St Petersburg in the snow

Looking back over Troitsky Most, originally uploaded by Racmol.

We're back safe and sound after a fabulous holiday in St Petersburg and I've even managed to upload a few photos to flickr. More to come in January - apparently I've reached my upload limit for December.

Jules would like to draw everyone's attention to his sequence of me drinking Georgian vodka, by the way.

I think the best thing about St Petersburg was the snow. There was much more of it than I'd expected and it made everything more spectacular somehow. Of course, it's pretty impressive anyway - 85% of the buildings in the central city are over 150 years old.

It was damn cold, around -6 to -8. The locals say that's about as cold as it ever feels, because once you get down to -12, the humidity drops away and it's easier to bear.

Our first night we went to a nearby huntsman restaurant, Kalinka Malinka. The decorations were wolfskins and bearskins, complete with heads and paws. One bear's head must have been a bit of a mess, because someone had hung a blue tinsel pompom over it! A bit flippant, I thought.

Christmas Day we woke up at dawn (10 am) and almost missed breakfast. Then we spent the day at the Hermitage, which was excellent - great to see brand new paintings by your favourite artists that you've never seen before because...uh...they're in the Hermitage. Also ghoulishly well-preserved people and horses dug up out of peat in the Russian anthropology section.

That night we went to a Georgian bar/restaurant, Kavkas, which was the scene of the Georgian vodka experience. Basically, we had Christmas Stew instead of Christmas Turkey, but it was quite tasty.

Have to go and prepare a guinea fowl for our houseguests now so more later. Since they've been here, the wireless connection has broken down and now the phoneline doesn't work. When they went to bed last night, Jules muttered: Dadster's only been in the house a matter of minutes and look at the damage!

King Kong: moving, beautiful but far too long

We went to see King Kong last night at the Vue Finchley Road. And the reviews are right - it is truly moving. A hero who will rip a Tyranosaurus Rex apart for you - what more could any girl want?

It's also about 40 minutes too long. There are only so many minutes of animated dinosaurs trampling people that I want to watch. And don't get me started on the giant wetas, which starred for a good ten minutes in their own right. An in-joke that only kiwis and animators will get is a wee bit self-indulgent.

But the centre of the story, the relationship between Kong and Ann Darrow, was perfect. Kong was definitely a sentient being, and all he wanted was a friend. Heartbreaking.

Other highlights of the week:

Monday's lunchtime run in the sun along the river

Tuesday night's birthday party at the Cinnamon Club, complete with ice sculpture

Lowlights:

The end of the series of Grey's Anatomy

Jules's continued ill-health (now much improved)

Hungarian Parliament at sunset

Parliament at sunset, originally uploaded by Racmol.

We had a fabulous time in Budapest. One of those holidays where you eat far too much, walk everywhere and sleep like a log.

I didn't expect it to be so beautiful and I certainly didn't expect a fine, clear Sunday. The weather forecast said light rain on Saturday and Sunday and heavy rain on Monday, so good weather was an unexpected joy.

We were pretty wrecked when we arrived late on Saturday morning. Jules had fallen asleep on the tube on the way home from work drinks the night before so we didn't get a great deal of sleep before the alarm went at 5 am. So we spent Saturday afternoon in the Gellert thermal baths - and unwound.

Culturally, the baths were very different to Western swimming pools. In the women's hot pools, the young slim women wore bikinis and the older, obese women nothing at all. And the lovely thing was - they weren't ashamed of their bulk. One woman thought nothing of raising her bottom in the air to massage it under the hot jets spurting out from one wall - a sight to behold and maybe one you only need to see once! Anyway, it was very relaxing.

We came out of the baths and had a very late lunch before visiting the Christmas market for a mulled wine. I collapsed on the bed and snored, and then we went out again for dinner. Which was also lovely.

Sunday was spectacularly sunny and we walked up Castle Hill, enjoying the view and wandering around on the top. We went in to the National Gallery for an hour or two, but it was really too nice a day so we spent most of it outdoors. The one mistake was not enough of a gap between lunch and dinner - when the mains arrived at dinner we just couldn't do justice to them. But that may have been the fault of the coffee and cake before lunch - the city is famous for its coffee houses, after all. (And we only visited two, in total!)

Monday brought the promised heavy rain so we visited St Stephen's basilica (complete with hand of St Stephen - urrgh!) and went shopping. And had some more cake - to pass the time, like.

And today we're back to the real world with a bump - Jules's contract is not being extended past 4 January. Still, that will give him time to play with our visitors, won't it? And master the art of the slow-cooked pheasant!

Cat-free Friday

Just a quick hello as I'm hard at work (at home).

Highlights of the past fortnight:

1. Being part of a live studio audience for a new BBC sitcom, 'Home Again', about a young couple living in her parents' spare room - two couples driving each other mad, to sum up briefly. It's by the makers of 'My Family', and the actors are just as good.

2. Going to see Franz Ferdinand at Alexandra Palace. Still not a die-hard fan but it was a fun night out.

3. Visiting the Christmas market at Canary Wharf. Jules has resolved to fill the freezer with ducks, pheasants and wild hares. Think he has been watching too much of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

And tomorrow, Budapest!

PS. If any of this is sounding as though our life is glamorous in any way, it isn't. We get up in the dark and come home in the dark and the washing machine is still threatening to destroy itself every time it spins. And we still don't have a cat.

PPS. Iona's cat Maggie did not have cancer, just some benign cysts.

Missing stand at Twickenham

missing stand at Twickenham, originally uploaded by Racmol.

See what I mean? It's just not there!

All Blacks on top at Twickenham

Yesterday was one of those magic days when everything goes swimmingly from the start. We went for a run early (with music) and it was sunny and crisp and there was frost on all the logs in the park...so pretty. Listening to J complain I thought: finally the massive investment in sports bras pays off - MY chest feels quite toasty, thanks!

Then we had a delicious breakfast at home with sun pouring into the kitchen and moseyed down to the train station. Stopped for a hot chocolate and got on the train to Richmond at 1.23. You would think this was plenty early enough for a 2.45 kick-off but we ended up running up flights and flights of stairs while some unknown woman sung the NZ national anthem. Got to our seats in time for the new haka though - not sure about it, to be honest. I knew the words to the old one - maybe that's the problem.

It was a little weird from where we were sitting, behind the goal line, because the opposite end of the ground was just not there. After the goal posts, there was dirt and bull-dozers and all the little matching houses of Twickenham. It's like someone stole a whole stand - or like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when Mr Wonka Sr. says 'If you go, I won't be here when you get back' and then there's just a gaping hole in the row of terraced houses.

Anyway, back to my point. The noise was incredible, the atmostphere electric. My throat hurts a bit today!

The actual game - well, we weren't too bad, I thought. The defense was pretty good, anyway. Would have liked to see someone streak down the field towards our end and score but other than that, can't complain. You do feel a bit smug when your team spent most of the second half with fourteen men and still won.

At full time I got a little, resigned text from Matt: come on then. I'm not very good at texting and walking down stairs at the same time so I was not nearly as cutting as I wanted to be in reply but it was still fun. And then he was silent. Ha!

Met up with D & J in the Costa coffee place at Waitrose (everywhere around the station was packed) and we sat there for an hour or so and then made our way to a pub called The Fox. Huddled in the courtyard outside under one of those outdoor heaters - weird to have cold feet and feel like your hair might catch fire!

Later we went to a little French restaurant - confit de canard et mousse au chocolat, ou peutetre une demi-mousse au chocolat, par le temps Jules a fini avec elle! I went to the bathroom and got back to discover that the half that was covered by my chocolate wafer was just a gaping hole! The cheek of it!

Afterwards, we took the train to Richmond and went to a different bar with disco lights and all the works but D was starting to fade, having just flown back from Oz this week so we only stayed briefly and were home around midnight.

All in all a good day and the luck of the All Blacks jersey continues. I've never worn it to a game that we've lost.

Now it's Sunday and I have a little task to do in Islington. The return of the second left boot!

Friday Cat Blogging

Get well, Maggie, originally uploaded by Racmol.

A special Get Well wish for Maggie, Iona's cat and housemate. Paws crossed.

St Petersburg boots

St Petersburg boots, originally uploaded by Racmol.

...or one of them. It turns out I only have one left foot so I'll be going back to Islington next weekend to return the second left boot! If only they'd let me buy the pair I tried on...

The one boot I have IS definitely waterproof and has a ridged sole for walking in the snow. Plus a funky pink stripe to match the turn-downs down the back.

