Welcome Rachel! With lots of love from your Auntie Jen.

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well, i’ve been far to tired/busy/pre-occupied to write about my sister’s wedding, so i’ll do that now.

i left here on the thursday, and got into boston about 1:00pm. which is actually really sucky, because none of my family was able to take off work to come pick me up. not that i am incapable of taking public transportation – just that after a long and iritating flight, schlepping around another hour and a half of trains and buses is really kinda the last thing you feel like doing. but anyway, i’m a big girl, and made it to my mum’s house. she got back from work, and my sister and niece and nephew and newest babyniece all came to visit.

oh. my. god. the newest babyniece is named mackenzie, and i am so completely head over heels in love with her. i could eat her up with a spoon. my brother has more than his share of problems, but goddamn he makes some beautiful babies. she is sweet and gorgeous and so fucking happy in the way only an eight month old can be. i want her. forget about any of my own children. i want *her*.

anyway, friday was spent in vain at the dmv, yet again trying to get my license sorted. no dice. they truly suck ass. then my mum and i had lunch, did some shopping and had a lovely dinner at home.

saturday i got up bright and early and fought the horrendous holiday weekend traffic all the way to wellfleet (3+ hour drive!) to see vanessa & ben & gigi, alex & mike & newbaby zach, and maggie. we hung out at the pond, and watched the babies play in the water. it was soooo good to see them all, though I had to head back to kate’s place for the evening.

spent the night at kate’s place, and then it was the wedding day! the weather was perfectly gorgeous. kate got married at her bio-mom’s inn in yarmouth, which was just lovely. kate looked stunning (quite an accomplishment at 6 months pregnant!) and it was a small intimate and elegant affair, with a heavy red sox theme, as befitting the sports nuts we all are. i know that elegant and red sox in the same sentence sounds like a contradiction in terms, but you’ll just have to believe me when I tell you she pulled it off. Most importantly, they are really happy together – kind, easy, fun, and loving. that’s all that matters to me, and i can see them being happy together long into old age. i am genuinely touched by their love for each other.

monday morning, i headed into boston to meet up with johanna and see her baby miles – we spent a good long while walking and talking about her new life. i’m so glad i got to spend some time with her.

and then i had to catch my flight. it was all over with very quickly, but i’m so glad i got the opportunity to see the friends i have missed so dearly. and i wouldn’t have missed my sister’s wedding for the world.

it’s hard not being around. but sometime’s life is like that. you just gotta take your opportunities when they come around.

in case you missed it, the wedding/baby/family/rare-jen-in-a-dress pics are here

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back from my visit with my sis in mashpee. of course the entire time I was there, it was pouring and 50F (that’s 10C for you metric fans). and in spite of all the rain, it was still well nigh impossible to get sox tickets. the week was very low key as a result – all plans went out the window, since the weather was soooo not co-operating.

things i enjoyed:

american appliances. i did like 18 loads of laundry, just because i could. clothes that come out all fluffy and warm, and wrinkle free. it’s a good thing. miraculous. also, all hail the built in shower and dishwasher. long live mixer taps.

old navy. it’s rather sad that i get so excited about this, but cheap staples are apparently what passes for my fashion sense these days. gone are the good old days when i could drop a shitload of money on cute clothes. shifting priorities dictate that all clothing be sturdy, cheap, and multifunctional. old navy fits this bill to a tee. in fact, i am loathe to admit it, but i have not bought a single thread of clothing since the last time i went to the states. also, cheap shoes. footwear is just crazy expensive over here.

panera bread. a chain similar to what you’d expect if au bon pain crossed with starbucks, which makes it a guilty pleasure but they do amazingly delicious salads. i love salad like nothing else. mmmmm, salad.

star wars episode 3. saw this and enjoyed it much more than expected. but then again, it’s the payoff movie, so it really couldn’t go too far wrong.

american marlboros. they’re not the same here.

dunkin donuts coffee and good customer service.

peace and trees and cranberry bogs and quaintness and fried clams and beer. essence of cape cod.

spending time with the sis. seeing the family.

things i did not enjoy:

rain. more rain. cold. smoking in the aforementioned rain and cold.

the department of motor vehicles. there’s a long convoluted story there for another time. suffice to say vermont is the most ass-backward state in the union. don’t ever get a speding ticket there. especially doing 95 through a work zone.

being unable to drive because of vermont.

the incredible amount of “eating out” americans do, and the portions that could feed a family of four. i felt compelled to eat a lot. I put on a good 5 pounds in a week.

