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.

Pong…pong - how the unemployed spend their days

Five gruelling days of jobhunting later, Jules has a telephone interview on Thursday for an actual job (albeit a permanent one) and I have two interviews lined up with agencies. And somehow we dragged ourselves away from the phone and internet connection to go to the tennis at Queen’s Club on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon so it hasn’t been all gloom and doom.

The tennis at Queen’s was a great experience – we only had to queue for about half an hour and we got to see some great matches. On Wednesday we got charity returns (i.e. 5-quid resold tickets) for Centre Court and watched Lleyton Hewitt and Mark Phillipoussis lose at speed to Bjorkman and Mrinyi. Since then we have been watching on TV and even Wom is getting quite into it.

We have been to see two flats. The first was through an agency, in a mews complex. It was a nice modern two bedroom flat which would have been fine, except that it was (gulp) 300 pounds a week and because we don’t have jobs the agency would require 6 months rent in advance. Which, in case you were wondering, is about 9000 pounds once you include 6 weeks bond! So we thought we wouldn’t do that, on reflection.

The second one was a raised ground floor flat on Grafton Square, which as the owner said repeatedly, is the street in Clapham. It was a very small one-bedroom flat for 265 per week. The kitchen and bathroom and bedroom were all fine but the living room was small and somewhat grotty – ancient grubby carpet and only one non-fold-out couch. However, it did have an amazing garden. You went down some steps from the kitchen onto a decent-sized lawn, a paved area with six-seater outdoor table, and behind that a moat with goldfish, a little bridge and a fountain at one end, then behind that a raised brick area with two sunloungers. There was also a beautiful resident cat – the people who own the flat own the whole house and have recently moved out of the raised ground floor flat into the upper stories after having a baby but the cat still seems to live downstairs.

So we dithered about it, decided that we could cover up the grotty carpet with a rug and get a few potplants, and finally texted the guy to say we liked it but we would need a table and he texted back to say fine – dining or coffee? Then this morning Jules got a call from an agent about an ‘excellent contract in Cambridge’ and I started to have fantasies about an actual house, where I could lie in the garden all summer waiting for my husband to come home with a sack of cash. So in the end Jules has been put forward for the job in Cambridge and we turned the flat in Grafton Square down. To be fair, it wouldn’t have been any good for visiting relatives.

Tomorrow we are off to Potters Bar to see Geoff and Heike, who have rented a 4-bedroom house. Hopefully that will be good positive reinforcement of the decision not to move into a shoebox! But if anyone else has anything helpful to say at this point we’d like to hear it!

Good nosh in Notting Hill

Jobs applied for: 3; Response from agents: 1 (general, not job-related). Jules: 4, 1.

In more cheery news, we went for a pub walk through Notting Hill and Holland Park with London Walks on Saturday night. I didn’t go with high expectations but we all had a great time. The general idea is that you turn up at the tube station at a certain time, pay your £5.50 and trot around the neighbourhood with a guide who tells you all about the history of the area and takes you to a couple of tiny, tucked-away, old pubs that you wouldn’t have found on your own.

In the course of the walk, we learnt where the phrase ‘daylight robbery’ comes from. We came upon a large square house on a corner, with all the windows on one side bricked up. The story goes that at one time in London, there was a tax on clocks. The obvious drawback of this was that it was very hard to tell how many clocks someone had in their house. So the government decided to tax windows instead, because at least you could count those from the street. Objecting to the idea of having to pay for daylight, Londoners bricked up windows left right and centre, especially those in the upper floors where the servants slept. What seems weird to me, though, is why, having bought your £2 million mansion in Holland Park, you wouldn’t put the windows back in now. Apparently nobody wants to look across the street into their neighbours’ house, but surely a simple net curtain would fix that? But no, apparently it is better to have a dark and dingy house. All right, perhaps not dingy exactly, at least not in Holland Park…

We also learnt that before street numbering, all invitations to dinner included an illustration of the fanlight over the host’s front door. All the fanlights in the street would be different, and the host would light the front hall so guests could see which house they had been invited to. Now a lot of the fanlights are pretty similar, but in some areas of London, like Bloomsbury Square, the old fanlights have been preserved – must remember to go and have a look.

