Events

My last exert was a long time in coming and basically sets the scene for my trials and tribulations back in Blighty. My homeland apparently?! India out the way and back to sorting out esthersroom...still not totally sorted. Need some money to throw at the situation. I have stopped with the dole, thank god, but I need something part time to tide me over. I'm working in a vintage clothing shop on the Fulham Road. It’s now May (24th), the bank holiday weekend which should be the Stanley weekend. I'm sitting in the garden of E and J in Shropshire. It’s glorious. A and I have just popped up the road to the petrol station in Diddlesbury, to get the Sunday papers and some fags. We forgot to get lemons. What a pair of lemons. What's on the cards today? Well we have a chicken spit roasting on a French clockwork rotisserie. It’s just going 'doying dong' reminding us to go and wind it up. E bought it on e-bay from France. I want one. Anyway it’s Sunday and so far a blisssful weekend. Ridiculous tepee action last night, which resulted in the two gays passed out sleeping under fancy dress and us crouching around the stove in the freezing cold listening to David Delgado on the ipod.

So much fun! But why do I have this uncomfortable feeling? Why am in paradise and feel so freaked out...and alone? That’s why: I am alone. I have two couples happily together around me, and I desperately need a special someone, I conclude that I hate being single today. I have the whole ex-thing in the background too, (he and new love keep coming up in conversation) making me feel sick, it's a gut reaction.

So we arrived on Friday afternoon, with the kids A and D. After a three hour drive from London in my new car. A sensible millenium Passat estate (which I love!). Bought it from a Chinese man in Barnes. For dinner we cook big fat steaks on open bbq E has built onto the side of the barn. He also digs out the deep fat fryer, oh yes! For proper ‘frites’. What a delish dinner. For desert we sort out Sing Star in the taxidermy lounge and have a sing off. E's taxidermy collection is ever growing, there is a peacock, a parrot, an alligator, a tortoise and a spooky puffin?! I beat J about ten times in a row on his favourite ‘Imagine’. He is so pissed off! Then the dead presidents, Saddam and Osama masks and come out and all hell breaks loose. They are officially brilliant. After J’s knockout in Sing Star he tops the evening with his Saddam Hussein face, geisha hair, tutu and stripy trouser ensemble, which has us rolling about on the floor in hysterics. You are never, I repeat never to old for fancy dress. It’s the BEST! I finally go to bed only to be woken around 4.30am by my phone ringing. It’s my crazy Bollywood director demanding phone sex! What?!. Unfortunately the phone reception is pretty rubbish at the house, and we keep getting cut off. Thing is, it’s just too funny to listen to him and just when it gets interesting (he gets interested!) he gets cut off. It’s like I’m doing it on purpose. I actually have no idea what’s really going on, he’s the one speaking. I think I’m just laughing. After about call five, and him still not understanding that I’m basically in a field and there’s no reception. He obviously gives up and I fall back to sleep. My news is discussed over breakfast sausage and eggs, and E reckons I should get an 0898 number!

The weekend pretty much revolves around the open fire and roasting various meats. It’s now Saturday and a collection of friends with kids are coming for lunch. We’ve got lamb chops, which have been marinating all morning in cumin, lemon and garlic. After the feast we all sprawl out in front of the tepee in the sun with fat tummies and wobbly heads. I love the country life.

The Chinese lanterns again, the big red one!
The early start back to London at 6am! Yuk.
Ok Ok I'm happy being single, just sometimes I wish I could have someone.
A certain person who was on the scene, including the 'snowy day' in London, where everything came to a halt and we ended up walking across Richmond park, to go Urban Tobogganing on trays we stole from Cafe Nero (we gave them back after). Such a brilliant day! Anyway he's been messing me around big time and has been officially dumped.
I love E, J, A and D what a cool weekend!