too much george bush. not enough peace, love and understanding.

insane amounts of choice. it took me ages to decide on anything, from the kind of toothpaste to buy, to what to watch on television. life should not be that hard.

big cars.

babies r us. went with kate to register for her baby stuff. what a fucking racket!!! brainwashing and excess to the nth degree. no one *needs* a 25$ babywipe warmer, or a 300$ stroller cum baby-s.u.v., or 160$ crib sheets. by the time i got out of there, i felt bitter and cynical about really cute babies, and that is saying a lot. i refuse to buy into that mentality. so i bought them a digital camera instead. very useful, but specifically *not* baby-oriented.

flight back was then delayed for an hour, i got seated between mister should’ve-bought-two-seats-so-i-don’t-have-to-completely-encroach-upon
-someone-else’s-personal-space-with-my-fat-ass, and mister dog-shit-breath, and surrounded by no fewer than 4 screaming children. *but*, i got through immigration in a breeze (yay for resident visas!) and customs did *not* go through my 8000 pounds of baggage with far in excess of the £145 personal allowance. brought back lots of clothes, food, and a queen size foam mattress pad (since i can count the number of springs in my back every night, and egg-crate foam covers don’t seem to exist here, but cost only 15$ in the states, tell me it wasn’t worth it??). of course, I then had to lug this shit all the way back from heathrow, up and down multiple sets of stairs, in 28C heat. sometimes i surprise myself.

not many pics, considering the lack of activities, but will get the few i do have up here soon.

off to nap now. nighty nite.

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well, just like your parents, you arrived fashionably late, and underdressed. but just like them, i’m sure you’ll more than make up for it in charm and good looks.

and while we’re on the topic of your parents, boy are you going to be the most stylish, politically aware, well travelled child in the world! you’ll have to learn to balance radical activism with partying, social propriety with i-don’t-give-a-damn attitude, buddhist minimalism with serious shopping, jet-setting with napping, and full on debate with pacifism. good luck with that, cause god only knows how they manage to do it.

but you are going to have the most amazing life – and if i’m honest, i’m more than a bit jealous. in any case, we’ll meet soon, and I’ll give you more of the lowdown then. and a few bits of dirt on your parents for future get-out-of-jail-free purposes, oh, say, when you’re about 15 or so…

Zachary Martin Hall Blanding
1 may 2005

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to mum, cathy, kate, catie, alex, vanessa, jo, jess… love you all. enjoy your day!

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my newest niece/nephew (already looked for telltale signs, but whoever s/he is, s/he’s not showing!)

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So you may have noticed, I have done yet another site re-design (sorta, I still haven’t got around to sorting the photo index page yet – there’s a daunting amount of cleanup to do there first…)

Hopefully, this page has a lot better integrity (source wise) than the last incarnation, and can still be viewed ok in alternative formats. Simplified things a bit as well (okay, finally realised you can’t throw *all* the cool tricks onto one page!)

And, added a narcissistic “about me” page – is there no end to my ego??

Very curious to know what people think, so speak up!

In the meantime, if you’re at all wondering what I did think weekend? THis is it.

And, happy birthday to my dearest elliot! Wish I was there to sing for you.

Love you oodles and oodles,
e.t.

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today was all about the marathon. J finished his first in 4:15. So quickly, in fact, that I missed him at both the 12 mile mark, and the 18 mile mark, then didn’t even get to meet him at the finish.

he ran incredibly well, and though I did try to see him at two separate points, I felt like the world’s worst wife for not being there at the end. Tried to make it up to him by baking chocolate peanut butter brownies, but it was a hollow gesture.

i am, however, unbelievably proud of him. And being caught up in all the excitement again, has got me contemplating a 26.2 mile october run in cardiff…

(have a few lame pics that i’ll put up tomorrow, after i return to my senses)

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Oh my goodness, my sister Kate is pregnant!

She and Carl are expecting a baby in September. And while I am really incredibly happy for her, I am also sad. I’m sad because my baby sister is grown up. Sad because life is changing, and I am missing out on stuff. Missing my sister, and this unbelievable time in her life. Missing my nieces and nephews growing up. Missing my friends and their new families and homes. Everyone I know is having a baby – Kate, Alex, Tonia, Jessica, Jo. The big news in my life tends to be what trip I have planned, or what I did over the weekend. I sometimes feel my lifestyle and choices are frivolous and irresponsible. Everyone is more adult than me.

