Gazing at Gargoyles | Day 2/100

I cycle past this ugly brute every day on my way to and from work. When stopped at the lights, he is by far the most interesting thing to look at. I like the way he sits on top of his tower, glowering at the thousands of impatient, ashen-faced London city workers. Almost like he feeds off their bad moods. Mostly, his hellish, sinister look very much appeals to the goth in me.

Curious to know who he is and why he's there, I thought I'd make getting a snap and doing a bit of research my challenge for Day 2 of #100DaysOfInteresting.

The Cornhill Gargoyles

Turns out that the chap sitting ominously on the roof isn't alone. He's got two mates and collectively they're known as The Cornhill Gargoyles, or The Cornhill Devils, aptly called because they are found in Cornhill in London. Whether it's because I have bad eyes, or only have time enough to glance at the obvious, I can honestly say I never noticed the other two before.

How they got there and why seems somewhat murky. Starting with the actual, solid facts, I can tell you that they're made of terracotta and they are dated to the late 19th century. The story of why they are there is much harder to pin down, but if the most popular theory is to be believed then it's a story of religion, anger and revenge...

From whence the Devils came

Look closely when on Cornhill and you'll spot a spire. It's matched in size by surrounding buildings and dwarfed by London's many tower blocks, but it's there and it's the spire of St Peter's Church. Before modern London took over, St Peter's stood proud on top of Cornhill, one of only two natural crests within the city. The other is Ludgate, where you'll find St Paul's.

As the need for more offices in The City increased during the 19th Centuary, any tiny area of land was pounced upon and redeveloped. The result was that St Peter's became engulfed by commercial buildings and the church, much to the Rector's dismay, was vanishing from sight. 

He was, however, eventually rewarded with a small win over the developers. As they tried to build closer and closer to the church, the rector eventually spotted that one architect had gone a step too far as his design infringed upon church property. Kicking up a stink, the rector was found to be right and it was demanded that the architect redesign the whole building. 

Devil images, taken from lookingforghosts.wordpress.com

It's said that redrawing his plans cost the architect dearly in both time and money. Furious at this, he added to his new plans the inclusion of three devils as a mark of revenge. They were placed on top and at the edges of the building so they'd be a constant reminder to the rector of his meddling as he walked to enter the church. It's even thought that one of the devils was modelled to look like the rector. Public mockery in its most scathing form. 

So there you have it. The urban myth and as much actual fact as I could dig up on an evening. They are well worth a look though as they are (just about) the most terrifying gargoyles I've ever seen. 

Follow my challenges on Twitter using #100DaysOfInteresting and tag @RoseC_Leic. If you're keen to try it yourself, or simply want to share something interesting you've done, get in touch. 

Interesting paper that flies | Day 1/100

Until this evening I had never made a paper aeroplane. Sounds like such a simple thing I know, but for Day 1 of my #100DaysOfInteresting I wanted to do something that I never achieved as a kid.

At school I remember we did an afternoon of origami with a supply teacher. I was terrible at it. My ability to patiently fold paper with accurate edges and keep up with the teacher's instructions, was poor to say the least. We were trying to do something slightly more complex than an aeroplane, but not quite at the level of a swan. Maybe it was a frog? Either way, I was useless at it and resorted to concertinaing my paper into a small fan, because that was about all I could manage.

Skip a few years and now aged 29 I thought it was about time I faced my origami demons and at least give it another go. Start simple, so a paper aeroplane was the challenge.

Find a style

Ok, so I had no idea that there were so many different styles of paper aeroplane. I assumed there was just the one standard model and they all kinda flew the same. Well, the things you learn! So I started with this one...

And my attempt turned out like this...

Looks wise, not a total disaster for a first attempt. But on flying, it seemed to want to keep veering right. Maybe only any good to fly on roundabouts. 

My husband then piped up with, "Ah, I'll show you how to make one," (had a feeling this interesting thing would pique the interest of my male housemates!) so followed his instructions and it turned out like this...

We'll call it the 'Tucker Tornado' and flying wise it was impressive, managing to go the full length of the corridor. 

There was time to try one more, so I picked The Dart. Apparently it's the 'fastest paper airplane'. Well, how could a gal resist making such a high-tech piece of aerodynamic paper on a Monday night?! Here's how to make it...

And here's how mine turned out. Not a bad resemblance, huh? Flying wise, it went well. It was fast, but didn't go quite as far as I hoped it would.

