Park Life

Has it really been a full week since I last posted? Time flies like mad at the moment, which is quite disconcerting. Not surprisingly, I haven't managed to do a lot of the things on my to do list. It actually was too hot in my room to exercise on the weekend as we had a sudden & very short lived bout of summer. I have gone out & socialised quite a bit, though, which was very enjoyable.

On Friday evening a friend from the old days in Cologne who visits London about once a year came over to mine. We got a take away (Phad Thai), had a massive catch-up & trecked down to Brixton (of all places) to see Infected Mushroom. The gig was scheduled to be at Matter down in lovely Greenwich, but had to be relocated last minute because Matter had spontaneously closed down a few days ago. The organisers had managed to secure an alternative venue, which unfortunately was The Fridge in Brixton. Now, there are definitely nicer parts of London to take a visitor than grubby Brixton & nicer venues than The Fridge. Anyway, we couldn't change it & were rather happy that they hadn't just cancelled the whole thing. Well, we were until we actually got to The Fridge, which is very likely the hottest fridge I've ever been in. Not that I've been in a lot of fridges... if you don't count loitering around the freezer section in the supermarket during summer heatwaves. It was hot, smelly & crowded. We had a walk around, dropped our stuff off at the cloakroom, I bumped into various people I didn't know would be there, we had a quick & sweaty boogie & then decided to install ourselves in the corner near the exit as this seemed to be the only place that was a bearable temperature. The attending monkey selection turned up & after an exploration of the place had to admit that the place we were was probably the best place to be, although we did loose two of them to the dancefloor. Some people just never learn.

The DJs they had lined up as support were awesome, I danced until I couldn't move anymore & then some. Mushroom delivered a solid gig, they seem to be hit & miss with me & this was more of a hit than a miss, although their songs all seem to sound the same. We even stayed for a bit afterwards as someone I know was Djing in the other room, but it was even hotter in there & also smelled really funny & he was not even on yet, so after an hour or so of aimlessly wandering about we decided to call it a night & ventured to the station to find a bus to take us into town.

I finally made it into bed around 6am, after downing a bottle of water & having a shower to de-sweat myself. I actually managed to catch a decent amount of sleep, although not quite enough, to be coherent at about 1pm (I'd stayed sober all through the night, so no real reason to be feeling shite). I knew that a few people were having a picnic in Regent's Park, so I got myself organised & bussed to Camden. Found the people I was looking for & enjoyed a day outside in the sun. Very, very nice.

After quite an early night on Saturday I met up again with Ellen on Sunday for an early lunch at that vegan restaurant in West Brompton. It was earthy, good food, not amazing but tasty. Afterwards she went off to have a walk around Hampstead Heath & I went to Finsbury Park for yet another picnic. The directions had been quite vague ("we're under a tree near a group of tree on the other side of the rugby fiel"... I didn't even know there was a rugby field) & it took quite some time wandering about to find everyone. Another truly enjoyable day in the sun was had, with spinny things & foodstuffs.

Monday was all hot & muggy & spent in the air-conditioned office working like mad.

It's all cold & grey again now, I basically went from flip flops & summer dresses to tights & coats. It's also very windy again & my hayfever has hit full force after I was starting to feel quite smug that I wasn't as miserable this year.

I'm going to the IMAX tomorrow to watch "Prince of Persia" which no doubt is going to be rubbish but means perving over Jake Gyllenhall on the massive screen for 2 hours. Then it's Angel for the last time before autumn & a combined birthday & afterparty @ the Zoo. Another birthday, this time in picnic form on bank holiday Monday & then back to work.

I'm feeling slightly less fat (but haven't checked my weight to keep the fantasy alive) & my breasts are almost back to normal size coz I've got my period. I'm still feeling stressed, overworked & in need of some time off, which will be happening in June with a visit to Germany. We seem to have an undercurrent of restructuring going on at work, which apparently doesn't affect us, but we'll see.

At the moment all I want is a decent night's sleep & more of that picnic/hanging out with friends thing.