easter song).  We didn't even have hot cross buns.  It made me wonder exactly what we did as a tradition at easter except for eat cake and chocolate and I honestly couldn't think of anything.  My Mum still spent most of the time trying to feed me and interviewing me about all aspects of my life, as if we never speak on the phone or as if I hadn't seen her only about a fortnight ago! When she will realise that my love life, work life and home life are all highly unlikely to drastically change in the space of two weeks I'm not sure, but that day can't come too soon! I feel like I'm on Parkinson!

Not much to report today, so I thought I'd write about something wonderful I did last Sunday.  I went to the Museum of Immigration at 19 Princelet Street between Brick Lane and Spitalfields.  It's a museum dedicated to the various immigrants who have lived in the area and that house since it and the surrounding houses were built by French Huguenot silk weavers in the first half of the 18th century.  It's a truly fascinating museum, based in a house which was also used as a secret synagogue by Jews in the area in the 19th century.  They knew it had a synagogue in the back of the house, but the other locals didn't, so they secretly worshipped there in peace away from persecution.  From the engravings of names of donators to the synagogue on the walls, to the large silk reel hanging on the front of the house (the sign of a master silk weaver) the house echoes the uniquely diverse history of the East End and an area that is today so sought after but has been through a very poor and run-down past.  Immigrants from France, Eastern Europe, Ireland, the Carribbean and the Bengal have inhabited this area throughout the years and all left their marks.  I used to be a tour guide, doing walks along these streets, covering much of their histories and this house summarises it all beautifully and succinctly within four walls.   It gives you a lot of food for thought about people, community, heritage, London and your own personal history. 

It's only open for a few hours every couple of months (I queued for a good hour in the freezing cold) but it is definitely worth it.  They do lots of fabulous work with local schools about immigration and local history throughout the centuries too.  A lot of it was on display.  If you ever get the chance to go, do it!

http://www.19princeletstreet.org.uk/

This was also number 20 on my list of 30 things to do before I'm 30, so well done me for ticking it off! One of the easier ones done!

Highlight of the day - having some friends over for dinner, one of them bringing their beautiful, well-behaved, intelligent, friendly and generally perfect in every way 6-year-old with them.  I have NO kids in my life at the moment (in spite of constantly telling all of my friends and relatives in long-term relationships (and otherwise) that I am MORE THAN ready for them to have kids, whether they are or not), so it was so lovely to spend some time with a child in the room for a change.  I am still grinning from ear to ear today.

Embarrassing moment of the day - I was in a tiny tiny toilet (not the actual apparatus, the room) and was at the urinal closest to the real WC cubicle door.  I was standing weeing, even closer to the man in the urinal next to me than I would be normally - it's awkward enough at the best of times -  when the man in the cubicle came out and said to me "it's very pokey in here isn't it?" - Very much an accurate statement, but why did he consider a time at which my penis was unclothed and I was urinating almost cheek-to-cheek with a urinating man on the other side and everyone being able to see everyone else's business, a time suitable for polite chit-chat?  So akward!  I didn't reply. 

This post is about Saturday, as I'm catching up.  Is it Easter Saturday or is it not special enough to have a name? Today, I went to eat in the Princess Louise pub, which is a beautiful pub in Holborn with a maze-like interior and lots of little sections which reminds me of a posh Victorian train (not that I've ever been in one).  I went with the intention of eating there, but when asked if they were serving food, we were told 'not today' with no further explanation, so I'll try again for that another time.  We ate in a little Italian called Cafe Mode I think which was very reasonable. 

Anyway, after that we went to see Judas Kiss with Rupert Everett at the Duke of York's Theatre.  I wanted to go to Music and Notes Coffee Shop which is opposite on St Martin's Lane, but we ran out of time.  Duke of York theatre is truly tiny (hence aforementioned half-naked pokey toilet chit-chat).  The play was good.  It's about Oscar Wilde's life.  It didn't cover quite as much of his life as I was expecting.  It was more like four scenes which covered four snapshots of his life.  There was a LOT of nudity and quite a lot of rude jokes.  The average age of the audience was about 60 so I'm not really sure if it was what everyone was expecting.  My friend fancied the naked guy in the first half (blonde-hair-blue-eyed) and I fancied the naked guy in the second half (Italian stallion).  Attractive naked guys (and I don't mean half-naked) are really quite distracting in a play, so between us we managed to piece together what happened as we both watched one half each!   Quite appropriate watching Judas Kiss over Easter.  I'm not sure Jesus would approve of the content though!

Highlight of the day - I love puns.  Some of my friends and I think it's funny to put -poo on the end of the things to make them sound cute, because we are frightfully intelligent and mature.  My friend said he was sorry for being a 'flakeypoo' because he was cancelling on an arrangment and I am very proud for coming up with the pun that a flakeypoo is the poo you do after having too many Flakes. 

Embarrassing moment of the day - A man catching me staring at his thumbs on the tube...as you do. I mean, they were attached to a massive hand which was attached to a massive person (I'm slightly baffled as to how he fit himself on the tube!) but it was the thumbs that seemed to fascinate me. They completely swamped his iPhone and were actually bigger than most penises I've seen (mine not included).  Quite astounding.  When he gave me a strange look back, I still got the feeling it wasn't the first time some had stared at them.

