I know, I KNOW.

Dang.

There was the call from Singapore, Ren saying: “...and by the way, when are you going to update your blog?” and then there was the text from Nai, saying: “Am Haha-ing around your area. Would love to Haha with you too if you are not busy updating your blog. Haha.” And me too, the internalised blog guilt, and every passing day making it harder to catch up.

There has been so much, and so fast, and everything all at one go, and so little sleep, not least because no matter what time I go to bed on the weekends—for example, at four in the morning, having walked home from Gray’s Inn Road after fondue night in Islington—I wake up at eight in the morning, discombobulated, wondering if I’m late for work. But we like it a lot, work; life; boys; the boy; London; Paris; invitations to Beirut; Finchley, yes, we even like Finchley, and the one-hour commute gets shorter every day; fondue; the gang; kisses; walks; daily phone calls; climbing out the window to smoke on the rooftop; Dan speaking to me in Chinese and then subtitling himself, softer, in English; Laureen in town; drop-ins for dinner; Chinese New Year parties; Peking duck; vegetarian wontons; a whole celebration tin of White Rabbits; Borough Market two weekends in a row; orange-cardamom truffles; ginger-honey truffles; baked mushrooms stuffed with Stilton; green salads; purple salads; strawberries macerated in mint and Cointreau; sausages and mash, and the glorious kitsch of the New Piccadilly; coffees and hot panini on wet Sundays, and watching the rain drip-drip-drip outside Bar Italia; and most nights reason to lean back in a chair and say “Shit, life is good.” Some days it even seems like spring is here, almost, so close you might kiss it.

“We appreciate having your sunny disposition,” my boss said the other day, and when I told my mother this over the phone, she said: “Yes, you do have a funny disposition.”

Sunday morning, 8:26 a.m., and my eyes blinked open. So this is the life of a working girl: one week and my brain’s already wired to an office schedule, Sunday or no. CHEH.

Upstairs it still smells of lasagna from last night—minced lamb lasagna—which is not such a bad thing to wake up to at half-past eight in the morning. The lasagna story is only that I have been craving red meat for days now, and lasagna seemed like the kind of hot red-meaty thing where you just pop it into the oven, then you go about your business for an hour, then...mangia! I’d forgotten about the part about the chopping—oh, so much chopping, of carrots and small mushrooms and big mushrooms, of garlics and onions—and the stirring—so much stirring, and sniffing, and flavours mixing, and stomachs grumbling—and also that maybe if you start chopping at nine o’clock, mangia doesn’t actually bloody get to town till eleven.

You know who would have been aware of this? Suzzan would have been aware of this. Suzzan who taught me how to make lasagna some three weeks ago; except that when I say “taught” I mean that I’d said, “Oh! I want to learn how to make lasagna!” and then did who knows what I was doing while she made lasagna, while she chopped and grated and stirred—oh, okay, I know what I was doing, I was dancing about and e-mailing French boys—and then suddenly I was furrowing my brow and saying: “Wait, wait, how did we get to this point? ...and can I make the layers, please?”

The other night at dinner, John said to me and Hens, I forget how it came about now, but he said, “Well, I’d thought Susan would be there to help you out, and I’d thought, ‘Oh, good, there’ll be an adult, someone sensible.’” We laughed, we laughed till our eyes teared and we couldn’t speak for being doubled over, but I tell you, when the gula melaka sago pudding arrived, later, with two spoons, neither of them was for him.

Sunday morning, 9:26 a.m., and I don’t have to catch the Tube anytime soon. It’ll be a pot of fleurs d’oranger Oolong, then, and the comics.

It’s not hard, people, alls I want is a good button-down shirt for going to work in. My one continuous week of employment made it clear to me that my businesswear collection is somewhat lacking. Friday I figured I couldn’t recycle the smart black skirt anymore that week, so I crossed my fingers and wore jeans to the office—the only pair of jeans I own, scuffed and torn at the heels from my shuffling about in my red Converse sneaks.

But, so. The shirts. I mean, you think, how hard can it be? People work, I hear. And they have to get dressed for it somehow. All I want is, I dunno, a white shirt with a fine graph-paper-grid print in orange, to go under a fitted red sweater. Or a white shirt with small blue embroidered polka dots to go under a deep pink cardigan. Or a blue shirt with white embroidered polka dots to go under a green cardigan. You think these are achievable goals. You think wrong. I went south and west and east again, and all I found was one pyjama-striped shirt after another, each in a blue so inoffensive it was almost, itself, somnolent.

Maybe it’s just that I don’t know where to go. If I were in New York, I’d go to Anthropologie and J. Crew. If I were in Sydney, I’d go to Veronika Maine. If I were in Singapore, well, I wouldn’t fit into anything in Singapore anyway, so I’d just go to Ya Kun Kaya Toast and get a snack. Today I thought the Gap would save me, but no. I went into two, even—bought something in the first one, and returned it in the second. Let’s everybody hope that my walking around town all day at least made up for my not going to the gym.

OH BUT WAIT LISTEN

Forget the shirts. We don’t give a shit about the shirts. The thing is, I’d gone into this schmancy kitchen-things shop on the schmancy Marylebone High Street to get some paper petit-four cases for the pineapple tarts I’m making this weekend, and I was waiting at the till to pay, but the staff were all busy wrapping up some massive order for someone, stacks of casseroles and knives and bowls, and I was holding my petit-four cases in one hand and a five-pound note in the other, and I was thinking maybe I could just leave my money on the counter and say “Ta” when the someone came by and the someone was Jamie Oliver, looking exactly like he does on TV and everything. And Jamie Oliver in the flesh is one thing, but also, he had, tucked under one arm, the very same salad spinner I’d just bought. That’s right, me and Jamie Oliver, spinnin’ salads.

