Saturday, the day of rest. And the rest!

I woke up all bent and broken on the sofa, after giving rose the double bed to spread out in. The good news is that I don't feel as sick as I did yesterday, and indeed, the night was unbroken by vomming. Bonus!

However, the night was punctuated by some very strange dreams... I owned a house in Camden, and insisted that everyone walked around in the nude (?!) I had placed items from the kitchen all over the house, including cups, cutlery and glasses on the stairs, which I systematically trod on over and over again every time I moved. I had invited Clair, Pippa and Tom round for the evening and insisted that they wear nothing but togas...I think I am a bit of a sicko for dreaming this, and I really don't know which creepy nook of my mind these sorts of weird thoughts come from. But obviously dream Clair, Pipp and Tom agreed and banished me from my own house, dropping me off nude outside of Kentish Town station to fend for myself. The dream descends into chaos at this point when I find myself navigating the route of the 29 night bus, still in the nude, at the back of the bus trying to hide. The 29 is definitely bad enough when you are fully clothed. When I did make it back to my house in the dream, none of my three friends would let me in and I had a drinking glass impaled in my foot from my travels which I was too much of a woofter to remove. What a saddo! Rose on the other half, dreamed that I was going out with an elderly Chinese man... I think we were involved in baby smuggling or something similarly sinister.

Something strange that I now realise was reality and not a dream was the yesterday's lunchtime visit to Ely hospital's very own top class eaterie, 'The Docky Box'. My dad and I visited the DB whilst Rose was under the knife at about 1.45 yesterday lunchtime. The DB does a wide variety of hot Fenland lunch for the staff and inmates at Ely hospital. Of all the relatives of the poor and sickly that may have dined in this fine establishment before, they can never have experienced any custom before like that of my dad... On the noticeboard outside there are photos of the four members of staff, lovely old ladies that they are - Joyce was my favourite, she was the only one smiling in the photos. In fact, the other kindly old dears all looked as though they were being tortured in their picces - the contrast of dear old Joyce smiling made me almost think that she was taking some perverse pleasure in their collective pain.

My father's insatiable desire for a lot plate of food with a hot pud to boot would try even the patience of saintly Joyce. Not realising that the DB opens for lunch service in line with local GMT Ely hours at 11am, and by 1.45pm...all hot food was gone. Not for dad though, who took Joyce to one side and begged for some delicious hot dinner. Bribery of some sort took place and within minutes omlette, chips and salad arrived in front of him followed by treacle tart and hot custard. The lovely Joyce beamed at him, I think there may have been a wink too. I had a yogurt and a carton of 'beena and watched in wonderment as he ate. Good times.

Tonight I recommend: Total Wipeout, So you think you can Dance? and ITV's Take Me Out. I won't say any more. Just watch them. Dear God, I know I will be.

What I learned today:

Simon will stop at nothing to get his lunch.

Saturday night TV is ridiculous and AMAZING.

Never put Ian Beale's face on your blog again.

Have a fabbo Saturday!

In sickness and...sickness

The horror began at about 1.30am, when I stuck my head out of the bed and vomited. It was the sort of terrible vomit that is totally relentless, whenever one bout ended I was barely able to get my breath back before I was forced to bendover the loo again and start heaving once more. Sorry for being so graphic, but there you are, it was a rough night.

We all rose early as today was the day of Rose's denervation procedure at the hospital. She always both dreads and looks forward to the continued operations on her lower back/lumbar area. Looks forward to them, as they may eventiually bring her relief from the chronic pain that she suffers, and dread, because of the excruciating pain that the op causes her. It's always weird seeing her come to in the ward, she looks really young and tiny and vulnerable. Today two of the nurses askes me if I was nervous about my 'daughter's operation'. I cannot really blame them though, I look madly rough and knackered today - especially as I have burst all of the blood vessels around my eyes and mouth from puking all night. I think I look a bit like that Charlize Theron when she plays the murderer in the film Monster. But, obviously a much less attractive version of her.

The op went well, but she's really in pain now. We have watched a terrible programme called 'Popstar to Opera star' on ITV, wich had an inexplicable judging team that included Lawrence Lewellyn-Bowen - opera qualifications? None, but he does like to wear those flamboyant shirts with frilly sleeves, so that's just as good. Meatloaf is also a judge and everythime someone sings, so gushing and forward is he in his praise that he has begun to announce that he wants to 'do' the contestants: "Give it to me baby! OH YEAH! I wantcha!" Hmmm. Nice! Unfortunately I missed it last week when Alex James (the love of my life between the ages of 13-15) who has begun to whore himself out on any reality tv show going, sang the famous aria from Rigoletto, whilst jutting and strutting around like a prize tit. He was the first voted off. Ah well, he's still a very foxy man and probably Meatloaf offered to console him by performing some soft of sexy sex act upon him.

Now I think I will try to make myself look slightly less freakish - but if you do see me in the coming few days, you will know why I seem to be wearing all of my capilleries on the outside of my face.

