the blog o' moosh

Monday, April 23, 2007

The train is no good, isn't it?

A letter to the council

I had the worst taxi journey of my life on Saturday.

Having gotten into this hackney cab with 2 female friends at the rank outside Central Station, we were subjected to a torrent of abuse throughout our journey by the driver.

Firstly we were told we were stupid for not standing in the correct place at the taxi rank, then he shouted at us for wanting to go to drop one of our group off at Sauchiehall Street.

Upon arrival at our first stop, he then inexplicably proceeded to swear and shout that we had told him the wrong destination and that he was trying to save us money. At this point, I asked him to stop so we could get out of the taxi as we were generally afraid of what he might do next. He would not let us out or pay for our journey so far so we could get out.

In the end, we alighted at St George's Cross after more abuse from the driver. Once we had paid the full fare and got out of the taxi, he then shouted further abuse at us as we walked away, calling us a number of choice names ... for simply wanting a lift up the road.

Had we been drunk or obnoxious, I could perhaps be more understanding, but we were 3 young sober women wanting to get home safely - and ended up being subjected to a terrifying ordeal at the hands of this man. In addition, the taxi looked in very poor repair and I have been unable to locate the name that was painted on the side of the cab to contact them directly.

I would appreciate it if you could investigate this taxi number and answer my complaint - I and my friends were genuinely in fear during our journey and I would like to ensure that no one else has to suffer this sort of treatment.

Would you believe less than an hour later, I had an email from the council asking for more details? They are going to be interviewing the driver and are "taking this matter very seriously", given the nature of my complaint.

EDIT: The council are in fact taking it very seriously - they are sending out a photo for us to ID him! How unexpected. In the mean time, I would encourage anyone who's had similar experiences to complain!

posted by Claire @ 4/23/2007 01:47:00 pm | 1 comments |

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Friday, April 20, 2007

I was feeling very heavy and then suddenly I felt very light.

Keys!
Originally uploaded by mooosh.

I had a strange experience this morning. I've often dreamed of being stuck in the house and not being able to go to work ... and today it almost happened!

This week has been a very busy one and I've been all over the place trying to do lots of things and please lots of people, so I was very tired last nite after a 6am start for a meeting in Edinburgh and then a craft thing in the evening. Thus, I did not think to get my front door key, as pictured, from Jo who had it to get the stuff for the market.

So, this morning, I made it all the way down the stairs to the front door, whereupon I remembered she had the key. No problem, I thought, I have my spare one. I located it and tried the door - nothing. It was too bent to work. Aha, I thought, I shall call Ryan and ask him to come get me - the key is in their house after all. Of course, I could have called him had I known his number and the battery on my new phone had not died...

Ah, but my old phone, it has some battery power left in it ... so I opened it up and went to put my SIM card back in it ... only to discover it was stuck fast ... I should really have given up then and called work, but I perservered and eventually prised it off with a biro. My chance was gone! Ryan came to rescue me and here I am posting on my mini lunch break about the whole fiasco. Bah.

Tomorrow I am going to a spa! For the day! A real novelty for me. Catherine has chosen a relaxing day for her hen celebrations and of course I am delighted to have been asked along - I just hope that she and everyone else can take it when I kick their asses at Singstar afterwards!

posted by Claire @ 4/20/2007 02:11:00 pm | 0 comments |

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Acupuncture doesn't work like that... it's about dampness and reducing

Necklace
Originally uploaded by mooosh.

Here we are, this is one of my lovely purchases from Sunday. It's a vintagey necklace from Stella My Star. I like that it almost looks like one of those party ring biscuits off of the 80s. I would encourage anyone to buy things from Stella My Star for the following reasons:

The things are lovely, especially this necklace
The things DO NOT BREAK
Many things have owls or monkeys on
Jo is lovely
It will support the Geordies

I think that is more than enough reason to wear these things.

I also bought 2 pin cushions from Evil Twin but I think they are too good to be going sticking pins in. They are cacti! Or cactuses if you want to be pedantic. The girl from Evil Twin and her possible actual real life not evil twin who is The Black Button are 2 of my very favourite customers, as they seem to L-O-V-E the rejects. You can see them being happy with their purchases here.

