Archive for the ‘Entries With Photos’ Category

Homeward Bound

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009


Well, we’re headed home tomorrow, assuming our plane doesn’t drop out of the sky – and recent events lead me to believe that this is a strong possibility – and I don’t think it would be possible for me to feel any more depressed about that than I am right now. I am absolutely miserable, which obviously makes me a lot of fun to be around – sorry, Terry! I’ve never been one of those people who goes around saying things like, “It’s good to have a break, but it’s good to come home, too!” or “You know, if the UK just got the weather no-one would ever want to leave!”, so my family will probably have to prise my hands off the door frame tomorrow to get me to leave. Gah.

My case is currently weighing in at just under the 20k luggage allowance our airline gives us, but that’s only with three pairs of shoes stuffed into my carry-on (which was also weighed on the way out here – seriously, who DOES that?), not including the pair I bought today, which…. actually, no, I’m too embarrassed to even speak about that. Let’s just say that the Neiman Marcus sale I mentioned? Was a really good sale. A REALLY good sale. Let us never speak of it again, though. Seriously.

Anyway, I’m off to drink more wine re-weigh my suitcase a few more times, so I will leave you with yet more – more! – of my holiday snaps. GOD.

hard-rock

ambers

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Horses, beaches and crustaceans

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009


Yesterday we did something else I’ve wanted to do for years: went swimming on horseback, by which I mean the horses went swimming and we, er, sat on their backs. Or, in the case of Terry, the horse went swimming but dumped Terry in the water first, so he got to go swimming too. (He wasn’t hurt – one of the advantages of riding in the water, I guess…)

No photos of this, of course, because:

a) we were on horseback

b) in the water

c) as we rode along the beach prior to our swim, I noticed a little crab scuttling along the sand, and it took me most of the rest of the day to calm down after this sighting of one of my mortal enemies. Later that day I saw another small, crab-like creature ON A FENCE. Climbing. OH MY HOLY HELL THEY CAN FLY. On later reflection, I was persuaded by my parents and Terry that this was not actually a crab I’d seen, but, well, I will leave it to you to imagine how freaked out I was. GOD.

Anyway, after the horse riding, we went to Caladesi Island, which was voted the best beach in the US in 2008. Something else must’ve won this year, but we don’t talk about that. It’s the most perfect beach, though, with gorgeous warm, turquoise water and miles and miles of white sand, which you get to by boat even although it’s no longer technically an island:

caladesi

Because it’s a state park, they only allow a limited number of people to be there at any given time, and there are miles of beach, so you feel like you have the place more or less to yourself. Which allows you to do stuff like this:

caladesi-beach

And then we came home and I slipped into something a little less comfortable to drink WINE:

wine

(Yes, I am wearing a hoodie. Because the air con here is always absolutely freezing. It’s actually been a little better this year than on previous trips, but it’s still cold enough indoors to make me have to wrap up, especially in restaurants, where I’m convinced they make it freezing on purpose to get you in and out faster.)

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… because I’m just too busy relaxing and enjoying the sunshine. I am, however, still jumping:

jumping

Just not as well as Terry is:

terry-jumping

(Taken in front of the Rock n Rollercoaster at Hollywood Studios). I still have another few days to beat him though…

disney's-boardwalk

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A lazy day by the pool…

Thursday, June 25th, 2009


DONE-WEB…and as usual, I was just a little bit overdresed for it. Terry, meanwhile, got in some jumping practice:

terry-pool-2

(Photoshopping courtesy of Terry!)

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dolphinsWe tried to get the dolphin to do YMCA with us, but at least one of us couldn’t spell…

This was the most amazing experience, and something I’ve wanted to do for years. It was worth every penny, too, and we were in the water with the dolphins for about 30 minutes, which gave us plenty of time to play with them. (Don’t tell Rubin, though: he gets jealous…)

Also, Terry has complained that the last “jumping” shot I posted here wasn’t an accurate reflection of his mad jumping skillz, so I would like to submit the following into evidence:

jumping

Let the record show that Terry can, in fact, jump much higher than me. He can’t keep his tongue in his mouth when he does it, though, and I can. I’ll beat him next time ;)

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So, Neiman Marcus had a sale on…

christian-louboutin-shoes

Whoops.

I also got a Sephora Loyalty Card. You’d think that would be absolutely useless to me given that I live in a country Sephora doesn’t ship to, but nope, I already qualified for the free gift:

sephora

(note: that’s not the free gift. The free gift was a Benefit BadGal mini mascara. Sweet.)

