Altogether, ahhhhhhhh

I had the honour of being baby Penelope’s first visitor today. She is so sweet. And so tiny but with big feet and hands. It looks like she will be a tall lassie, like her mum.



It is always unbelievable that a baby could ever have fitted inside a person.

I want one!



But I guess, if I did have one I couldn’t be driving down to the New Forest this evening for a weekend of cycling fun with young Tidy.

No offence, Tidy, but it is something I would be willing to sacrifice!

Talking of holidays, the Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan website is ready. I have sent links to those of you whose email I have. If you are one of those people whose email has changed (such as Hushmore!) email me and I will send you the link.

Panic over

For a chilling minute yesterday I thought we had been blocked from accessing blogger at the factory but it seems there was a problem their end! Phew.

Thanks to everyone who made it all the way to Canary Wharf for drinkies and delicious pub grub.

The Other Half astonished everyone by having a two-for-one deal all to himself! Now you know what I have to put up with.

It was a great night, especially for a school night. However, all absences were noted and lines have been issued. Have them on my desk first thing tomorrow.

A quiet day

Not much on at the factory today. An extended lunch break, a little light shopping.

And then I read Prisoner Shaun's blog and realised how much I take my liberty for granted. Even after being arrested by the KGB in Turkmenistan.

We live such a blessed life (especially if we don't commit any crimes).

Good news: Wendyroo has had her baby. Little Penelope Hannah. Congratulations to Wendy and Paul!

Spoiled brat

The Other Half spoiled me rotten this weekend in honour of turning that little bit older.

FRIDAY
VERTIGO
I met him at Shoreditch tube for ‘pre dinner’ drinks, which turned out to be in Vertigo, in Tower 42, where I have wanted to go for ages.
It was like going for a short flight. Getting through security at the entrance involved putting our bags through a x-ray machine and walking through a metal detector.
After ascending in the lift, we were greeted with a bird’s eye view of London Town all lit up at night. It was spectacular.
We spotted all the landmarks – Tower Bridge, London Bridge, London Eye, St Paul’s and even the new Wembley arch.

WAPPING PROJECT
After a glass of Kir Royale, we took a taxi down to the Wapping Project, one of my most favourite restaurants. The exhibition at the moment is great. A series of photographs, which on the surface seem rather ordinary, but a closer look reveals some spooky details. In one scene, garden gnomes frolic in lush grass, but between a crack in the trees you can see a gun and a flower-pot man hanging from his neck. Another truly disturbing picture depicts a girl tied to a tree in the middle of the woods with baby reins.

SATURDAY
GREENWICH
A quick look at the market followed by lovely pie’n’mash.

WATFORD
I admit there were nearly tears when I realised we really were going to the football. Especially when we had to get on a replacement bus as the tube was suspended! When I said please, please don’t take me to any more football, The Other Half thought it was ‘one of my little jokes’. But it wasn’t. I really am not interested in football, especially Watford.

CLOACA
He totally made up for this little error by taking me to The Old Vic to see Cloaca. It is a good play, not the best we’ve seen this year, but interesting enough. I have to say I thought it was more than a little cliched, and with two very recognisable faces, rather like watching Drop The Dead Donkey. There was a good stripper though, for the lads, who took off everything except a red g-string.

CHEZ GERARD
To top it all off, dinner in a posh restaurant.

SUNDAY
HARVEST FESTIVAL
A charming start to the day – we went to The Globe for a harvest festival march to Borough Market. Some of the Shakespearean actors had dressed up in traditional costumes – The Green Man and the hobby horse etc – and did a little ceremony in the theatre before heading through the streets to the market.

TATE MODERN
We dropped into the Tate to hear the latest installation in the Turbine Hall. Bruce Nauman has put 12 recordings in the space in bands, so when you walk along you suddenly hear something else. The Other Half and I guided each other up and down with our eyes shut. It was really cool. Nothing to see but plenty to tickle the eardrums.

HAYWARD GALLERY
To balance things out, we went to an exhibition at the Hayward all about light and optics. Lots of shadow puppets, Victorian peep shows, an incredible shrinking room, a camera obscura, light boxes and other visual treats. The best thing was a cone of light projected in a darkened and smokey room. You could get ‘inside’ it and giggle as people just put their hands in the light making them look like ghostly appendages.

