Following my rare evening out, I can highly recommend the latest George Clooney release ‘The American’ (fans of trad US action-rubbish need not apply; you’ll be asleep before the second page of dialogue), fabulous northern Chinese food (see above for clay pot soup with mutton meatballs and crispy noodles on) grabbed in a bit of a rush at Red Chilli, and the star of the show upon alighting in the first place, the hot chocolate on Platform 3. Most excitingly of all, and also to be seen above, the festive spirit has even spread to the train ticket checks where the current clippy-things are a Christmas tree shape, which delighted me so much I am ashamed to admit it and nearly made up for my having to dash from the restaurant to catch the last train home without having time to order ‘Donkey Rolled in Mud’, from the dessert section.

Speaking of Christmas trees, this years proudly plump and bristly acquisition arrived promptly (considering the weather) yesterday afternoon, although by the time it was unpacked from the plastic shrinkwrap and tree-netting, carefully carried into the living room and set firmly into it’s cast iron stand it was all I could do to vacuum up the loose bits and have a nice cup of tea, and it was not until nearly bedtime that the rest of the decorating was completed (much to the amazement of the nearby fishes, whom I suspect haven’t quite figured out the twinkling lights yet). It is maybe a little early, but I left the delivery until around the 15th last year and was very upset as a result when January 6th rolled round and Tree was not looking even the slightest bit sorry for itself, despite it being time to go to the shredder. This year I and my visitors will be able to enjoy it for a whole month, and a little extra time with the VAX is not a tremendous hardship in exchange.

It would seem to be necessary to return to the current popular subject – the weather is still extremely cold and my eagerly awaited (and ever-punctual, including today) visitor this lunchtime assures me that his car-thermometer had read -11°C when he left work; in the event that those who have or are intending to book later in the week are reading, please do bear the conditions in mind when travelling! The forecast is apparently to improve from Thursday, and since I am back in London (assuming it hasn’t given up altogether and closed) from Sunday on, I am expecting to be busy. And to those who are still ringing expecting me to somehow sprout wings and materialise in York in an hour’s time – if you can’t easily get to me, HOW exactly do you think I am going to get to you?

London availability is filling up fast, although the typical last-minute cancellations and alterations are starting up – I still have availability on Tuesday 14th and a bit on Monday 13th, so do get in touch! Or don’t, because then I’ll have an excuse to hole up in the Wolseley all morning with a huge brunch order, reading the papers and scowling at tourists. I definitely intend to have my Aquarium visit this time and what with the annual trip to see the Christmas shop windows, I will almost certainly be planning any spare time I have by the end of the day before, so please do bear this in mind if you want to avoid disappointment! Any necessary changes to travel plans will be updated (as ever) here and on the front page of the site, but so far everything is on track and I am looking forward to my final visit of the year.

Back to the present-wrapping and card-writing; some of you may have noticed the unusually frenzied activity on my Formspring since the weekend so do feel free to join in too – everybody else is, it seems! And it beats listening to the weather forecast.

]]> http://www.adoreamy.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/12/07/well-the-weather-outside-is-still-frightful/feed/ 0 http://www.adoreamy.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/12/03/fifteen-feet-of-pure-white-snow/ http://www.adoreamy.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/12/03/fifteen-feet-of-pure-white-snow/#comments Fri, 03 Dec 2010 13:12:51 +0000 amy http://www.adoreamy.co.uk/blog/?p=4239 As some readers will have noticed, the great outdoors has once again caught everybody on the hop by – gasp – SNOWING IN WINTER and I have this week been enjoying the spectacle from the cosy warmth of my apartment, give or take brief sojourns to the gym (and especially, the sauna, where I have happily absorbed enough heat each evening after swimming to carry me through both the mercifully brief walk home and the post-arrival-coat-still-on fridge raid).

Havoc has predictably reigned appointment-wise, as I write (Friday lunchtime) the current record for lateness being one and a half hours and the average being around half an hour; to anyone who is planning a visit and (like most) travelling by road, please set off in good time while the snow lasts! I will be the first to admit that I would much rather a visitor was half an hour late than ten minutes early and since I do not work in the conveyor belt stylee, worry not about running into Eager Punter #7 on the doorstep, but please keep me informed as to your progress and I will be waiting with the kettle (and the heating) resolutely ON.