I’m 32 – I rent the cheapest flat possible, I have almost no furniture, and I live paycheck to paycheck. I have no pension plan, no career plan, and I can’t even drive a car. My biggest ambition is to run away and travel the world. And I am suddenly acutely aware of time – I used to think I had all the time in the world for anything I wanted to do. But the reality is, I don’t. Doing one thing potentially precludes doing another, or postponing certain stuff indefinitely. I can’t have it all.

It upsets me – I don’t want to feel like I am missing out on the really important stuff in life, just for the opportunity to have easy city breaks to Paris. I want to be there when Kate’s baby is born, and be the fun aunt who buys the clothes and music that mum won’t, and the one who commiserates when other adults don’t understand, and the one who encourages them to go abroad and skydive and run marathons. I want to influence them to do the things and live the life they want, even when their parents are too afraid to be supportive. I want to be important to them – I don’t want to be the aunt they never see and barely know.

And I’m sad because it means the end of doing things with just my sister, just because we want to. No more spending the day together just because we have nothing else we’d rather do. No road trips to New Orleans. When you have a kid, things have to be planned. And I will miss that potential for spontaneity and completely unstructured time together. Because those were always the best – I could drop by and we’d go to a movie, or take the dog for a drive, or a walk on the beach. I always figured at some point we’d have that time again.

My sister is having a baby. And I am 3000 miles away.

In other unimportant news: the weekend was a bit of a binge-fest. Kerryn had his b-day drinks on Friday night – jack daniels, tequila, and sambuca shots galore. I was surprisingly sober after 4 shots and 5 vodka drinks. My liver must look like a walnut. Kerryn on the other hand, being a) a big flyweight when it comes to alcohol, and b) being the birthday boy, had to be cabbed home the two blocks.

Sunday was a mixed adult/kiddies party, with hoardes of four year olds. Given our less-than-perky condition, more alcohol was required to make it through tha afternoon alive. A thoroughly enoyable and completely unproductive Sunday afternoon was spent in the pub, after which k & t came back to our place, i cooked some gigantic meatball subs, and we watched a movie into the evening.

Somehow it all seems a little less important today.

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busy busy weekend, which passed in a flash.

i bargained my way out of a traditional “hen’s night” (thank god) in lieu of a girl’s night out with angela, clare, pasadi, and sue. getting to clerkenwell was a mission and a half, with the southern part of the northern line out of commission. i had to take a bus to earlsfield, take a train from earlsfield to waterloo, take the northern line to king’s cross, and the metropolitan to farringdon. hung out at the three kings pub (site of last year’s infamous nye party, where i drank, danced, puked and snogged) until closing, then headed down the street to the “evergreen party” at the amazing tardis venue. set behind an anonymous wooden gate, it’s half open air/half train trestle alcoves, with candles and trees and a live parrot (how angela always seems to find these places set in train trestles, *I* don’t know!). it’s been ages since i went dancing, and was sorely missed – we partied til after 3 and i rolled home very tired and tipsy, which is surely the sign of a good night out.

up early saturday morning to do some errands, one of which was getting j’s wedding ring re-sized (i ordered it from the states, due to the very favourable exchange rate, but got the wrong size). absolutely certain i remembered where the shop was, we spent ages wandering knightsbridge saying “hmmm, this doesn’t look familiar, do you remember this?” finally found it (all the way down at green park!), grabbed some sushi, and headed home, so j could go meet up at his friend’s bachelor party in covent garden. i spent the evening reading, and j fell into bed sometime in the wee hours of the morning a bit worse for the wear.

up early again sunday for an obligatory visit with the very sweet but extraordinarily garrulous Aunt Muriel (nickname “Topsy”). She’s my grandfather’s cousin, who lives in Piddington-on-Oxford, and when we last visited in the summer, she kindly served the most atrocious homemade Sunday dinner ever massacred in the history of kitchens. Luckily, this time, she offered to take us out to the pub, and invited along several other relations of her deceased husband for a relaxed and convivial roast dinner at the local. it was a very nice afternoon, all in all, with some lovely people, but with nearly 2 hours travel time each way, a very long day. came home and crashed out with some “west wing” to recover sufficiently for the beginning of a new work week.

some pics of topsy & co. below

linda and rob

muriel and john

muriel, jen, and jonno

linda and john

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new year’s was brilliant. new years eve, the whole big bunch went down to the local bar, (managed to even snag some seats!) and drank our fill – or perhaps a bit more. raina left shortly after midnight, since she was hopping a plane to ecuador early in the morning, tracey and i played hide the sandwich, stef and I had a long conversation about nihilism, and kerryn and i jabbered on about the meaning of life. we stumbled home about 3am, popped some more champagne and talked shit until 4ish, and promptly passed out the minute our heads hit the pillow.