I could have quite easily have kept going as there were some cool looking designs, but I think I would have been rushing my origami skills with some of them. 

Interesting Paper Aeroplane Facts

To round off the first challenge of my #100DaysOfInteresting, here are 3 interesting facts about paper aircraft...

• The longest flight time a paper aeroplane has achieved is 29.2 seconds. For those readers that reckon they can beat it, you can actually upload videos of your attempt here. 
• According to this site, the smallest paper aircraft measured just 2.5mm x 1mm. That's tiny. How could you even launch it?! With tweezers?
• According to one news source, the oldest paper aeroplanes are over 100 years old and were discovered in the eaves of St Anne's Chapel, Barnstaple. 

100 Days of Interesting: the idea

I've been in a right slump lately. There are a few reasons for this, the main one being a continued bad case of post-wedding/post-holiday blues. Naff weather, long commutes, a heavy workload and the general week-to-week routine that consists of get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, wash dishes, go to bed have also contributed.

I know, I know. That's just life and sometimes you can't avoid routine, but I think there is certainly more I could be doing to make the weekly grind a little less....structured. 

I suppose until recently I've been totally preoccupied with wedding planning. Or in the summer months it's easy to find fun things to do. Simply sitting in the park with a book for half an hour qualifies as having successfully done something that's a little bit interesting, a little bit different. And while me and the husband enjoy lots of interesting things at the weekends (dinners out, cinema, theatre, gigs, catching friends, visiting family), we sort of just settle that not much happens during the rest of the week. 

Thinking about all this the other night I concluded that I all too easily waste hours of my own time sitting in a funk doing very little, and decided I needed to do something about it. Something fun. Something achievable... 

So I am setting myself a challenge: 100 Days of Interesting.

The premise is simple. Each day I will do something a little bit different. Something out of routine. It could be as small as discovering a new website, snapping a photo of something that interests me or taking a different route to work. Or it could be something bigger like attending a free lecture, trying a new cooking recipe or visiting a different city. 

While I'm dedicated in getting all the mandatory daily routine stuff done, I should also be proving to myself that I can be just as proactive with my downtime. And who knows what new stuff I might discover along the way?

I'll be starting the challenge on Monday 9th November and finish it (funnily enough) a hundred days later on Tuesday 16th February 2016. I'll be blogging and tweeting (@RoseC_Leic) all the stuff I do, using the hashtag #100DaysOfInteresting. 

I can't promise everyone will find every little thing I do massively fascinating, but at least I'll be doing something.

Until Monday. 

RoseC   

Reading is such a novel-ty

What I wished my bedside table looked like, because I have soooo much time to read.

How do you find time to read? Because honestly, I just can't manage to do it and this frustrates me. I'm not talking about flicking through a magazine or newspaper to catch up on features, or the news. Every morning as the free press is thrust into my hand I'm able to read. Or when my phone flashes because the news app I use has decided it's got something important to tell me, I'll scan it over.

I can manage that, daily. Here I'm talking about actual reading. The kind where you sit for hours curled up quietly at one end of the sofa while the rest of the world goes about its business. That kind of reading.

During my uni days I'd be able to chew through books like they were going out of fashion. These days it's possible for me to count on one hand the number of books I can get through in the last 12 months.

Recently, I had a taste of what it felt like again to be able to sit and read uninterrupted with no other distractions. It felt good and I raced through a book in under a week that ordinarily would have taken me over a month to get through. To achieve this, I was sat for several hours a day on a warm beach, in a foreign country and without consistent access to wifi.

As well as enjoying a good book, it was also an actual pleasure to sit next to my partner, each of us enjoying our respective novels, pausing only briefly to update each other on dramatic plot points. I love being able to read in the company of my fella. It's one of a few activities where you can enjoy each others company in silence and separate, but still feel like you're doing something together.

Apart from on holiday, the only other time we get to indulge in this pastime is before bed, but 90 percent of the time I end up ruining the moment.

For a lot of people, delving into their book before bedtime is an ideal opportunity for getting through a few more pages. it's a good way to relax, unwind, everything else stops. The perfect time to read. Unfortunately for me reading at night is as good as taking a whacking great dose of Nytol. I can be out for the count within a page. Most nights I try to read, but the outcome is so predictable that it's become a running joke between me and my partner that I'm unable to manage more than a few pages before my eyes start to get heavy and the words my eyes are skirting over become a blur.