Bonne nuit! xxx

Brideshead REDUX the Cambridge version!

Today, I ventured back to the motherland (Cambridge, where my mother actually lives) to see the strange faces of my nearest and dearest. Tomorrow morning Rose and I are off to the hospital for another one of Rose's denervation procedures. I am rather nervous - much more so than her, who takes it all in her stride. I have bought her two magazines, sadly two copies of the same magazine and I imagine I will supplement this with a piece of millionaires shortbread and a carton of Ribena after the op tomorrow.

At the moment I am pleased. Pleased, because I have been told that I don't need to work my night shift tonight as said popular weight-loss drug site is currently 'down'. This means no graphic descriptions of 'bum-gravy', which will be a lovely treat. Instead, I can do all manner of fantastic things with my night instead! Namely, sleep. Ahhhh, delicious sleep. Book reading, nail varnish, bath and sleep. Not necessarily in that order, but all of those lovely things. And also wine. The rest of the bottle of wine. Mmm.

My dad has had a few glasses and is talking about Roger's Profanisaurus from Viz. He is giggling a lot to himself and reminiscing about people with strange names that he know in his youth. One is a psychiatrist called called Dr Donald Dick, who apparently used to say to him: "Put your brain in my hands." Whenever said doctor used to say this, my dad would make himself giggle by reversing the sentence and saying: " My name's Dr Donal Brain, put your dick in my hands." Hilarity! This means that dad wil laugh for at least 5 minutes, and then bring up his childhood friend, Russell Sprout. Also a very funny name. It becomes a bit less funny when dad then says: "Of course, he committed suicide before sixth form." Nice.

Mum is also on good form - reminiscing about the time when she called dad a 'rimmer' over Christmas dinner. Oh how we laughed!

I have to go now, as Rose has just shouted at me to stop fucking typing and dad has added his two cents by coming over to me, leaning into the screen and saying, "So, this is like Tony Benn's diary is it?" No, dad, no it's not. It is much less worthy and merely the rantings of my diseased mind. Plus some of your and mum's lesser profanities.

Goodnight my treacles, sleep well, as I will, tucked up in a comfy-ish bed (albeit one that I have to share with my sister) rather than moderating the disturbed ramblings of the clinically obese.

Hurrah! x

Perverted crush + popular culture = strange sensation followed by early bed.

I have just made a foul discovery. I, a little bit fancy, the man from the pay-as-you-go phone adverts who starts up a band and travels up and down the country shouting 'Join in! Let's all have fun!' like a dim-witted pied piper. Sick, I know, and I will seek help. Promise. It's not his face - which looks like the back of a wooden spoon with eyes, nose and mouth drawn on with a blunt pencil - disgustingly, he has a nice aaaaarrrrseee. Argh!

To make things worse, I really like both of La Roux's songs and this new girl Ellie Goulding also has a catchy tune going on. I feel like an old woman watching the Brits intro programme going 'Who's that? Who ARE they?!' (JLS) 'These are quite good - what fun irony these little scamps are utilising!' (N-DUBZ) and 'Excuse me whilst I vomit' (Fearne Cotton).

Whilst getting my yearly popular culture fix, I decided to flick over to the National Televison Awards on another channel, to be greeted by the 'Best Soap' award award award. They proceeded to show clips from Easties, Corrie, The 'Oaks and the Other One. I don't know much about the other one - except that it always has incest story lines and is set on a farm. The choicest clips of 2009 from all of these included a montage of everyone from Albert Square watching the lady who used to be on Game On getting carted off by the old Bill, whilst the camera focused on a slo-mo of Ian Beale's face with a bit of chip falling our of his mouth. The 'Oaks clip had someone doing the famous dance from Dirty Dancing's climax, then inexplicably getting shot half way through, and the one set on the farm showed a not-at-all harrowing clip of a girl and boy being told that they shouldn't be sleeping with each other, as they are in fact brother and sister... I don't know why I laughed, but I did. Probably because I'm sick and I fancy the man from the mobile phone advert.

Today I bought Rosie a birthday present. A thing of beauty and a joy forever! Unfortunately I also bought myself a present at the same time and now I have no money. Obviously I am a twat and now I need to travel everywhere on foot and eat delicious brown rice only. Except for the Ferrero Rocher that Rick has just wantonly shoved in my gob. We have 14 FR left, which means strict rationing from now on.

Now that I have had a pop overload, I am going to watch Newsnight and get back to reality. I may also have another FR. I think I deserve it for all of the culture that I have ingested, as everyone knows that you must ingest lots of choc, rather than pop.

Thanks you and goodnight x

Tomato Tarte Tatin and Fake Pearls

Today was tomato tarte tatin day, I even made my own puff-pastry with parmesan and delicious fresh thyme. Like most things, the excitement that I felt before I made it was the real pinnacle of my day, and the slight disappointment that I felt when I took it out of the oven is becoming a regular feature too.