Lol est xxx

So I finally make it back to blighty after an extended Christmas chilling with parents and basically deferring the inevitable. I have to go back to London and earn a living. Anyway so been hanging out in my hood. Trying to figure out what I am doing with my life. This is what I’ve come up with:

esthersroom /// full of very cool stuff

My back ground in interior design and my love of cool stuff. I want a shop. But a private, very intimate, very special shop…Anyway can’t have a physical shop yet, so going to have a website shop. Which can be just as cool and almost better because it’s a hell of a lot cheaper and in with the in-crowd.

esthersroom is my vision and my destiny. Everything in my room is for sale essentially. This concept will morph and follow its own course. I will buy in products that I will show for sale on my site. Things that I would have in my room, esthersroom, which of course means ultra cool shit. It will be full of very cool stuff. Every item is something that has been chosen by me for its beauty, its quality, and its uniqueness.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I hope you trust my eye. I’d like to think I have a good eye for cool stuff.

So welcome to esthersroom.

Lets see what’s new this week?!...

Oh well its not quite up and running yet (massive procrastination and lack of reddies). So the idea is born and takes a while for me to get my head around. Meanwhile I sign on and do a few cash in hand jobs, bits and pieces to get by. OMG signing on what a complete fucking pain in the arse, it’s ridiculous. Never done it before and glad to have now stopped. Grim grim grim. I have to take the plunge so with the bit of money I do have I book a ticket back to India for a buying trip. Haha, the wanderlust returns and it’s something to work towards. I’m going the beginning of March for two weeks. Did I say that January is also on the wagon? = thoroughly boring. A certain person is also in touch as soon as I get back, which is quite exciting (I actually like him!). It’s all looking good for being home! I really do look at London with fresh eyes. I know what I want now, I just need to work towards it. The only real disaster on my return is my Lacie external hard drive corrupting its self and me loosing all my bloody photos etc which I’d transferred from the laptop. I have my trusty power book back now, but it’s a bit old and creaky to be honest. Fucking annoying. I took off all my photos and itunes so that the memory wasn’t maxed out, and then I accidentally unplugged it from the laptop without ejecting it, and its now corrupter than Maddoff. Superstar R comes to the rescue. Is there no end to what the guy can do? An all round perfect specimen of a man. Anyway he burns me some filesalvage thingy and manages to get the data off the corrupt drive and onto a new one. Except one slight problem. None of the files are catalogued. So basically every jpeg has been lumped together, in no order. I have 51000 of them to look through???! What?! Cant even think about it now

M and P inform me that they are in town for the Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern. Haven’t seen them since New Year so go and enjoy that, and have yummy fish and chips for lunch. I love them! And the Rothko stuff was quite good too. I have a new flat mate who is very sweet. Irish and a really good egg. She’s a bit younger than me but we get on very well.

So India looms and I work out what I’ll be doing. I really have a lot to do there so have a tight schedule. Mumbai for four days, Goa for four days, then Jaipur for four days. Like clockwork. So February flies past and all of a sudden I’m off again. I’m flying on Oman air via Muscat (brilliant airline) crappy stopover. I’m heading to Bombay. D has said I can stay which is awesome. I jump in a bumble bee taxi at the airport and wiz down to Breach Candy. I’ve missed India and I love it being back. It’s bloody hot and I’m dripping when I arrive at D’s air-conditioned penthouse flat! Err yes please!! It’s super to see him and we head straight up to Breach Candy (the club) for sunset drinks and dinner. He’s such a gent what a cool dude. Of course a mini bender ensues and we don’t hit the sack until about 7am! oops! I have a number of shops to visit in Bombay, which I do over the next few days, getting contacts and forming ideas. I hook up with other D and P who are also about, AND I see my Bollywood director. Except he’s been at a wedding all day and is pissed as a fart. So doesn’t really make any sense. A girl then accidentally on purpose throws her wine over me. Which results in Bollywood director (who is officially the most eligible bachelor in all of Bombay), licking the wine off my face and ear right in front of her. The stupid girl is not best pleased. Haha!! Anyway I get whished off to another party by D and that’s the end of that. I have a flight to Goa booked and leave crazy Bombay and head south. I arrive in Goa and make my way towards Vagator. Salt and Pepper is full so I end up in a beach hut overlooking the sea! Bliss. I stake-out the night market again and meet up the C and a few others from my last trip here. So cool to see them. I arrange a few meetings over the next few days. I’m running around so much I only make to the beach one afternoon. Successful meetings and some stock ordered! Beautiful Nepalese wool scarves, and old Bollywood photographs.

