The first of this run’s theme days: create.
Of course I knew I’d be showing off my knitting when I chose this theme. I made Lauren choose the colour theme for day 5 because I found myself staring around my office, looking for something I’d find easy for that day … and cheating twice is just bad manners.

I’m knitting my first jumper, which, along with making a photo book, was on my list of intentions for this year. The challenge being to follow a slightly more complicated pattern and to commit to something a little less “instant” than a hat. I’m not sure for whom I’m making this, as I know very few tiny people … and I’m not sure how big it’s going to end up yet either. So I guess it’ll be a surprise!

The postman brought me a hotly awaited parcel yesterday: my first photo book, made using Apple’s iPhoto. Making a photo book is on my list of things to do this year and I’d finally got one designed, finished and ordered. It’s quite nerve-wracking uploading the book, hoping to God that you haven’t missed any typos or accidentally put the wrong photo in somewhere.

I went for the most expensive option, a large hardcover book. It documents my travels this year: Cannes, Salzburg, Vienna and Bratislava. At just over £32 for 28 pages (and dustcover!) it was worth every penny; it’s quite something seeing your own photos printed in a book - and now I just want to make more and more!

By the way, there’s still time to join us in the 7 Days group if you wish!

The past few months I’ve had a little trouble with episodes of “feeling funny”. This horrid feeling was familiar to me as the precursor to the seizures I had back in 1999/2000 when a chronic cerebral abscess was giving me shit. That was subsequently removed and thrown across the room in disdain by my brilliant neurosurgeon, Chris Chandler, in spring 2000 and since October 2004 I’ve been medication-free too.

I was thus somewhat perturbed when this funny feeling returned with somewhat of a vengeance in July, accompanying the usual monthly excitement. I’ve had this unpleasantness wash over me very occasionally if I’m overtired, but this time around I was getting momentary numbness on my left side. Not good. My GP referred me straight back to Chris and I saw him today.

He asked me how I’d been. Great! Seizure-free for seven years! Brilliant! He was delighted and I even got an exclamation point in my notes - apparently you get one for every five years you’re fit-free. Then he read the list of symptoms I’d brought with me.

What I was describing were stereotypical temporal lobe seizures. I lost my exclamation mark. In a nutshell, I’m ok, but a tiny bit of scar-tissue left over from 2000 is causing the occasional short circuit. I’m being referred to an epilepsy expert and this might end up with me going back to a low dose of an anti-convulsant.

I don’t want a pill making my face chubby again. And I hate that I’ve just lost my claim to being 100% ok for the past seven years. There was still a twinge of pride when just last week I was able to tell my optician that I wasn’t taking any medications. Yes, this is only a small blip and maybe this specialist will sort it out for me. But for the time being it’s still crap. I just thought I was ok and had finished with this chapter once and for all seven years ago.

Krystyn, whom I find mesmerising and very slightly intimidating, tagged me for this. It’s a meme. I didn’t kill it, but I did change some of the spelling and grammar. I know how to party.

1. Does someone love you?

Too many to list.

2. What colour is your couch?

Terracotta.
(Cue my parents muttering to each other in the sitting room about how I’ve just claimed their sofa as my own)

3. Has anyone ever mistaken you for someone famous?

Heh. A random little kid once thought I was an oompa loompa. I wasn’t (too) offended, but I much preferred the comparison that the musician drew about six months later: “Has anyone ever told you that Reese Witherspoon looks like you?”. Like she copied me.

4. Are you named after a grandparent?
My middle name Elizabeth is my paternal grandmother’s first name and my mum’s sister’s middle name. I was born on my aunt’s 30th birthday.

5. Say you were given a drug test right now. Would you pass or fail?

I’d pass. I still have my septum and intend to keep it for at least as long as I have the rest of my face.

6. Are you taller than 5′6″?

Yes. Assuming your tape measure starts at 20.

7. When was the last time you were disappointed?

When I lost my concentration and harvested a sweetcorn cob that wasn’t ready. It may have come to nothing even if I’d left it on the plant, but it bugged me that I’d got it wrong. Christ on a bike, is that really all I have to complain about?

8. Ever seen a dead body?

Only on the TV. But it kept falling off, so my parents moved it.

9. Who was the last person to send you a text message?

Suzy. She called me sexy and offered to buy me dinner. I accepted.

10. What did you do yesterday?

Emailed Lauren mostly. Made a bunch of invoices, tidied a few things, set up BlogHer ads ($1.72 so far, I thank you), scratched my head a lot, failed to get to sleep until after 2am this morning.

11. What’s the first thing you would do with five million dollars?

Pay off my brother’s mortgage. Then I’d own his house and could sell it if he was ever mean to me.

12. What nationalit(ies) are you?

Entirely British.

13. Any upcoming concerts you want to attend?

Next year, next year. It’s funny how I used to think that going to live concerts was something incredible that only Other People did … and now I have a tendency to fly to another country a couple of times a year just to see a show.

14. Who’s the last person that you felt was stalking you?

If I have a stalker then I haven’t noticed them at all. I don’t know if that means that they’re really good at stalking, or really bad.

15. What’s your zodiac sign?

Scorpio. That’s all I know.

16. Where do you spend most of your money?

My savings account. I’m very, very mean.

17. On what do you spend most of your energy?

An awful lot of energy goes into angsting and overanalysing things (right, L?), but at the same time, an awful lot of energy goes into just getting on with things and being sensible. I’m a treat. A mildly psychotic treat.

18. Is there a secret you’ve never told any of your friends?

Yes.

19. What are you doing in 2008?

I’m envisioning an enormous amount of translating, research and a bit more travelling to concerts. I also hope to have made the decisions on what to grow in my vegetable patch before the time comes to do the sowing and planting.

