Fucked for a pound! And the Interesting Story about Temping. And a very Lambrini Castle Summer.

Pheeeeeeewwwwww.

Fucking rollercoaster, so it's been! I am so excited about this post because simply so much time has passed, and lots of merriness has been had and lots of drink has been consumed but not much money has been spent. Which was nice.

So, my exams. Not entirely unlike the last ones I endeavoured - bloody dreadful, but there you go. Revising thoroughly and doing well would just be too obvious wouldn't it? I'm waiting on some resits, though I know not which ones because the Maths Dept office definitely doesn't have it's arse in any gear whatsoever and can't tell us til the end of this fucking month. Fucking bureaucrats. How do I feel about this all? Honestly? Well, tis a first year in all honesty and I would love nothing more than to just pass it and get on to next year and get stuck into some proper studying. Timescale-wise I can't quite fathom how resit revision is going to come off without a hitch (factoring in full time job and inherent shying away from academic effort), but I'll let you know. Besides, you're only cool if you do resits cos it shows you're not a Keener, alright?

Then there was that bit after exams and it was pleasantly not too fucked up because, really, it was more of a relief than a clear aching to get blasted to buggery at the Union, also other people were still doing exams (how dare they) so I just chilled, drank here and there, and just enjoyed the craic.

Oh, and guess what, I went on a Maths People Night Out. Har har har. You'll be pleased to know that I chatted sufficient quantities of inebriated shite to make them weary of me, too, and that I now feel fully like a Maths Person. Whatever that might be, considering I can't seem to pass any Math exams!

What happened between there and then is a little bit hazy, due in part to my seeming inability at the time to record it faithfully here, but I have it in good confidence from My Memory that it involved some shenanigans of all kinds, and that it was Actually Really Good Fun.

And I was still working at the Cabin at the time. See that? It's called past tense, and we use it when we bail out of a job when we can't be arsed to leave Gay Pride for a shift and they accept our slight indifference towards the task at hand. Ok, not that I was ever going to get their Employee of The Month (if, indeed, they had one), but usually the bare minimum is to turn up for your allocated shifts. Again, too obvious for me, and I hadn't at the time yet finished my ABSOLUTELY LUSH bottle of wine, so it was never going to happen really.

I'm glad I don't work there anymore. Working now in a fantastically normal shift pattern like One of Those Adults You See Off The Telly, I realise just how much easier it all can be when you accept banality and do a nine to five as opposed to working evenings. Basically, I was still holding down the Cabin gig just after exams, and it ever so slightly got in the way of that important task of Having Fun, most of which seems to happen in the Evening (go figure), so aye it was annoying having to miss out on nights out (although Heaven only knows probably a good idea because even though party says yes, funds with me seem to always say no. Not even just no either, but no fucking way and don't even think about it. Humbug.)

Anyway the tips were shit. Nuff said!

Feeling giddy on poverty, I set off with my CV in the general direction of some employment agencies (you know, those bastards who take a cut off every single penny you earn in return for finding you a cushty position in an office you'd never thought of working in yourself), and I landed myself a job quite conveniently straight away. Now, it is my understanding of these places from the recent experiences of friends that they can be extremely slippery and evasive, and love nothing more than giving you the ole Email Your CV Fob Off ('your CV looks great, but my desk is full at the moment, so email it in to me and I'll call you back with the job details'), or even worse, the We Ask You Back For An Appointment Then Seem To Know Nothing About it And Completely Waste Your Time trick, but fortunately for me, I had walked in at a fortuitous point in time, my not-too-shabby typing skills and ability-to-data-entry-like-a-mean-mofo, and their just-popped-up data entry position available, and it was a matched made in job hunting Heaven. If, by 'job hunting' you mean 'needing something badly paid and boring over the summer' and if by 'Heaven' you mean 'Hell', of course.

The job in question was revealed to me partially after a few very mundane typing tests, basic data entry over a period of two months ish. However, they were not at liberty to divulge to me the exact details due to the 'confidential nature' of the job (which, by the way, I have told exactly EVERYBODY about), but after my resigning myself to the position of much boredom, I found out it was logging personal posession details onto a database for a Very Famous Person. Oooh.

Also, the job happened to be the whopping commute of just at the top of our street, so I was very fucking pleased about that.

I'm in that job now, by the way, and as it goes with all new jobs, I really like it. This, of course, I've said about every job I've ever started so I'm going to ignore the fact I'll probably hate it in a week and just revel in the enjoyment of gainful employment. The office is really nice and designery, as you'd expect from someone with a lot of money, and the staff are completely chilled out and friendly, there's plenty of banter to break the monotony of data entry. There is a nifty little kitchen too with more expensive flavoured teas than you could shake a stick at, the occasional strains of Gaydar Radio playing (I'm not joking), a 'sandwich man' who comes round with.. well I'm just patronising you now aren't I, a comfortable desk, good working hours, and a nice normal weekend off thing. Lovely. Actually, I've been told by everyone I would be so thoroughly bored doing data entry, but I've found you can pleasantly switch off and just get yourself into the flow of reading, typing, saving, repeat. Plus the stuff I'm entering makes for fantastic reading. Let's just say it's filthy how much money famous people have!

