A crisp autumn day walking around old and interesting bits of central London as I delivered some important paperwork for work. Kicking through the fallen leaves in my favourite London park* on the way back to the office after walking through historic, twisted streets. And then back in the office, I’m given a Terry’s chocolate orange from a colleague as a thankyou.
As a person who Can Not Cook very well, I'm indebted to Nigel Slater's cookbooks and recipes for making it look as if I can. The man is a star and if he was here, I would hug him.
Mother's travelling south on National Express, due to arrive late next week. Right, what's to do when a mother visits their offspring in the nation's capital? All suggestions welcome.
One of the signs of getting old is cultivating a fondness for nice men on the telly who read the news or do the weather. My mother was the same with Mike Neville. And so, as well as listening to Radio Fogey and Terry Wogan each morning, I now want to make Hugh Pym a nice cup of tea every time he's on the news.
There are lots of nice things in this world and here’s another of them - sharing a bag of Revels in a darkened cinema with your special lovely person while watching a fab film. That’s what I did this week when we went to see Casino Royale, the new James Bond film. It was a great film, I enjoyed it immensely, almost as much as the Revels. But it does make me wonder why, when I go to see so much in London – theatre, arts, walks, gigs, meals in fancy-pants restuarants – that the only things I blog from my social life are the films I’ve seen like this one and this one.
Whatever you do, if you haven’t already, don’t upgrade to Blogger Beta. Since moving over, I can only log in when the Beta fairy isn’t looking, which means not only can I not post to my own blog but I can’t leave comments on anyone else’s. It’s also taken away the html code for a cute little stat counter I had in the old template and when I’ve tried to put it back on the beta template, it keeps telling me I’ve made an error and refuses to save it. Some nice Blogger Beta blokes in Denmark are “helping me with my query” as to why the login is proving problematic but in the meantime, I’m sulking.
Having a personal blog is, of course, all about Me! Me! Me! So trying to begin a post without using I… My…. We… or Our… can be quite tough. I think I’m managing ok, don’t you?
Here’s my Christmas preparations so far. I’ve bought about seven presents in the shops and am waiting for two to arrive from th’internet. I’ve got a day’s annual leave to book when my boyfriend and I do our annual Chrimbo blitz on the shops in central London. We’ve decided to bling up the Christmas tree good and proper this year and splash out on some new sparkle. I might pass on having Christmas tree hair though.
Regular readers will know there’s a large spider living in our downstairs bathroom. It’s got a web attached to a basket on the floor by the loo and when I clean in there, I lift out the basket and spider, clean around it and put it back. I tell you this incase you think I’m a tart with the housework. I’m not. Anyway, the spider’s been there for about a month now, he hides behind the basket when we go into the bathroom and then comes out when he realises we mean him no harm. I know I shouldn’t get attached to it or claim it to be a pet but I’m starting to wonder what to buy him for Christmas.
Margaret Atwood, Edna O'Brien, Patrick Hamilton, TC Boyle. These are my four favourite authors and I know they're my favourite because I've read all their books. Douglas Coupland isn't half bad either. My favourite book of all time is The Handmaid's Tale (I've read it four times).
He might be the new James Bond but I reckon that Daniel Craig’s best performance was playing Geordie Peacock in Our Friends in the North. That bit at the end, where Geordie was walking over the bridge across the Tyne, and you just weren’t sure if he was going to jump off and do himself in, well, it can still bring a tear to my eye. Our Friends in the North was one of those 
telly programmes that makes it worthwhile paying your TV licence. Speaking of programmes that make paying your telly licence worthwhile, of all the Catherine Tate characters, my favourite is Bernie the incompetent Irish nurse. She reminds me of a lot of people I know but none of them are nurses and none are called Bernie.
We've got a really big spider living in our bathroom. It's got a web in the corner above the window where it sits during the day and on an evening it takes up residence by a basket on the floor. It's been there for days now and when I did the bathroom out the other day, I lifted the basket and spider out of the bathroom, cleaned, and then put it back. I think I might have seen it smile.
Being almost ast tall as Jerry Hall means I wear flat shoes. I remember vividly the last time I ventured out in heels - too painful (literally and psychologically) to blog. So while I may clump around in Doc Martens these days, just for the record, these are the shoes I wish I could wear.