So, in spite of being hungover in the morning, I still ventured out yesterday evening.  Well, early evening.  I went on a DATE.  I went on a date with someone I met on GrindR.  If you don't know what GrindR is, it's an app that allows gay guys to meet eachother, based on where you are.  It finds your location and shows you guys that are near to you.  It's frankly all a bit creepy.  It's also all a bit sleazy, and when I say 'a bit' I mean 'a lot'.  Roughly 99% of the guys are looking for sex (give or take...if you'll pardon the crude pun) and 80% send you a picture of their cock before they say 'hello'.  However, I met a guy on there a few weeks ago who seemed not to be after sex and we got chatting and decided to meet.  We went to The Crown pub by Victoria Park.  It was lovely in there, with very friendly service.  I think it must advertise itself as dog friendly or something because there were SO many dogs in there (to the point where I felt like I was in a TV show where dogs ruled the world or something, it was like I was in the minority in a dogs' pub).  Anyway, I know you don't care about the dogs or the service, you want to hear the gorey details of the date. 

Well, for the first time in a long time (I've been on a  lot of dates lately) it actually went ok.  He was 45 minutes late, which was slightly annoying, but we got on quite well.  This is why the day was better than expected.  I have had so many awful dates recently (I will probably write about them on here in the future), that even the fact that we got on marginally well was a big relief.  He also didn't try to touch me up or basically ask me back to his flat for a shag after one He DID tell me at one point that he could speak 'all South Asian languages' which I found a bit ambitious and he also spent quite a long time building himself up by telling me that his previous job were so desperate to keep him when he handed in his notice which they never normally are, but he was SUCH an amazing exception, but, apart from that, there weren't many awkward moments at all.  Having said that, it's been 30 hours and neither of us have been in touch, so maybe it wasn't amazing...I'll keep you updated.

Highlight: Laughing until it hurt AND knowing it was the start of a long weekend 
 AND the glory of our Lord our Jesus dying for our sins...in that order, possibly with some more things inbetween.
 
Embarrassing moment: see below

Why so rowdy? It was a combination of knowing it'the start of a long weekend, a birthday celebration and copious amounts of wine. One of these things may have contributed the most to the rowdiness.  For my friend's birthday, we went to one of these pop-up restaurant things where you get lots of delicious food with personalised service in the chef's living room!! I wasn't entitrely sure what to expect to be honest.  I know that I enjoyed the evening a lot, but I think that may have been more down to the company and the wine (which we brought) than the actual living-room-dining experience. There was a cat on the table before we sat down to eat at it...call me a snob (maybe I am being one), but I'd still paid money and I didn't find that very appetising.  I also found it was eccedingly un-british to use a stranger's loo when sober. Still, four glasses of wine and I caved for a number one...dread to think how many glasses it would've taken if I'd needed a number 2! (Sorry, very crude)

We got very drunk, laughed very hard and were quite rowdy. We were wearing (fairly Christmassy) birthday hats and I think it just brought out the playful children in us.  I'm the first person to roll my eyes at drunk people on the tube when I'm sober, yet I became one of those
annoying people posing for photos in awkward places, walking the wrong way up the escalators and talking gibberish to sober strangers. We made drunk friends. A man made the very silly mistake (of to be fair, probably very drunkenly) falling asleep on our carriage on the tube and we ran around him posing for photos.  He woke up looking very bewildered and about 30 seconds later, another man fell asleep! We did it again.  I was behind him puckering for a kiss and doing a pea To be honest, I felt very young again! (I am only 26, but let's say that I felt 18).  The hangover reminded me, however, that I am not 18.  When I was 18 I would've got up, had some breakfast, watched T4 for an hour and then got on with a normal day.  As a 26-year-old, I spent the best part of the morning with my head over a toilet, hence this post taking so long to appear.  Sorry to mention so many of my bodily fluids today! We're getting to know each other a bit better!

Highlight of the day: I watched a man apologise to an empty pram on the tube because he trod on it...I'm all for gentlemanly, but that seems a bit extreme!

Embarrassing thing I've done today: we got a letter through to our flat last week telling us not to use any water (taps, shower, toilet!) between 9 and 12 today as they were doing something to the pipes and we would flood our flat and die a horrific death, or something or nothing.  My flatmate and I made a great plan for using the shower in turns to make sure we were out in time and had been talking about it all evening yesterday and also this morning.  Then, I unwittingly (thinking that I'd finished the pre-9 shower/coffee/brush teeth/toilet challenge) used my super sticky Lynx hair gel cum cream and needed to wash my hands before stickifying the tube.   My housemate told me not to worry as she had that weird hyperclean hyperclear sanitising gel thing that you can use instead of soap and water.  I used it, chatting away to her as I rubbed it in, proud of my non-water-using abilities.  Then, whilst telling her how proud I was, instinctively turned on the tap to wash it off as if it was soap! Entire point of the exercise lost in a split second.  Turns out that nothing flooded and we didn't die a horrific death though, so, you win some, you lose some.
 
