A Really Cool Book 'Shop' and an Awkward Near-Encounter

Today, I met up with my friend Min-Hwee in the west end. We had lunch in Chinatown at Jen Café and then had tea at Camellia's Tea House on Carnaby Street. When we were walking around on Carnaby Street we came across a book exchange: the Carnaby Book Exchange.

Totally free, you can come in, choose a book and sit down for a good read, or you can bring in an old book of yours to leave and take another away.

You're also encouraged to leave a note for another reader to find. So Min-Hwee and I went in on a mini-quest to find a book with a note.

Min-Hwee found one on her first try- a really old book (can't remember what it was) with the message 'Take care of yourself'' pencilled in on the inside of the front cover. It took me a while to find a book with a message, but when I did it was a good one.

This was the book I picked up:

I actually have this book too: it's an amazing bit of non-fiction.

I was surprised someone had left this, because it really is a very powerful book- Min-Hwee was too (she also has the book at home). When I turned the front cover, I found out why.

Both Min-Hwee and I are Chinese (well, I'm half-Chinese, to be exact), so we found it pretty funny.

Now to the awkward near-encounter... at the time, ironically, my friend and I were talking about who we still kept in contact with from our old school, and who we'd bumped into recently. We were in a shop when she suddenly pointed and said,

"Look, that girl was from our school! Wasn't she in your year?"

I looked around, and noticed the girl- two of them together in fact- were indeed from my year, if not from my class.

"Should we go say hello to them?" Min-Hwee asked.

"No!!" I suddenly felt a bit panicked: I'd never really been on speaking terms with these two at school so I felt like it would be a bit fake to go over and be all friendly and 'hiiii I haven't seen you in aaaaages' etc. etc. And to my further horror, I realised that I'd also forgotten their names.

I'll tell you now: I'm really, really appalling with names. As soon as I meet someone I warn them of this. Lots of people claim they're bad with names, but really, they're not too bad and just putting a polite disclaimer in, just in case. No, my brain forcibly ejects names from my mind like a pilot from a failing aircraft, often within a matter of seconds of being told someone's name, and then I have to be told several times over and over again afterwards. I try really, really hard, I honestly do, and it's certainly nothing personal- but I've always been like this. I used to dread being made to give out everyone's workbooks at school after the teacher had marked them because I couldn't remember which named book belonged to which classmate (particularly when our classes were 'disbanded' and we started mixing with other people from our year).

I explained this in hushed tones to my friend after she asked me if I was sure, and we hung back a bit to allow my former school peers to get a head start once they left the shop. After a few minutes passed, we (cautiously) emerged.

"Did you see which way they went?" I asked nervously.

"Yes, I think they went in that direction." And Min-Hwee unwittingly pointed straight at my two former schoolmates, who were only a few yards away.

"Agh, they're right there!" We both spun around and started to walk in the other direction, to find it was a dead end. We faced another two directions: more dead ends! By now I was giggling almost hysterically at this ridiculous situation, and pretty sure they could now hear the nervous ruckus I was making.

Eventually my two former school peers headed off.

"Did you think they saw me?" I asked.

"Well... one of them actually looked straight at you at one point- I'm pretty sure they did."

This calmed me down a bit. Surely if they saw me, recognised me and actually wanted to come over and say hi, they would, right? But they didn't- just like me. Maybe because they were in the same predicament and didn't remember my name and knew we weren't really close at school. Or, more embarrassingly, they sensed my unease and felt put off by my perhaps-obvious awkwardness.

I actually remember one of their names now- but I won't write it down, just in case they ever read this blog. Yes, I'm that freaking awkward.

~Fin~

My Special Day

I've had quite a mixed bag sort of day- it'll work far better if I just bullet point this one or it'll be an even bigger mess.

Part 1: The Morning

• Slip on unmopped patch of water when checking on baking muffins

• Drop half the muffins in the oven whilst slipping 

• Successfully return now slightly misshapen muffins to pan but burn myself in the process 

• Scald self trying to run cold water over burn because the last person to use the tap apparently ran it hot and there was still hot water in the faucet

•  Leave house an hour too early after mis-reading the clock (but not yet realising it)

Part 2: Late Morning/ Early Afternoon

• Text friend that I've arrived, only to receive a confused call asking if we were meant to be meeting an hour later- I realise my watch has probably stopped since midnight the night before to make it look like the right time, I've only just noticed this at this moment, AND I must have left an hour early on top of this 

• Go into Starbucks to wait for friend and don't realise that it's now become policy in the UK to call names out instead of order type

• Fail to recognise and respond to a repeated weird pronunciation of my name at the collection point ('Taaarsh' instead of 'Tash' like 'ash') whilst wondering what kind of coffee a tarsh was

• Only realise it's my name that's being called when the lady behind me pokes me politely and respond reflexively by flinging my arm up in the air and shouting "ooh, that's me!", causing Starbucks to go quiet for a few moments

• Choose a hot coffee and end up sitting by the window where the sun bakes me in my own skin whilst at first having no other table options, then feeling too awkward to poach someone else's table when they move, deciding I'd already made myself too conspicuous (and had a proper mug so I could go and take my coffee with me)

• Attempt to browse the new Primark without getting mauled by bargain hunters (I could just leave this bullet point as it is) and witness a woman with a load of clothes on hangers draped over her arms whilst wailing to her friend "this is what my life has become!!"

• Get out of Primark in one piece to meet aforementioned friend and have a beautiful lunch at Mildred's (a popular vegetarian restaurant in Soho), try not to eat all the cakes in the West End and think that the day is finally turning into a more genteel one

Late Afternoon/ Evening

• On the way to the Cake & Bake Show 2012, witness a lady walking the two biggest kitty cats I've ever seen down the street. Without a leash.

~Fin~