Yesterday we took Terry and my dad for their joint birthday treat (they both had birthdays the week before we came out here):

parasailing

That’s them. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

They did the parasailing at Disney, so I got to see Mickey briefly:

mickey-and-me

I wasn’t actually drunk at the time. I just looked it.

train-ride

We also took a train ride, which came complete with sunset, and also: wine. Very cool.

Tomorrow, though, the thing I’ve been looking forward to most about this trip: swimming with dolphins, yay! Meanwhile, a good time is being had by all:

family

But especially by me and Terry:

me-and-terry

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It’s good to be back…

Friday, June 19th, 2009


This morning we got up early and watched the sun rise:

jumpforjoy

Needless to say, I’m really, really happy to be back…

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I think I may have managed to conquer the packing. It took most of the day, though, because according to my Twitter, I first started to “think about” packing my suitcase just before lunch yesterday. Here’s what I had by 10pm:

packing fail

packing fail

In fairness, though, that goldy/bronzey thing is my makeup bag, and it took me a LONG time to pack IT, because that’s just my travel makeup bag or The Travelling Makeup Bag, as I think I will call it from now on. THIS is my real makeup bag. I mean Big Ass Box:

The Sephora Case o' Doom

The Sephora Case o' Doom

Distilling the contents of this into that was a long and arduous task, and I guess the fact that I found it hard to leave the comfort of my computer chair, where I spent many a pleasant hour yesterday reading blogs, tooling around on Twitter and doing anything, really to not have to pack, made it even harder. Like, look, this is Pinky:

My main man, Pinky

My main man, Pinky

Everyone say, “Hi, Pinky!”

Haha, I made you speak to a stuffed rabbit! Hee!

Pinky is my travelling companion. Well, other than Terry and my parents, obviously, but none of them are pink, and they don’t like being squeezed when I’m scared the plane is going to crash, which is all the time. So Pinky is like a kind of stress toy. He stands in for Ted, who doesn’t vacation with us. (He’s just at that age now, where he’s all, “You guys are lame, I want to party with my friends!” He’s going to Goa this year, apparently.)

(Note: Pinky came free with a handbag I got, and didn’t actually have a name until a moment of stress somewhere high above the Atlantic one year, when he was named in a hurry. And clearly I suck at naming things under stress. Another reason never to have children - I’d probably give birth and name it “Screamy” or “Bloody” or something.) 

Anyway, several hours later, I ended up with a packing win, of sorts. This is one side of the case:

Suitcase: one side of

Suitcase: one side of

Pretty full, no? But look! Here is the other side:

Suitcase, other side of

Suitcase, other side of

Lookit all that lovely space! Space which I will be able to fill up with… oh:

"Take meeeeeeeeeee!"

"Take meeeeeeeeeee!"

He’s going to stay with Terry’s mum while we’re gone. He will be treated like a small, furry Overlord there, and will eat much better than he does at home. But I will miss him, and every time I look at his little face, I want to cry. So, moving on, let’s weigh the suitcase (minus dog) with the handy gadget Terry bought for this purpose:

The Weigh-In

The Weigh-In

You can’t see from this photo, but it came in at about 14 kilos, which gives me 6 kilos of shopping to bring back with me.  Yay! I win! Although not really, because GOD, shoes are heavy, and I might want to buy shoes… If I do, though, I will also have access to The Shoulder Bag With a Face:

The Bag With a Face

The Bag With a Face

Seriously, it has a face, no?

Ahhhhh!

It’s drooling at the thought of all of the lovely shopping it will carry. Or maybe it’s just planning to eat my head when I go to sleep tonight, who knows?

And with the packing of TBWAF (which is actually much bigger than it looks here and is a bit like a Mary Poppins bag) I was finally done:

Phew!

Phew!

Time on completion:

whoops

whoops

So it’s a good job I don’t have to get up, like, really early tomorrow or…. oh.

Now I just need to take stuff out, put it back, add more stuff, remove stuff and then, at the last minute remember that whoops, I haven’t actually packed any knickers/sweaters/bikinis/delete-as-appropriate, and we’re good to go.

Anyway, our flight is early tomorrow morning, so we’ll be staying with my parents tonight, because they live closer to the airport, and also, because it means we can mess-up someone else’s house when we get up at stupid o’clock tomorrow, rather than our own.  Assuming we make it there safely, then, I’ll see you on the other side!