Then it’s another flight all the way up the Jaipur! I’m so excited. Jaipur is beautiful. I’ve been recommended a hotel to stay in which is more expensive than normal, but hey I'm on business and I deserve it! Arya Niwas. The day after I arrive it happens to be ‘Holi day’, which transpires to be the most bizarre day I ever spend in India. What a crazy day! I go out for dinner on my own the night I arrive, and meet a guy called Sam on my way home. He tells me he’s also staying at my hotel and do a fancy a drink?! I actually do, so we head to a bar. He drops me off home later and has invited me to spend the day with him tomorrow. He collects me in the morning. Humm I don’t think he’s staying at the hotel, but anyway. We drive off on his vespa and he shows me the sights of Jaipur, on Holi day (festival of colour). Everything is shut but everyone, make that every man, is on the streets, with clear plastic bags full of brightly coloured powder; pink, red, orange, yellow, purple and green. This powder is thrown over as many people as you can. You get covered from head to toe in powder. It’s crazy. Unfortunately being a white woman I get rather a lot of attention from men wanting the wish me ‘holi day’, they literally smother me in powder, Including my breasts a few times! Annoyingly in the first attack (young boys who won’t have know any better) smother me, and my Canon G9 camera. Which works for a few hours after, but then the lens jams. Darn it. Really pissed off. So after being about on the streets for a while…it's proper madness. Sam invites me back to his family celebrations. Where I spend the afternoon dancing to Indian music, drinking beer, eating delicious food with his whole extended family (like about forty people!). None of whom speak any or hardly any English. They’re not really sure what to make of me, but they are so generous and very very hospitable. I don’t think they’ll actually ever know what I really look like, seeing I was pretty much bright pink and purple, with bits of green and orange all afternoon. What a strange and exhilarating day!!!? I’m very grateful to Sam, who admits that he lied about staying at the hotel. I forgive him his trespasses. The following day I meet up with the quilt company I came to see, and order beautiful hand block printed quilts. Sam then collects me and drives me up to the Amber Fort, Jaigarh Fort and Nahargarh Fort. Amazing but speechless that don't have my camera. Have to go back! In the evening we head to the Cinema. Which is famous in India for being so beautiful, gaudy and like a big iced cake! A Bollywood movie to round off my stay. It's all in Hindi, so have to guess what's happening. Indians have no rules regarding turning your mobile off during the show. So phones continually ring throughout the film. People chat away. God I love India, it has it's own rules. I'm still washing pink out of my hair, when I arrive back in Bombay to fly home.

Hair report: pink to make to boys wink in the pink city.

Can I do a website with a web-cam in my room?
A certain person on the scene intermittently.
Fall off wagon from beginning of Feb.
Audio Eyes in Hoxton.
Pho lunch at the Westfield.
D’s housewarming in Brixton which is shut down by environmental health.
Emerald ring.
VG comes to stay in London! Love her xxxxx

Well I’m well and truly back in the big schmoke and have been for about three weeks. How do I feel? Well can be honest? SHIT SCARED! and basically not sorting anything out. I’ll explain from when I arrived back in December, and how strange the whole experience was. I got off the plane and was collected by E and N in E’s new blacked out Range Rover Vogue. Nothing changes! Except the car! The recession seems a distant world away. Is there really one going on?. I’ve missed E desperately whilst away and have vowed to let him organise my return shenanigans. I’m being whisked to Shropshire for the weekend and have been told that it’ll be just two of us. I’m sort of looking forward to this, because it all just feels so weird being back, and I’m not sure how I’ll cope with all my friends at once.