SHARK TALE
And finally, off to the cinema for some light-hearted fun. (Tip: don't hang around 'til the end waiting for extra jokes!)

The boy dun good. And for one final treat, when we got home he even cooked tea.
I am a spoiled brat!

Weekend surprises

In my birthday card from The Other Half, there was an itinery of events for the weekend celebration of my birthday.

While he remained cryptic about precisely what we are doing, he outlined two full-days of activties in terms of time, equipment needed and clothing advice.

I am very excited, although tomorrow's 'excursion outside of London', which I imagine will be a trip to Watford to see them lose to Ipswich, leaves me slightly less enthusiastic.

For those of you who are interested, the photos for Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are done. Unfortuately, the factory has blocked access to photobucket.com, where I send them for web purposes, so I still can't get them out to the public!

Weekend viewing
www.nationalslagassoc.org/NSA_Home.html: "Presumably Jodie Marsh had to find another web address for her site," says The Other Half.

www.argos.co.uk: Put 'chav' in the search box.

Something for nothing

My arms and legs are literally shaking like a bowl of jelly on a washing machine!

We got a free yoga lesson at the factory today, and it was hard work. It's like working in Japan here. I hope they don't get us singing a work anthem in the mornings!

I haven't done any yoga for about five months and I could barely touch me knees, let alone my toes. But there I was balancing on one foot, twisting round and, nearly touching my ankles!

Last night, the Other Half and I went for some grub at the Real Greek Souvlaki, on South Bank, which was very tasty indeed, and then on to the Greenpeace meeting.



Speaking of Japan, in November, we were going to picket E$$O garages to pursuade people to buy their petrol elsewhere (E$$O donated cash to Bush to not sign the Kyoto agreement) but we have been diverted to Tesco - it has bought a Japanese supermarket chain which sells whale and dolphin meat, despite Tesco's own mission statement claiming it does not support this kind of thing. Tesco is also, by selling it, contributing to Japan's bid to restart commercial whaling.

We are going to be informing the public of this next month, if anyone wishes to come along and join in.

Also, this is the perfect excuse to opt out of helping Tesco earn its £2billion profits and shop at Waitrose!

It's my birthday!

So everyone has to be nice to me! And not mention my advancing age.

The Other Half did exceptionally well with a birthday brekkie of salmon on toast, pain au chocolat, juice and fresh coffee. Mmmmmm.

Then my brother and dad rang from Oz to wish me well, which was nice.

Sadly, I have to work but tonight we are going for food and a Greenpeace meeting (dedication, see).

We will be celebrating properly at the weekend - which will be full of more surprises courtesy of my beloved. If it is anything like last year, it will be a weekend to remember (except for the trip to Watford FC).

And next week, drinks with my favourite people - details will be following on an email later. X x x x x

Home, sweet home

We arrived home safely from Turkmenistan yesterday after a long flight via Baku and Frankfurt.

It was an incredible place - lots of enormous marble-and-gold-clad buildings, hundreds of fountains (Turkmenbashi, the mad-but-in-a-nice(ish)-way dictator wants the capital, Ashgabat, to have more fountains than St Petersburg, despite it laying on the edge of the desert) and even a revolving gold statue of said Turkmenbashi on top of a 75-metre tower.

On the first day, we were arrested by the former KGB and detained for two hours because we took a photo of one of those marble edifices. I have to confess I was rather nervous as none of the officers spoke English. Our camera was confiscated but at least we weren't beaten up in a back alley, or deprived of our money, or sent down the salt mines for two years!

Luckily, we had a camcorder with us that also took still photos, so we were able to record our visit!

We went to a horse stud farm, saw the countryside around Ashgabat, visited ancient ruins, a mad market and generally got a feel for the place. We had a guide with us, Catherine, which made the whole trip easier.

I am hoping to make a website of both Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and will post details as soon as it is finished. They were really interesting places to visit.

But the next holiday, hopefully, will be a week in Majorca, or similar, lazing about on a beach, with no secret police following us about!

Baku calling

Still in Azerbaijan. It's quite an interesting place, to say the least. The world's oldest rock carvings, miles of rusting metal in the oil fields, burning cliffs and great food.

The footy last night was f*ing cold and not such a great game. Still, it was an experience.