new years day we again made a massive breakfast, watched movies, played video games all day, and i cooked a traditional italian new year’s good luck dinner (lentils and sausage) and cake with a coin in it (which kerryn found, bringing him prosperity in the new year).

sunday we again had a giant brek-fy, watched even more movies and played more video games, and i cooked up some giant meatball and sauce sub sandwiches for dinner. bad television til late in the eve…

monday – you guessed it, more of the same!

sorry, no pics of the weekend, but i’m sure you can use you imagination to picture the above! a cheerful, chilled, and cosy way to ring in the new year.

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loads to blog about the in-laws visit and half-marathon, but it’ll have to wait, as any energy I had has been diverted into stopping two 5 year olds from killing each other. in the meantime here’s a pic from the race (personal best time, 2:11:08 for 13.1 miles)

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nicola leaves today to go home to new zealand for good. she had her blowout leaving do last night.

i met nick when i first started working at the council. we started taking cigarette breaks together, hanging out at the common during our lunch hours. she wanted to travel, i wanted to travel, and even though we didn’t know each other well, at some point we decided to take a trip to brussels and amsterdam. the trip was fabulously fun – i discovered nick is happy as a clam, as long as she’s kept well-fed and empty bladdered; nick discovered i get paranoid on too many mushrooms. from that auspicious start, the bonds of friendship were formed.

over the course of the next year, we would help each other over broken hearts, help each other adjust to life in london, party and dance and have adventures (both domestic and international), find (or both be forcibly introduced to) new loves, cope with dramas big and small – knowing all the while that we were eventually destined to go our separate ways.

although i don’t say goodbyes, i am grateful for the time we had here, and know that we will we will have fun together again, some other place, some other time. Perhaps we will meet up with our husbands and our babies, and compare recipes and parenting tips. Or maybe we will be puzzling over maps, pretending we are *not* lost, in some country we don’t know anything about, laughing because we can’t speak the language.

til then…

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First off, belated and early congrats to alex and mike – alex is preggers and they’re getting married on 25th September. between all the protests, world travels, fine dining, and designer labels, they will no doubt have the most socially conscious and fashionable child on the planet. (I secretly think alex is just having a baby to have someone besides herself to shop for…)

okay, so she’s going to hate me for this… but kim has a new site as well, www.misitio.co.uk lots of travel photos (it’s been a busy year for her!)

realised I never put up pics from canterbury, so here they are.

also, crap random photos from richmond and eastbourne

that’s it for the mo’, peace out…

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The whirlwind tour of the states was overall very good. Not as relaxed as I would’ve hoped, as there were too many people and things to see, and a lot of travelling back and forth, but all in all, really good.

We flew in to NYC. The flight was pretty cruddy – I will never fly Air France again! We barely made our connecting flight in Paris, and the plane from Paris
to NYC was really old – no screen in the back of the headrest, uncomfortable seats, etc. Despite checking in hours early, we still didn’t get seats together and had to ask this poor teenager to give up his window seat. (poor soul! he then got bumped again about two minutes later by the flight attendant.) We got in about 9:00 pm on Friday evening, and had a surprisingly easy time through Immigration (i got a hearty “welcome home!”, while jonno got fingerprinted and photographed like a sex offender). Got to my friend Johanna’s flat and caught up a bit over a few beers and some food. Woke up at 4:30 am (!) Saturday, and wandered around Brooklyn – went
to Prospect Park and the Botanical Gardens. Went shopping at Target, a baptism in american consumerism! Had a nice dinner and some olympic viewing.