One pub we visited was called The Windsor Castle, because when it was built you could see Windsor Castle from upstairs. Not a chance of that now!

After the pub walk we went to a nice little European-type restaurant, where I had a french onion soup and a chocolate mousse. Mmm.

Speaking of food, I now know why we got fatter last time we lived here. You walk into Sainsbury's Local and it is just full of ready meals and donuts. And the vegetable section is full of empty plastic bins, where the few vegetables that came in in the morning used to live. As Jules said, with 4 jam donuts costing 45p, why wouldn't you buy them?

Today I saw a fantastic-looking job at a website with the slogan "The London guide for Londoners". Then I found out it is based in Ashford in Kent! Honestly! Still apparently that is only an hour from Charing Cross so I might apply. I only hope that's not an hour by Eurostar or it could prove uneconomic!

Consuming in Clapham

We've spent 48 hours in London, and so far I am loving it. The temperature is somewhere in the low 20s and the common is green and beautiful.

Donald came to meet us at the airport and we asked after our boxes, only to be told that they can be picked up on a Wednesday between 9 and 3. (It was then a Wednesday at 7 pm.) Otherwise you could pay someone to deliver them so we did that and they arrived this morning looking like they had been thrown from the plane. Jules blacked out the 'in good condition' part of 'received in good condition' where you had to sign for them, and they didn't like that but really! One box was completely split down the side. But still everything seemed to be there and the laptops still work so that is good.

Wom was relieved to be liberated from the box and is resting on the couch waiting to return to his normal shape. He still has that lopsided look, and an accusatory glare, but is otherwise uninjured.

We went out to a tiny local pub called the Tim Bobbin in the back streets of Clapham that night that we arrived, which was lovely. Donald said he didn't have any food in the house and he wasn't kidding. Contents of fridge: 6 bottles of Stella Artois, some cans of coke, brandy mince pies with an expiry date of 3 Feb, baby carrots and beans with an expiry date of 3 April (and white tufts), some gherkins and a large block of Dutch cheese from Amsterdam (unopened). As he said: 'I seem to have become a bit of a typical bachelor'. So the next night we cooked steak and bulk vegetables, which will hopefully prevent scurvy setting in.

Yesterday we went up to Tottenham Court Road and got new mobiles. Jules of course had asked Steve which mobile was the one to have and Steve had recommended this beast of a phone that costs £600 and yet is not diamond encrusted or anything that you might expect for that price. I had to put my foot down and he ended up with a £70 phone instead. Then we had lunch at Nando's and wandered about noticing what had changed in Clapham. A very bizarre feeling standing at Clapham South, where the old hospital building has been demolished and is being replaced by a massive Tesco's. How many supermarkets do the residents of Clapham South need, one asks?

This morning we went for a walk around the Common before breakfast and Jules began his Bierodrome campaign early, with success, as we are just heading off there now.

Next week the job and flat search will begin in earnest.

In Tomb Raider territory

000008
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

Jules impersonates Angelina at Angkor.

Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

At Tong Le Sap (the lake near Siem Reap)

At Tong Le Sap (the lake near Siem Reap)
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

While we were in Siem Reap we went for a boat trip on Tong Le Sap, the lake. It was meant to be a chance to see how the local people lived, but I would really not recommend it to anyone. The lake was brown with pieces of green slime and the people were living in abject poverty. When we left, the kids ran alongside our van and cried when we left them behind. It would have been OK if we'd been going to see a charity project or something you could donate to, but as it was it was just depressing.
The kids were having a good time paddling about in big aluminium bowls though.

Fork lightning at Phnom Penh

Fork lightning at Phnom Penh
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

This is our best lightning shot so far, taken by Jules. Although last night, when we were down at the beach bar at happy hour, there was a very spectacular thunderstorm, with fork lightning right across the sky. But of course our cameras were in our room.

Jules at Angkor Thom

Jules Angkor.jpg
Originally uploaded by Racmol.

Yay - finally we have a photo on the blog!
I decided to get some of my photos done straight to CD instead of printed.
This is from the day we went to Angkor Thom from Siem Reap. More to follow...

