Our debut Ballet role...at Wimbledon

I received the following email from my friend Lisa, whom I had been discussing making a trip to Wimbledon with. It's one of those little typos in life that really made me laugh:

Having thought it was a fab idea to go to Wimbledon one night this week for returns, I’m now completely off the idea. I was watching on TV last night and they showed a shot of the queue for return tickets, and at 7.30 it was still at least 150 people long!

I don’t fancy trekking all the way to Wimbledon only to have to stand in line and then come home again without seeing any tennis.

Instead we must all remember to enter the ballet this autumn for next year!

(Note: incase you missed it, the last line should have read "ballot", not ballet.) Oh, bless her little cotton socks for making me laugh so! Oh, the idea of she and I prancing around stage in little ballet costumes!


This is Lisa attempting to plunge to her end in the Peak District over Easter this year. Fortunately I talked her out of it, and she's still around to do wonderful things such as be my 10K manager and plan future trips to Wimbledon...

Introducing my pet Llama!

This is my current wall paper. It was sent to me by Dave in Peru. It makes me smile every morning when I turn on my computer. Her name is Gramma Llama Ding-Dong. Everybody needs a Gramma Llama. Wow, it's wierd to be looking at the picture and the real thing at the same time...sort of stereo for the eyes. Or like when someone phones you and they're listening to the same radio program you are...

The teeny-weeny coffee truck

As per Matt And Clare and Rich's comments, here is the little coffee truck at East Finchley tube. One really needs to see it in real life though, to get a good perspective on how tiny it is! Many thanks to Matt for the shot!

Le pain dans la heiney (or a rough translation thereof)

This morning I took my visiting Canadian friend Ashley to my favourite little cramped cafe that makes amazing cheap chocolate croissants and cheap half-assed coffee on my way to work. The only thing is that since I last passed it (last week, I think) it has changed ownership and transformed itself into a "pattiserie". Now it's all fancy and thinks it can charge £1.20 for the formerly 70p croissants and hmmm...I don't remember how much the coffee was before, but it was £1.45 this morning. They don't even have chocolate croissants anymore. Now they're going the "le pain chocolate" route. Yeah, I'll give them a "pain" alright. Right in their heiney. I remember years ago my brother going on about how Second Cup had taken over the little coffee establishment at the university where he worked, and not quite getting it (how could anybody possibly say anything negative about Second Cup?). Now I get it. And I don't like it. Down with progress!

Worth a Laugh!

My friend Rich sent this to me just before I left for lunch:

A family of moles had been hibernating all winter. One beautiful spring morning, they woke up. The father mole stuck his head out of the hole and looked around.
Mother Mole!" he called back down the hole, "Come up here! I smell honey, fresh made honey!"
The mother mole ran up and squeezed in next to him.
"That's not honey, that's maple syrup! I smell maple syrup!"
The baby mole, still down in the hole, was sulking, complaining, "I can't smell anything down here but molasses".

Extreme Decadence?

I just wanted to share that I am sitting at my desk eating cherries and feeling very decadent. One of my colleagues had suggested that it would be much better were I being fed them by a muscular half-naked man with a winged-horse like it happens in the paintings. But then I pointed out that that would mean that I too, would probably be half-naked (or worse, more than half-naked) barely wrapped in a delicate cloth, and quite possibly surrounded by naked children. We decided it’s best to leave well-enough alone.




Me at work? How frightening!

10 KM from Death

I made a small change in one of my training routes yesterday morning, and it has made all the difference. As I said before I live in a hilly area and before, the first half was relatively flat-ish and the second half of my route was all downhill. So, yesterday morning I ran it in the opposite direction and had a long steady incline for the first 30 minutes or so, and then from pretty much flattened out again, but I thought I was going to die. I'm wanting to get this run over with so that I can know how I do, and then have something to work towards (i.e. beating my old time). Two of my friends and I are going to go down to the City on Saturday morning and run the race route (well, we may not run all of it, but we at least want to be familiar with it - even if we stop a bit early for a croissant...) Two weeks and two days to go...

Breaking the Law and the Big Mac Index

On Monday I found out I had inadvertently been driving around London for the past 7 months without having insurance on my car. I found out in a process of taking further steps towards becoming a responsible, self-managing adult. It's lucky that Monday was the day I decided to do that! It was quite a shock, but fortunately I had no accidents in those 7 months, and now the situation has been rectified, and I am a fully insured, responsible, law abiding citizen. I think I need to take a driving test to get a British driving license. Oh dear. It's like being 17 again (but with slightly more spending power) I'll keep you posted...