A number of things become clear over the weekend I spend in relative seclusion, in the deepest darkest corner of Shropshire, away from the maddening crowd. I’m staying with girlfriend S, in Barnes on my return, as my lovely flat is still rented out to my two flat mates. I’ve unfortunately come back to WW3 going on in the flat, and decide to put off the flat visit till next week. I just can’t cope with two friends who hate each other so much they aren’t talking. Who gets to that point? So it’s Friday morning and E and I set off once again the Range Rover with Pet heading west to Shropshire. We fly out of London and along the M40, past High Wycombe, through the ‘gash’, past the dreaming spires of Oxford. E takes a number of work related calls along the way, which I don’t worry about. He’s already explained that he’d tried to gather a gaggle of girls and mates who would have liked to come along for the weekend, but it’s the second last weekend before Christmas, and everyone is busy with parties and family stuff. There is a change of plan about lunch all of a sudden, and E suggests we stop at the pub after we’ve left the motorway in Shropshire. A light-bite of fish and chips, a pint for E a tasty bloody mary for me. Back on route we decide to stop into Much Wenlock, to pop to the butchers to get some dinner. E says we need four steaks (he’s feeling hungry)…I’m the most gullible person ever. Not a hint of suspicion. I can’t tell what a strange experience it is, standing in a village butchers in a queue of about six old fogies. They’re all in there, ordering their Christmas fare, turkeys, ducks, rolled beef joints, black pudding, sausages, bacon, pigs livers and chickens. I’m freezing and waiting my turn. “Ten rashers of smoked bacon and four sirloin steaks please”. I run back to the car and we head off. Finally we’re turning into the familiar drive and up towards the house. I open the gate over the cattle-grid, we glide past the duck pond with E's floating duck house (which has remained un-ducked since he built it, something to do with it not being moored). We stop at the front of the house and E rushes round the back to let us in. Again I notice nothing strange. There is a short delay. The front door opens and I drag myself, and bags into the house. It’s freezing. E wants me to see some new additions to the house upstairs. Some beautiful chandeliers from the Oratory (opposite Brompton Oratory), E and J's local restaurant, it has now closed. The Venetian glass sparkles in the winter light coming in through the attic windows. E opens the door to his bedroom, there acting as if it’s totally normal are S and R sprawled on the bed!! It’s a surprise! I’m totally gob smacked. I had no idea?! What a fool, four steaks indeed. Apparently the girls had left in the morning, but forgotten to leave S’s son’s clothing bag with the dad. So had gotten half way down the motorway towards shrop, when they had to turn back. This was the work call E had taken whilst we were driving. Which is also why we’d done the surprise lunch. It’s a fab surprise and I’m very happy to have such great mates. I am officially a dumb blonde.

The weekend turns into a total bender. After some dinner and lots of wine the night really kicks off with the fancy dress, more wine and beer than you can shake a stick at. We have a lack of ipod so we end up in the Christmas shed (flashing Santa’s sled and reindeer mean it’s always Christmas in the shed!). We have two gas heaters and my lap-top listening to classic old school. In, out, up, down, dancing badly to old school, and doing what we like best, which is more drinking and missions like E taking me to the loo in the potting shed, where he has hold me like a child so that I can pee into the gutter. I’m 34 years old. Why I don’t use the loo in the house is anybodies guess? Finally I slither into bed. The girls are neatly tucked up up in the spare room under about a ton of fancy dress, curly Cher wigs, and Tammy Wynette white tasselled leather jackets.