Had a nice lazy day having lunch in Islington (disappointing overcooked NZ lamb roast) and doing a spot of shopping with Manz. A perfect sunny, crisp Sunday for once.

All Blacks v. Ireland

all blacks lineout 12.11.05, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Courtesy of Jules and his flash new phone, who seem to have enjoyed their 24 hours in Dublin. Luckily their seats were not in the burnt-out North stand!

Sundown at the Llanelli Wetlands Centre

sundown at the llanelli wetlands2, originally uploaded by Racmol.

See, we did have some nice weather in Wales. Apart from the complete lack of interesting wildlife and the scary birdwatchers camped out for the day with anoraks and binoculars on tripods, the Wetlands Centre was a nice spot for an afternoon walk. Followed by some hot refreshments :-D

Millennium Stadium

millennium stadium, originally uploaded by Racmol.

...plus evidence of suspected over-consumption. Mmm...lamb shanks...

Heavy rain warning for Wales

It's been raining all week, off and on. So today I thought perhaps I should check the 5-day forecast for Wales.

When we arrive in Cardiff on Saturday it will be raining lightly. By the next morning, the rain will have become heavy. We will then proceed to Carmarthenshire, where heavy rain will continue to fall throughout Sunday and Monday. Perhaps it's time to admit defeat and abandon my planned visit to the National Wetlands Centre at Llanelli!

Prediction: hot chips will prove irresistible on more than one occasion.

Do I even bother to take my camera?

In other news, there was a very cute cartoon in the Independent today of David Blunkett being led along a corridor by his dog with tears streaming down his face. They were just passing a sign saying 'Cabinet exit' and the dog was saying: 'It's all right - I know the way!'

Endless official emails went around work yesterday with the 'latest' news on the Minister for Pensions (or lack of one). As Matt squashingly said: Why are they cluttering up my inbox? If I want to know what happened, I'll consult the BBC, not the intranet!

Housewifery 101

Our diet has changed since we started having fresh organic fruit and veg delivered every Friday, complete with wildlife and mud. Now it's a mad scramble to eat all the vegetables before the next lot comes and if we eat out even once a week we get behind by 1/2 a cabbage, 2 carrots and a butternut squash. For example.

Also, because you get a random assortment of whatever's in season in England, you find yourself eating hearty soups with pearl barley that you can remember from your childhood. We used to be prime examples of what Jamie describes as 'sleep shoppers', drifting around the supermarket on autopilot, choosing the same four vegetables every week.

I used to think that to make a decent soup it was best to start with a packet one. Better still, just have the packet one - never mind the vegetables. Now, since Ruth (Watson, author of The Really Helpful Cookbook) introduced me to Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon (posh powdered vegetable stock) we're away laughing. Jules's Friday night soup effort involved pearl barley, carrots, parsnips, curly leaf kale, bacon and leeks. Delish.

Tonight, I'm on duty and I have planned something quite similar although there are now no parsnips and still one pesky butternut squash. Red onions, and maybe some Home Grown Tomatoes. We're right into the pearl barley, chickpeas and lentils since I got the GI Diet book on sale for 3.99.

In other equally gripping news, the tomato plants have finally died down and I have a large tray of mostly green tomatoes trying to catch some sun in the kitchen. There is a new rosemary bush waiting to get into the tub but it seems rude to oust the tomatoes before they're completely dead.

Just to finish, I will do a brief rave about Cox's Orange apples. There's something very nostalgic about them - they're all juicy but not watery. Like an apple tasted like when you were small.

On the compulsory eating list this week:
Breakfast: 1/2 pink grapefruit each daily.
Probably the soup: Large tub of assorted bean sprouts.
Also breakfast or to go to work: 5 bananas.
Things that will get eaten without even trying: Conference pears and Cox's Orange apples.

Oh, and another thing. We don't eat much meat, for the obvious reason that we are too full of vegetables!

On telly at the moment, Gordon Ramsay has an aptly-titled show called The F Word. (As in Food, but there are lots of electronic beeps masking the other f-word in the programme). Anyway he has decided to teach his children to think about where food actually comes from so they now have six turkeys that they're growing for Christmas in their London back garden. Not quite sure why a family of six needs six turkeys for Christmas but never mind...It seems to be going OK as the turkeys are not cute so the kids aren't getting too attached to them. Gordon's wife seems lovely - calm and happy and not at all perturbed when Anthony the turkey shat on her beautiful marble benchtop while Gordon was seeing if he would fit in the oven...

St Petersburg for Christmas - the good, the bad and the credit card bill

On Tuesday Jules suggested St Petersburg for Christmas. Yesterday I went to a travel agent to investigate. Today my credit card is reeling under the shock of it all. Because it was less than 60 days to departure, we had to pay the whole lot at once. Ouch.

But we're very excited. We fly over on Christmas Eve and come back on the 28th. As all the three hotels on offer were very expensive, we went (logically enough) for the flashest of the lot. Well, if it's costing you an arm and a leg anyway, you figure another toe won't make much difference. In theory, at least.

Plus, I'm sure we'll get good value out of the fitness centre, sauna and hot pool...Need to do something to counteract the blinis and stroganoff.

There will be snow and lots of it. That's a given, apparently - the guide books recommend waterproof shoes and carrying a pair of indoor shoes with you as well so you won't look silly at the opera. (What an embarrassment THAT would be!)

Temperatures of -18 are also mentioned so it will be a bit like when we went to Stockholm for Christmas. Note to self: buy hat with earflaps, gloves, galoshes, more thermals... Poor old credit card - it has a hard life.

What to read to prepare? Anna Karenina? War and Peace? The Bronze Horseman (again)? All three?

Jules says he will not be reading The Bronze Horseman on the plane as a book where everyone dies is not suitable for Christmas Eve. He has a point there. If anyone knows a cheerful uplifting Russian novel, now would be the time to suggest it. Somehow I suspect that to get cheerful uplifting novels you need a cheerful uplifting history...

What will be a bit weird is that December 25 is not a public holiday in Russia as the orthodox church celebrates Christmas on 7 January.

Friday Cat Blogging: WIlbur in the sun

WIlbur in the sun, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Notable events of the week:

1. Picked up rugby tickets for the All Blacks tour and introduced my workmates to Pineapple Lumps and Minties at the same time. Pineapple Lumps are preferred to Minties, but neither get eaten as quickly as Roger & Roger's biscuit selections (one English, one Italian - the biscuits, not the Rogers).

2. Booked a car for our long weekend in Wales (5-7 November) - it's a Nissan Micra, Annie! Suggestions for destinations will be graciously accepted.

3. Ah...no, that's it. Nothing else happened. I won't bore you all with the continuing tomato harvest!

Run London official times and video finish

http://www.runlondon.com/tenkresults/

Enter my name and see if you can spot me crossing the line. Hint: I'm wearing grey 3/4 leggings with a light blue stripe down the side and running quite close to the red barrier.

The Nike RunLondon 10k - a walk in the park

Weird. The Nike 10k was a joy to participate in, not the ordeal I was expecting.

Vital statistics (unofficial as both times need about 2 minutes 30 taken off them because it took a while to reach the start line):
Jules: 52 min 43
Me: 1 hour 4 min 54

We were both quite chuffed. I was aiming for under 70 minutes and Jules was going for under an hour.

It was a gorgeous sunny morning in Hyde Park. There were two jazz bands to run past. An unexpected highlight - I was running along beside the barrier when I noticed someone coming at speed towards me on the other side (i.e. leading the race). It was some random not-famous guy in the lead, so I thought I must have missed Paula Radcliffe. But then I could see her coming towards me down a long straight stretch with that distinctive head-bobbing run. I swear she was flying - it was just like when you pass a speeding car. Whooosh - and she's gone.

Tomorrow the official times (done by the microchip you attach to your shoelaces) should be up on the site. Jules is hanging out for a sub-50m time now.

All in all, I found it not too bad at all. I took the nano and played my carefully selected running playlist, which is all upbeat fast songs, and having music to run to definitely helped.

Then we had a champagne brunch on the roof terrace in the sun with Kirsty and Simon. Another fabulous day in the best city in the world :-D

Roald Dahl's writing hut

Roald Dahl's writing hut, originally uploaded by Racmol.

We had a fabulous day out today and I'm just going to collapse somewhere quietly. As you can see from the other photos on flickr, it was a beautiful autumn day in Great Missenden. And in the graveyard of St Peter and St Paul, I met an old gentleman carrying a trowel. He said: "Arrr you a stranger in these parrrts?" which threw me a bit, but he just wanted to direct me to Roald Dahl's grave. So we had a pleasant chat in the sun and then Jules and I wandered back through the village and caught the train back down to Borough Market. Mmmm...pork and stilton burger - delish.