I have started reading the economist. The reason I bought it was because I met someone who does book reviews for it and thought it would be a neat thing to do (and thought I should read the ones they publish and see what they're like - you know, you have to understand the enemy and all that...) However, I think it might be a good thing for me to browse through on occasion. It's a whole world that I didn't even know existed. For example, once a year they publish something called (I think, I left it at home and will need to double check) the Big Mac Index. It's basically a run down of the world's currencies and their purchasing power parities in relation to how much a Big Mac would cost. I've found a link and will include it for your peruasal. I don't know if it will have any impact on my day to day life (especially since I don't buy Big Macs in England, let alone the rest of the world) but it's quite interesting to know that these sorts of things are out there. It can only help make me smarter - ha ha! Just think, 24 hours ago I had no clue what a purchasing power parity nor a Big Mac index was...

http://www.economist.com/markets/bigmac/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2708584

One of my extra-curriculars...

This is a photo taken at our April Concert. I'm in the second standing row 7th smudge from the right...

The Scene at Canada House - April 19/05

Mom, Dad and I encountered these people protesting the clubbing of seals when they visited in April. I'm not sure if our taking photos of them was the reaction they were hoping for though. My favourite bit was that they were encouraging people to "Boycott Canadian Products" The only problem is that beyond the Canadian Import Store, I haven't seen many Canadian products to be boycotted. Well, bless their little cotton socks for at least caring about something enough to protest it. That seems to be a rarity these days...

Trying to take artsy shots!

This is a photo of St Paul's Cathedral I took after Murmle and I spontaneously went to see a production of Pericles at the Globe theatre. Admittedly there was too much sky in the photo, but I suppose that's the joy of cropping and scanning!

As Promised...

My friends Rich and Murmle at London Broncos Rugby - fun day and we won!

De-populating the World

I was wondering yesterday: if people were to stop reproducing today, how long it would be until there was nobody left on earth. I spent a long time thinking about it, and then realised the answer's really quite simple. Oh well, it kept my brain active for a little while at least. I can be a bear of little brain sometimes.

I went for a big run on Saturday - about 5.5 miles I think. The only problem is that a lot of it is downhill, so I arrive at home feeling like I could do another 5! I hope I manage OK on a long flat course! Three weeks yesterday until the big run! I picked up my pack yesterday, and need to get fundraising now.

My Canadian friend Ashley is back in London now. How exciting! She brought me a Gordon Lightfoot CD too. I am so happy!

Rising to the Challenge

I tackled my first rugby game on Sunday, and it was fabulous! Great sport! Great sport! I went with my friends Gill (Murmle) and Rich (Rich), and we learned some important lessons.

1. Whereas a bottle of beer in Canada is something like 355 mls, one must remember that at a British rugby game they are 500 mls, and therefore one shouldn't be surprised when one sees the world in a different perspective upon standing up at the end of the game having drank a few of those afore mentioned 500 ml bottles, thinking they were equivalent to two pints over two hours, as opposed to two litres over two hours.

2. The teams switch sides half-way through the game

3. Sadly, contrary to how it may appear on TV, when you see the game live, one cannot hear what the miked refs are saying

4. A few G&Ts shared among friends is a nice way to while away an early evening whilst overlooking Green Park, where birds chirp merrily and families do wholesome things like play frisbee together.

5. It is pretty much as exciting as hockey

6. The players are actually quite young and many of them seem to be lawyers, or interested in being lawyers. The whole stupid rugby player thing is a bit of a myth!

7. The game is actually no where near as violent as it may appear.

8. After a meander through the West End, and a fine dinner at a well-known Italian coffee-food emporium, a small half-pint of fine imported ale, a glass of orange juice, some water and some wonderful chocolate ice cream is a nice way to finish a fine day with two (and later joined by two other) friends. And leaves one feeling refreshed and ready to tackle a 25 Km hike the next morning!

9. It would seem that the world of rugby is very small - Rich seemed to know half of the people there!

This next part isn't so much a lesson, but a confession that will shock and appall all of you who know me! It would seem that drinking on the tube is a bit of a regular occurrence here, which neither Murmle nor I could understand. We hypothesized the reasons as being:

a) it is normal, like drinking coke on the tube
b) one wants to seem cool
c) one has a problem
d) (This was later suggested by one of Rich's friends) One is a builder and has had a long day of building.

We decided to test which of the above is most likely, and saved a dribble in our bottles to take with us on the tube. We didn't know when we'd have the chance to do this again, and thought it be best that we do it together to rule out possibility c). It would seem that perhaps a new category needs to be added, as it was the one that was most applicable in our case. e) one didn't have time to finish it before leaving the venue. Anyways, I don't think we're really any closer to the answer.

Pictures will follow...