Last nite I got busy making the invitations for Andrew and Aleks' wedding. I rashly promised to have them done before I go on holiday (did I mention I am off on holiday?), so I need to get them done this week. It is slow going though and I need the expert eye of Jo to help with the actual printing. It will have to be fitted in amongst all the other billion things I need to do this week, I am not sure I will have time for sleeping until Cincinnati - No! Sleep! Til Cincin! as some wise rappers once (almost) said.

This week is:

Community meeting to find out what is happening behind our house
Possible meeting re: project: zinc shoes
Meeting in Edinburgh all day Thursday
Fair on Thursday evening
Meeting up with Catherine to extol the virtues of Bare Minerals make up
Catherine's hen day at the Radisson hotel spa
Making some bags for my hair dryer, straighteners, etc to travel in
Tidying the hovel that is our flat

Now, I must be off and decide what massage to have on Saturday - wheeeee!

posted by Claire @ 4/17/2007 01:40:00 pm | |

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Monday, April 16, 2007

What constitutes deadly force?

An MF Trip To Newcastle
Originally uploaded by mooosh.

How can it be that I've not updated this since before Easter? Well, I suppose it might be because I've been very busy doing other things. What a boring reason. I could make something up about giant robots, or a boating accident, but in reality, I've just been very busy getting on with life.

The Easter weekend was especially busy - Friday me and my mum who was up visiting went for a breenj in town, some shopping, some lunching, some chatting. It was very nice to do this as we don't often get the chance, what with her living 500 miles away and me being busy every weekend between January and December. In the morning before I met up with her I had a secret meeting with some colleagues which has turned into project: zinc shoes. Very mysterious, but for now you will have to wait to find out more about that.

Friday evening, Jo and I found ourselves trundling down to the wilds of Ayrshire to host a Miso Funky party for someone's birthday - it was a great evening for us and I hope for the ladies who were partying. It's a bit like Ann Summers but less filthy and more funky - you can find out more here and even book one if you're so inclined. There's no stand up comedy or anything, but we do try to entertain.

Saturday was ... what? Sorry, what's that? A free day? In that there is no fairs of craft to be attended? But it's a day with a y in it! How did that happen? Yes, due to a scheduling hiccup, we had somehow found ourselves with a day off. I think that is one of the very first ones since Christmas. So, I of course filled it up with hair appointments and the like. I had my hair trimmed a little and also dyed a new shade of blondey brown for spring. I like it a lot, altho I think it must be quite subtle, because no one really noticed much.

Sunday and Monday were spent, yes, you've guessed it, at a craft fair. This one was at Queens Park on the south side and we found ourselves in the strange but curiously enjoyable situation of being in a big greenhouse next to a petting zoo. The sheep in particular was hilarious, with it baaing at all the right moments as if it was part of our conversation. The fair itself was busy, but most people were intent on extricating their sticky children from the animal pens and trying to bring them back into orbit after guzzling their own bodyweight in easter eggs. Still, it was a very productive 2 days, some sales, some stock taking and some crafting managed.

Project: zinc shoes was taking up much of my and others' thoughts last week, as well as making things and generally working, as my real job will keep getting busy and getting in the way of my more fun job. Plans were made for some more markets coming up which will be launched here when they are all finalised. By some stroke of sheer genius, Saturday was another day off - how this came to pass, I have yet to understand, but I used it wisely with my first stop post lie in being the local church jumble sale where I got 2 big bags of bargains for 4 of your earth pounds, including a GREAT stand for our record bowls which will be ace once it's painted. The lady who mans (and "man" is quite the operative word) the jumble was most peeved that I planned on cutting up her stinky duvet covers, but she eventually let me have them for 25p each. She drives a hard bargain, even in the Lord's house.

Afterwards, Lee and I had a lovely walk down by the Kelvin, through the Botanics and on down to Partick to the Farmers Market, where we had a stroll round and bought some great morsels, including some fab treats from Eastern Twist. We then strolled over to the Rio Cafe and had some lunch and a read of our New York books to see what we wanted to include in our itinerary, followed by a stroll up Byres Road, a swatch at the Orchid Fair at the Kibble Palace and a leisurely ice cream in the park - it was so warm and sunny and I had a great time! Once we got back Lee made amazing samosas and I got busy crafting and packing for our Newcastle extravaganza.