Guys and Dolls: simply the best

Still floating and humming to myself after going to Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly Theatre last night. For those in far-flung corners of the globe, this is the London musical of 2005 - a brand new show with Ewan McGregor and Jane Krakowski (who you may know as the blonde fluffy-haired secretary from Ally McBeal).

I bought our tickets in July and we got seats in the centre of the second row. All I can say is Fwoawwrr - Ewan McGregor at a distance of 3 metres!! I mean, OK, he does look pale and unhealthy like someone who has a good Scottish diet of deep-fried mars bars and the like - but he radiates joie de vivre from every pore. The piercing blue eyes are quite an asset too.

But back to the show...where was I? Ah, yes. Cough. Well, you know when you pay through the nose to go to a musical and then it's just a touch disappointing? Not this one. Everything about it was great. Especially Jane Krakowski, who is beautiful and surprisingly tiny. Especially when you consider that in Ally McBeal she was the chubby one. She can also really sing and dance and smile prettily at the same time.

It was funny and warm-hearted and the dancing was incredible. I know 55 pounds is an outrageous price to pay for a show but it was worth every penny. The orchestra/band was excellent and the whole cast seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves.

Just get on a plane and go, basically.

Third time lucky?

postcard from waitrose, originally uploaded by Racmol.

This postcard came through our door yesterday from Ocado, the Waitrose home delivery service. It follows two emails in which they promised a) a free gift and b) a bottle of wine if I placed an order with within the next two weeks.

I particularly like the name of the cinema: Gascony Avenue Empire. Has a ring to it, doesn't it?

I probably still won't place an order, but you can't fault their persistence...

We have new toys

Living room, originally uploaded by Racmol.

...so it seemed like a good opportunity to take some photos of our flat - to satisfy the curiosity of those who've been asking about it.

Yes, the living room is small. And yes, we do really need a nano docking station in our bedroom.

Jules is making minestrone with Sicilian sausages. Mmmm...Sicilian sausages...

Friday Cat Blogging

Wilbur curls up with a DVD, originally uploaded by Rachel Jean.

New toys for winter

My contract is being extended until the end of the financial year - hurrah!

To celebrate, I dropped in on the Apple store on my way back from the editors' meeting and bought an ipod nano and an armband so I can take it running.

Jules is consumed with jealousy - buying technology without him is apparently tantamount to having an affair. But I'm very happy with my new toy and, as an added bonus, I may have avoided spending Saturday on Tottenham Court Road.

Overconsumption and the Oktoberfest

Jules and Heike at the Oktoberfest, originally uploaded by Racmol.

We didn't take many photos but we had a great time.

Highlights:

1. A crisp sunny afternoon in Meersburg, wandering around and visiting the castle.

2. Friday night dinner and drinks at the old pub Geoff and Heike used to manage in Kempten.

3. The oil-filled bed in the hotel - unbelievably fantastic.

4. Danny in German, as always.

5. The Augustinerskeller, after a long walk in the rain.

6. Oktoberfest rides.

7. The food - quality and quantity.

Lowlights:

1. The rain.

2. Not being able to get into any of the tents at the Oktoberfest because of the crowds.

Libel, lies and TV cameras

After I badmouthed Abel and Cole on the blog over the weekend, it was a bit embarrassing when Jenny from downstairs came up and said: "I've just noticed a box up against the fence under our front window." And then Abel and Cole emailed twice and rang up once to investigate in detail what went wrong. (I am blind, basically.) So they're getting a reprieve.

On the Embankment outside Westminster tube last night I got stopped and interviewed by Channel 4 for a new documentary about "pushy parents". Did I think Britain's parents were too pushy? I said no, not really. The interviewer was a bit flummoxed by that answer and said: "What if I told you that parents are paying up to 42K extra to live near a particular school etc etc?" and I said: "Well... is that the parents being pushy, or is that a problem with the education system?" And she said: "Oh, it's the school's fault now, is it?" And then I started to babble incoherently, going on about who am I to judge how other people spend their money, I wouldn't send my (imaginary) children to a private school but then I don't have any and in NZ the state schools are OK. You like to think you will have something sensible and concise to say if anyone ever asks your opinion but as soon as they thrust the camera in your face, it all goes pear-shaped.

The annoying thing is that as soon as they took my name and contact details and let me escape into the tube, I had plenty to say. Which is this - at the pub after work the other day, I had a long chat with a nice, normal woman a bit older than me who was not a crazed social climber but had reluctantly decided to pay 2700 quid a term to send her son to a fee-paying school because when she went to look at the local primary school she was shocked by the state of it and decided she didn't want her vulnerable 4-year-old spending the next 6 years there. Then she said she and her husband were looking forward to the kids going to university because it would be a saving!

When I got home, Jules and I went for a run and ran together for once because it's getting dark now. As we ran down Abbey Road, a woman called out: "Go girls!" and Jules turned around to look at her. "Ooh, sorry...just saw the pony tail!" she said, and we all cracked up.

Intimate details of my little grey life

Yes, I know I haven't had much to say recently. But the question is...how interesting is it that I've got a new winter coat? It's kermit green, by the way.

Highlights of the week

Pride and Prejudice at the Curzon Mayfair. Not perfect but not a disappointment either. Particularly if you like to watch Matthew MacFadyen striding out of early morning mist in kneehigh boots and a big coat. Sample dialogue -

Lizzie: I...couldn't sleep.

Darcy: (tortured bark) Nor I.


Dinner at Bengal Spice, West Hampstead.

Saturday morning run: 8 km for me, 9 km for J.

Lowlights of the week

J is told that contractors at his work can only take 23 days off a year. But if the contractor budget gets blown by contractors not taking enough days off, they can force you to take 10 days in December with no warning.

And it has been noted that sometimes at 9 am he is still having breakfast. Hurrah for the public sector is what I say. Eating breakfast after 9 am is encouraged - why else would they send the trolley service around at 10? And again at 3, for that matter. Of course, there is only so much plain brown toast with jam you can eat, even if it is only 26p.

Either Abel and Cole didn't deliver our weekly organic fruit and veg box or someone nicked it before we got home. So that's their third strike: week one, tiny green apples, week two, grapes with white hairy bits (although apples fantastic after I complained about previous ones), week three nothing arrives at all and there is no customer service at the weekend. We're defecting to Waitrose, who deliver when you're at home and are also cheaper.

Interesting fact of the week: a slug can survive a week in the fridge. Think he came out of the savoy cabbage.

Friday Cat Blogging

Wilbur at breakfast, originally uploaded by Rachel Jean.

Wilbur at breakfast, courtesy of Judith.

We made it to Kew Gardens!

waterlily Kew Gardens, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Cannonball Run 8000 and other valid uses of government resources

My work colleague Tiff was driving off on the Cannonball Run 8000 yesterday, a classic car race between London and Rome over 48 hours. Sarah and I, the only ones of the team who were in the office, went to wave her off. We made banners out of Directgov flipcharts. It took about half an hour to make them and they said: Fairydust and a fond farewell...to Peter Dan and Tiffabell. (Tiff and Dan were dressed as fairies in their promotional shots, so the Peter Pan thing was not completely random.)

Sadly, when we got to Earls Court the guy at the gate said: "The cars? They've just left - you've missed them." So we went shopping at Sloane Square instead. It is all the fault of the official website - it said the start was at 11.30 but it also had a clock that was counting down to midday, so we assumed that there would be what Tiff described as "poncing around the cars" at 11.30 but the actual flag waving would be at 12. We were wrong, obviously.

It's a glorious day today and we ARE going to Kew Gardens. I know I've said this before, but today it's really happening. Going to get on a boat at Westminster as we've never been down the river in that direction.

Jules thinks I have stolen his vote. Not sure what his logic is, except that I bothered to vote and he didn't get around to it. So that's two votes for the leftist pinkos, at least in his mind. It's a good thing we have Officer Wom to keep the peace.

In other news, Claire and Iain survived the 9-day, 207km stretch of the Pennine Way, but only just. At the end, they sat outside a pub with massive glasses of rehydrating fluids and Claire repeated: "Thank God that's over. I'm so glad that's over. Thank God we're at the end." So I will cross that one off my list of possible walks - that pair are pretty staunch walkers so it's not a good sign if they found it tough.

