Finally, I got round to posting all the photos I’ve been meaning to upload for a little while now, plus a few more of the absurdly hot weather from this weekend.
So courtesy of Flickr, here’s Matt and Kim doing porn - filmed exclusively at the leaving party of Mr Laurie Voss - and a lesson in why you should never buy a disposable barbecue from a BP Garage.
I’m loving the Guillemots album right now - it’s full of highs and lows and unexpected bits, rather like this weekend in fact. It also helps mask the sound of drilling and hammering coming from the shop downstairs. Really, how long does it take to refit a bathroom showroom?
And in case anyone wondered, this is what I’ve been up to the last couple of weeks - thanks, Mary!
Have you ever noticed if you look out of the window on the Piccadilly Line while travelling between Green Park and Hyde Park Corner that the tunnel wall changes briefly from the normal soot-covered lining to beige brickwork and then back again? Behind the bricks is the disused Down Street station, used by Churchill and his War Cabinet as an emergency bunker before the Cabinet War Rooms were completed.
Today I feel mostly like crap. Geek Underground trivia and the O.C. are my way of getting through it.
(Two entries in one day? Surely not!)
A beautiful afternoon for wandering around Syon Park, and another item ticked off the list. We arrived just in time for the last guided walk around the grounds, given by Syon’s head gardener, who had an amusingly dry manner and obviously knew more about plants than I could ever hope to! Quite inspiring and well worth the couple of quid admission.
Why is it that I live in one of the most vibrant and cosmopolitan cities in Europe yet fail to take full advantage of this? Why is it that with so many attractions on my doorstep I’ve so far failed to see half of the things-that-are-worth-seeing in this great metropolis of ours?
Whenever I visit a new city it’s always a struggle to fit in as many museums, parks, shops, bars and general sights as possible within the space of a few days. In the last few months in London I have mastered the art of drinking Pimms in the park and improved my general shopping skills but that still leaves a long list of things still on that to-do list. So here’s a few things that in twelve months time I intend to have ticked off.
That’s not a comlete list, but it’s a start.
This weekend - other than the endless hours spent sat sitting on a Pendalino of course - has been generally great. One of the things I like most about living in London is leaving it from time-to-time. Not because I can’t stand the place, but more because it does make you appreciate other places that you visit more simply because they’re different. But when I am in the city, I really should be making more of it than I am right now and this I intend to rectify.
Last weekend I ran ten kilometres in fifty two minutes and six seconds. And learnt that drinking a pint of beer and nothing else isn’t a good way to stay re-hydrated throughout the rest of the day. It was the toughest run I’ve done to date - not in terms of the distance (I’d done an 8km route a few weeks ago) but the extra effort needed to do that last two kilometres was a real killer. But I did it.
(That’s me, second on the left, in the green. Honest.)
Thanks to everyone who sponsored me, and to the lovely people who came and sat in the pub with us afterwards on a beautiful clear October morning. If you haven’t done so already then you can still donate through my justgiving page and help me reach my target of rasing £250 for Fairbridge.
And thanks to the wonders of proprietary Microsoft/Adobe technology, you can see a video of me crossing the finishing line here and my split times here, although I suspect some of those data points are slightly made up, what with them only having had sensor mats every two kilometres. Simon has a better description of the ups and downs of running ten kilometres than I can manage as well as a photo of us in our gear before the run.
Next week I start the training again. Autumn is a great time for running if only you can get around the whole getting-dark-at-seven thing.
OK, so I’m a bit late posting the photos…
I think the title of this post says it all! Thank you to everyone who came and especially the nice person who turned up halfway through the party to my complete and utter surprise. But in the nicest possible way, natch 
This is why it took me two hours to get home from work the other day. Meh.
In other news, I survived Laurie’s roller disco birthday extravaganza last night, which turned out to be heaps more fun than expected, and less dangerous than feared. Well done on a great choice and Happy Birthday for yesterday. Now it’s my turn!
Sitting inside watching the TV would really have been a waste!