I will also point out that emailing me asking if I am ‘available for an outcall today?’ is utterly futile unless you tell me where (Scarborough, probably OK; Solihull, Bolton, Llanelli, no), at what time and how long for – I have now had three incidences of whatever we’re calling the ‘text tennis’ email equivalent in the last twenty four hours, and whilst at least it doesn’t use up all my mobile credit, it is tiresome in the extreme and I cannot be expected to agree or refuse an appointment on the basis of the aforementioned request (particularly when it arrives in the form of an impersonal forwarded message which does not address me by name – this one was actually the easiest, since it could be immediately be moved into the bin without fuss). Manners cost nothing, although it has to be conceded that not employing them will save you money in the immediate future, if you see what I mean.

Thanks to a couple of unfortunate but unavoidable cancellations I have had a gentle and more peaceful week after the chaos of the earlier part of last month, and have finally managed to get some new pictures organised! See Gallery for the first few; the rest will be uploaded as I get through the zillions I have to take to get anything like a usable image (one with me actually in the frame, for starters) but shouldn’t be too long. Thanks also to a charming and helpful gentleman who braved the climate to visit earlier today, I have been able to get all of the Christmas things out of the loft and will be spending tomorrow getting seriously festive prior to the main and most anticipated event that is Official Tree Arriving Day on Monday. Even more pleasingly, I can smugly state that I have managed to nail down my first choice Tesco Online Christmas delivery slot for the first time in a couple of years (and will not therefore be wandering the aisles at 3am on Christmas Eve. Again).

So first to the weekend; I am not available tomorrow, but may be able to fit in a couple of limited appointments on Sunday; there is some sporadic availability during next week prior to my London trip but I am already mostly spoken for, not in any small part due to reschedulings from the last few days. London is, well, busy, although there are still appointments dotted about and anyone who hasn’t already got in touch would be well advised to give it a go! I am heading out into the beautiful wintry sunshine now on a Christmas shopping expedition (having fortified myself physically with tomato soup and sausage sandwiches, and mentally with a listen to Phat Planet by Leftfield). Any upcoming changes of plan and I promise you will all be the first to know…

]]> http://www.adoreamy.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/12/03/fifteen-feet-of-pure-white-snow/feed/ 0 http://www.adoreamy.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/11/21/no-sleep-till/ http://www.adoreamy.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/11/21/no-sleep-till/#comments Sun, 21 Nov 2010 16:06:02 +0000 amy http://www.adoreamy.co.uk/blog/?p=3938

Well I’m tired. After a week which has included some fairly athletic activity – far more than expected in fact, considering that the usual yearly pattern around now leans towards something of a slowdown; no sign of this yet! I can possibly blame a little of this at least on a spanking-new review on Captain 69, a members-only site which I admit to being less than familiar with (not being a member haha), hence my not posting any link on my main review bit, although bona fide paying members can find it from here. And maybe they could tell me what it says…

My not inconsiderable travels towards the latter half of the week sent me first to Sheffield for a charming assignation in a very delightful city centre hotel (and I was unexpectedly treated to my favourite Wagamama ramen, raw juice and even cherry cheescake after) followed by a late return to the less-than-delightful Ibis by the station, where one can choose whether to freeze all night or be warm but deprived of sleep with the hot air blower on (bearing in mind that the noise this generates is comparable to that heard from the runway at a provincial airport first thing in the morning) and back home via the red-eye for a couple of hours to shower, change, repack and feed fishes before setting off at lunchtime for Manchester and Other Business, of which as ever, more soon. The pictures in this weeks hastily put together BlackBerry collage (from Doncaster, Scarborough and Piccadilly stations) were all taken on the same day.

Arrival in Manchester on Thursday afternoon was brightened considerably by a couple of hours of tea and cake with the exotic and very lovely Nadia, who I am hoping to catch up with again in Jersey next week (tea and cake and shopping, more’n likely), but despite this, plus a very good Pizza Express cannelloni surrounded by the pretty fairy-lit trees on Piccadilly Gardens and an encouraging, informative and productive meeting on Friday I returned home late that evening with the sort of sleep-deprived, brain-scraped-out, exhausted feeling that I always hoped to leave behind with civvy jobs but does occasionally get the better of us all, and it has since taken two good lies-in, a homemade steak and kidney pudding, more mince pies and half a big bag of satsumas to set me back on an even keel.

