The Great Escape

3:40pm Thursday 19th June 2008

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Rejoice and be glad, for I am leaving the country!

Actually, I'm just going on holiday but I bet I had you going. As part of a new initiative to combat the ever encroaching madness and also to celebrate my birthday (mostly to celebrate my birthday, to be fair) my boyfriend and I grabbed the cheapest deal we could find and as such, we're going to Budapest this weekend.

For two nights and three days, we will be wandering about in Hungary's fair capital, enjoying the sunshine (the BBC says it's going to be sunny, ergo it will be sunny), the beautiful architecture and, more importantly, the cheap beer. It promises to make for a decent birthday celebration and also a welcome opportunity to catch my breath after what has been a whirlwind month of upheaval, tail chasing (or should that be tale chasing?) and general insanity.

You can therefore expect to see me back next week, full of vim and vigour, no longer worrying about press officers/councillors/other niggling little irritations that seem to heap up on top of each other and make my brain melt out of my ears, ready to face any challenge, bushy-eyed and bright-tailed. Or something like that.

Not, of course, that I haven't been enjoying my time here at North East London's finest local rag. It's proving more of an education than I could have hoped for and I certainly couldn't ask to be better looked after. I'm incredibly lucky to be where I am and I'm certainly thankful for that. A lot of the people I knew during my UCL days would kill to be in my shoes, I'm sure - or maybe at least cause serious injury. But I feel as if I haven't stopped or even slowed down yet and much though I love it, London can get all too claustrophobic all too quickly.

What's more, all I ever seem to see, on my wanders through the city (which, as of yet, are limited), are people who are either infinitely more chic than I am or infinitely more hardcore. (I used to be a rock kid. No, really. There are still photos of me with pink hair knocking about somewhere.) Maybe I'm just wandering about in the wrong places but still - it's a knock to my personal sense of cool, which, of course, is terribly important. So I've decided it's time to escape, for a little while anyway. I will therefore not be back until Tuesday, after I return from Watford where I am to be inducted (induced?) into the company, but more on that next week.

By the way, in case you were wondering, this week, I've got When You Notice The Stripes by the Shins stuck in my head.

Just thought I'd share that.