Ashes parade: glorious, tremendous and fabulous

Just the other day I was saying to Jules: "You've never worked in the West End, have you? You don't know what you're missing!" and then today the Ashes parade came right past us down the Strand. We left work with one minute to spare and ran down the street and up the steps to the Strand just in time to see the parade (or should I say two open-top double-decker buses) come past. It was a bit understated at first - there was no music playing and people were just standing around clapping politely. A definite lack of woohoo-ing and thrown undergarments.

But then we all shuffled down into Trafalgar Square, which was jam-packed. I couldn't see the big screens for a lot of the time, let alone the stage, but the sound system cranked up so you knew what was happening.

Good points:

• an effective montage of key moments of bravery from English batsmen, set to the Tom Petty song that goes "You can stand me up at the gates of hell but I won't back down"
• the MC's commentary, along the lines of "It's a glorious day here in London, and English fans are the best in the world, our boys are simply fabulous, hurrah for England, isn't everything tremendous!"
• Andrew (aka Freddie) Flintoff, in dark shades, clearly still drunk as a skunk, slurring his words and apologising for it while the MC said: "Don't worry, Andrew, everyone's just happy to see you!"
• conga lines of people dancing in the fountains
• the red and white confetti

The main bad point was the grudging inclusion of the women's cricket team in the parade, including comments from the MC like "Let's have the whole team on the stage now, that's right, everybody...aaaand the ladies can come as well". His whole tone of voice suggested "aren't we progressive and thoughtful, and isn't it kind of us to include the girls?" You have to wonder if the women, who also won the Ashes this year for the first time since 1963, would have got any sort of parade if the men hadn't won.

We all lost each other in the crowd and came back to the office one by one.

In other news, I discovered a very cute government service - a hedgehog road safety game for kids.

On the Ceiling by Nigel Planer

When you get free tickets to a West End play by a playwright everyone knows (if only because he was Neil in The Young Ones) with stars most people know (even if you don't yourself) and you arrive to find you're in row Q of the stalls and not behind a pillar, it's all good.

Basic premise for anyone who missed yesterday's entry: Ron Cook and Ralf Little play two journeyman painters employed to help Michelangelo with the Sistine Chapel. Their employment conditions aren't the best and their employer rarely deigns to show up. Are they going to have to save his hide and will he ever remember to pay them?

On the Ceiling is genuinely funny. The script is brilliant - natural, crude and fast-paced - and there are some wonderful moments of physical comedy. But even better than that, there are spine-tingling moments when the two fresco painters reflect on what it means to work on this particular project.

There's a good review on The Stage Online.

Of course it's easy to say when you've got in free, but in my view this production is well worth 15 quid, the price of all tickets in the September sale.

Friday Otter Blogging

A trainee delivery otter on Koh Samui, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Visiting the zoo/wildlife centre on Koh Samui is not recommended unless you enjoy seeing miserable tigers being forced to jump through flaming hoops - but the otters seemed to enjoy their errands.

We have free tickets to "On the Ceiling" at the Garrick Theatre tonight. It's through some civil service recreation association. Members could offer tickets to their colleagues, so one of mine did. It's a comedy about two journeyman painters employed to help Michelangelo with the Sistine Chapel.

Plan for the weekend: Kew Gardens by boat/London Wetland Centre.

Nike training run update: they didn't put the red carpets out so there was no timekeeping by chip. Possibly fortuitous as it was very hot and I had a stitch.

Photo-free Wednesday

Hmf - "Flickr is having a massage", it says, so I can't post my fabulous new otter picture from Koh Samui. My photos from Pompeii were a bit disappointing - suspect it is time for some lessons and a new flash digital SLR :-)

We have booked ourselves on an Intrepid trip to Egypt and Jordan in February - 17 days from Cairo to Amman - taking in Luxor, Aswan, Mt Sinai, Wadi Rum and Petra on the way. Feels strange to book so far in advance but necessary as everyone wants to go in the winter when it's cooler.

In other news, I got an automated reply to my email requesting a ticket to Prime Minister's question time from Glenda Jackson. Basically it said "You are hopelessly naive if you think I actually read my email, let alone reply to it. Please send me a letter with a stamp and I might think about replying, providing you really do live in my electorate, which I doubt." So I will do that, grudgingly, but it irritates me. Why would you post your email address on a public-facing website if you don't want the public to email you?

Summer continues to be glorious. Off on another Nike training run tonight - any advance on 33 minutes 6 seconds?

There's no beach at Sorrento but don't let that stop you sunbathing

DSC02718, originally uploaded by Racmol.

The Amalfi coast is a funny place. It's described as one of Europe's most spectacular pieces of coastline and it is definitely spectacularly steep.

We caught the bus from Sorrento to Amalfi via Positano, and it winds along the top of the cliffs all the way. Sometimes you look out your window over a sheer drop to the sea and sometimes you're looking into a valley with olives growing on terraces and houses clinging to the edge of cliffs with swimming pools jutting out over nothing much.

In general, the beaches are small if not non-existent. You will see a couple of hundred steps leading down to a tiny cove big enough for three sun umbrellas. But the water is a beautiful deep blue colour and the pink, white and yellow houses liven up the place like anything.

At Amalfi we visited the cathedral and had a nice cheap pasta lunch in the backstreets somewhere and generally enjoyed wandering about up the steep little streets. Amalfi used to be a lot bigger and more important until half of it fell into the sea, and you can imagine that happening again quite easily.

We got a boat back to Sorrento which also came through Positano. I took a great photo (I hope!) of the beach, which you can't see as it's hidden under a solid mass of orange umbrellas. My photos will be ready on CD on Tuesday - the trials of not having a digital camera!

The plan was to go to Capri that evening but it was cold and windy on the boat back from Amalfi so we decided we couldn't be bothered with another boat trip and had a slap-up meal in Sorrento instead. Got rejected at the posh place we wanted to go to because we didn't have a reservation. Jules pointed out that it was my birthday, and the waiter went out the back to relay this information to someone but it made no difference! But the place we ended up was lovely so that was ok. The woman on the dessert trolley who was wearing an Italian-matron-type black sack, said reprovingly to me: 'And nothing for you' as she handed Jules his cake. It was definitely a statement, not a question, but I was not going to be put off that easily. ('No, I would like THAT one.'etc) The cheek of it!

Can't help noticing that Italian women seem to undergo a dramatic transformation at some point and give up their tight white jeans, high heels and sleeveless tops for a large homemade floral or black sack. Perhaps you just can't buy clothes any more if you eat too many desserts and this is what the black-sack woman was trying to warn me about.

Positano

Positano, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Nobody has viewed our new photos on Flickr and I'm all despondent :-(

Does everyone know that if you click on a photo in a blog post (like this one), it takes you to see all the rest of our photos? You can also comment on the photos or mark them as favourites, which makes the people who sat up half the night uploading them feel a LOT better.

My first official RunLondon training run time was 33 min 6 secs so things could be worse.

We're off to have brunch in Islington and visit the Intrepid concept store now to research our next holiday so I'll write more later.

Ciao,

Rachel

Sorrento, Naples and the Amalfi Coast - Part One, Pompeii

Plaster cast of donkey driver, originally uploaded by Racmol.

This photo illustrates the reason why I wanted to go to Pompeii and I wasn't disappointed. I told myself on the way in that even though I had a vague recollection of reading somewhere years ago about bodies preserved in lava, the Lonely Planet didn't mention them so I shouldn't expect to see any.

In fact, like all the bodies at Pompeii, this is not actually a body but a plaster cast. What happened was - when the site was being excavated in the 19th century, someone found an interestingly shaped cavity, and the lead archaeologist decided to pour plaster into it and see what it was. In this way, they discovered bodies of people and animals and also the shape of household furniture and roots of trees and all sorts of things. Essentially the lava formed a hard coating over the body and then when the body decayed, a body-shaped cavity was left.

It's quite something to see - and very moving because you see the posture of the person when they died, which makes them seem more human, more like us. You can also see the shape of their clothing on some of them.

We spent about five or six hours wandering around Pompeii. I knew the figures - 20,000 people lived there and around 2,000 died - but I wasn't expecting the site to be so huge. Usually when you go to see ruins they are just that - ruins. At Pompeii you get a real sense of individual houses, complete with fountains and murals and mosaics. And they haven't finished excavating it yet. It made me feel like signing up to do an archaeology degree at Birkbeck - we got a flyer through our door that said that Birkbeck undergraduates do digs at x, y and Pompeii. The moment passed, which was a relief.

I failed to see a cave canem mosaic although I later discovered there was one in the House of the Tragic Poet, which we somehow managed to miss. Miss Scott would have been disappointed in us!