Cooking in Chiang Mai

Arriving in Chiang Mai yesterday afternoon was a bit like coming back to civilisation. The hotel is amazingly plush and all the streets are clean, the market stalls sell things you might actually want to buy and the stall holders aren't too pushy. And there are international restaurants and bars everywhere - it's strange to remember that a few days ago I was listening to Belinda explain to her Cambodian friend what McDonalds was because not only do they not have any there, she had never heard of it before. So the golden arches aren't as iconic and all-pervasive as the big M thinks.

Today was the first day of our cooking school and we made six dishes: tom yum koong, pad thai, GCC, fish cakes, chicken salad and water chestnuts in coconut milk (a dessert). It was a bit hectic - I had imagined we would cook up a few things and then eat them all at once but it turned out to be watch a demonstration, cook a dish, eat it, repeat as necessary. Three of the people in our class were chefs and we were always falling behind! Still, it was all very tasty, apart from the chicken salad which was kind of gritty because it had ground sticky rice in it.

When we came in from the airport, the girl who was picking us up asked if we wanted to go to the elephant park on our spare day. I hadn't thought of this but actually it sounds quite fun - the elephants play football and also paint pictures.

I read about the elephant painting in Chiang Mai in the inflight magazine and there was a photo of several elephants painting an impressionist painting of a field of sunflowers. Apparently they have natural artistic ability and some of them paint both landscapes and abstracts. But what I wanted to know was: how do they decide what to paint? "Well," said Jules, "they get together and one of them says 'I'm thinking of a field of sunflowers, sort of impressionist style, with the sunlight catching the gold in the flowers...'"

You can buy the elephants' paintings but they're not cheap. I'd be quite keen to visit the elephant park but Jules is talking about temples, so we may have to do both on our last day. How many temples does a boy need to see, anyway?

The balloon trip over Angkor Wat was a washout because of a lightning storm, unfortunately.

Three days in Indiana Jones country

Help - only 14 minutes until I am going up in a balloon for sunset over Angkor Wat, but I will try to do justice to our time in Siem Reap before that.
We got up at 5am to fly here from Phnom Penh and when we arrived it was raining and a mere 30 degrees so that was a huge relief. I had been dreading having an Olympus experience i.e. being dimly aware that you are somewhere amazing and historic but the overwhelming sensation is of the sweat trickling down your back...
We headed out to the temples about 9am and visited Angkor Thom, a huge 900-year-old temple complex with over 200 faces of the Buddha. As it is low season and there weren't that many people there, and it is surrounded by trees, you could imagine what it would have been like to discover it, or to be there by yourself, being watched by all these serene faces.
We had a local guide for the last three days. His name is Yous Sa. For a start we couldn't quite place his accent but eventually worked out that it was Brummy. He says he learnt his English from watching TV - too much Jasper Carrott perhaps? Anyway he was good value entertainment and treated us to his impression of the four smiles of the Buddha - quite impressive.
Yesterday we went to the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed and Yous Sa was able to tell us all about the day he saw Miss Angelina stand in this doorway with her lips pouting like she want to kiss me, then walk very sexy over here and smell a flower and then walk off through this doorway over there. Unfortunately she had to do it twice as he and another guide who were crouching behind a pillar looking down from above were overcome by a fit of giggles when she puckered her lips.
This morning was another 5 am start to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat, but more on that later.

Cambodian delicacies I HAVE sampled

1. Frog Khmer style.

(Well, you have to start somewhere. And yes, they do taste like chicken.)

Cambodian delicacies I have yet to sample

1. Not-quite-hatched or just-hatched baby birds in a tandoori-like red paste.
2. Crispy-fried cockroaches.
3. Crispy-fried crickets.
4. Indeterminate grub (fried).
5. Black beetle (appears cooked but some are still alive and kicking).
6. Slightly larger bird (but smaller than a tui) roasted and orange-coloured.

We came up the Mekong River by boat today and crossed the border into Cambodia, arriving at Phnom Penh around lunchtime. It's a beautiful city laid out by the French so it has wide tree-lined boulevards, as well as attractive colonial buildings with big verandahs and balconies.