NExt morning took the bus up to Boston, and just spent the day touching base with my family, getting fed every 5 minutes. MOnday, picked up the rental tank, er, car. we reserved an economy compact, we were given a massive extended cab pickup truck, with a front bench as big and cushy as a full size couch. we have brek-fy with the family at the early american (my former “regular” diner, and the scene of much chick-trip planning, relationship analysis, and hangover therapy over gallons of coffee), did the whole Red SOx experience – tour of Fenway (mecca!), shopping for Sox gear, and of course, the game (which we won!). Tuesday, we took a one day walking tour of the entirety of Boston and Cambridge. Took the ferry into the North End, walked through Fanueil Hall, to the Commons and Public gardens, through to Copley Square, over the Mass Ave bridge into Central Square, and then Harvard Square. Lots of walking. Dinner with the whole family (including the little ball of hellish terror that is my 2 year old nephew). The next day we went down to the Cape to stay at my sister’s. Had lahhhbstahh rolls, then a a half day at the local little beach, then went to Hyannis for evening beers by the ocean. The next day the weather was crap, so we spent the day shopping for running shoes and getting lost in the texitle maze that is Old Navy. Friday we went and visited my friend Vanessa and her baby in
Wellfleet, and then drove into Boston for an eye-talian dinner in the North End with my dad and his wife. Saturday we spent the day with my sis, eating seafood and going to gay old ProvinceTown. Sunday we took the bus back to NYC and hung out with Johanna and her husband. Monday we walked nearly all of Manhattan – started off walking over the Bklyn Bridge, then up through Tribeca, Chinatown, Soho, Washington Square, the East Village, Little India, over to midtown for the Empire State Building, Times Square, then took the subway up to the Upper west Side, went through Central Pk, saw a movie, and took the subway home. We must’ve walked ten miles if we walked a step. Tuesday we took the Staten Island ferry out into the harbour for the view of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline, then went to the SOuth Street Seaport for lunch, then went to the Upper East side and the Metropolitan Museum, walked down to Rockefeller Centre, and then went home and had a lovely dinner at a south african restaurant just near Jo’s house. Wed, we just did some
errands, and then it was time to go home again! I didn’t sleep at all on the flight home, and when I finally went to sleep Thur night, I slept for days.

This weekend we went for a run on Sat morning (which didn’t do my knee any favors) and spent all of Sunday playing drinking Rummikub, and then monday just vegged (was going to go to the Carnival, but the weather was not so hot, and J was wayyyy hungover).

That’s it in a nutshell! you’ve already seen the pics. now go away.

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this is funnier and more touching than anything I could ever write, so I hope mike and alex don’t mind me sharing their account of their engagement:

“Yes, the rumors are true! As of this past weekend, I am no longer on the market (to the collective sighs of women around the world.) I asked Alex to marry me while we were vacationing on the Caribbean
island of Vieques for her birthday, and she said yes. (Actually, her exact word was “Sure”, but I think that counts.) Not that the whole thing didn’t go off without a hitch… For the night, which was also her birthday
night, I thought I had planned the perfect evening. First, we went on a kayaking tour of one of Vieques’ unique “bioluminescent bay”, one of the only places in the world where phosphorescent plankton live in such abundance that when you swim in the water, your whole body glows and looks like it’s covered with tiny little stars….Unfortunately, the romance was tempered a bit when Alex got stung by a jellyfish and had to paddle back with a sore arm. Hoping to bounce back, I told her that I had a special surprise for her, and drove her down dirt roads to a secluded beach where earlier in the day I had stashed all the makings for a romantic picnic. Of course, I forgot that Alex is an arachnophobe, and so she took some coaxing to get out of the car, convinced that there would be spiders on the beach at night. But I cavalierly told her that there wouldn’t be any spiders once we got past the palm trees, and after crashing around in the brambles for a few minutes to find the stuff I left, we made our way down to the surf. There I laid out a spread with all the fixings – a tablecloth, a spread of gourmet food, a bouquet of roses, a candle in a hurricane lamp – and popped a bottle of red I’d brought from home. We sat and talked, captivated by the crashing of waves in our secluded cove, and the full moon rising over the hill behind us. Alex even started to relax, as I nervously rehearsed in my mind the speech I’d been practicing all day, ready to give her the ring. Then….caught in mid-sentence, Alex suddenly let loose the most blood-curdling scream I’d ever heard in my life. She leapt up and ran down the beach into the water, screaming that she saw a spider. Of course, I thought it was just a shadow or something until I looked at the top of the cooler and saw, I’m not kidding, an spindly eight-legged freak the size of my palm, who had apparently wanted to have a sip of wine himself. Needless to say, it took some time before I was able to calm Alex down, get her back to the car, pack up all the stuff, ensure it was all spider-free (I trapped our friend in an over-turned wineglass and left it on the beach just to make sure!), and drive back the way we came. My next thought was to try and get her back to our hotel room which had a beautiful balcony overlooking the beach, but Alex wanted to go to the restaurant we had been to the night before to try and salvage her birthday dinner. I agreed reluctantly but told her that I had another birthday surprise for her later, so we couldn’t drink too much. But we found that wasn’t an option, since the restaurant had stopped serving food by the time we got there, though they did let us have a drink at the bar and a banana-split on the house. Finally we got back to our hotel room, where, dejected, Alex plopped down on the bed ready to go to sleep as I stood panicked about how the hell I was going to propose. Bad luck be damned, I threw a nightstand onto the balcony, put what was left of our feast onto it, and lined up two oversized wicker chairs facing it (of course the chairs wouldn’t fit on the balcony). Telling her I still had a bottle of champagne for her birthday, I coaxed her to sit with me and we picked up our conversation and finished the food and the wine. Then I told her that I had another surprise for her, and brought out a small package wrapped in birthday wrapping paper, and stood with her on the balcony while she unwrapped it. Finally, everything seemed just right – the moon had risen over the ocean below us, and a warm breeze was blowing through the palm trees. Before she opened the box, I started in on my speech, and I think I got through about 2/3 of it before my mind blanked (which is more than I expected to get through), and I simply asked her if she would marry me. She said “sure” and opened the box…. at which point the ring fell out and for a very scary moment we thought it had gone over the balcony. But thankfully we found it under the nightstand, I
put it on her finger and we popped the champagne! To my relief, Alex loves the ring – a 1920’s-era platinum ring with a tourmaline (her favorite gemstone) surrounded by tiny diamonds. As for me, I just figure that after the proposal, the actual marriage should be a piece of cake! For now, we haven’t set a date – we are still basking in the glow of commitment.”

