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Shiny!, originally uploaded by London Girl.

Adopting a diet of: cafe et croissants
Not apologising for: the sheer number of pictures of the Eiffel Tower
Loving: Paris in the Spring

Country houses, walled gardens, hidden orchards, sparkling prosecco, crisp white wine, picnics, potato salad, cornettos and 99s, sitting in the sun.

It’s what bank holidays are for.

Cooking: Risotto
Watching: A Bond film, any Bond film will do…
Listening to: The Wombats

7pm, Wednesday evening: Delivering leaflets in the rain with Steve. Warm sense of satisfaction, if a bit damp.

9:10am, Thursday morning: Get in the lift at work - its just me, George Osbourne and my big ‘vote Ken’ sticker.

6:00pm, Thursday evening: Leafleting outside the tube station, reminding commuters just coming home to go and vote for Ken. A really positive response, apart from the few who take perverse pleasure in saying they have voted for the other guy.

7:30pm, Thursday evening: Green C and I are so cold, we start jumping up and down to keep warm and making up our very own Ken chant, all that’s missing are some red pompoms. The slightly odd men who have been hanging around the tube station for a while, carrying a mannequin from the waist up, take this opportunity to try to speak to us.

9:00pm, Thursday evening: no more commuters, no more vote ken postcards, stand eating chips in the rain with Boy.

10:00pm, Thursday evening: depart to the pub, drink to victory, have one too many gin martinis.

9:00am, Friday morning: Metro has an exit poll, suggesting a Ken win of 55%. I have a hangover, suggesting an excessive gin intake of at least 20%. Carrying a bag with my dancing shoes, just in case…

10:00am, Friday morning: explain to work colleagues who don’t know how to look at BBC News, that no we don’t know who won and no we won’t know until much later that evening.

11:00am, Friday morning: sunny optimism is disappearing much more quickly than my hangover, disappointing on a number of levels. The lack of actual information as to how the count is going is immensely infuriating.

3:00pm, Friday afternoon: still no news, still nobody actually knows anything, there are no numbers, there are no figures, just rolling news coverage having to say something, and they are saying a win for Boris. Start trying to talk convincingly about the role that 2nd preferences can play.

6:30pm, Friday evening: standing outside City Hall, watching the anarchists protest, the police mill around, and the errie calm and quiet that engulfs the place. Head to the pub with Boy, no result expected until at least 10:30. The waiting is awful, but the result will be worse.

10:45pm, Friday evening: back outside City Hall. No more protests. An odd mix of Tories already quaffing champagne, bored film crews, subdued Labour supporters and confused tourists. It’s very cold, and despite the crowds, very isolating.

11:30pm: Friday evening: results imminent. The police gather around the windows of city hall, peering through to watch the result.

11:45pm: A large cheer goes up from the Conservatives. The BNP come and stand next to me, looking over the security cordon, down to the TV screen the police are focused on. Surprised both by how ordinary they look in real life, and how, if I’d been asked to describe what I thought the BNP would look like, I’d have said them.

12:00am, Saturday morning: Watch, but can’t hear, the four main candidates speak. The BNP candidate stands up to speak, the hall empties. That’s it.

Still can’t quite believe it’s over.

Ken says: Thank you
Boris says: Lets have a drink
One last video: Lilly Allen v Boris

Giant inflatable food invaded Trafalgar Square for St Georges Day. It was a bit like a country fete but with less grass, no games and very much more random.

With the first day of proper sunshine yesterday most of London rushed to the nearest open space, lay down and drank pimms. A tradition currently much more popular than celebrating St Georges Day.

Ken is on: Twitter
Rainbow/Newsnight: mashup
Boris is hanging on to his: foundations

I’ve been out leafleting for Ken this afternoon - delivering leaflets along the local streets, to the houses that were clearly built to be occupied by one family but which no contain three or even four flats, which must be tiny. To the houses where the dogs bark quite excitedly, having been brought up leafleting I can get a leaflet through a letter box and be back out the garden gate before the dog reaches the front door - useful skills on the campaign trail. And to the houses which say no junk mail, in the possibly naive view that leaflets about the policies of the candidates who are standing to run the greatest city in the world aren’t junk but essential information.

Londoners have a huge and important choice to make on May 1st. I’ve said in previous elections that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, just make sure you vote. This time round it really does matter who you vote for and it really does matter that you turn up to vote.