Will write more later and upload some more photos when I get my own ones back on Tuesday - all the current ones are Jules's. I'm getting them burnt to CD for ease of storage.

In other news, I went for my first RunLondon training run in Regent's Park today. I was almost the last one home - the people who go on these training runs are clearly far too fit. Anyway I think it took me about 32/33 minutes for the 5.1 km but will find out tomorrow when the official time recorded from my digital chip (attached to shoe not surgically inserted!) appears online. You get your own page of the website where your times are all logged. The idea is that you go once a week and improve your time - but the chances of that seem small as the only other two 5km timed runs I've done (in 1999 & 2004) took 32 or 33 minutes each as well. I only have one speed and it is not very quick!

Knackered

DSC02703, originally uploaded by Racmol.

We had a fabulous time, even though we didn't get home until 1 o'clock this morning. Jules decided there was no possible way he could go to work as he had no clean socks. Unfortunately, Ann (his boss) disagreed! Let's just say it was a long day for all concerned...

Flickr has contrarily decided I have uploaded my quota of photos this month, so the rest will have to wait until September.

For today, let me just say...half way around Pompeii I thought: "This is why we came back to this side of the world. Is it as good as you thought it would be?"

But it was - it really was. Suddenly the whole thing makes sense again.

Roll on Oktoberfest is what I say!

Things I have learnt from Directgov

UK residents can write to their MP and request a ticket to attend Prime Minister's Question Time, which happens every Wednesday at 11.30 am.

"Dear Glenda", I thought, and seconds later it was done. Tickets are limited, so I'm prepared for a bit of a wait. I just hope it will be as much fun as it is in Sue Townsend's "Number Ten", when a journalist asks the PM the price of a pint of milk and he says, stalling for time: "Ha ha, we're in Europe now, Maggie, surely you mean a litre!" but she won't be put off and all the other MPs titter nervously, as none of them have any idea of the correct answer. Then someone asks the PM when he last caught a train and he says that he was on a train with his wife and children last weekend. He's unaware that in the gallery, a photograph is circulating of him sitting in a toy train with his knees around his ears at a local fun park...

In other news, Bridget Jones is pregnant, as predicted.

Off to Italy this afternoon - more when we return.

Yes, we have tomatoes ... and inflated egos

My first tomatoes, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Run: 45 minutes easy (as per Run London's intermediate week 1 programme).

Very excited to discover about eight baby tomatoes this morning, some on each bush. Luckily Warren will be here while we're in Italy so he can water them for us.

About the inflated egos, I have a new obsession. A week ago, I signed up with Statcounter.com, which counts your blog traffic and tells you all sorts of interesting things, like where your visitors come from, how long they stay and what keywords they searched for to find you (if any). I only have the free version, so it will only list 100 page loads at a time before writing over the old stats.

Anyway, I was thrilled to see that as well as my regular New Zealand visitors (who make up about 40-50% of visits, there are a decent number of UK and US visits and the occasional odd bod from Sweden, France, Germany, Chile, Japan and Canada.

Someone found me by searching for "friday cat blogging" on technorati.com. I told Jules about this, and his verdict was that I had become a self-obsessed freak.

Then this morning, I noticed that someone in Tauranga had found the site by searching on msn for "fork lightning".

I ran up the stairs to tell Jules (who took the fork lightning photo)and he completely lost his cool, frantically typing in "jules fork lightning" into Google. "I'm not there," he said, all despondent, and the next second there was a sudden shout of "Woohoo! I'm FAMOUS!" The fork lightning post came up about 7th in Google's search results.

Well, I dunno...maybe I'm completely normal after all. Either that or we're BOTH freaks!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

is definitely worth a look, if just for the trained squirrels. It took a year to teach them to crack nuts on a conveyor belt, apparently, but it was time well spent. Johnny Depp was a convincingly disturbed Willy Wonka but the star of the show was the guy who played all the Oompa Loompas (male and female). And the Oompa Loompa musical numbers were excellent.

In other news, we have a TV. Wom has restarted his Sopranos campaign. At first I thought he was miming playing tennis but it turned out to be chucking a body off a bridge. It's hard to tell sometimes - his arms are quite short!

Friday Cat Blogging

Cat #5, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Friday Cat Blogging on a Wednesday

Cat #2, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Our tabby neighbour finally made an appearance and posed fetchingly in the early morning sun yesterday. In honour of the occasion, I have uploaded a new set of photos on flickr: Cats of Gascony Avenue.

Run London

I must be mad. Have caved in to pressure from the big J and signed up to run the Nike 10km. Two months tomorrow is the day: 16 October.

Celebrated the beginning of the new regime with a last supper in Brick Lane with Warren.

Incriminating evidence

Grin 2
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

"Sober as a judge, I can see," said Jules, whipping out his phone like a papparazzo who's spotted Kate Moss without makeup in an airport.
We met up with Geoff and Heike last night in Covent Garden. Heike's mum is staying, so they were eager to take advantage of the unaccustomed luxury of a free, reliable babysitter. It was just like the pre-Danny-and-Anika days, more bottles of wine as people. Reminded me of the memorable evening we tried to explain to Heike what a badger was, via a circuitous discussion of 'dachs' and 'dachshund', which culminated in Jules roaring: 'It's a bloody dash-hound!' Not quite on topic, but entertaining nonetheless.
Anyway, we went to Loch Fyne, which was very (fyne). I had a lobster, as you do - delish.
This morning, far too early, the buzzer went and it was the postman with a parcel (hurrah!) and a very cute photo of our nieces. Also a card from Mia, which just said: "Dear Uncle Jules and Aunty Rac, I want to come to your house and live there. Love Mia."
Interesting...Thought it was best to have another little sleep before processing the implications of that particular message.

More Friday cat blogging

A bonafide neighbouring cat
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

Another indoor cat looks out wistfully at the world beyond their front door. A genuine Gascony Avenue inhabitant this time, directly across the street from us.

On another subject entirely, it seems I can't turn my back for a second without New Zealand going to the dogs. Can Dr Brash please explain why the $58 I spent last time I visited my GP is not adequate payment for the gruelling 6 minutes she spent taking my blood pressure and filling out a blood test form? I mean, I understand there are expenses to consider: tissues are a terrible price these days and for some reason the patients seem to be getting more and more upset...

Hurrah for the NHS is what I say! And roll on the weekend.

Colchester...

Colchester tudor houses
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

...is a pleasant enough day out, if not a Top Five destination. The 11th-century norman keep has a museum that kept us entertained for a couple of hours: a short slideshow complete with squeaky, panicky dialogue from Roman soldiers as Boudica's army burnt them out of the Temple of Claudius, and diverting exhibits of skeletons, fossilised human excrement (is there any need?)and roman mosaics. St Botolph's Priory is pretty old too, but not exactly on the scale of Tintern Abbey. Then there are some interesting 16th century houses in the Dutch quarter and some lopsided tudor ones scattered about as well.
Looking at the photos we've just put up on flickr, I think the Colchester cream tea may have been a mistake. Click on the photo here to have a look.

Reading matter: the good, the bad and Bridget Jones 3

Today I read on the BBC website that Helen Fielding was writing new weekly Bridget Jones columns in the Independent, starting today. So I looked up the Independent's website only to discover that I could buy the right to read the column for a quid. (That's the per article cost - pretty steep when the whole paper costs 65p!) So I bought a paper copy at Westminster tube station and abandoned it, disgusted, at West Hampstead. With any luck someone else who was intending to buy a copy will find it and the Independent will lose a sale.

Let me just say - I think the original Bridget Jones is a work of comic genius. The sequel wasn't quite as good but still enjoyable. But this new column has completely lost the plot. For a start, it reads as if she's parodying her own style. A few abbreviations like 'v. g' and leaving out the 'I' at the start of sentences makes the original seem like a real diary, but you can take this too far. Nobody would actually write "if see what mean", and you certainly wouldn't have seen Bridget do it in book 1.

Secondly, the review on BBC said how lovely it was that the column showed Bridget commenting on current affairs again, which she doesn't do in the movies. I don't think the reviewer was trying to be funny, but in this case it is literally a hastily cobbled-together comment on the nation's current affair, that of Jude Law and his children's nanny. It's not particularly witty or insightful, or even to the point. "Oh dear - do want a little baby to love. Though not ex-husband to shag the nanny. If had ex-husband." etc. From vaguely wanting a baby to thinking about non-existent ex-husbands shagging the non-existent nanny is a leap too far for me.