After a leisurely lunch (mmm....amok chicken) we went to the Royal Palace. Quite a lot like the Grand Palace in Bangkok. The highlight was the silver pagoda, which has a floor made up of over 2000 silver tiles each weighing 1kg, and a solid gold Buddha (90kg) covered in over 2000 diamonds, the largest of which is 25 carat.

The current king was at home in his residence today but did not invite us in for tea. The king is 53 and single but unlike the guides in Vietnam, who will tell you at great length about the king's countless girlfriends, our guide seemed quite reticent about the existence of any royal girlfriends. Later we found out that the king used to be a ballet dancer and was educated in France :)

After visiting the palace we walked down by the river, which is where we saw the street vendors selling the cockroaches etc. Just looking at people in the street, you see a lot more children (and adults) missing limbs and begging than in Vietnam - the legacy of landmines, I guess.

We had early evening drinks at the FCC (foreign correspondents club) which was the hangout for journalists during the war, a lovely old colonial building with open verandahs and ceiling fans looking out over the river.

Other amusing tales about the big J

I was so thrilled to finally get comments on the blog - so I thought I'd let you know some other amusing things that Jules has done on this trip.
1. Lost the very flash kiwi-bought hat off the boat in Ha Long Bay (day 2).
2. Lost the mark 2 not so flash Vietnam red cap with yellow star on Hoi An beach.
3. Collapsed a small plastic chair in slow motion at a little restaurant in Saigon.
4. Fallen off a very small plastic stool (also Saigon).
5. Got stuck in a trapdoor hole at the Viet Cong Cu Chi tunnel complex. (In his defence, it was a very small hole - but you have to love his optimism:)


Tonight we are in Chau Doc - it's our last night in Vietnam. Yesterday Jules and I went to the Reunification Palace. I was a bit doubtful - it's a very 1960s concrete building - but it was great. There was a double-level bunker underneath and some very funky rooms such as the first lady's entertaining room, with spiky seventies light fittings and lots of orange and brown. And of course just seeing the old war rooms with clunky old pink phones and formica desks is entertaining. And they have the tanks that stormed the place, a US fighter plane and a helicopter all displayed in the grounds.

How to spend half a mill at the Saigon Sheraton

...in one easy lesson.

1. Go to sunset happy hour at the rooftop bar.

Good time had by all.

This morning we went to see the Cu Chi tunnels, where the Viet Cong hid and attacked from. There's a bit that you can crawl through for about 20 metres, twisting around underground with practically no light and even that was enough for me to feel overwhelmed with relief to finally see daylight again.

There is also a very nasty display of homemade weapons that you can put your foot in or fall into - mainly involving metal spikes with barbs on the end or sharpened bamboo spears.

When you come out of the forest there is a display of weapons you can fire. Fran, Ed, Jules and I shared 10 rounds on an AK47, a very strange feeling. You get quite a jolt when it fires and it makes a hell of a lot of noise.

The stuff we got at the tailors in Hoi An was quite successful. I got a longsleeved chinese top in Vietnamese silk and some plain black trousers and Jules got a blue linen suit with Chinese collar which looks great. I also had some shoes made in silver and blue oriental brocade.

This afternoon we went on a cyclo tour of Saigon. I think we might be on average a bit bigger than your average cyclo passenger - my guy was grunting as though he was about to have a heart attack and Jules's driver had to get off and push!

We finished the afternoon at the war crimes museum, which was a sobering experience. Deformed foetuses in glass jars, for example. And apparently they had to tone it down a few years ago as too many visitors were offended by it.

All preparation for Phnom Penh, I suppose.