Why was today so reunited? Because I went for a leaving drinks for a girl who's leaving my old job at my previous company.  I had a lot of fun.  I only left a month ago, but it already felt weird to see people.  One guy (who I love) told me how sad he was when I left and that he was going to go to the head of the company and ask him to give me a payrise to convince me to stay, until he heard that actually I was going to a better company with better pay anyway.  He was really nice about  me and my work, so that was truly lovely anyway and it was also great to see some people I haven't seen in a month, who I used to see every day - very reunited.

My day was also reunion-esque as I had a good giggle and PJ + Duncan being number 1 on iTunes after their rendition of Let's Get Ready to Rhumble on their show last week.  I'm not a huge fan of them, but seeing them dance like that as if they were 12 (?) again gave me a right laugh!  On top of that, it's so funny how that skit was a medley of the other acts from ITV's Big Reunion show (like Atomic Kitten and 5ive) but that they have all been on that show for weeks and laid their souls bare, only to have Ant + Dec perform for 1 minute on the end of their medley and get straight to number 1!!

I am keeping every finger and toe crossed that they do another series of reunion and have ETERNAL on it.  I haven't been watching it, because I couldn't care less about Atomic bloody Kitten.  If Eternal were on it, I'd be Just a Step from Heaven and would Stay with that show every night.  I loved Eternal so much.

I also studied a bit of Japanese today.  I should be doing that every day, but, as it stands, it was a reunion after a good couple of weeks of laziness - natsukashi!!

Highlight of the day: see right.  Bugolgi (Korean beef dish) for dinner...something tells me my highlight of the day may often revolve around food.
I've done something stupid today: accidentally pressed the cold water button instead of the hot and made a cold cup of coffee in front of my boss at work (I'm brand new too...way to make a good first impression).  I was so embarrassed about telling him and making him wait even longer for the machine, that I just took it away and drank a few sips until I could run to the toilet and pour it down the sink! Not sure what my other colleague thought when she saw me coming out of the toilet with an empty cup...and it's only just dawned on me now that I could've thrown the cup away in the toilet instead of carrying it back into the office! That really was a 3-minute part of my day where all my brain celles deserted me.  Either she thought I'd taken my coffee in to drink on the loo or that I'd pissed in a cup at my desk and gone to pour it out!

Work wasn't much busier today.  I spent two hours stuck in a room with the only colleague I don't like and listened to her tell me (for 2 hours) about her current woes, which mainly centre on her boyfriend adoring her SO much and she's worried he loves her MORE than she loves him (must be awful.)  Somehow, I survived those two hours and came out the other side in need of a coffee (which turned out to be cold) and some alcohol (which I am sorting now).

The reason my day was Hurwundeki is because I went to a rather random salon cum fashion shop cum homeware shop cum cafe cum restaurant near my flat in Bethnal Green called Huruwndeki Cafe today after work (that sentence is the closest I've come to sex in months).  Hurwundeki means "hair" in a dialect of Korean.  Not that my day was that hairy, in fact, if anything this evening I am far less hairy than I was this morning as I had a haircut there - it only costs £9 for guys.  I then got some bugolgi to takeaway.  I love Korean food (I've been to Korea twice) and looking at the menu made me very tempted to go again and sample the other things they have.   It's BYO booze too, so should work out really cheap.  Meals were mostly under a tenner. I definitely recommend it. 

Highlight of the day: See picture.  Hummingbird red velvet cake (with added chocolate chips...naughty me) and wine.
Lowlight of the day: Getting coughed on on the tube...always nice.

Why unexhaustingly exhausting? Because I had NO WORK to do.  This is pretty rare at my job and, without sounding incredibly selfish, I really didn't want to let on before somebody shat a great load of work on me from a great height.  I had a long week last week, so I thought I deserved a down-day.  The thing is, it's actually incredibly exhausting trying to make yourself look busy all day when all you are in fact doing is checking your facebook and opening the same email again and again and staring at it intently (with the occasional chin clutch for good measure).

Another thing I did today was read the news from the BBC that in a crazy health and safety push, a school has banned triangular flapjacks after a child threw one and it hurt another kid.  Am I the only person thinking that a better solution to the problem would be to do something about the kids lobbing things rather than changing the shape of things to make them slightly less dangerous when lobbed.  I don't imagine they've banned cutlery or trays or any of the other things that are surely more dangerous than triangle flapjacks!! If they banned everything, they'd only be allowed plain soft white bread (cut into oblongs, not triangles of course).  Maybe it's time we went back to turkey twizzlers in the name of safety! They are nice and soft after all, even if they are probably more E-number than meat.

In other safety news, I also had the tube announcer man today telling me "for my own safety" I should not leave newspapers on the station...is that really for my own safety or is it just because it's lazy, rude and dirty? It seems like they'll (not really sure who "they" are...the man or something) put anything down to safety...it's really a bit of an empty phrase now.

What's your craziest safety announcement experience?