Thirdly, you get sick of a character who never learns anything and never grows up. Each of the books had Bridget reaching an epiphany of some sort (invariably Mark Darcy-related) but now here she is, back to square one despite being ten years older now if we're going to be literal about it, shagging both Mr Darcy and Daniel Cleaver in a drunken haze without really meaning to sleep with either of them. Surely there are more men in the world than just these two?

Also, now she talks about being a "career woman", without irony. I liked her better when she despised her job and did as little work as possible.

And finally, you can't just recycle content you've used before. I do not wish to hear about how having a baby is something you always intend to do in about three years time - have heard it all before in book two, in exactly those words.

On a positive note, I've read some fantastic books lately. I can wholeheartedly recommend, in no particular order:
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. A great book for a long-haul flight with a gripping plot about a 13-year-old girl who was selected as an embryo to be a donor for her sister who has leukemia. Initially, the idea was that she would only need to donate some material from her umbilical cord but as time passes and her sister gets sicker, her parents demand more and more medical procedures. When they ask for a kidney, she hires a lawyer.

The Queen and I and Number 10 by Sue Townsend. Both role-reversal comedies. In The Queen and I, a republican government sends the royal family to live on a housing estate. The star of the show is Harris, the Queen's corgi, whose point of view on his new life in the estate's canine underworld is very entertaining. Number 10 sees a thinly-disguised Tony Blair dress up in drag (which he finds disturbingly enjoyable) and embark on a tour of Britain with the policeman who guards the front door of Number 10, to get back in touch with the people.

The Kiss by Joan Lingard. Inspired by the author's passion for the artist Gwen John. An Edinburgh art teacher in his 40s is a sculptor with a passion for Rodin. His best pupil is a 15-year-old girl who becomes obsessed with Gwen John, who was Rodin's lover. Naturally, she soon becomes infatuated with the teacher and there is a school trip to Paris where all hell breaks loose. I sympathised with his predicament but I liked Elspeth Sandys' Finding Out better, for its treatment of a teacher/student relationship. Still a great read though.

I also enjoyed Love Me by Garrison Keillor, although it peters out towards the end. A witty and entertaining read about a guy who writes for the New Yorker and realises it is run by the mafia. Great comments about writers noone knew were Italian e.g. E.B. Blanco who wrote about Carlotta the spider and Stuart Piccolo!

And finally, the piece de resistance: The Future Homemakers of America by Laurie Graham. I would put this in a "if you liked Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" category. Six women and four decades of friendship, all underscored by the consequences of an event that happens early on slowly playing themselves out years later. It has really short chapters and a narrator who has plenty of spark and gets straight to the point:
"Ed was always tinkering with their car. First time I noticed she had sump oil the same place as her bruises was the day I realised how things stood between Betty and Ed."

Could not stop reading.

Happiness is...

...working from home on a gloriously sunny Wednesday, with a gastro pub meal in the evening to look forward to.

The new job is pretty good. It's expected that the editors will want to work from home some of the time and in fact all three of us are at home today. A great way to break up the week and gain an hour and a half back out of your day(in travel time) at the same time.

Geoff, Heike, Danny and Anneke came to visit at the weekend, which was fun until it poured with rain just as we were lighting the barbeque. Top tip for tandoori kebabs: the tandoori masala is a key ingredient, not something that can be left out if you don't have any, and cooking them under the grill will probably result in some drying out. Luckily Heike had made a cheesecake so we didn't starve.

We went to Kilburn Grange ( a smallish park in the next street) and Danny rushed up to every dog in the park, while Heike patiently repeated: "Now, Danny, you don't know that dog, do you? So you can't tell if he's friendly or not." Then we went to the Black Lion for a pint and the barman heated up Anneke's baby food and provided a bowl, which I thought was pretty good service.

Back at home, Anneke was quite happy flirting with Jules and grinding rice cake into the rug, so we needn't have worried about her crawling through the gap under the bottom railing on the roof terrace.

Tonight we are off to the Abbey Road (a gastro pub we pass on our run) to meet up with Craig. He's coming from work on his new scooter, which he has just ridden to Bath and back.Now, if I had a scooter...

Microstory

At writers' group, Cynthia reads microstories (50 words). "Preposterous!" says Berend. "They are poems."
We bicker, then enjoy a beer. Sunday night I pen a romance: girl meets boy when dog sniffs dog. A Google miracle: Monday microstory contest deadline. Fame and book vouchers beckon. Why not? I click “Submit”.

It may not be great literature, but it's surprisingly difficult. Try it and see.

Friday Cat Blogging

Cush
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

I have always wanted to participate in the great blogging tradition of Friday Cat Blogging, so I was thrilled to find this photo of our dear ex-neighbour Cush, waiting patiently at our living room door in Lysias Road. Until I found Cush's photo, I was constantly on the lookout for the tabby cat on the next door roof terrace but I have only seen it on one occasion, crouched on the very edge of the roof looking out at the rest of the world, so tantalising close and yet completely out of reach...

Death of a tailor-made trouser

An expensive first day at work. The big J had set iron to linen, but I didn't notice. In less than a second my Vietnamese tailor-made trousers had melted spectacularly. There is now a gaping hole in one leg and a thick layer of black sticky stuff on the iron. Anyone fancy some black tailor-made shorts?

My team at work seem very nice and not above scurrying out of the office at 10 to 5. We went out to lunch at Hamburger Union in Covent Garden in honour of my first day.

In the toilets there are big signs in every cubicle that say: "Please show respect and consideration for others by leaving the toilet clean. There is NO excuse for a dirty bowl." You have been warned. Then there is another grumpy little one on the sanitary bin, but I will have to check the precise wording and get back to you.

In breaking news...

Rac with rug
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

We have a new rug for our living room. Yes, that's right - we DO lead very full and exciting lives.
The photo is poor quality because it was taken on Jules's batphone, which only has a VGA camera.

The New Arrival

The Nipoori Tandoori arrived today. And there was much excitement.

Jules wanted to know how long the skewers were, so we agreed I would take a picture of one (including Wom as a guide to scale) and email it to him. But then I couldn't find the camera so I just measured the skewer in woms, much to Wom's consternation. You can see his point - why would we need to know how many Woms could fit on a skewer? But I digress - a skewer is approximately 3 Woms, or the length of my arm.

We assembled it when we got back from our separate missions to find charcoal, tools and meat. Around 9pm we were eating our first tandoori barbeque. The chicken was wonderfully moist but sadly let down by the three chilli barbeque sauce I grabbed at Somerfield. Next time we'll try a proper tandoori marinade.

Finished HP6 last night but have noone to talk to about it. Poot.

Harry Potter and other controlled medications

I lasted all of 3 days before succumbing to the new Harry Potter. I decided to support my local independent bookshop, West End Lane Books, even though it was a couple of pounds cheaper at the big chains. Having a proper bookshop in West Hampstead is a good thing, after all.

However, they didn't exactly make it easy for me - all their copies were behind the counter in a special display case so you had to make a special point of asking for one. For some reason (maybe it was the other customer at the counter, who was talking loudly about his desire to burn all the copies) I felt all flustered, like a teenager trying to buy condoms from a drugstore in the 1950s. And then the man in the shop put it in a special edition bag with "HARRY POTTER" emblazoned on the side in big letters, so there was no point pretending it was something terribly literary instead. But I'm enjoying it so far - it already seems better than No. 5.

I have now accepted the government job, to start next Tuesday. I was offered a second interview at Cancer Research, but it wasn't going to be until the day after I was due to start the govt job and you had to prepare a presentation with visual aids and present it as part of the interview. It all seemed like too much hassle (when I could be reclining in the sunlounger with HP) so I said no. The agent thought it would be perfectly reasonable to start a job one day and take time off for an interview the next but I disagreed!

We had a nice weekend - went for a 40-minute run on Saturday morning down to the Paddington Recreation Ground and then went into town to the World's Most Photographed exhibition. The world's most photographed people are (apparently): Queen Victoria, Adolf Hitler, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Mahatma Gandhi, Greta Garbo, James Dean, Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali. Mind you, that's not necessarily true in terms of sheer number of images - the subjects of the exhibition were chosen partly because they used their own image to achieve particular ends. Anyway, it was well worth seeing - lots of stylish black and white photos and good stories to go with them.