Melting in Hoi An

Since I last wrote we've been to Halong Bay and Hue, and now we are in Hoi An. Hoi An is lovely - old French buildings, a river and a beach and all along the river there are little cafes and bars with lanterns - but it is just far too hot. Yesterday we went to the tailors to get fitted for some clothes and today we have to go back and try them on, which I'm not particularly looking forward to but at least I didn't buy a winter jacket like some people!
Halong Bay was as beautiful and spectacular as you would expect from the postcards, but still different to what I expected. For a start the bay is massive - it's like Cook Strait or something - just on a much bigger scale than I expected so often you're out in the middle of sea and all the little limestone islands are further away. We went for a swim on one of the islands and had a seafood lunch on the boat and it was all very pleasant.
When we got back to Hanoi, Jules, Fran, Ed and I got in a taxi and went to Cha Ca, a street where the speciality is (strangely enough) cha ca - hot simmering fish and noodles that you combine over a little stove on the table. Very good. Then we went to the highly recommended Revolution Museum, which I would not recommend at all if you can't speak Vietnamese. It's all very well seeing actual letters from Ho Chi Minh or propaganda brochures or whatever but if you have no idea what they're on about...
After that we stopped in a bar for a drink and there was a thunderstorm and it just bucketed down. All the people on bikes just put on these poncho things and the little kids were under the ponchos, not even their heads out. Then we visited the Water Puppets theatre, which was mildly entertaining.
The overnight train to Hue was OK - quite comfortable compared to the one in Thailand. We sacrificed Donald's jaffas and Marmite to the good of the group as the food we'd managed to bring with us was a bit skimpy.
In Hue our hotel was inside the citadel and had a pool - yay. The best thing we did in Hue was hire motorbikes and drivers to go on a five-hour tour of the countryside. You just saw so much more of how people lived - working in rice paddies, drying the rice beside the roads, the kids riding their bikes to school, people driving buffalo attached to a plough etc. We also stopped at the emperor's mausoleum (where he isn't buried, as it turns out) and a pagoda but they weren's as interesting. After a quick dip in the pool, some of us hopped back on the bikes and went for a 40km ride to an amazing cemetery where wealthy people from overseas build tombs for their ancestors (and themselves). It's hard to describe them - like a small house covered in mosaic dragons, all in vibrant colours. Well worth the trip although we could hardly walk by the time we got back.
Jules is standing over me chomping at the bit so I'd better go. Off to the tailors now...

Flat out in Hanoi

If this Internet connection was a bit quicker, there would be a fantastic picture of a horde of motorbikes and bicycles swerving madly around each other at a four-way intersection without lights. But it isn't - so you'll just have to imagine it.

As to the flights - five in a row is not to be recommended. We had dinner twice and breakfast twice, so we thought we could give lunch a miss once we got here :)

The taxi in from the airport was an experience - the driver just rode the bumper of the car in front, honking and flashing his lights until it moved out of the way a bit, and as soon as there was a gap big enough to squeeze through, he hooned through it and right up to the bumper of the next car. And every now and then you'd meet something coming towards us - on the wrong side of the median barrier!

We flew in over jagged hills covered in mist that looked just like what you'd expect Vietnam to look like, and all the way in from the airport there were rice paddies with people in conical straw hats working in them. All over Hanoi women walk about with those two baskets suspended on a pole over one shoulder as well - didn't expect to see that.

Yesterday we met up with another girl on our trip, Frances, and walked in to Hoan Kiem Lake (the lake of the restored sword - think King Arthur and Excalibur, with a helpful tortoise thrown in to take the sword back to the Gods). It looked from the map as though it was in a park, but actually it was in a big roundabout. Learning to cross the road was a bit freaky - we knew the theory, that you just walk out slowly and steadily and let the traffic swerve around you - but it's hard to put in practice.

For dinner we consulted the noticeboard in the reception of the hotel for suggestions. Everything was ranked from 1 to 4 stars depending on price so we thought we'd go middle of the road and try 2 stars. But they were all miles away so we opted for the Bun Cha, just around the corner and 1 star. Turned out to be a narrow concrete room with about four tables. In the dark, out the back beyond the eldery fridge, someone was squatting down washing dishes in a bucket.
There wasn't a choice of what you had, which was vermicelli noodles and a soup with pork patties and bits of grilled pork and vegies. It was really tasty and the bill for the 3 of us was 30,000 dong ($2US or just under). So no cause for complaint.

Today we went to see the Temple of Literature, which is known for traditional Vietnamese architecture and nice gardens with ponds, and then the West Lake, which is a real, big lake with boats. We had lunch at a french bakery place where I had chocolate and banana waffles (true to form) and the others had a sensible Vietnamese lunch involving vegetables. We had a brief look at one of the markets but it was really crowded and full of things we didn't want to buy. Nice bags and shoes, silk and embroidered, though.

Tomorrow we're off to Halong Bay.