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currently rainy cold and dark here. and this is what alex sends me (celebrating her birthday in the dominican republic):

happy birthday, ya silly cow…

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so em came to visit me for a whirlwind weekend in london. sooo much fun was had. she got in to stansted from montpellier (flying the luxurious ryanair) at 10:00 thursday, and immediately realised, upon hitting the immigration checkpoint, that aside from my phone numbers, she had no other info.

immigration officer: “what’s the purpose of your visit?”

emily: ” i’m visiting a friend.”

i.o.: “where does your friend live?”

e: “ummm… i don’t know. somewhere in london.”

i.o.: “is your friend british?”

e: “no, she’s american.”

i.o. “is your friend a student?”

e: “no, she works.”

i.o.: “what does she do?”

e: “ummm… i don’t know. i know she doesn’t like it.”

all very fishy sounding, but finally they let her through, because well, she just has one of those believable faces and she’s tiny and cute. (if it had been *me*, i think we all know what the ending to *that* story would have been.) the stoopid stansted express was doing “engineering works”, so we raced to catch the last train, but missed it, decided “screw it, if it’s going to take hours anyway, at least we can get good’n lickered-up”, whereupon we had a much-needed drink at the very fashionable Stansted O’Neill’s Pub. em had her first (of many) stella artois. took positively ages to get home, but finally reached chez moi about 2 am, and crashed out.

unfortunately, i had to work friday, but snuck out early, and i *cooked* dinner for us. well, sort of. pre-prepared fish, couscous from a packet, and salad from a bag. tasty. em was sick with a cold and still really tired, so we went to a few local-ish pubs in clapham. missed meeting up with nick in balham, so after last call, we headed home.

saturday, we got up, had traditional british crumpets and not-so-traditionally-british dunkin’ donuts french vanilla coffee (dee-lish! thanks kate!), and went to hampstead heath, where emily was able to pay homage at the keats house, we sloshed through ankled deep mud along the foggy moors, and refreshed ourselves with some very fancy french pastry and “white coffee”. then we walked, and walked and walked to camden, browsed the markets, bought tacky junk and a fun shirt, hit a pub for some drinks, then decided to go eat. my infallible sense of direction provided us with a long and extremey circular walk around old street, then we went to soho for some yummy indian (de rigeur), went to the snooty “o bar” for a few cocktails, then “yo! below” for a few more cocktails, where there were lots of slutty looking pudgy british girls, no neck massages, and some tantalizingly hilarious karaoke which petered out abruptly.

sunday morning we headed for a lovely late breakfast/early lunch down at southbank, braved the hurricane winds of the thameswalk, then perused the sometimes-cool, sometimes-puzzling tate modern. suddenly it was time to go, so i dropped em at liverpool street station with 7 minutes to spare and we bid adieu.

the weather was crap (as to be expected) but i have now had opportunity to practice my hosting skills – we only got lost once, emily left my flat alive and only a little bit worse for the wear, so it looks like jen’s b & b is open for business and taking all future bookings… hint, hint

see what kind of crazy fun could be yours for the asking

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