On Sunday I went to Homebase and bought two tomato plants and some tubs and canes for them - they are now thriving on the roof terrace. Apparently they are heavy croppers with bitesize, flavoursome fruit so that should be good. Donald came around late afternoon and we sat outside for a bit and then went to the Czech pub. Definitely an authentic experience - the decor in the dining room was ugly and old-fashioned in an ornate sort of way - bits of gold lacquer and red velvet and a lurid patterned carpet. Also, everyone except us spoke Czech. I had a potato pancake with streaky pork as a starter - and I could just feel my arteries constricting as I looked at it. As that was only 2.50 (and supposedly a starter) I had already ordered roast wild boar in a creamy sauce with onion rings, another deeply healthy dish. Both were delish, but one or the other would have been ample.

After all that effort on Friday, Data Connection found me unsuitable in some undefined way. How rude - I thought my solution to Archimedes' and Pythagoras's stone tablet problem was ingenious!

Post-interrogation exhaustion

After the utterly draining day I've had, I feel it is only fair that I should be offered a post as Head of MI5. The tests at DataConnection would certainly not have been out of place in a Secret Service recruitment operation - all 3.5 hours' worth of them.

However, as a reward for all this effort, I have at least been offered a 3-month contract (with the possibility of extension) at the aforementioned government department. Oh, the glamour of it all! Still, the people I met there seemed very nice, especially the editor who is a rather scruffy bloke with a definite sense of humour. (I was going to put the name of the department there but then thought it is probably best not to underestimate the power of Google: what if he searched for the department name and 'editor' and this post came up? I know it's unlikely, but you never know.)

Yesterday's interview (2 hours 15) at Cancer Research went OK, although I suspect I may not have enough content strategy experience for them. Anyway, as it is through the same agency as the other govt job, the agency is trying to wangle a deal whereby I can attend the second interview if I get offered one without jeopardising the other job. Not sure how that will work but I'll leave that up to them.

When I came out of Cancer Research it was 11.55 am. People were already milling about in Lincoln's Inn Fields waiting for the two minutes' silence in memory of the bombing victims but I thought I would rather not recognise it right outside Cancer Research so I walked through to Kingsway, which was also full of people.

I expected that there would be little clusters of people gathered in silence but I never expected that everything would stop. When the bells rang at 12, buses and taxis stopped dead in the middle of the road and turned their engines off. There was no traffic noise and noone spoke or even took a step. You could hear birds in the trees. The experience was eerie and moving in a way the usual ANZAC-day-at-school silence just isn't, with everyone shuffling and fidgeting. And then a loudspeaker on the buses announced "The time is 12.02" and the city roared back to life.

Tomorrow we are hoping to go to the 'World's Most Photographed' exhibition at the National Gallery.

Never rains but it pours

All of a sudden, there is a flood of job interviews, coinciding with another bout of very hot weather, which is totally unsuitable for wearing a jacket.

Do I want to be:
a) Web Editorial Manager for Cancer Research UK, based in Lincoln's Inn Fields and managing 3 web editors;
b) a Marketing Services Copywriter for Thomson Scientific at Holborn;
c) a Technical Writer for Dataconnection at Enfield;
d) a Web Writer for the Department of Work & Pensions (3 months). Yes, the afternoon I spent writing about the Blue Badge parking scheme and other riveting matters has resulted in an interview; or
e) none of the above?

A & C are indisputably the best jobs but both are a bit of a long shot. The interview for C is four hours long and involves a series of tests. One of them is called 'Tablets of Stone', but Louise, the very nice agent, said: 'Don 't worry - it doesn't involve heavy lifting.'
Me: 'Oh, so it's just an obstacle course then.'
Louise: 'Yes, and then you have to eat a bucket of worms.'
Me: 'Before catching your own pig and roasting it on a spit.'
Louise: 'Now, now, Rachel, you're getting ahead of yourself here - that's the second interview.'

So that is Friday morning (9.30-1.30) and then I have to charge down to Embankment for DWP at 3.30. Thursday is Cancer Research (2 hours 15) and the Thomson crowd are next week.Wish me luck.

In other news, we are booked to fly to Napoli and stay in Sorrento for the bank holiday. And it was of course Stephen Fry who I spotted in West End Lane.

I'm 11,901 words into rewriting the book - only another 82,000 or so to go...

Celebrity spotting in West End Lane

Guess who I ran past this morning as he strolled down West End Lane in a rather spiffy lemon jacket and large brown sunglasses?

Jules carves the Sunday roast...

Jules carves the Sunday roast...
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

...while Wom researches his winter holiday

...while Wom researches his winter holiday
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

Philanthropic Porsche drivers and the great bank holiday dilemma

A bright spot amid the gloom of yesterday - walking through the city, Jules passed a Porsche Carrera carrying probably its first ever backseat passenger, an average-sized woman with her knees around her ears. Nice to know that the city traders were doing their bit to help get stranded people home.

Jules got home a bit after 8, having left work at 4.30. Credit Suisse put on buses, but the traffic was gridlocked, so after an hour or so he got off the bus and walked to the nearest DLR station and caught the DLR then the North London line to West Hampstead.

And then, to round off the evening nicely, we discovered that the oven had blown up. No power to it whatsoever. So the steamed pudding was off the menu and I had to go round the corner to Spicy Basil for a green chicken curry.

The electricians came this evening to fix it. Like the landlord, the builders and the furniture deliverers, they are Polish. You see adverts up in corner shops "Wanted: Polish Builder/Cleaner/Plumber". Is this just patriotism - Polish people wanting to support Polish tradespeople - or have we stumbled into a Polish mafia underworld? Maybe we have watched too many episodes of the Sopranos - just the other day Jules was saying it was a shame we didn't have an Uncle Tony to go and lean on the letting agents for us!

Starting to think about the August Bank Holiday mini break. Current thoughts are Naples (to visit Pompeii and Mt Vesuvius but stay in Sorrento as Naples is apparently not very nice), or Budapest or Reykjavik. Any thoughts on the above would be welcome.

I ordered some brochures on Iceland, Greenland etc - one called Midnight Sun and one called something like Winter Wonderland or, as Annie said, No Sun At All. They are fantastic and have great photos, e.g. one of a man in a woolly hat lying on a rock talking to an arctic fox. Since then I have been fantasising about an Icelandic holiday - possibly in winter to see the Northern Lights. You can stay in any number of ice hotels in Northern Scandinavia and go for sled rides complete with huskies. Jules has not shown a great deal of interest in the brochures, saying snappily: 'Yes, I've got the message: Iceland good, Lapland even better!'

For anyone interested in an Icelandic oddyssey, the brochures can be viewed at www.discover-the-world.co.uk. Unfortunately they don't send them out of the EU and I can't give mine up.

Getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to go to the Old Black Lion for the game. Go blacks go!

What to say?

Trying hard not to think about the fact that this morning while I was running around West Hampstead, lost and sure I would never get home, other people were being blown up and really never will get home.

The tube is suspended until tomorrow. Jules's work is putting on a bus to Paddington and he will just have to walk the 3 miles from there. I'm going out now to get him a pudding.

And then we shall eat it and be thankful for our continued existence.

The gas man cometh (not)

Turns out Jules and I are both thinking fondly of home. Maybe it has something to do with the fun-filled Weekend of the Tradesman we've just lived through.

On Wednesday, after a 4-hour wait to get the keys from the letting agents (they thought the landlord had the keys, he thought they had them - it turned out they were in the door of the flat!) we went to look at our new abode, noted the lack of a queensize bed, a couch and a decent chest of drawers and then decided we were too tired to move in that day. So we went back to Kirst's and rang up about the phone, electricity and gas. The electricity and gas were both on pre-pay meters so they agreed to send a card for the gas meter and booked a slot for an engineer to come and change it for a conventional meter. (The electricity meter was already booked to be changed today.)

So Thursday we moved in and bought a pile of essentials at Argos. Noticed the gas meter was saying it had a credit of 5 pounds but couldn't get the boiler to go. So no showers on Friday morning - at least, Jules leapt in and yelped a bit although I couldn't face it - but then, hurrah! the gas card arrived. Stuck it in the meter...no result. Rang the letting agents (who were all apologetic) and the gas company, who promised to send an engineer within the next four hours. So we waited at home from 3 pm till 8 pm... no engineer. Rang the gas company again and they said "Oh, they're very busy in that area today but they're definitely coming tonight." At 9.30 I sent Jules out to forage for food (which is not difficult with Kilburn High Road just there) but there was no sign of the gas man by 11.30 so we gave up and went to bed. Rang them again the next day and they had no record of the call-out but "re-raised" it so there we were, stuck in the house on Saturday as well.

Eventually, the gas man arrived at the same time as the Telewest guy who was setting up the broadband and phone-line. Naturally, the gas meter was in the same cupboard as the cable points!