This morning the electrician come round to fix the oven and some of its many problems. After narrowly avoiding gas leak/fireball scenarios before Christmas, we have finally managed to get the gas back on and the oven back in the wall. Which means dinner, not made in the microwave. Which is good, as making soup and meraingues in a microwave is no joke. The electrician came round at 10.30am, but said that he'd be here at 7.30am. I fell asleep on the sofa, and I woke to the alarming buzz of the doorbell I had dribble running down my chin...What a state I looked! Or so I thought. I tidied myself up for the electrician and hurried down the stairs. I should not have bothered. The man leaning his forehead on the glass with his eyes closed stank of pure booze and stumbled in wordlessly. The job took an hour, which included the 45 minutes spent drinking delicous caffine and talking about his son who has just dropped out of college and works in Debenhams part-time. His daughter is doing child develpoment studies and he was keen to ask me lots of questions about this, I literally have no idea why. I have never met him or his daughter before and I do not work in this field. I decided to terminte the random coffee morning by putting on my boots and coat and jangling my keys. He asked me if I had left college when I was yonger too - what will become of his son? He asked. I attempted to clumsily comfort him by saying that indeed, I had had my share of failed courses etc. But was now the proud holder of 3 degrees! Oh! Yes, respectable me. And what did I do, he asked, that allowed me to be home at 11am with a matted hairball balanced on my head counselling the help? I'm a writer, I said. Ah... came the response. Then he arose and walked to the door. I left at the same time as him and walked to the shops. When I go to the zebra crossing a the traffic on one side stopped , but in the other direction did not - I stepped out onto the street to be confronted by none other than the screech of electricians van. The sweet poetry of being nearly run down by my newly accquired friend. I waved and skipped accross to Costcutter to get the flour for my cookies. A narrow miss.

The best bit of today was buying a set of fake pearls that attach to the ends of my glasses, so that I could fulfil my dream easily putting my glasses on and taking them off whilst having them suspended around my neck on a fake pearl necklace. This means that they won't be perched on my head all day long with me running around looking for them and squinting attractively. Nice.

What a day, what a day.

What I've learned:

Three degrees does not a good job get.

I look a bit like JB Fletcher from Murder She Wrote with my new pearls/glasses combo.

Cookies and tarte gives you a 'bread baby'.

Goodnight Chaps x

Day two smells of poo

I am writing this from the comfort of my warm bum-cheeked spot on the sofa after watching Spellbound and eating delicious minstrels. Tonight we had Jessie-Moo round for dins and I made smoked haddock fishcakes with quails eggs and green apple sorbet with strawberries and greek yog. I may have gone lsightly mental making sorbet and hand-churning it every 5 minutes, but really, it is the highlight of my day.

Work was another roller-coaster ride through the lives of Jordan, Kerry and the fat melty-faced Baldwin that is in Celebrity Big Brother. Whilst trying to navigate the mirky quagmire of 'celeb' dirty dealings I also had the gasman round for half the day installing the hob and making gas happen in our flat. It did happen, just, but is still dangerously connected and we'll have him back at 8am tomorrow. I think it might have been illegal for me to cook my quails eggs using the stove but I really fucking wanted them and I don't care. They were tasy n all, but I don't half feel like a poncey git. Oh well.

Things I have learned today:

Gas comes out of a big pipe which does not connect to our stove, but instead terminates in the cupboard where we keep our glasses. Of course.

Argos will deliver my bed next Monday. All of their cheapo beds are named things like the 'Oslo', the 'Stalin' the 'Big Squidge' and the 'Jeff'. I have just purchased the 'Bavaria'.

Sorbet takes 6-8 hours of constant churning.

Jordan has definitely not had botox.

The man who mistakes the HSBC cashpoint on Seven Sisters Road as a urinal has struck again.

Goodnight one and all,

Chloe

D'you wanna be in my tribe, my tribe, my tribe?

Dearests,

I have decided to begin a blog. It is called Tribe of 1 (inexplicably) and I want you all to sign up so that I am not a lonely bugger, sitting in my pants, blogging about my various adventures to no one. Or don't. Whatever you like really, don't want to sound pushy.

After the sucess of last week and the culinary newsletter installments I thought it might be nice to jot down my rantings, especially as I can't find any actual paid work writing, and I do enjoy it so, what with being a writer and all.

I shall be re-posting the Cooking Chronicles on this for you all to see - though ITV have warned me not to risk being sued by publishing anything potentially libellous. As if I would do that! Though I will just say for the record that JBR is a drunk and that I was physically shut in a kitchen and forced to cook for the aristocracy. Tru dat.

Anyway, enough rambling for now, as I hear the dulcit tones of Ricky from out makeshift recording studio in the roof and I am off to make a 6 course dinner without the aid of a hob or any gas, what with us getting shut off by the National Grid just before Christmas for 'Gasleak'. Just general 'gasleak' - not sure if our lives were in danger but as everything around is slowly crumbling, I will assume yes.

I hope you are all well ducks, until tomorrow,

C