"Buh-bye!"

"Buh-bye!"

Ted is waving goodbye. Also: is clearly drunk. GOD.

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1. Worked on my novel. Remember my novel? Huh. Me neither, apparently.

Wordcount when I started working on my novel this week: 13,175 words

Wordcount as of rightthisveryminute: 11,752. (Although some of those don’t actually count because they say things like “Chapter One” and “Chapter 2″ and stuff. )

So. Obviously something went way the hell wrong there. I mean, I realise I’m no expert, but, you know, pretty sure the wordcount isn’t supposed to go down with each new writing session. The problem is… well, it’s me. I’m very… edit-y. And I know! I know editing-as-you-go is EXACTLY the thing They tell you not to do. I know that! I’ve read the same “How to Write a Novel” books They have.  But I just can’t help myself. If I’m not happy with something at the start of the book, I can’t write any more until I’ve gone back and fixed it (trust me, I’ve tried. Can’t.). So that’s what I did, which is why I ended up a couple of thousand words down. I thought up some more words while I was in the shower this morning, though, so I will add them in soon and I will have even MORE words. Some of which I may even like!

2. Worried a lot about my upcoming flight to Florida

Yes. Two weeks today, people. And I thought I was OK with it this time. I mean, OK, I’d woken up in a cold sweat a couple of times thinking, “OMG, I’m not going to Florida AT ALL, am I? I’m going to my fiery, or perhaps watery, death!” but I was mostly OK with it. “Planes are very safe,” I told myself. “They hardly ever crash!” And then this happened. And since then, it’s been pretty much all I can think about: we’re talking nightmares, freak-outs, the lot. I know it’s irrational, so no one needs to give me the whole “It’s the safest form of travel!” thing (Seriously, I don’t think I know ANY scaredy fliers who are actually ever comforted by that statistic anyway. Especially not right after a major air disaster.)  but knowing it’s an irrational fear doesn’t make it any easier to stop myself worrying about it, so, yeah, fun times! Especially for Terry and my parents.

(Also: there is almost always an air disaster right before I’m due to fly. Almost always. I’m starting to think I’m some kind of Harbinger of Doom to the air travel industry…)

3. Tried to do yoga

You know what’s really boring? Yoga. Seriously.

4. Cleaned the house.

My house was really clean while the internet was down. Now? Not so much.

5. Hit the “refresh” button on my browser repeatedly while muttering “Is it back yet? How about now? NOW? I wonder if it’s back yet?” It wasn’t much fun, but hey, it passed the time.

6.  Half-heartedly weeded the garden.

Like, really half-heartedly. In the sense of “I was wearing a skirt and nice shoes at the time, and I didn’t want to get them dirty”.  Note to self: buy house with no garden. Or with live-in-gardener. Stupid garden.

7. Went to St. Andrews.

It looked like this:

standrews

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rubin also got a haircut that day. He looks like this now:

rubin-new-hair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, in the evening, the internet would come back up, and I’d have to try to cram a full days work into a few short hours.  Which was just as much fun as it sounds, really.

And that was my week of No Internet.  Luckily for us, it seems be working again, and thank God for that, I say: I don’t think my novel would have survived another couple of days!

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There hasn’t been much time for blogging this week. Well, there’s been time for BLOGGING, obviously, because, well, that’s pretty much all I’ve done. But I’ve done so much of it here, here and here that there just hasn’t been time to do any of it, er, here. Sorry. I’d say that all work and no play makes Amber a dull blogger but I guess you already knew that.  So!

Other than the almighty blogathon that has been my week so far, nothing has happened. I mean, AT ALL. I haven’t yet succumbed to swine flu, which has surprised me, really, because normally if there’s a flu going around, I will get it. Sometimes twice. I’m guessing Swine Flu is probably waiting until I go on holiday next month before it gets me, because, you know, no point in ruining an ordinary working week when you can ruin a much-anticipated holiday instead, is there?

(Did I mention I’m going on holiday next month? I am going on holiday next month. Yes, I am going to Florida. I cannot. wait.)

Anyway, where was I? I’m sure there was a point to this entry, but dammed if I know what it was.  Look, here is a picture of my dog!

rubin-and-ted

And we can only really guess at the ways in which this incident traumatised Ted, because here is what I found him wearing when I walked into the bedroom yesterday:

ted

You see what I have to put up with?

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