Anyway, the gas man stuck a special card in the meter and five seconds later there was a wooshing noise and we had gas! He said he'd done six jobs like that already that day - apparently the meter switches off if you don't use it for a while.

Damn, that first hot shower was good!

The Telewest guy discovered that the builders hadn't actually done the phone cabling at all - they'd obviously run out of time and just stuck the plastic box on the wall with a loose loop of phone cable in behind it, not attached to anything. So he was here for a while!

We went to Gourmet Burger Kitchen on Saturday night as we'd wanted to go the night before when we couldn't cook but then we were stuck at home waiting for the gas man. Very nice it was too, even better than Burger Wisconsin if that's not hugely disloyal to like the knock-off better than the original.

This morning, Jules went off to work with a brand-new goatee. I can just imagine the HR person's reaction: He's even hairier than he was at the interview!

I waited at home for the electricity man, who did come, then took one look at the meter, sucked in his breath and said: "This has been tampered with." No kidding - it was hanging loose, attached to the wall by only one cable! Still he managed to fix it which left me waiting for the couch - another no-show.

Interestingly, around lunchtime I was sure I heard a horse clopping down the street, so I went to the front window and yes, one large brown horse complete with policewoman. Sometimes England is just so cool.

Cyber-terrorism starts at home

Wireless is a funny thing, isn't it? We have the broadband supplier coming round on Saturday to sort out our Internet, phone and TV (not that we have one yet!) package but tonight I just randomly clicked "Refresh network list" out of curiosity, and discovered that if you sit on the coffee table, you can connect to one of our neighbours' wireless networks, which they foollishly haven't secured. So I figure as long as I'm not accessing my bank accounts (or theirs!) it's not costing either of us anything. Makes you wonder why anyone ever pays for their own Internet when every flat we've stayed in here has had free stuff being broadcast by the neighbours.

Anyway, so we're moved in and we have furniture, apart from the couch (no sign of that yet).

In other news, apparently I have been shortlisted for a 3-month job at the Department of Work and Pensions, which entitles me to the privilege of writing 600 words on the key issues facing disabled people in London by next Friday. As Jules said, "Live on the Jubilee line, or don't go out." (The new part of the Jubilee Line has disabled access to all stations, which is pretty much unique in London.

Observations on West Hampstead

According to the web and the company at brunch, our new neighbours include:
1. Stephen Fry, and
2. Chain-smoking middle-aged women who refer to the All Blacks as "bahstahds". (The UK is in a state of collective outrage over the result of yesterday's test match or more specifically the first two minutes.)

The Indian restaurant that is 0.02 miles from our house (i.e. on the corner) has an "Outstanding Achievement" award in its window :-)

From West Hampstead Thameslink station you can get trains to East London, Luton Airport, Kings Cross, the city, Elephant & Castle, Richmond and Kew.

Kilburn High Road is just not all that nice, when it comes down to it.

Just to prove we did get on to Centre Court...

Back view of Philippoussis
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

Here is the rear view of Philippoussis at the Stella Artois.

Some more photos now up on Flickr

Cyclist at Angkor
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

Just click on the cyclist...

A home! A home! (ahem - I mean a bijou residence with roof terrace)

Hurrah! The flat hunt is at an end. But before I begin, can I just point anyone who has been complaining about infrequency of updates to the comments feature? We're easily disheartened by silence at the other end.

We are the proud tenants of a top floor flat in Gascony Avenue, West Hampstead. Well, West Hampstead is the closest tube station but the flat is almost in Kilburn really. My theory is that you can always tell when a London suburb is a bit desirable by the way it stretches across half the city. Hence you have Clapham North, Common, Old Town, South and Junction and you see flats overlooking Tooting Common advertised as Clapham South when actually they're on the other side of Balham. Likewise you have Hampstead Heath, Hampstead Village, Hampstead Garden Suburb, South Hampstead and West Hampstead. But as I said to Jules, we'd need to be training for a half-marathon before we'd be running around the heath - you'd have to run up an entire page of the A to Z to get there.

What happened was that I rang an agent about a flat in Maida Vale and he said that it was already let but he had two others similar and one in West Hampstead. So I went to have a look, thinking it's always good to be driven around by the agent.

I met Jules at Maida Vale tube at 2 and we went to see a 1-bedroom garden flat in Maida Vale for 260 a week, which was OK but turned out to be a basement flat and the garden was very small. Then we walked across to St Johns Wood and caught the tube to West Hampstead to meet the agent.

The Gascony Avenue place was a whole house that had just been entirely redecorated inside, new kitchens, bathrooms, carpet, etc. Our new residence is the top two floors. You walk in on the first floor, go up some stairs and then there's a living room, bathroom, kitchen and the smaller double bedroom plus the door to the roof terrace, which has new decking. It's probably only about 8 or 9 feet wide but quite long, easily big enough for a table and chairs and a bbq. Then you go up more stairs and the whole top floor is the master bedroom. It's all very nice and light - white walls, beige carpet in the hallways and stairs and the rooms themselves have that pale laminate flooring that looks like floorboards but isn't. Anyway it was advertised at 300 a week but we offered them 280 and they accepted so that is good. Now we are in negotiations about furnishings - basically you have to ask for what you want so we have submitted a long list - we'll see how we get on. The only thing is that they don't provide kitchen stuff but that seems to be standard these days from what we have heard.

The shower fitting in the bathroom is a bit weird and multi-directional. Jules turned on the tap over the bath and soaked the three of us - luckily it was a hot day and the agent was a fairly laid-back aussie bloke who didn't seem to mind getting drenched if it meant he met his sales targets for the week!

We move in on Monday - at least that's the theory, I'll be impressed if they get all the furniture in and put up the curtain rails and curtains by then.

And in breaking news, Jules has just been offered the job at Credit Suisse to start on 4 July. I think it is a 6-month contract. Which is exactly what would happen once you have chosen a flat for proximity to British Land! Still at least all he has to do is get on the Jubilee Line and stay on. And fourteen stops later, there he will be!

Homeless in a heatwave

It was 33 degrees here yesterday, the kind of weather that has London's elderly residents dropping like flies. (If only they could be persuaded to go out without their overcoats, so many lives could be spared...)

We got a day travel pass and went exploring to see if we could find somewhere other than Clapham where we'd like to live. First stop was Ladbroke Grove, on the basis that it's close to Paddington and Baker St, if Jules gets the job at British Land (which he is having a second interview for tomorrow). But we didn't take to it - it was like a concrete jungle, treeless and without charm. So we walked up the canal to Warwick Avenue (much nicer, but possibly out of our price range) and got the tube to Maida Vale. Now, Maida Vale I liked - lovely old red-brick houses and quiet tree-lined streets and there's a proper park to include in your run, the Paddington Recreation Ground, complete with tennis courts. After a brief rehydration (aka icecream) stop, we continued down to London Bridge and wandered around Shad Thames and further back towards Bermondsey. Some potential there, but pricey. And finally, Canary Wharf, where we sat outside at a pub alongside the canal and had dinner - all very pleasant.

It was too hot to sleep much in the boxroom last night. The boxroom is just bigger than the airbed - you have to squeeze around the edge of the door to get in.

Jules had an interview with Credit Suisse at Canary Wharf this morning (hence the visit to Docklands yesterday). Not a riproaring success by the sound of things - he had forgotten to turn off his mobile and it rang about 2 minutes into the interview - not the best start! But the British Land one looks quite promising - there are 3 positions and 3 people being interviewed for the second time.

I had an interview with an IT consultancy in the West End on Friday. An agent found my CV on one of the jobsites and rang me about the job, which was essentially a Bid Writer or Proposal Writer job (although the agent made it sound much more varied and interesting than that). Anyway, I went along but it sounded boring AND stressful (not a good combo) and I don't think they were convinced I was committed to a career in an IT consultancy (strangely enough). So they are thinking about it and wondering whether to risk a trial contract for no money at all (all right, I may be exaggerating) and I am hoping they decide not to.

Meanwhile, this week I have been put forward to Visa and Google, which would both be excellent being large and international and having good holidays and benefits. The job interview process at Google is a bit like joining the secret service - you get interviewed by a total of 8 people, on 3 separate occasions. Then they have to send off to the US for approval to hire you. I was gutted to discover that Google wouldn't consider me for a "creative maximiser" role (don't ask because I don't know) because my degree was not from one of the UK's top five universities. So I looked up Otago online to see where it ranked worldwide but unfortunately it is between 200 and 300 so not particularly stellar. Hmf.

Ah well, time to trot off to the bottle store as it is just the sort of evening on which a pink pinot grigio would go down a treat with the tennis.