That assignment goes on til whenever I finish all the files that need to be done, so it's a good initiative to have a good pace because I'm just dreaming of holidays already, as one is always wont to do during summery times.

That's enough about the job!

In amongst all of that, three very cool people moved to London, two just for the summer and one for good. 'For good', that a scarily permanent-sounding thing, but I have to assume it's halfway true if you start a very well paid and intellectual job in the City. That person is Bethan, and she landed on her feet and got a job straight after uni, bypassing the inevitable Starbucks Slog. Good for her, good for Lloyds Bank (to whom she owes countless British Pounds), bad for Reality Calls factor (shit! It's the Real World! It's Grown Up Life! I'm not ready for this!) Well that'd be my reaction anyway, but I'm not the suave and mature one of the two eldest Herbert-MacDougall lineage, haha. Oh, and the other two people who moved here are the fantastic Owens and Gemma, Owens to take her first and maybe last tentative steps in the mighty world of the Investment Bank (I say last because I see her more as a diplomat than a money hungry bastard haha) and Gemma to live with Tim for a bit and make some dollar. Which technically means now that she's living with me, because I moved in with Tom so Betty could live in my flat until she finds her feet here, so that's all really nice.

Actually I have to say at this point that it's all turned out really cushty and fantastic. I had begun to think this having to live in London due to lease-related issues over summer was a bad thing, and although I still always bitch about paying rent for a room I never use (my fault entirely), the whole Summer thing seems to have come together really well... Basically I'm loving it. Loving it loving it loving it, though admittedly I'm really poor (more about that later) and having to always put aside £120 for rent and bills a week is a massive burden for someone as financially scatty as I am (especially hanging out with people with no financial responsibilities who have lots of money to squander... actually I tell a lie it's only Tom really, but he is my boyfriend after all, and he lives the financial dream I aspire to one day achieving- complete and utter devoidness of any responsibility save for to satiate your need for food but more importantly your hunger for beer). Really though, everyone else has Money Issues like me, and it's so lovely to all be in the same boat and enjoy being resourceful (definitely more about that later).

Sorry I went off on a tangent (too many weeks unblogged and I wish to forget none of it and Rhys I know you read this so this is really a lot for you too!) This Summer- I had my doubts but it really has worked out fantastically for me. It seems definitely a case of Everything In It's Right Place (but not as eerie as the Radiohead song). I'm getting on so well with the girls, some of my best friends are in London, my sister, I have a job, I'm healthy and happy, and always busy having fun. I couldn't really ask for more except, perhaps, a few hundred quid for rent, but nothing else. I'm very fortunate I think, even if my negative nature sometimes means I lapse into questioning things like why some people get lucky breaks and others have to slog for the same things. But that was only last week and now I'm really happy.

Here's one thing I discovered after moving my stuff into Tom's flat for the time being. I'm entirely a gippo by nature, and my whole self is governed by this unusual property - behaviour: erratic, flightly; finances: shit, pleasantly questionable; clothes: always, always messy and crap; tendencies: erring inexplicably on the side of transience; aspiration: to never be held in one location by anything, not a single thing. You know how this year, I kind of let my flat mates down by not being there much and generally being Absent Ceri, well since moving into Tom's, I'm here at 28 Clifford House all the time, and barely ever at Tom's. I'm enjoying myself with the girls so much, and we have a lot in common, and we're all free and easy at the moment. Oh I really love this summer feeling, like nothing really matters much except living in this moment and going from one adventure to another. Ahhhh. I think sleeping at the place where I'm supposed to is just too obvious (hey, it's that Too Obvious thing again! I'm so weird), the real fun of life is dossing where I shouldn't be. Even if I'm finding myself always having to go back to Tom's to brush my teeth and change my pants.

He's not here at the moment incidentally, he's on holiday in France. And for me, personally, the great thing is, I feel I've outgrown my odd insecure dependency on him. I can quite comfortably be my own person again and not have to be around Tom all the time. Not that you should accept this as any sign of the condition of our relationship (which is, actually, really great at the moment and I love him more than ever), but simply I realise that everything has it's time and not every moment needs a boyfriend present. Could I really be on my way to true work/life/love balance? Surely not, Ceri!

Wow, this is an epic isn't it? Have I lost you yet?

I suspect this wouldn't be an authentic Ceri posting unless I told you about at least a few nights out (and some days out), so here are the ones I remember:

- Rhys took us to Greenwich and it was marvellous. The scenery by the Thames is amazing, and we climbed the hill to the observatory. Smoking a joint by the Cutty Sark felt just so right, and it it was one of those ventures you label A Really Good Fun Day Out.

