Jump for Joy!

Happy Chinese New Years!

Welcome to the year of the boar/pig! The nature of people born under this sign tends to be: ‘knowledgeable in organizing times for works and leisure. Fond of enjoying life and forgetting any targets in life. Should learn to work harder.’ I myself was born under the sign of the horse: ‘cheerful, quick witted and popular. Be regulated to her paces may have the chance to see things clearer.’ Sounds pretty good to me! LOL

This leads nicely on to the subject of my birthday! Only found out recently that my birthday falls on the same day as Ground Hog Day! That should make remembering a bit easier... my parents on the other hand some how forgot completely, using the excuse that my ‘actual’ birthday wasn’t until later as they go by the Chinese calendar... if that is the case, my ‘actual’ birthday this year was on Valentines Day!!! So depressing :(

This now naturally leads onto Valentines Day... the company I work for was having trouble meeting its quarterly quota so I had to work over time all of last week – didn’t get home until 8pm one night! Worked through Valentines Day and even forgot to go past the Krispy Kreme store to grab the limited edition doughnut – I did the same thing last year and missed out on the limited edition doughnut.

Besides from working all hours of the day and then coming home writing up reports, I was also busy house hunting for my parents! You may recall I mentioned in passing that my mum and my younger sister, Sally went to Hong Kong/China – well I spoke to them a few days after they landed to make sure they have arrived safely and enjoying their time there and one of the first thing they told me was they have managed to lose a brand new camcorder (which my dad only brought just before Christmas) and Sally’s DS Lite (which was a present from Duong to Sally for passing her exams) along with a dozen games! They managed this feat in the space of a few hours after landing in Hong Kong airport waiting for their transfer flight to China! LOL

Anyway, whilst my mum was in Hong Kong/China, my dad gave me the mission to find a few properties that they might like... I received no less than 20 emails a day and 5 phone calls – I had to silence my phone during the day as the noise was driving me mad!

The past month have not all been work – I did manage to squeeze in some culture and great nights out with my dear friends and family... went to see the David Hockney exhibition held at the National Portrait Gallery with Caf. I can’t say I am now a fan of his work, but I did like the ‘multi-point perspective’ work he achieved with a normal Polaroid camera. I am not going to waffle on about ‘pastiche neo-cubist paintings’ and the influence Picasso had over his work because I do not understand all that – I just liked how each Polaroid can be appreciated as a single captured moment in time, and then pieced together to make a picture as a whole... The rest of Hockneys’ work did not interest me as much as it did Caf... he did appear to be a very good artist but it was too real for me, it was portrait of real people in the artist’s life...

My parents may have forgotten my birthday but my dear friends and family helped me celebrate on 2 separate occasions... first a few of my dearest friends treated me out to sushi at Ten Ten Tei (organised by Shirin) where they lavished me with some of the most thoughtful gifts – including a pendent with my birthstone, a fabulous chocolate cook book and starter kit and chocolate fondue set, pashmina, bracelets and hat! They then finished the meal off with a loud rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ where a few others customers joined in and clapped – I turned quite red and couldn’t leave the restaurant fast enough! To follow we went to Covent Garden for a few rounds...

The following day Trees, Kim, Ping and Lin treated me to tapas at Canary Wharf, La Tasca. We stayed for hours, 3 course meal with plenty of English tea (!). At one point I was bridesmaid to 2 weddings this year but now I am only bridesmaid to Trees’ wedding, so whilst devouring the tapas, the main conversation of the night was wedding! Trees have agreed not to put Lin and me in pink/peach frilly things and I have been told to grow my hair or get extensions!

Oh, I nearly forgot the girls have again gone out and brought gifts for me with a budget of £10...

Trees: Hand warmers which look like leg warmers (!), a black clutch bag and a Lawyers calendar block full of lawyer antidotes

Kim: Pink thermal PJs (I thought they was the funniest thing I have every received!)

Ping: She checked out the blog and found out my latest celebrity crush was Richard Armitage and made a collage and then she found a picture of the cast of the Vicar of Dibley and framed the picture for me (she obviously didn’t read the blog properly... I only mentioned the show because Richard starred in the Christmas and New Year special – Ping and Kim was trying to figure out who in the cast I liked... it was either Hugo Horton (James Fleet) or Owen Newitt (Roger Lloyd-Pack), they never understood my taste in men so I wasn’t surprised (amused though) when they asked me after I opened the gift)

Lin: A mug with the word ‘neurotic’ on the side (I laughed out loud when I saw that!), a Momiji (http://www.momijishop.com/ – I have 2 of the dolls now, might need to start collecting them so I have a full set...!) entitled ‘Missy Flake’ who apparently likes: log fires, chocolate money and adrenalin sports.

I just love my friends and families so much! They just know me so well and can always make me smile :)

Another thing I want to add before I finish this entry is: I went home to my folks last night where my dad challenged us to beat his high score of 91% on the karaoke machine with a prize of £100 on whoever can beat his score... spent all night singing and only managed 84%, the prize eventually went to Sally who got 92%!!! There is always tomorrow ;)

Happy Chinese New Years

Helen x

posted by RavingLoonyLawyers @ 1:02 am