So to this morning, and I wake up to the news that the scabrous inbreds at a certain Sunday tabloid have taken it upon themselves to expose yet another of our number, a formidable lady in her eighties whom I have long admired (along with her illustrious contemporaries, the fabulous Libby Ellis, for one). I am posting no further details – anyone who wants to look at the story can find it for themselves, and since this tawdry, scurrilous rag has published enough personal details for anyone who may have said hello to her once in the paper shop to recognise her and most incredibly, work out her location without too much difficulty, I do not intend to help them further. Would she (a UK citizen going about her legal business and bothering no-one) have been subjected to this had she been an octogenarian mobile hairdresser? I doubt it.

Oddly enough, earlier in the week I had a lazy, spammy cut-and-paste email from a man (I cannot bring myself to call them gentlemen, and reserve that term for my infinitely more deserving customers) requesting information from me as an advertiser on the TLC website regarding whether I have been paid by the local authority under a new scheme intended to provide those in receipt of specific disability allowances with more autonomy over how their cash is spent; I am not an expert in how these things work, but having had it explained by a far more knowledgeable friend, in a nutshell, previously it was decided in advance and by others how much of each payment recipients were to spend on food, bills, clothing and so on, but from now they will receive an ordinary sum which may be spent in any way they see fit, just as the majority of adults receiving any kind of income do already. Obviously some people will spend some of this payment on visiting sex workers, and apparently this has (somewhere along the convoluted line) been blown up and twisted around to paint a picture of eager (PVC-clad for preference) prossies lining up en masse outside the local Town Hall to register for their Mr and Mrs Taxpayer-funded Disabled Punter cheques and get our desperate, greedy hands on some public moolah. You get the general idea.

I freely admit that I may have at least given it at least a passing consideration had the individual in question’s most recent articles been for publications not sporting cheery red tops, but I shudder to think of the likely outcome here. If Mr Dagnell is reading this, the sorry tale above should be ample demonstration of why we don’t want to talk to you (and for the record, it is considered polite to address people whom you are emailing by name). Oh and incidentally, the ‘significant amount of money’ that your non-story commissioners are apparently offering (and the faux-confidential, carrot-dangling tone in which this was mooted actually made me laugh out loud) is unlikely to raise a flicker in many of us. I’ll be the judge of what is significant to me, pal. Have you seen my Rates page?

Life’s not always fair unfortunately – my best wishes go out to the lady, her family and her happy punters; I have made comment on the online article and would like to suggest others do likewise. As for the coming days, I am in Scarborough until the end of the week before I set off for lovely St Helier once again and still have a handful of appointments left on Monday, Tuesday lunchtime and Wednesday afternoon. I have some availability left in Jersey too, but since this is scattered about (to say the least), as ever, emailing requests is the way to go (and the same applies to London which is filling up at a hellish rate, and I will soon be having to plan my excursions to see the lights and shop windows far earlier than I had anticipated). For the moment it’s gym, swim and back to the couch – I’m starting to think I’m getting too old for all this charging about. Only kidding…

Having been back in Scarborough now for three days, I have had time to relax, decompress a little, treat myself to two nice (noon+) lies-in for the first time in nearly a week (although the 5am start on Monday morning in order to catch the train was a new record, given that it is not unknown for me to still be, if not technically ‘up’, certainly awake at this time) and catch up with a couple of my lovely local gentlemen, one of whom has been feeling sadly, but perhaps understandably a little hard done by, since I always seem to be on my travels when the opportunity for an afternoon dalliance comes up – sorry (again)! I promise I have not forgotten everybody here, but as much as I know I bang on about it, my awaydays are always advertised very well in advance and are not hard to find, plus my short notice availability is generally zero even when I am at home and in all fairness, it’s not as if I make any secret of that, either!