The Russian lessons given by the factory are coming in handy as people still use the language, not that I can say anything more than "please" and "where is the cinema?" (actually, knowing the word for cinema has come in handy when trying to find a restaurant!).

Off to Asgabat in Turkmenistan this evening for a few days.

There will be more detailed blogging when I get home!

You simply must see it, darhlinks

Last night, the Other Half treated me to another trip to London’s theatreland!

He told me to meet in Covent Garden but didn’t tell me what we were going to see. As he steered me towards Russell St, I thought, were we going to see the Lion King?

No. Maybe The Producers?

No. We went to see The Woman In Black.



The Fortune Theatre is the smallest theatre I think I’ve ever been in, including The Bob Hope Theatre, in Eltham (where I trod the boards with the ‘talented’ Mr Law).

The set was fairly shabby but as the plot was revealed, I realised it was supposed to look like an empty theatre.

Without giving too much away, Mr Kipps approaches a young actor to help him tell his ghost story.

The actor decides they should turn it into a play and we, basically, are watching the rehearsals.

The actor takes on Mr Kipps role, and Mr Kipps then plays all the people he met in his story.

It was brilliant. The guy playing the old Mr Kipps slipped in and out of several roles so well. He was a fantastic actor. His performance has to be seen to be believed.

The guy playing the young actor/Mr Kipps was also superb.

And the special effects, which were actually rather simple, were astonishing.

The only downside (or was it an upside?) was the rest of the audience was a bunch of over-excited school children who screamed so loudly at the scary bits anyone would think they were being murdered in their seats.

Also it seemed everyone in there had a hacking cough. Winter is upon us, my friends.

...Ooooh, Geoffrey

Wow! Did any of you see that double rainbow over east London yesterday.

It was a beautiful perfect arch spanning the sky from where I was standing in Surrey Quays.



The factory was slap-bang in the middle and almost looked like a nice place to work!

(Actually, it is a great place to work, it’s just a shame it is in pikey central.)

I took this amazing picture of the rainbow on my new camera phone.

Hushmore and Doyle

(FBC = 1. RIP, little Blackie. It’s down the loo for you)

Bit hung over today after going out drinking last night, and a school night at that.

Keevins and his good lady, Jane, are about to embark on a trip to Costa Rica on a steamship, via Germany and some islands, and had a bit of a leaving do in a very council pub in Southwark.

Generously, they laid on a seemingly never-ending supply of champagne, which was very nice of them.

And as I quaffed glass after glass, who should suddenly appear (I didn’t notice them arrive, see) but DJs Hushmore and Doyle!

Talk about a blast from the past. They are the same as ever, although a little more rotund than they used to be. It was brilliant to see them again and catch up on the gossip.

The CD Hushmore gave me made the visualiser on the new mac go crazy!

Christmas came early to our house

(Fish update – I put a new pleco in the tank last weekend, as there have been no casualties for a while now. Last night, I had to remove black moor from the tank – he has white spot and other fin-related problems. I am never buying fish from that shop again; they appear to be pox-ridden.)

I woke up dead early on Saturday, over-excited about the new mac. I ripped open the box and set it up before the Other Half even woke up!

New mac is lovely. I went from being a small child under the tree still in her pyjamas to experiencing what I imagine it is like having a second child – I love my old iMac but I also love my new iMac in equal measures.

I am a right sad case.

The rest of the weekend was spent either in HELL (IKEA) or assembling IKEA furniture. We have finally got round to buying some cupboards (one is called Billy!) and a decent computer table so now all my stuff isn’t laying around the flat and The Other Half isn’t getting stressed at my messiness.

We even managed to mount a TV on the wall – and is hasn’t fallen off yet!

Little old mac has gone to my dad’s house. I loved his purple cuddleyness …

You know you want it

Crazy times – I went to a London England Fans meeting last night, in a pub in Chancery Lane!

It was at the behest of the Other Half, as he thought it would be a good idea to meet people before heading off to Azerbaijan.

So I spent the evening listening to a Welsh man speak of his experiences the other month, an Azeri man tell us the best souvenirs to bring home are carpets and knocked-off DVDs (very cheap!), football fans make inane ‘jokes’ and a bored Foreign Office man mumble about the risk of terrorism.

Great. I am now really looking forward to the trip!

This weekend I will mostly be playing with our new iMac, which arrived today!