- I went home to Cardiff for a few days to look after Mini Herberts while mum and dad were doing the ole Graduation bit with Betty (she got a fucking 2:1!!! Well done Bethan, you're amazing, really you are), and it was like revisiting a scene in a film where everything's just like where you last left it. Oh, the kids are so beautiful, and to my sheer amazement, all the Fabulous Five were there. Please excuse me if my writing becomes slightly giddy here, I've just put on One Thing by Amerie and the oddest thing is I feel like I'm about to slide off this planet with joy, it's odd but I find blogging my good moments euphoric, like a timely reminder than actually Cez it's not all too shabby. I had a really nice time chilling with Mair and Marc, giving lifts to Elin to empower her active social life, seeing the mateys but remaining a sober driver, and revelling in seeing something that isn't a brick wall or other blocks of flats out of my window. Getting off the
trusty 320 bus (the one that on a good day carries about 4 pensioners and at least one moody teen who I can tell hates living in Peterston due to the abysmal transport links), I indulged in pure film montage style Enjoying Coming Home: I frollicked in fields walking the dogs and splashing my feet in a stream, and was like a pig in shit when I found a bicycle in the shed and rode it round and round the garden in the sun, the wind in my hair, feeling ridiculously delirious about the sheer joy of the whole thing. Later, I sat on the picnic table and I don't think I've ever spent so long just enjoying looking at green land, horizons made of hills not brick, and feeling like I could skip for miles and not be flattened by a London Bus. haha. I had to leave to get back to London for a shift at the Cabin which turned out to be an utter false economy anyway, as it was so dead my shift only lasted two hours, and it broke my heart when the bus trundled down the street and Mair and Marc wouldn't let me go and gave me the most massive cwtch of my life. I cried on the bus when I got a call from Mair and she was crying saying she didn't want me to leave. Sometimes I wonder what it does to them seeing me and Bethan just come in and out of their lives every now and again, must be really odd doing the ole 'older sibling' thing. Me and Betty didn't have any of that, but I can imagine it must be really weird sometimes knowing you have sisters living somewhere in a place you can't even imagine, and they turn up sporadically and then piss you off by leaving. A thought occured to me the other day, when Marc is 18 and Mair is 20, I'll be 29 and definitely expected to be a responsible adult role model by society. Imagine that!

- There was Henry's party, which was a funny one. The invite blurb (and by invite I mean, the one Mandy received because she knows him and I actually don't, ho ho) said 'playboy bunnies, dressing up, poker table, obligatory shots on the door', so we gave ourselves hernias trying to knock up half convincing outfits, ignoring the fact that most of our labels read not Prada, but Primark, and you couldn't have a playboy bunny with an arse of such epic proportions as mine. As it transpired, the reality was pleasingly down to earth (perhaps even disappointingly so, considering the biggie that banter had made of the occasion). The 'posh flat' concept which had so readily been bandied around in chat was actually a one bedroom studio affair (they say studio, I say someone realised the space was too 'cosy' to put in any type of wall). All in all though a great night, spent largely milling around the compact space being drunk and having made-for-party conversations about knobs and muslim wives. Incidentally, I forgot to mention I made Mandy wear the Pat Butcher there (a huge 70s vintage faux fur monstrosity my nan sent me for my 20th birthday that actually provides us with a lot of humour!), which was nice.

- Roger and Krystal's birthday celebration took place just after most people had finished their exams, which made it an opportune time to partake of more than a little debauchery. We all met at the Union and it was a really ecclectic crowd, and the night ensuing at Turnmills was nothing short of fabulous, when mine and Tim's KatHats made an appearance and were surprisingly enjoyed by everyone there. There are so many pictures on the MandyCam of various buggered people wearing the hats, but that's what it's all about isn't it? Myself, Tom, Mandy and Tim stayed til the very end, which makes us the winners (haha) and we got the morning tube home in the way that we so love doing where other, more sober people look at us with contempt and wonder. Dibs to Turnmills for giving out free tiptops (apparently known here as ice pops, but I came from Wales and we keep it real, so I know for a fact that's rubbish and they are in fact scientifically named with the genus Frozenus T. Toppus so that's the end of that dispute).

- Oh and there was Liz'z birthday in Cargo. East London is lovely, with a really harty buzzing feel to the nightlife, and I simply adore Cargo and it's archway feel and indoor barbecue area that looks like a greenhouse. There was a fantastic live band which made me feel incredibly jolly, and later Gem and I danced to spunky world music and she taught me some belly dancing. It was one of those nights with a really sparse dance floor so you can really throw yourself around and feel free (to make an arse of yourself); a small Japanese girl came up to me and said she liked my dancing, how cute! Getting home was the typical story of an East-to-West nightbus commute, involving lots of waiting and asking questions to randoms at the bus stop who aren't helpful, but Roger took it upon himself to fuck with the system and break a massive advertising billboard. Climbing it like a little lithe monkey he managed to break down the bottom section which I must say was really impressive and drew the adulation of the watching crowd.

Shit I don't think I even have time to write the past few weeks, Betty just got back and we're going to do some chillaxing. Also Mel's gone to acquisition some Country Manor and we all know where that leads, ladies and gentlemen!


Love you all, more to come tomorrow
x x x x x