I have spent a pleasant and homely morning today pottering about and tidying up with builders tea and bacon and egg sandwich in hand; my very forgiving houseplants have been diligently wiped down, misted and thoroughly watered in preparation for the darker days ahead, and I am brushing up on my last-minute punter directions for the days when I am having to explain the route to my door to visitors in the low light. Having had to do this for the first time in as long as I can remember just over a week ago (and with apologies to the unsuspecting gentleman concerned, we got there in the end etc) it is definitely time I had some practice for when the sky is resolutely pitch black from 4pm until mid-morning the following day, and that time is not too far away. The clocks are going back soon and winter (which I like, although not as much as autumn) will be upon us before we know it.

Since I rarely work in the evenings, much to the astonishment of the gentleman who rang last night at eight pm and eventually offered me double my fee (incredulous that even this did not tempt me in the slightest to extract myself from my cosy dressing gown, shower, dress, and traipse out into the cold to meet a complete stranger rather then remain curled up on the big settee, happily trying out my new nose-pore-cleaning-strips, eating cheesy Wotsits and watching the X Factor) and it has been mostly light until six o’clockish when I am ordinarily done for the day, I have neglected to keep my hand in here so after-work newbies, do bear with me! In other transport news, the engineering works between Scarborough and York have now started with a vengeance, so anyone visiting by train needs to check and double-check replacement buses and whatnot (and speaking personally, my panic about reaching York in time to catch my London train Wednesday week has now reached the sort of wild-eyed, heart-racing level where I may well throw in the towel altogether and book a taxi).

Speaking of London, there are a very few appointments left; Wednesday 20th and Saturday 23rd are fully booked, likewise most of Thursday 21st – I fully expect to be completely spoken for by this time next week, and strongly suggest folk get their typing heads on and their requests in soon! I am factoring in time for a long-awaited visit to the nearby Aquarium (and am quite prepared to feel humbled when comparing the fabulous displays with my own little resident companions and their mini-ecosystems in my living room) as well a trip to the RA for Treasures from Budapest and catching up with a couple of lady friends, so decent notice is imperative; I will not be spending my scant free time draped along the window ledge in my trollies waiting to be summoned – sorry! So much of London, so little time…

New pics soon too – promise. You don’t think I’ll be setting foot outside in this, do you?

As it turned out, no real harm appears to have been done and indeed my trip to Dublin was punctuated at reassuringly regular intervals with email and telephone enquiries (my heartfelt apologies for all the unanswered calls but I was gainfully employed for the duration of my visit; I have no objections to entertaining more than one gentleman at a time, but I do insist that both of them are physically present!) I should also say that anyone planning a visit to this wonderful and welcoming city is fortunate indeed – it is a rare event that one can feel at home so quickly in a foreign country and I left with a list of things still to see and do for next time (and if anyone can explain the pavement markings which say PIG TRAP, I’ll think of a reward!) As you might expect, the Guinness brewery is a must-see, as is Clerys, a proper department store which is open until 9pm on Thursdays (unfortunately for me and my poor, long-suffering cards) and Temple Bar is well worth a look if you have problems understanding an Irish accent, being as it is populated entirely by tourists. It also boasts some of the finest and freshest food I have ever eaten – I will certainly be needing plenty of exercise over the coming few weeks! Even with the 3 hour delay to the return flight (thank God for Club class) I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I certainly hope my companion can say the same, although as we all know, everything has to end sometime and the lengthy, tiring and complicated journey home having missed my reserved train was a nuisance to say the least! I am not ashamed to admit that I had a very long lie in today and am in fact still not dressed at nearly 3 in the afternoon, although this is not particularly unusual for me and fortunately no-one ever seems to mind.

I was planning a quiet time this week, but have been so overwhelmed with enticing offers I cannot see it lasting long; after all there are only so many hours a girl can spend sans company before getting bored and fidgety! Plus, it would be extremely churlish to turn down any prospective companion who has taken the time to read my ramblings and compose a polite, timely and informative enquiry (although I have managed to delete several gems from the other end of the food chain this week without a second thought – anyone who read last weeks post will surely know what I mean!) Anyway, the remainder of today will be spent efficiently beavering away with my expense sheets, receipts from my trip and currency converter; all the unavoidable administrative tasks which take up virtually all my ‘days off’. On reflection, all work and no play is really a far more desirable state, although I do concede that it helps when they are largely one and the same thing!