The Beat That My Heart Skipped – A blog dedicated to daily design inspirations. By Rohini Wahi.

This weekend I headed back to Canterbury, town of misspent University Youth for my friend’s birthday. The highlight was heading to Whitstable and doing some of the most wonderfully kitsch shopping. We had lunch in Samphire, which has now become a regular stop whenever we go there. It serves amazing British food – I chowed down on Pork and Hop sausages with mash and braised red cabbage! Yum!

Then we went to the Clothes Horse which is this cute little shop that sells all sorts of jewellery, cute hair items and beautiful boutique clothing [got a wedding this summer – voila!]. Finally I headed to Harbour Books to start stocking up for upcoming reviews! It was an absolutely blissful day only mildly scuppered by the fact that the ‘nautical’ look I had decided to go for [don’t judge me, I get excited about the seaside] was not actually made for the high seas. I was freezing in my pumps and blazer. Perhaps I have turned into a crazy tourist rather than a hardy resident.

We then headed back to our old haunt Canterbury, which if I get drunk enough makes me feel like I am 18 again – and act like it. Unfortunately, nearer 28 my drunken antics are best left out of this week’s column only so much as to say that I have a recollection of dancing up Canterbury high street to my iPhone singing ‘I am the one and only’ by dear old Chesney Hawkes – phone music – not just for chavs eh?

To me Canterbury is a bubble – a magical time warp I can go back to and get inexplicably drunk and misbehave myself. This is odd seeing as Canterbury houses some of the most religious places in the country. Perhaps I feel that London is just too cool to behave like that? Maybe.  One thing I do know is that no matter how drunk I get I have gained the valuable ability to walk in 3 inch stilettos on cobbled ground while inebriated at University which is extremely impressive.  My parents would have probably liked me to have got a 2.1 instead. You can’t have everything  and life skills are important.

Now to the review! This week I have picked an author that I began reading during University. I remember this quite clearly because I tried to answer a question in a seminar group based on a historical fact from her novels. Thankfully Philippa Gregory researches well [this gives you some insight as to why I got a 2.2] and I managed to blag my way through to studying Classics and Archaeology yet another day!
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Yesterday the Northern Line was down from Morden to Stockwell which is really really annoying bearing in mind it seems the whole working world lives in South London and leaves at 8am to go northbound. This would seem like a bearable glitch if last week I hadn’t been stuck in the same place at least twice due to signal failure. One occasion I had to catch the last train interchanging at Elephant and Castle [jeepers isn't that the oddest place in London] while a man vomited – 7 times! Pleasant eh? Sorry if you were eating lunch.

Therefore, instead I caught the crammed bus and watched a commuter throw a school girl off so that he could get on, when challenged by a fellow commuter he just said ‘Stay out of it! Mind your own business’ – oh it is times like these I wish I had She-ra Princess of Power gifts so I could throw said commuter off the bus but sadly not. So I tutted like any good British person would do. Nothing worse than a tut is there? It says disappointment and disapproval all in one. I also shook my head a little bit for effect.

Not all bad – I saw Les Miserables for the FIRST TIME [I can hear you tutting from here by the way?]. It was amazing but still won’t beat Phantom of the Opera for me. What can I say, The Webber man makes we want to dance around! It has made me quite cheery this theatre going lark, I keep wanting to break into show tunes at every step but as my school music teacher would have said ‘Lauren Baines – would you just get on with the task at hand?’.

This week we have new release Trespass by Rose Tremain. You might already be familiar with Tremain’s works, born in 1943 she was educated in the Sorbonne [cue dreamy sigh from Book Editor] and graduated from the University of East Anglia [cue not even remotely dreamy sigh from Book Editor] where she taught creative writing. She has written many a novel including ‘Restoration’ which was made into a film and was Sunday Express Book of the year. She has been listed for the Booker prize and the Orange prize for fiction in her time, has a CBE [re-cue dreamy sigh from Book Editor] and her latest book Trespass is launched this year.
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Apparently this is the longest Winter for 31 years, or so a colleague has told me. I am not sure how Winter can be longer when it is a set amount of months but I know one thing. It’s cold and grey. London feels like it is brooding and sulking because it wasn’t asked out on Valentines Day.

I thought that once I survived January everything would be ok, but alas no. My house has a leak, my internet is more temperamental than a menopausal woman, my heating seems to only play ball between 9pm and midnight [either that or the house is haunted], I’m skint, work is piling up on my desk and there are bills…ugh.

I tried to phone EDF’s phone payment system where you speak over the phone to a computerized ‘irritatingly chirpy’ woman (clearly she isn’t paying the bill methinks). You give her number by number all of your details and it turns out – to my surprise – that my Essex English is not recognised by EDF energy at all, ‘1654’ I shout for the billionth time at her ‘thank you, that was 1785’ Noooooo I scream!!! Finally for the fast speaking inarticulate oaths who shout at her like myself there is a little helpdesk person who you get referred to who does it all again at lightning speed because they are human and understand you. Pointless. Yes.

This week you may have therefore realised I needed some serious cheering up and a seriously large glass of vino collapso. Therefore how could I resist the subtitle of this week’s book ‘Three strong women. Two feuding families. A singular story of enchantment.’ ENCHANT AWAY I cry!
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I’m back from skiing. It is most depressing. I have decided that this syndrome is called PHD [Post Holiday Depression] and I am disappointed each morning that I do not have a buffet breakfast and no-one is providing me with afternoon tea at 5pm. My cold Victorian-esque flat does not look anything like a nice French Chalet no matter how hard I squint.

I can of course live vicariously through those at the Winter Olympics dreaming that I am there in Vancouver. However, I am not too keen on the odd array of BBC Sports presenters giving their 10p’s worth, I have decided I could do a much better job and should be paid ridiculous money to stand around in a BBC jacket saying non-committal things like ‘Oooh isn’t he really picking up speed’ and ‘Doesn’t his helmet match nicely with his pants’. Have you been watching it?!!

Last night one of them went into a five minute spiel about how the Americans are wearing pants that look like jeans – but they weren’t jeans. No honestly they aren’t. Dear God.
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I am going skiing to Chamonix this week! Breaking out of the London grey skies for some of the white stuff. Not terribly excited about budget airline flying at the crack of dawn however. No doubt there will be the usual bumfight for seats and queues that you feel you should join just incase you are missing something.

I am looking forward to my afternoon tea and not getting up at some ridiculous hour for the next week and of course the fact that I can read without the nagging feeling I am supposed to be doing something like some housewife drudgery [I'm not saying I do it, I just have a nagging feeling that I should be doing it]. Actually, my major concern is that my suitcase is stuffed to the brim with totally useless things [like my new lime green bangle] rather than warm sensible things. Ho hum. I’ve got my toothbrush and clean pants haven’t I, so what else can I need?

Sadly I will be missing Valentines Day, what a shame! I do like peering through windows of restaurants watching people squashed together so much their elbows are in the air like bat wings. I will miss downing copious amounts of ‘vino collapso’ with friends and then listening to relationship woes on the kerb outside someones house at 3am whilst waiting for a taxi. That never happened – honest. So if you aren’t going out to be squished into a restaurant pull out a good book. It’s cheaper and it will last longer [well maybe not longer than listening to a friends relationship woes, but if you read whilst she is gabbling it could pass the time].
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