So bedtime reading is out. How about that hour long each way commute you make every. Damn. Day. Or all those train journeys you do?

Motion sickness. Five or 10 minutes in and I begin to feel like changing the colour scheme of whatever vehicle I'm riding in. It's the eyes down position and not being able to see where I'm going, so instead I glare at other commuters that are able to stick their noses in their good books to alleviate some of the anguish of the morning commute as they disappear into their fictional worlds. Lucky sods.

I'm fast resigning myself to the fact that I'm to become a weekend-only reader. A part time book fan that's destined to be excluded from all book clubs, because she can't finish a novel in the allotted time. Honestly, these are the things that worry me these days.

RoseC

This year's theme: England V Australia

Before I get into the meaty bit of this post, I need to give you some background into mine and my partner's ethnicity and interests. He's Australian and I'm British with a more specific tinge of English. We're both quite into our sports, mainly cricket and rugby. I'm sure, from just that small amount of information, you can hazard a guess as to what's coming next...

As a kid the main sports I was brought up on were cricket and rugby, with a little bit of tennis thrown in there for good measure. I remember watching The Ashes on Channel 4 and listening in on Test Match Special with my Dad; cheering on the tennis stars with my Mom; tuning in to all of the 6 Nations, Autumn Internationals and Rugby World Cups with my family to support British contenders and England teams. We can surmise that I was brought up with a healthy competitive streak and in at least two of those sports, two of the greatest rivalries happen between England and Australia.

Unless you're totally and utterly not into sports and never glance at the back pages, you'll be aware that there's a lot of England vs Australia going on now and in the next few months. Currently, in the cricket, England have just beaten Australia in The Ashes (an unexpected result!). In September, England and Australia are in the same group stage of the Rugby World Cup, along with Wales, making it easily the hardest group and is going to leave one of these three great rugby nations very upset indeed. Also in September Great Britain will play Australia in the semi finals of the Davis Cup tennis tournament. A stage that the GB team haven't reached in 34 years, so it's all to play for.

And in the midst of it all, a very competitive British girl is going to marry a very equally competitive Australian man. This sounds like a recipe for disaster, right?

In the five and a half years we've been together we've both seen each other scream, cheer, laugh and sit in grumpy silence as we've watched the highs and lows of our cricket and rugby teams, tennis and snooker players. Sport is probably the only thing that can bring us to the brink of an argument. Funny then that the fixture calender has brought around so many clashes between England and Australia right before we get hitched. Fate is a twisted bitch sometimes.

While we try to maintain a good level of banter and communicate in a civilised manner during a game - five day test matches being our limit - there is always still a more serious, unspoken desire of, 'I really hope we fuck them up and win.'

Who knows where all this anger comes from? I think it's inherently bred into Australian's to want to 'screw the Pommey bastards' and vice versa. We're not at all jealous of the fact Australian's get at least 11 months of good weather and sunshine so they can actually get outdoors and play sports to become good at them, even though cricket is a gosh darn ENGLISH GAME, but there's a certain arrogance around Australian's when it comes to sport and beating the English in particular. Like they think we're an easy target. Guess it just makes it even more satisfying when we take them down *coughASHEScough*.

Geez, what a rant. I'm going to get myself into trouble if I'm not careful. To balance the odds though, here's an actual conversation that regularly happens between me and my other half whenever England are playing anything:

HIM: God I hope England lose.
ME: Why?
HIM: Because it's England. You should lose.
ME: But we're playing [INSERT ANY OTHER NATIONALITY EVER], you're not [INSERT THAT NATIONALITY] - and we both agree that they play dirty and you never cheer for them any other time ever - but you're about to marry an English girl, so why not give us a bit of a nod?
HIM: I can't. I just can't. It feels wrong.
ME: That's not a reason.
HIM: It is.
ME: It's not...
HIM: It is.

And so the sporting argument goes on. It's totally irrational, yet at the same time this unique rivalry would not exist without one firing up the other. To be honest, if it wasn't there, I don't think either side would get as much enjoyment out of it and I don't think we'd get the most out of each other if the passion wasn't there.  

It struck me as too ironic that in the year - hell, even more specifically in the months - surrounding our wedding there are so many clashes between England and Australia. So yes, maybe with passions so high, getting married in the middle of it all could lead to someone getting kicked out of the marital bed early. But at the same time, one without the other just wouldn't work. no matter how heated, stressed or tense it became, getting stuck in wouldn't be as fun and this years "theme" is proof of how strong a bond can be, however strained at times. So maybe it'll all be alright in the end and we need to remember it is only a game...  