I have a hideous hangover. Which turns into Esther's thirsty lunch, I'm so thirsty I end up drinking about six pints of water. E reminds me of Leah Betts. I have to go to the loo to be sick, I’ve drunk too much water. The pub has been sympathetically restored since it flooded last year. No more pink ladies loo. Manage one mouthful of my lunch. Rather disappointed. God I feel too weird. The house behind the pub has not been knocked down. During the floods it fell down. It split in two and half fell away into the river. Leaving a perfectly preserved 60’s bedroom on the first floor exposed and in view of all traffic coming into Ludlow. The bed was all made up with a frilly bedspread and the pictures were still hanging on the flowery wall paper. Hilarious, and desperately sad all at the same time. The couple who the house belonged to, didn't have any insurance. We cut our losses and head into town to meet up with A and W. They’re in the Thai bar further into town. We head up the road past Zany Lady and the Feathers to meet up. We pass a brand new very cool shop called Material, which we pop into later. A and W are very well, and it’s lovely to see them. They will be joining us later for dinner. A quick drink, another pint of water for me. OMG what is going on with me? A fantastic book by Charlie Harper, which I covet. Red wine in glasses the size of double FF boobs. Speaking of boobs, A is all new and svelte! She looks amazing.

We head back to the house. S and R have driven the Boxter to Leominster to a thrift shop. They get back just after us, and have bought some very cool stuff. The party gets started. There is fancy dress in every corner of the house (from the night before). So you cannot escape the temptation of: leather chaps, gold hot pants, punk trousers, mermaid wigs, pirate trousers, tattoo sleeves, Elvis trousers, nuns whimples, the list is endless. Delicious dinner. The disco. Stumbling up and down the stairs of the basement. The Chinese paper lanterns we light and let fly into the night sky. A few crash and burn. We all end up in the front room, I live in the RAB puffa jacket that’s been up Aconcagua, it’s so cold. Finally I head to bed. I feel really ill, but have had a brilliant weekend…my friends have broken me in Shropshire. THANK YOU :o) !!

So I’ve been neglecting my duties and haven’t put finger to keyboard for too long. What have I been doing? Well exactly?! Back in London I have a few issues I need to sort out. I have the flat situation. Seeing M is very emotional after all this time. Last time seen = very hung over on way to airport in Buenos Aires in March! We end up going out, David D is playing in the east end I want to go. We head over and spend a cool evening rocking to his music. Then as a finale we end up in Favela Chic on Old Street and round the evening off with a last wasted boogie. Two guys approach us as the lights come on and ask if we want to join them at an after party? We’re too drunk so say no, but I exchange numbers with Will, who is apparently a brain surgeon?! M asks him for ID! Obviously he doesn’t have any.

I get over the hedonistic blur that pre Christmas London is, and head to Brussels for a reunion with the parents and sister. How lovely to be home. I love seeing mum and dad and S. God I’ve missed them. Wonderful Christmas, even the disastrous Christmas lunch of bleeding rib of beef, which has to be put back in the over for half an hour, warms the cockles of my heart. Then a ridiculous Danish Boxing day, where we drink far too much (pattern emerging?!). We all wake to monstrous hangovers. Which then turn into some kind of tummy bug. M and D are struck down and are properly poorly. I seem OK. Guts of steel from travelling? The imminent departure to the snow is delayed by a day, so we head down to Switzerland in the A6 on the Monday after Christmas. A neat 8 hour drive. Me sitting in the back feeling right at home. I love long car journeys? Why? There is tonnes of snow in the Alps and I love being here. The flat is its normal cosy self and we spend a super few days snowboarding and farting about. I head down to Geneva to see P and M for New Year. A fantastic gourmet knees up! I have a week back at home in Brussels to sort my head out, before I head back to blighty and my flat.

The thing which becomes apparent in this first month of being home: ON THE WAGON for me, welcome to sober 2009...

Hair report: Curly Cher or Stanley punk

I've missed my friends, I love them very much.
I'm still living out of a bag.
I seem incapable of hanging clothes in a wardrobe.
DOUBLE BED in my own room.
Bath Bath Bath.
Can't cook anymore.
Ribena.
Wotsits.
Head lice from India (don't ask)
Miss INDIA!
esthersroom on its way.

xxxxxxx