18 August 2004

From the friends, Th'inkwell:

Wednesday 18 August 18 2004

FrightFest fare 

It seems that M and Max aren’t too interested in the offerings of FrightFest 2004. All I got was a pair of wrinkled noses when I uttered the words ‘Horror’, ‘Psychological Thriller’ and ‘Suspense’. 

Instead, I was told: 

Max: “Why don’t you ask THEM” 

Me: (puzzled) “Who?” 

Max: “You know,” (gesturing to the computer with casual, practiced, mock distaste) “your fans.” 

-The blog has a history of being somewhat of a persona non gratis in the household because it makes me sit at a screen for hours on end holding up my end of a conversation with half-muttered and occasionally inappropriate ‘uh huh’s. - 

Me: “Ummm, that’s a little weird. Interesting, though.” 

Max: “You could run a competition ... Win A Date With ...” 

Me: (interjecting) “ ... ahhhhh yeeeees, I see your point but I don’t really think that people are going to enter a competition to sit next to me at a cinema.” 

M: (seemingly from nowhere) “You never know.” 

Sweet. I suppose that’s why he’s my husband – he actually thinks going to the movies with me is like a prize. Unless, of course, it’s a horror flick, in which case wrestling with some Linux flavour named after a hat is a damn sight more interesting. I suspect, therefore, that I'll be going alone.

18 August 2003

From the email:
The coach trip out to Oxford was a just what the doctor ordered. I got to see rolling hedge-bound fields, thickly forested valleys and the cutest little ivy covered cottages. I fell asleep so I missed the entrance to Oxford and at first the outer suburbs looked disappointingly like Morden. Then we turned a corner and were on a High Street lined with the most divine old buildings I have seen yet in my three weeks in Britain. I am seriously excited about tomorrow. I predict a rather stunned Max trying to prevent herself from photographing every College in the town!

The town is quite handsome and is full to bursting of young people. I had dinner in a lovely gourmet pizza restaurant and was watching the diners with interest. There were two men in dogcollars with large family groups and I was a bit puzzled until it clicked that they were probably lecturers. As one group was leaving the waitress was chatting to them about some of the lecturers she had. At that moment I began to really miss Uni while simultaneously wishing that I had lived in a University town. What fun!

I am off to bed to prepare myself to roam the Colleges tomorrow.

4 August 2005

From the friends, Th'inkwell:


Wednesday 4 August 2004


A good day gets better 


It's difficult to have one overriding perception of London. There are beautiful areas, ugly areas, prosperous and frightening areas, places where even the sky seems to be made of ugly 60's concrete...and places like this: 

This area is literally a 10 minute meander or a 5 minute walk from my front door. I live 20 minutes from the heart of London. The contrast couldn't be greater and I have to admit I come here often to recharge. 

It's easy to forget that you're in the middle of a city. Easy to forget you're in the middle of this century in fact in such a timeless setting. I find my mind freely wandering to all kinds of places and my neck muscles unknotting as I step over tree roots and scare ducks into waddling away from me in that silly way they do. Geese fly overhead in strict V formations and swans glide across the lake with seeming effortlessness, sharing it rather disdainfully with wobbling boats and dipping oars. The people that come to the lake are calm and quiet - they even smile at you when you walk past. Children seem to be mesmerised by this place and don't shriek overly loudly. The lake is one of the reasons I really do love where I live. 

Today was so beautiful that I made M, Max and our visiting Aussie Lee promise to be home at a reasonable time so that dinner could be a picnic on the lake. 

We ate wonderful food, exchanged gossip over wine and wandered around the lake until the sky turned violet and a refreshing breeze came over the fields to tell us it was time to go home. 


I told you I was having a good day. 

4 August 2003

From the email:

It was a scorcher today, really hot. And it was striking the Londoners down like a plague. At each Tube stop there was a little sign saying that if you started feeling faint, to seek help as *drum roll* it was going to be 35 degrees ... ARGH! The sahara! 

Since it was so hot, M used the search for airconditioning as an excuse to show me her favourite shops, Bluewater. Bluewater is the Galleria on steroids. Built by Australians in a quarry outside Woolwich, it felt like home as soon as I stepped into it. The English just don't have shopping centres like we do ...

Airconditioning is a great idea, and teamed with shopping, well, what girl is going to say no?

The itsy bitsy problem was that the trip to Bluewater entailed a one and a half hour bus trip in buses WITH WINDOWS THAT DIDN'T OPEN! It was inhuman torture. Who was the doofus who thought air circulation was so last century? Let me at them ...

It was a driving sauna in those buses. But driving around the endless suburbs of London you get a real feel for just how huge the place is. The buses were taking us out to the coast and on the way we passed some pretty interesting stuff.

First of all there was the small area called Crook Log. Everything was named after it, Crook Log Medical Centre, Crook Log B&B ... 

Then we passed this HUGE bridge that was very deceptive. It had only two pylons and looked like a footbridge that goes across a Perth freeway. Yet watching the traffic driving across it you see huge tankers looking like Tonka trucks.

The best site on the trip was the pub called ... the Frog and Radiator, complete with a sign consisting of a ... you guessed it ... a frog perched ontop of a radiator. God bless their cotton socks.

3 August 2003

From the email:

It's fabulous weather right now, hitting about 35 degrees and I lay out in the garden reading the Salmon of Doubt and getting myself my first English tan *Max shifts uncomfortably to reach the aloe vera for her pink shoulders* After I had done my shoulders medium rare I ventured out with water bottle and my coolest (temperature wise!) clothes to Morden Park across the road. It looked like a park for an estate that you would expect to see a BBC period drama set in - huge lawns, large trees and mock Tudor houses rising above the trees on the hills. I was perched on a rustic seat on the top of the park and I kept on hearing rustling in the very dense blackberry bushes behind me. RATS! My god they were huge too. If I hadn't liked Ratty in Toad of Toad Hall ...

The strangest thing about my Sunday of country living was the sky. At 10am in the morning it was a pristine blue, but each time a plane flew over it left a vapour trail that didn't disperse. By 1pm there were 15 vapour trails perfectly intersecting across the sky and as the day wore on they were joined by others. Eventually the older ones began to spread and by 8pm (which looked like our 5pm) the sky was completely covered with the slowly dispersing cloud.

2 August 2003

From the email:

Saturday I went to Camden markets ... well actually myself, half of London and ALL the tourists. It was another clear hot day and the place was jumping. I nearly died from over salivation at the North African BBQ stalls ... the smell was heavenly. I managed to see every shoe shop in Camden as I was on a mission for a pair of sneakers. After a while I realised that EVERY shop I went into had a wall of bongs in it ... bizarre. We then headed to Portobello Road, which was closing as we arrived.

From the diary:

We are in a ground floor apartment on an Estate and it is so bloody English! We have a long overgrown garden with blackberries and lavender. A sunroom painted electric blue with fairy lights and a disco ball. A very serviceable kitchen. The bathroom is fantastic, orange and blue tiles, a bath and the cutest little unit. All her furniture is pretty cool, huge chunky woodens affair, a scattering of antiques and mock antiques and some painted with stressed paint. Very funky. My room is blue with a green wall and I need to arrange the furniture. The lounge is huge with two sofas and Jack’s room is red with the most spectacular huge wardrobes. I have yet to travel to town or have a look around but I like it down here.