I called Hens, of course, once I got out of the shop, and she said, “Was everyone in the store in a flurry?” “Please,” I said, “of course, no—we were all really relaxed. I mean, come on, I was trained in New York, y’know, Jamie Oliver, please, who cares.” “But,” I said, “I tell you lah, all I have done is leave the store and cross the street and now I am standing opposite watching the exit for when he comes out.”

She wanted to know if he’d asked what I was going to be baking, and I said, “Ya! I really wanted him to, then he would have been all enchanted by the idea of this family recipe, Chinese New Year and all, and then of course he’d have invited me on his show...but he didn’t.” “You should have tapped him on the shoulder,” she said, “and asked, ‘Aren’t you curious?’”

Clearly.

But the thing is, I wouldn’t have had any clothes for the shoot.

“I got the new Vogue!!” I texted Hens just minutes after we parted down by Seven Dials. “Strike a pose,” she messaged back.

This pose I am striking?, it is me on the sofa with the guestroom duvet, having collapsed from having just completed my first week at work. I’d been waning by Wednesday, and was essentially running on empty come dinnertime Thursday—“I hope you haven’t noticed,” I’d said to Elaine over a hot okonomiyaki, “that I have been slouched over all night with my head balanced on my hand.” “I had,” she said, “noticed.”

Oh, how out of habit I am with this Monday-to-Friday thing, this nine-to-six thing, this commuting-an-hour-each-way thing. I’m not complaining about it, I’m just saying. The thing is, essentially, the work seems good, the people seem nice, there’s a girl who rides a Vespa and helps refugee ferrets on the weekend, there’s a boy who is very quiet but out of whom I managed to wrangle a smile, there’s biscuits at the ready, and full-cream milk in the fridge. And I got my first cheque today—for less money than I’ve ever made in my life, but I showed it off at dinner anyway, partly because I am a little bit of a show-off, but mostly because, come on, it’s pretty cool nonetheless. And if I was running on empty last night, tonight I was running on pure adrenalin, on the rush of a Friday night, on the sweet anticipation of no-work-tomorrow.

...is as far as I got blogging last night before I fell asleep on said sofa, under said duvet, with my iBook on my lap. So this is what it’s like to be a working girl.

I feel like I haven’t been here in a while, the “here” of working life, sure, but also the “here” of the city, because two weekends in a row in Paris are bliss on the one hand and minor discombobulation on the other, and it felt for a bit like alls I do around here is go to the office. This weekend I am reclaiming my London a little bit; after dinner last night I crossed Monmouth on the way to Shorts Gardens and remembered those carefree days of un- or semi-employment, when all of Covent Garden was mine at all hours of the day. Right now I think I need, me and my Vogue, to revisit the boys at Bar Italia. See that girl striking a pose by the steam-engine Gaggia up front on the zinc counter? Ya.

The sky was white today, and the Pimlico wind cut through my coat. I am tired of winter, I want it to be warm, I want new clothes, I want bangs and a ponytail, I want to read in the sun on the green, green grass, I want him to be here, now.

I know it sounds like I don’t do shit but go to Paris these days, but, um.

Last Thursday evening after work I was outta here like, well, a girl on her way to Paris. Listen. This is Paris: Friday off and the world to see. Baobab juice and a green colombo curry at the Antillais place, while the shopgirl played tropical tunes off a cassette tape. The suited tea merchants at Mariage Frères, and the massive black tea tins, one after distinguished other. One day we are going to work chez les Frères, where we will sit in the back and come up with names for new teas. Teatime, then, on rue Ramus, up the stairs till you can’t get any higher. Tiled floors and a blue bathroom. At 10 Bar, chorizo tartines and carafes of cold sangria, and Panda with an idea for a brand new sandwich vending machine. The jukebox played “Isn’t She Lovely” once, and then, because the song is worth it, twice. Dinner, oh my word, but you have not had dinner till you have had dinner here, at Les Papilles, where twin olive trees mark the spot. And this was just the beginning.



Sit down. Here is more. Saturday, the morning existed only in our dreams. Sometime after midday, Rue Mouffetard scented roast chickens and viennoiseries. The hot chocolate at Angelina went straight to my head and I had to stop at one and a half. The façades of the cour carrée in lights, and the fountain, icy, and a boy, and a girl. At the wine shop, one of us looked at wines and the other of us looked at the spread of honeys and jams. We walked up streets and down streets and we were very happy when the bus stop indicated the number twenty-one would be along in three minutes. Rue Ramus—upstairs?, the tiled floors?, the blue bathroom?, also the thick-glass-paned kitchen door—for Champagne and chocolate cake. Quite late, asleep in the taxi, and the gentlest of wake-ups when we pulled up at home.



Sunday, quiet like Sundays. Inside the red doors, the flurry chez Gladines and a strong espresso. A confit de canard, then, passke ça fait longtemps que j’ai pas mangé du confit de canard. I wanted to know about this île flottante on the dessert menu, but there were Portuguese tarts awaiting at Ana and Bruno’s, with the wood floors and the praying nun squeaky toy. We took a left out of their building, and then the city, the city, the secret streets, the windows lit warm. Then one from a basket of baguettes hot from the oven, and in the street we tore into it. Too soon, the London train with eleven minutes to go.

The thing is, all of this: it is just the beginning.