The Little Things

So after my last little, er...wobble on the board, I decided to try and chill and enjoy my time a bit more. This means getting a bit more sleep and to another, listening to the Jurassic Park overture before I get up in the morning to get all szhuzhed up...





...and ease back on the jittifyingly large intake of caffeine to which I've grown accustomed. I mean, much as I like my Starbucks wake-up juice (a venti white-choc mocha with two extra espresso shots) and enjoy the sensation of needing to pee every three minutes, I think it makes one rather tense. Work now doesn't seem all that bed and stuff. Plus, I've decided to just lean back and go with it, even if that does mean sticking the old head in the sand a bit regarding money and the looming threat of German invasion eviction or Council-tax flogging.

Anyway, I was coming home from work on Thursday night and decided to run and get my hair cut (because that's a mental night out for me) at a wee barbers were Spark and I got our scalps mowed before graduation. I went in, sat down and the (gorgeous...seriously gorgeous, but married to a scary-looking guy) tiny Romanian woman who had cut my hair before started chopping away, occasionally making small talk about the weather. Presently, she asked me whether I wanted my sideburns cut in and when I told her i didn't, she looked at me and asked me 'why'.

I didn't have an answer, I suggested that I might possibly grow out the beard again.

She shrugged, looking doubtful.

I asked her if she didn't agree. She shrugged again, and was silent for a moment before declaring 'your face is too long for a beard, you look strange.'

So the rest of the session was rather marred by the fact that we both dissolved into tears of laughter.


THEN when I was walking home, newly-barbered when I was stopped dead in my tracks. Breathless I stood there, like a fat emo looking at a new shop called 'Sensitive Cheeseburgers' as my eyes took in something that I have searched for in my time here in London but not had the luck to find. Now, as I was walking, a minute's stroll from my bed, I had been touched by the hand of good fortune and stumbled across a shop which dealt specifically in tobaccos, whiskeys and chocolates. Yes, an independent tobacconists, right here in my little niche of the world, West Hampstead, London, England, UK, Europe, World, Space.

Robert Graham (Est 1874) is a Scot outfit that deals in the good stuff in life and when I bolted into the shop and demanded 'How long have you been here?' the poor bemused woman behind the counter was rather nonplussed. We shook hands and chatted for a while, and I left with her card, having offered my services if she wanted any weekend staff.

God that would be sweet, surrounded by cigars and boutique cigarettes and pipes and whiskey and rare chocolates and.....well, I'm getting distracted here. I left, and went to the coffee shop at the end of my street where I had a 'diet' espresso (just the one) and ruminated and scribble in my little notebook. I went home, read and went to bed, all happy and smiley. It's the little things I suppose.


Now, it's Saturday, and I'm sitting in my bed listening to Classic FM and considering a bacon sandwich. I fucking love lazy weekends. I'm about to go and meet a blog-friend for his birthday drinks too. I'm rather excited tbh, as this fella's a top-notch bloke, and a great writer to boot. Should be fun!


Also, at this point, I realise that I have inadvertently completed another of my 101 things to do. Wow, I'm totting them up this week:

55) Find a nice tobacconists in London, with a nice blended pipe-tobacco to rival my favourite – Peterson’s Connoisseur’s Choice.





Not only were there many many different types of beautiful carcinogenic tobaccos to fawn over, but they had it...my favourite, the Connoisseurs Choice.

Yahtze!

Now I just have to find a racist to punch.


Completed 8/101