Watch: this
Volunteer for Ken: here
Count down: 11 days to go

No blogging last week* as I was busy being distracted by visitors from foreign climes, one actual American, two ex-pats who live there and a Swede (from Sweden not the vegetable) were visiting.

I’ve got lots of half formed thoughts floating around about polling - I took part in an IPSOS/Mori poll the other day; about elections - just over two weeks to go until polling day for Ken v Boris; about why on earth it isn’t warm yet - I’ve been wearing my winter coat for six months now and its making me miserable. But none of these vague musings are much more substantial than the above.

So there you go, three half baked ideas a proper blog entry makes?
No I didn’t think so.

More excitingly:
Pictures from last weekend are up
Charlie Brooker hates Boris Johnson
But this posh man in a hat seems to quite like him

*Or this week it seems, I wrote this on Monday

More wine than can be reasonably drunk, beer from the nearest off-license, as many bottles of cava has can be carried, a potent fruit punch – twice, *lots* of cake, even more friends, one surprise special guest. Mix well, do not shake.

Pictures: to follow
Lovely: to see you all
Still: definitely only 21.

1. Had an ugly naked guy moment as one of the guests in the hotel I can see out my window at work forgot to draw the curtains as he wondered around, before and after getting into the shower. A bit like a diet coke break… but not.

Work related activity rating: 5 – took place at my desk, colleagues joined in, could be classed as team building.

2. E-mailed IT help desk because my monitor wasn’t working properly.

Work related activity rating: 7 – emailing IT was work, but as they never came round to fix it, and I never chased them, this led to less work being able to be done.

3. Sent over almost final draft of big important document I’ve been writing to my boss.

Work related activity rating: 10 – definitely work, and as a result the least fun thing I have done today.

4. Sat in the park to eat my lunch with Green C, we talked about the mayoral elections, future careers, how we’re never going to be able to afford to buy anywhere in London and where to buy good moisteriser.

Work related activity rating: 4 – I was on my official lunch break, and could (almost) count as ‘networking’…

5. Ate a yogurt.

Work related activity: 0. I needed the energy, not to do any work, but to read this…

6. Top 10 TV cats: what, no Henry’s Cat? But yay for Snarff.

Work related activity rating: -1. Not justifiable on any level but terribly pleasing.

Rating my week:
27 Dresses: 3.5*
Buffalo Soldier: 3.5*
Hammersmith and City line: 0*

I don’t do New Years resolutions (well, not very well). Its always too cold, too wet, too depressing to do anything other than just get through winter till spring when things start to seem to be possible again, when change seems realistic and achievable and even desirable. So with the clocks gone forward and spring officially starting a week or so ago, here are my Spring resolutions, which I hope to keep until winter…

1. Blog more - I enjoy writting, I enjoy this, I should do it more
2. Find and read more blogs - I enjoy other people’s writing too!
3. Eat more healthily - this winter I’ve mostly been sustained by mid morning and mid afternoon chocolate and biscuit breaks
4. Exercise more - (see above for effects of said chocolate and biscuit breaks)
5. Take more photos and put them on-line - this will be helped by a shiny new camera
6. Only wear clothes I actually like - this may necessitate the purchasing of new clothes
7. Make more effort to keep in touch - reply to texts and emails sooner rather than later, actually call people, see people
8. Cook more - now that Laurie has gone, and Mikey too, my cooking repertoire has stopped expanding and if anything, shrunk a little…

Some of these I’ve slowly been doing, almost unconsciously deciding to do more, my blogging rate has improved immensely over the last few weeks, almost without me noticing it. The photos should follow easily once I have a camera that works. The others may require more effort, more thought, more practice and be more challenging. But new resolutions aren’t meant to be easy - otherwise you’d be doing them already.

Spotted:
1. Sunshine
2. Outdoor drinking
3. And Ken on the tube!

Flowers on the wall, originally uploaded by London Girl.

Back from a lovely long weekend in Paris with Mikey. The food was just delicious, from simple bread and cheese bought at the supermarche to cakes we queued for half an hour to buy. I have a new city to be in love with, one which takes its life a pace or two slower than London’s, one which seems gently content with itself, and one where there is always time…

Sunshine and showers
Seeing a different side
Taking a break