I had to get up at 6am on Sunday morning - yes, that's probably the time most people I know were coming home, but there we are. We had great fun on the train, despite having to hoick our bags around and you can see a photolog of the day here. The market itself was unusually quiet, owing to the tropical temperatures that the toon was enjoying, but we still had great fun. I made one or 2 purchases, which I will be posting about seperately very soon.

This week is filling up fast - meetings, a market, making things - but only 8 sleeps til holidays!

posted by Claire @ 4/16/2007 04:52:00 pm | 0 comments |

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Thursday, April 05, 2007

I can't believe she's getting rid of my old subbuteo set.

I am a big fan of jazz hands, but it would appear that I am nothing but a rank amateur when it comes to putting on the ritz. Last nite, Catherine very kindly slid her spare ticket to Chicago my way and I had a fabulous nite out with her and her parents.

I have only been to the theatre twice before - once about a kajillion years ago to see Saturday Night Fever in London with my mum and on honeymoon in Vegas to see the Blue Man Group (you MUST see it if you ever get the chance), so it was quite a novelty to be there at all. I probably looked like a loon up from the country, I hope Catherine wasn't too embarrassed!

The show itself was spectacular - the cast, none of whom I'd heard of, were excellent - with all the singing and dancing at the same time, they never missed a note and the seats we were in gave us a perfect view of the action. There was even a man translating the entire show into sign language - something I hadn't seen before. The guy doing it was great and really got into character with the facial expressions and dancing! I thought he was going to start high kicking at one point, but he managed to restrain himself.

I've been humming "All That Jazz" all morning and no doubt annoying my new neighbours at work. I have moved desks from the second coldest place in the building to the MOST coldest place - I didn't think it was possible for it to get worse, but as I am sitting here with GLOVES on, I have proven it could. I have been used to being able to mutter to myself and laugh wryly at stupid colleagues' emails, but I must remember not to do that so much as the people sitting behind me are probably ready to commit me to Carstairs.

Today, I can hardly believe it, is my last day at work for FOUR DAYS! I am quite pleased by this. However, only one of those days is actually not taken up with craft things, given that we have 2 craft fairs and a craft party. I will also need to do things like organise travel insurance, get money changed and find something to wear to the numerous weddings coming up. But I am looking forwards to spending some QT with Lee along the way too, as I've been so busy I've not seen much of him this week.

Back on Tuesday - Happy Easter, and as Jo's gran says - remember the reason for the season!

posted by Claire @ 4/05/2007 04:13:00 pm | 3 comments |

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Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Why don't cyclists have a license?

It's only 21 days until we go on holiday. I am very glad. Before then, I have another 4 craft events to deal with, a hen nite and a training course in Edinburgh to get through. I am doubtful my sanity will last that long.

I just realised that I have not really posted properly since my birthday fiesta and as such am very behind the times here. Since then we've had a 4 successful craft events, 2 of which were our own, behind us. Our first foray into organising a market in Edinburgh turned out very well in the end, but was not without it's problems, the main one being the venue which was an actual cave with authentic water running down the walls. I don't think anyone enjoyed the conditions, but we all certainly enjoyed a new wave of enthusiastic customers and of course, the sales.

Not so good news is having a battery of tests at the doctors for some issues that I will not bore anyone with, but is a bit stressful, so on top of proper work being busy, craft events, making things and of course ordinary life, it's been rather manic of late. Will be glad of that holiday.

To brighten up my day tho, lovely Catherine has offered me her spare ticket to see Chicago at the theatre tomorrow nite! It was a lovely surprise for a dreary Tuesday - thanks!

Off to craft mafia meeting now, yay, it's home time!

posted by Claire @ 4/03/2007 04:27:00 pm | 0 comments |

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Monday, April 02, 2007

This is a fragile ecosysytem.

I know - it's ridiculous that I am so out of date with this.

I am stupidly busy just now. In the mean time whilst I try and pull myself together look at this.

posted by Claire @ 4/02/2007 03:01:00 pm | 0 comments |

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