Gwen & Gav?! Ah, that's sad news!

Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale have announced they've filed for divorce. And, as I'm only a month and a bit away from my own wedding, this news makes me feel kind of shitty.

Broadly speaking, I don't give much of a stuff when it comes to celebrity make ups and break ups. I put my lack of interest down to the fact that famous people change their partners far too often, so trying to keep up feels like a waste of time when the relationship is just a fad. While the internet was losing it's shit the other month over the break up of Ben Affleck and...[Google searches name]...Jennifer Garner with (sickening hyperbole) headlines such as 'True love is dead', I was still unsure as to when he got married? What films has Jennifer Garner been in that I've seen? And when the hell did BA split up with J-Lo?!

Ok, I jest on that last point, I'm not so out the loop, but I simply didn't care and don't care about most celeb couples ditching their other halves. Chris and Gwen, Louis and Nicloe and One Direction and Zayne, they all blinked past in a day's headline. This one though, struck a chord.

But why, Rose? WHY?! Well, I think it's a combination of things. I've been fans of both of them (musically over fashion) for years. I've had a crush on both of them for as long as I can remember and it's just kinda cool - in a totally fan girl sort of way - that these two cool famous people have got together and have managed to make it work for so long. It's not just a fad. Thirteen years they were together and they managed to avoid doing the shitty celebrity thing of forcing their relationship down everyones throats in a Kim & Kanye kind of way.

They are (or were) one of those stalwart celeb couples that even though you don't know them, you kind of think, 'Ah, Gwen and Gavin they're all together, super cool, and even though LTR's are effing hard work whether married or not, here's some extra proof that in this day and age of crazy fame and celebrity, there are still some still doing it'.

And then they're not doing it any more and it's a bit like, 'Oh'.

I'm not going all OTT dramatic. It's not like just because A couple that I don't even know have filed for divorce I've suddenly lost my faith in marriage, that would be crazy, but it's just a bit sad.

The silver lining, of course, is that these two beautiful people are now single and I literally have a wedding dress and a venue ready to go. Just sayin'. 

It's true, wedding planning turns you into an obsessive nobhead

Last week I learnt that trying to find miniature A-frame chalkboards within the UK is really difficult. In fact, I'd go as far to say it's almost impossible. I know this because I spent a total of around 15 hours (and then some) over the course of the week scouring every possible website and looks-like-they-might-sell-mini-chalkboards stores in London and I found only ONE retailer that had exactly what I was looking for.

The chalkboards are really important. They're for writing the table names on for my wedding. It's a vital part of the day, so that everyone can clearly see the name of the table. And no. I couldn't have settled for any old style, or an alternative design of chalkboard. It HAD to be this specific design, because it looks like a pub A-frame board and that's a really significant symbol for me and my husband-to-be.

Am I off my rocker? Possibly. Did I squeal with delight when I found them? Definitely. Did I almost cry when it became apparent that this single UK retailer didn't have the number of miniature A-frame chalkboards I wanted in stock in a single place and therefore had to ring round every shop in the UK, call their head office, dash across London and contact the German manufacturer to help me find the missing 2 I needed? Yes, but I did it with gritted teeth and determination, because gosh-fucking-darn-it I was not going to let those 15 hours go to waste and allow THESE PERFECT FUCKING CHALKBOARDS SLIP THROUGH MY FINGERS!

Breathe.

Once the "drama" was over, I also learnt something about myself: that I am not immune to being the typical Bride-to-Be where everything has to be just-so and I am willing to go crazy over finding exactly the right thing. I thought I was cool and calm about wedding planning, but it's funny how searching for miniature chalkboards can change that in an instant.

For you, when you're planning your wedding it might not be chalkboards, but could be flowers, wedding favours, a certain style of paper that you need for the invites because it folds correctly or holds the ink better when using that specific pen you bought for writing said invites. Whatever it is, deal with it and know that when wedding planning it's totally normal to become an obsessive nobhead over the littlest things that a week ago you didn't even know existed.

RoseC

P.S. In case A-frame chalkboards are your obsessive thing and you're wondering what these perfect mini ones look like because you need some too, then see the picture below. And here is where to buy them...although you can't actually get any at the moment, because I already bought ALL of the ones they had available. I'm not even sorry.