bike me up, baby.

I reckon I could pull this off.

Copenhagen is the cycling capital of the world.

I'm not as scared when I see stuff like this.

6 days to go.

wine-schmine.

I've got a lot going on at the moment (understandably), but I just remembered that I meant to blog this a while ago.

The other weekend we went to see a friend of a friend's band play, but somehow we got there WAY too early. Not even too early to not look like eager beavers and be fashionably late, but too early for the place to even be open. So in my 'oh-yeah-I've-always-wanted-to-go-there-let's-do-it' excitement, I talked the boys into going this super-chic wine bar, based on an old chemist's shop.

The second we walked in the door we were pounced on by a waiter who gave us menus and sat us down on some lovely frenchy lounges in a quiet corner (amongst the 30-somethings sipping their Penfolds or whatever, and eating cheese platters). We were obviously a little out of place, but we couldn't exactly just get up and leave so we decided to have a drink. We would play it cool, cool as cucumbers.

I really like sweet white wines (red - uh, no thankyou), but I couldn't think of the name of the type that I usually like. So I looked down the list to the 'sweet and fortifieds' section, and picked out what I thought was the one I liked. I even asked the waiter 'is this a white?' and he looked at me a little strangely, but said yes.

So I ordered the rather expensive drop, and he brought me out this horrible looking red wine. I made sure my face didn't fall until after he had turned his back, and instantly realised what I had done.

I hadn't ordered a light and fruity MOSCATO, but a deep, warm, disgusting MUSCAT, that tasted like really strong, foul-smelling honey. The waiter thought I had asked 'is this wine?' not 'is this white?'. I may not know my wines, but i'm not that retarded. I do understand what the heading 'wine list' means.

So I held my breath, screwed up my face and drank the revolting stuff. I think I only came close to flat-out spitting it out once or twice. I pray to god that the waiter didn't catch my awful facial expressions as I braved through the glass.

Safe to say I will not be showing my face in there for the next 20 years.

That will be the end of my attempted wine-conisseuring for a good while, methinks.

10 days to go.

light reading.

Just some light reading for the next couple of weeks, courtesy of the local library.

27 days to go.

smile.

I went to see Happy-Go-Lucky a couple of days ago. It came at just the right time. I had an intense few days at work over the weekend, and was ready to hit the next customer who ignored me/wouldn't smile/refused to say thankyou over the head with a Pane Di Casa Stick (trust me, this would cause considerable damage.)

Enter the eclectic Poppy (Sally Hawkins) who's smile never left her face as she chatted on at a thousand words a minute in an attempt to brighten up someone, anyone's life. I laughed out loud during a movie, properly, for the first time in a long while in the Flamenco dancing scene (above). It was just what I needed. The unsmiling world around Poppy's optimism are the people who I serve everyday. It's not that hard just to be polite, to smile.

Don't get me wrong, I have some lovely customers. It's probably only one in ten or twenty that frustrate me. But it puts a downer on my day and I know that my bad mood then translates onto other people.

If you do nothing else today, smile at the person behind the counter. Say thankyou. You don't have to be over the top, in your face like Poppy, just be nice about it.


PS I would obviously recommend seeing the movie, but I would also advise against it if a) you are currently in the process of driving lessons/are contemplating taking driving lessons, or b) are having a career-direction-crisis, as it will quite possibly make you want to be a primary school teacher. The scene where Poppy and her kids are flapping around as owls is gorgeous.

29 days to go.