A Giant Bath with Tony Montana

I've been rather offline of late; indeed the last few weeks I have found myself in something of a late-twenties crisis (possibly mid-life... At this point, who knows?). As the turning point of thirty looms ever-closer, I feel the need to sort my life out a'proper. 

If I had asked my teenage self where I thought I would be as I approach the end of my third decade on this earth, I would have, without doubt, seen myself in a comfortable job (with a pretty high level of employment security), owning a small but cosy house somewhere in the 'burbs, with a dog and a nice little run-around car. Once upon a generation, these things were not beyond the reach of a young professional.

Instead, however, I find myself in a job, which although I love dearly, offers as much security as a chocolate fireman in the ever-tempestuous market of the EFL industry. I am living at the bottom of my overdraft in a job which, if my P60 is anything to believe, offers a net salary somewhere below the national minimum wage, supplemented by all-weather busking and private lessons with all-too-often sporadic students.

As such, I have had my head down of late, battling against the rising tide of depression with a trident of determination set on sorting my ruddy life out once and for all.

The dreamer in me has finally summoned the courage to do what I have been promising myself for years, and has auditioned for both The Voice and The X-Factor in the unlikely and yet seemingly possible fast-pass to a smidgeon of success, and although I have no pretence of getting anywhere, I have already made it through a couple of rounds of the former, so perhaps I stand a half chance of at least a few wedding gigs out of it if I can get some TV exposure.

The realist, meanwhile, is fighting valiantly against the ever-baying wolves of bills at the door, and is beginning to wonder whether it's time to pack in this teaching malarkey. Sure, I love my students, but it's time now to look to the future, and perhaps a job in copywriting would be a little more financially viable. Sure, I wouldn't enjoy it quite as much, but at least perhaps I could take a bit of a breather once in a while when it comes to the battle between monthly bills and the decision to eat.

So apologies, dear reader, for a somewhat more bleak than usual post, but this is where I have been of late. With continued oomph, perhaps soon I'll get out of this slump, both financial and psychological, and get some more positive posts coming your way. 

The day I can afford a bath I can actually lay down in and take a load off; that'll be the day I can relax.

On the plus side, only eleven days 'till Jurassic World! Suppose it's not all doom and gloom!

A Trip to the Vet with Nami and Robin

Owning a pet is great. Having been a constant animal owner since before I was even born, I can honestly say that an animal in the house is a source of perpetual amusement and companionship. Over the course of my life, I've had two very different dogs, one a bizarre mongrel (who we think may have been the unfortunate partenering of a King Charles Spaniel and a Rottweiler) and one an utterly insane Labrador who generally believes herself to be an oversized housecat. I've also had the pleasure of owning an overly affectionate (if somewhat destructive) house rabbit who although cost us nothing to adopt, did end up losing us £600 in deposit money after eating his way through an leather sofa. 

My favourite pets, however, have been my guinea pigs, the first pair of which I was bought during my third year at university by my well-meaning friends as a way to combat my crushing bachelorhood. The boys, Oz and Warren (named after characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer of course) were a cantankerous pair who lived to the ripe old guinea pig age of eight, Oz, rather amazingly, playing the role of Odysseus' dog Argos in faithfully waiting until I finally returned from my adventures in the Far East before shuffling off this mortal coil.

A few months ago, having gone somewhat petless for the last year (the neurotic Labrador still living with my mother in the North East) I decided to look into getting a new pair of guinea pigs to bring a bit of joy to the home (and also to further delay any more conversations about potential tiny feet...). Having looked around the local pet shops without finding the right piglets for us, we when somewhat taken aback to discover a pair of female Peruvian Long-hairs up for adoption.

Now, if, like most (and myself to be frank; I'd always thought a guinea pig was a guinea pig), you are unversed in the plethora of cavy breeds, the Peruvian can best be described as the love child of Cousin It and Mick Jagger; a quivering ball of fur with a very self-important strut. Not realising yet what a handful they would turn out to be, we took in the pretty pair, naming them Nami and Robin (the two main female characters in Oda Sensei's One Piece) and settled them into their new home.

Of course, what the pet shops don't tell you is that having pets that look like they could be in a L'oreal advert comes at the rather time-consuming cost of having to groom the little blighted on a daily basis. For Robin, it's not too much of an issue. Nami meanwhile will squeal and scream at the top of her lungs as soon as you go anywhere near her with a comb, let alone a pair of scissors. Unfortunately, this utterly abstinence from the clippers means the girls have to go to the vet once a month for a makeover.

And this is where the negative side of pet ownership comes into play; vets' bills. For a five minute nail clip and bottom trim, each pig costs the ridiculous sum of £18. That's £36 for the pair. Had I known this prior to their arrival, I would've got a pair of bog-standard piglets and let them get on with their lives. But no; I had to get the ruddy Kardashians of the rodent world.

So a word of warning to all; pets are great, but be careful what you choose, 'cause a pet is for life, and so are your credit card bills.