Tassie

Tassie - my baby, my love, my dearest friend, my confidante, my beautiful loving dog - died today.

After two nightmarish weeks of worry followed by hope, despair followed by relief, today the illness in her body, which we'll never fully know, got the better of her. And as she drifted away in my arms, I really felt something went out in me too.

My mother and I are totally heartbroken and cannot imagine life without her. How unfair that we must now talk of her in the past, that she is no longer in our present with her delicious smelling paws, her warm soft ears, her beautiful golden coat, always waggy tail and those huge sad brown eyes which could warm the coldest heart.

Everybody loved Tassie. A dog but a person, a family member.

Each day from now will be painful for a while.

Rest In Peace my darling.

Goodbye Willie Booth

Today I went to Westminster to celebrate the life of The Reverend Prebendary Willie Booth, a much loved friend of many and a significant figure in my own formative years at the palace.

It was a lovely memorial service, full of fond anecdotes as well as many musical and literary delights and this passage particularly struck a chord:

Success

To laugh often and love much;
to win the respect of intelligent persons
and the affection of children;
to earn the approbation of honest critics
and to endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to give of one's self;
to leave the world a little better,
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
to have played and laughed with enthusiasm
and sung with exultation;
to know that even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived -
this is to have succeeded.

attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life meets Death at Wapping Project

It’s rare that we are actually made to confront death so boldly as we are at the Wapping Project’s Death Drive exhibition where nine evocative photographs by Dean Rogers meticulously capture the scenes of iconic celebratory deaths.


Rogers took the photos on the anniversary and at the exact time and place that Jayne Mansfield, Marc Bolan, Albert Camus, Grace Kelly, Eddie Cochrane, Princess Diana, James Dean, Jackson Pollock ad Helmut Newton met their end. The results are morbidly fascinating and eerily beautiful.

The show, which runs until 1 November also includes a fabulous ‘Crash’ type a-z by Deborah Levy..."a perilous road trip through death, celebrity and the automobile". Then, in the back room is ‘Signal 30’, an Ohio Highway Patrol road safety film for schools made in 1959. Nothing is spared and it’s not for the faint hearted. They’d never get away with it now, although perhaps they should. The horrid waste of it all. More here at one of the most irritating websites ever.

If that sounds a bit too sinister but you haven’t been to the Wapping Project, go anyway. Once a hydraulic power station, the gallery is such a unique space and free to enter, and the spacious restaurant, though a bit pricey, serves really imaginative food. The real draw though is that you eat surrounded by the original pulleys and machinery - a legacy of the building’s past.

I Love My Postcode

What a clever idea. There are so many different postcodes in London, each with their own character, history and fans.

Now you can share your enthusiasm for yours at ilovemypostcode.com.

Read an interview I did about E1 in the blog.

Autumn in my favourite city

Days and weeks and months have flashed by and now we are in Autumn.

So many days of sun, friends, fun and cycling around this marvellous city have passed, making it difficult to believe I've been back for over five months.

My new bfcf (best female cycling friend) Vanessa and I have explored canals...

cycled to city farms...

done the (Mayor of London's) Skyride, got stuck in to the Bicycle Film Festival...
and many other wonderful things besides; both of us, in different ways and with individual needs trying to figure out the course of our futures. Sounds serious but is proving a lot of fun.

I have greatly enjoyed working for Stacey and the rest of the bright, energetic, expert Lavish team and am proud to have helped, even just a little, with the development of the new charity arm of the business, Lavish Connect. However, although I have much to learn and would stay there for much, much longer if I could, I must turn to new ventures.

So now it's back to thinking about what I'm good at, what I want to achieve and how to get that message across to potential employers!

In some ways I feel far more knowledgeable about a plethora of creative services, project management and charities but I am woefully lacking in confidence, experience and purpose. I feel unskilled in these sectors, an insecurity which no doubt comes across in the workplace, despite the effort I put it. I feel I am always disappointing.

Having said that, it's apparent that the massive uptake of social media trends such as Twitter in recent months makes it a very exciting time to be in new media and the geek in me knows I will soon find my niche. Meanwhile, Lavish will continue to prop me up while I soak up as much 'inside knowledge' as I possibly can. I am so grateful to them.

So, while I look ahead to the future, I must add that I am loving the present and feel very lucky to be able to cycle around the capital making the most of these glorious, crisp and cloudless days of Autumn. Having decided against buying a new stead, instead I am pimping the old one with these from Bobbin Bicycles in Islington:


Much to my delight, I've also become Newsletter Editor of Southwark Cyclists. Check out my work on The Needle!

July...already??

Wow. It feels strange to be back on my blog after so long.

Can it really be almost a year since we first arrived in Australia, after all that traveling around Asia?

Have we already been back in London for 3 months?!

Things have been fantastically busy since our return. After several weeks of trying to elbow my way back in to the BBC, calling on just about every contact I still have there, I have decided to retrain in Project Management. I never wanted to be a civil servant anyway.

Stacey, my biggest supporter (aside from my parents) and inspiration, has bravely taken me on and is teaching me the ways of the Creative industry.

I know so little. My interest in all things geeky and tech related goes only so far when it comes to making steps in this new world. She and Mr. Madge are imbuing me with mountains of knowledge, born of years of hard work, and allowing me access to all facets of their business.

It's a very exciting place to be right now, even more so with this recession, and I am grateful to be here.

The weather, an ever-important subject for a cyclist, is erratic but hardly grey at the moment and I can ride in a t-shirt or frock every day and I am truly happy to be back in London.

I will write again soon but for now, I implore you kind friends to yet again sponsor me on a charity ride. This time it's for Leukemia. I promise not to ask again for at least three months!
Neil D'Souza is one of my team mates and he set up the JustGiving page.

ttfn xxx

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