20. What’s your favourite Disney movie?

I’ve no idea which are Disney films and which are not. I do remember that The Little Mermaid scared the crap out of me at the cinema.

21. Have you cried today?

No, but feeling a little hormonal combined with some emotional storylines on The Archers has meant my eyes have been stinging a few times this week.

23. What is your ringtone?

A frog ribbiting. It is Cool.

24. What is the wallpaper on your mobile phone?

Just a bubbly pattern that was on the phone.

25. Name twenty five bloggers you read that you’d like to learn twenty five things about.

You’re all invited to answer one of the above questions in the comments.

There’s a branch of the Dim T restaurant chain in Tunbridge Wells. I’ve walked past it many times and had it filed away as a venue for dinner with the girls at some point. I thought it looked exotic (I realise now that I just liked the logo) and wanted to try dim sum too. Mostly, I must admit, because there’s a bit in “Sleepless in Seattle” where Annie’s fiancé sings, “Dim sum, dim sum” to her to the tune of “Jeepers Creepers”. Note to advertising executives: if Tom Hanks has been near it, it’s been mentioned on the West Wing, or Laura Ingalls Wilder once had one, the chances are I will want one too. Whatever it is. Ok, maybe I can live without a plague of grasshoppers, but with the right jingle you may still persuade me.

We needed a venue to celebrate Lauren and her advanced age and as I am The Bossy Organised One, I suggested Dim T and that was that. Table was booked, menu was perused online, other people’s reviews were read … and dismissed.

Ho ho.

Helen, Suzy, Old Lauren and I rolled out of the pub across the road and arrived promptly at Dim T for 7.30pm. Weird curtains at the door that gave the impression you were passing between an enormous pair of trouser legs. Interesting looking place inside and a table had been reserved for us at the window. Drinks? Why, yes, Helen and I would very much like to sample the raspberry lemonade, thank you. Oh, no raspberry lemonade, you say? Then we’ll have something else.

We really should have taken that as the omen it turned out to be. We ordered a few baskets of dim sum and each chose a main before sitting back to sup upon our various (not raspberry-flavoured) lemonades. Our prawn crackers arrived, we played with the tableware, smelled the dangerous-looking chili pepper stuff, found that if we teamed up together we could lift a small china dish using our chopsticks … and waited.

And waited.

Various apologies were made and we were given a bowl of edamame on the house. Kept me happy, as in keeping with my tendency towards pop culture idolatry I felt like Dooce. Then with every bean pod emptied and the last salt crystal in the bowl found and eaten we waited a little longer.

And a little longer.

More apologies were made by a waiter who looked to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown, but they did nothing to satisfy the hunger of those at our table who were preparing to eat their own arms. Free drinks were offered and accepted then finally, 1 hour and 15 minutes after we’d sat down, we saw our dim sum being brought to us … and roughly two steps behind the first another waitress was following with our mains. Oh no you don’t, sunshine. Dim sum baskets accepted, mains turned away and promises procured that they wouldn’t just bring back the same plates in a few minutes.

So, mmm, dim sum. I’d been looking forward to this. Then I saw it. I don’t know what the skin was around the filling, but it looked like what you get if you boil horses’ hooves for long enough. It behaved like it too and trying to cut it in half with my chopstick was a task and a half. Fortunately the filling of whatever it was that had been chosen was nice and overpowered any taste the skin may or may not have had. My dream of liking this cool thing that I knew nothing about had been dashed.

Finally at 9pm our main course was served and we were just tucking into our various noodles and crispy duck pancakes when the restaurant lights were dimmed. We hypothesised that it was done to make it easier for the waiting staff to escape without us noticing. Maybe I’m old-fashioned and cranky, but I prefer to be able to see what I’m doing, so I started muttering when suddenly it all went dark and the only light was coming from above me, meaning that I was sitting in my own shadow. I guess I’m just more a 60W kinda girl.

My duck chow mein was nice. That’s all really. The meat could have been more tender though; there was one bit that required what felt like about 15 minutes of chewing. It brought back memories of when I was little and Dad would give me a little piece of bacon from his Sunday breakfast. I’d walk round the house chewing all the flavour out of it for God knows how long, before spitting it out in the bathroom bin, my little milk teeth unable to break it down small enough to actually swallow.

Food eaten we spurned the dessert menu and asked for the bill, summing up in our heads what we had been promised as freebies. Lauren, bank employee and therefore to be trusted with numbers, ran down the bill: 1 Wait for mains £0.00 - how generous! … woah, Trigger, you said the dim sum would be on the house. Take this back and try again. The waitress accordingly took the bill back and returned shortly, presenting us with … exactly the same piece of paper. The bill was returned to a different waitress and we decided that this was their final chance. Should the bill come back with any more errors, we’d just depart through the giant pair of trousers and not pay for any of it.

I was all ready to be militant and so was quite disappointed when the next copy of the bill was error-free. We put down our money - including a generous 40 pence tip - and hightailed it out of there. It was then as we wandered the streets wondering what to do next that we experienced what was for us the high point of the evening, nay, the week. A girl was handing out flyers for The Cuban restaurant around the corner and was eager to press her card into our hands as we were apparently their kind of people. “What kind of people is that?” Lauren enquired. “Not pikeys,” came the reply.

The 7 Days self-portrait project is back. You’re all very pretty - especially you boys - so come and join us for another 7 days of self-portraits, vanity, comment love and general frivolity! Lauren and I will be discussing what the theme days will be over dim sum tomorrow and they will be announced on the group page during the week. If you would like to share in this narcissistic joy, the 7 days of self-portraits will run from
Saturday 29th September 2007 to Friday 5th October 2007.

Join the group and/or learn more at: www.flickr.com/groups/sevendays/