Having a very sociable week. Met C in the picturehouse and then went on to the Rainbow restaurant in Kings St, had some splendid french onion soup amidst good conversation and a single glass of white wine!!!! Having the car is moderating the alcohol consumption!! Then yesterday went with R, a kiwi workmate to The venue for lunch and it was lovely lovely food, a gorgeously white setting, and exceptionally friendly service, definitely happy to go back there again, it was probably the best for food that I have experienced since the Blue Print Cafe in Shad Thames and then tonight I'm off to a Darwin Lecturegiven by Kate Adie, which should be very interesting!!!! Tomorrow I have a climbing wall supervisors course and sunday a first aid course... busy busy busy!!!!!

It's already thursday and I haven't even mentioned the weekend!! The gig on friday; lovely to see S&R again!! Had beer with them and then headed to the Palais in Hammersmith. It's a small venue which seems oddly sideways??? I know that doesn't sound at all logical but it is a sideways gig, the stage just seems in the wrong place??? So the support band were the Departure, who sounded like Joy Division meets Franz Ferdinand, and really epitomised a fairly solid support band... they were listenable to but not enough to stop conversation! and then there was Graham! Now I don't know if I was distracted by conversation, have seen Graham maybe far too many times or it was the venue??? Went into the moshpit but it was full of unfriendly teenager boys, jiggled a bit but then headed to the periphery again to rejoin friends, Graham ended with a very self indulgent piece that had worrying reminders of 70's prog rock.... but I still love the bloke in his nerdyness

Saturday and i decided to forgo the SUV stickering to head into Covent Garden for the important purchase of a climbing harness. Tried a number on and one was by far the most comfortable and seeing as i'll be wearing it most of the day whilst working it seemed the one to buy so I got a Petzl Calidris



and was very very excited indeed... now impatient to try it out!

oh dear... have you ever sent an email by mistakenly clicking reply rather than forward??? oh dear... I just have... hopefully C will have a sense of humour....

and tonight it is Graham!!!

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You know what it's like when you are walking hurriedly in search of lunch and you see ahead placcarded people thrusting leaflets to all and sundry.... usually I give a wide berth, avoid eye contact and march onwards... today instead I, inexplicably, reached out and requested a leaflet.... ???? I do not know what on earth made me do this...? Odd indeed... and odder indeed are the contents!

The leaflet describes the possible means to effect global change....! It simply gets people to vote for a political party or politician that pledges to implement the Simultaneous Policy alongside other governments who have also pledged to do so...... The SP policies to be adopted are things such as fair trade/ environmental sustainability /true democracy /an end to weapons of mass destruction and to war itself... all seemingly idealistic pipe-dreams at the moment because all governments are strait-jacketed by market/corporate forces..... this is a means of giving voters a more cohesive base... it is quite a radical idea... but if enough people sign up it could possibly start to effect the behaviour of political parties ..... hmmmmm interesting indeed!!!

and a possible answer is ETA an organisation similar to the AA or RAC but they only support sustainable transport and you can offset your CO 2 emmisions as well!!!

as a supposedly eco-friendly environmentally aware sort of person I am deriving an awful amount of pleasure from the ownership of a car!!!!

oh dear not doing a very good job looking after Gordon, who has since been renamed Bella. Luigi, (who is Steven Hawkin's hardresser!!!!) called him Gordon but now after driving her I feel a sex change is necessary and she is now Bella the beautiful!!! So ... set off nice and early saturday morning, parked around the corner from the train station as I'm too much of a cheap skate to pay for a weekend's worth of parking in a BR car park. Found a nice little car park for a DIY shop so left Bella there, caught the train and met up with people at Holborn tube... went to the start of the march and was handed a blue and orange flag with odd symbols on it, one of them a yin and yang (Mongolia) and stood in line listening to loud radical protest songs and just sort of waiting, happily enough, for the march to start. A while later, and we were definitely on Greenpeace time here... so have no idea of the actual time.... and after hurried instruction about flag waving, from a man I learned later was called John, we set off. The flags were of all the countries that had signed up to the Kyoto Treaty, there were about 140 in all and made a very colourful vibrant spectacle as we walked for 3 miles around London's city centre.





Photo's by Andrew Or on the Campaign against Climate Change website

On arrival at the US embassy flag wavers got to wave their flags enthusiatically while orchestrated by John into waving continent by continent, highlighting the lack of a flag from North America, I was surprised to find that Australia was also missing from the group too!!!! Then there were speeches, then there were drinks, found myself with friends singing Bohemian Rhapsody in a very loud voice on the tube...hmmm now how did that happen??????

Sunday we struggled to get up/move/do anything ....one of the group declared they wanted to keep a pet Jackdaw, an idea which was met with supefaction by some, utter horror by others. I had heard this suggestion before but really hadn't taken it terribly seriously, thinking it more of a whim and not really thought through in any practical way, so I totally took the piss but it appears that D was going as far as getting a Jackdaw box set up in woods so that he could help himself to a chick if a pair chose to nest there. Lets hope the residence proves to be highly undesirable...


... by about 3 o'clock managed to wend our beery way to Trafalgar sq for the Chinese New Year celebrations... to see and hear the very last performance of the day The Red Poppy Drummers!! and splendid they were too!

so I headed back to Cambridge ... to find the DIY shop that Bella was parked in to be closed and big massive gates locking Bella in!!!!!! Had to get a lift from Angel!!Bella is still there.... will have to rescue her after work....

went to my first Cambridge Greenpeace meeting last night and now find myself co-ordinator!! should be interesting. This Greenpeace group was a little different to others I have come across, friendly enough indeed, in fact they seemed a very pleasant bunch, but their minds were focused on disertations and deadlines and they were very intense about all issues, which obviously is not a bad thing, but I wanted them to lighten up a bit too... it was all about agenda's ,minute taking and points of order!!! Compared to Southwark's meeting in the Royal Festival Hall's foyer this was very very ordered!! One gentle chap also suggested that we don't push the fact that we're a Greenpeace group too much as it can be antagonistic!!!! Surely it is much better to talk to people about our aims and goals and get people to understand why the group acts the way it does rather than hide away from the issues...!

the weekend looks good... going on a march tomorrow concerning the Kyoto treaty, meeting up with friends for that and continuing on to Carla's for dinner then sunday celebrating the Year of the Rooster... and seeing as I am a Rooster I feel this is a worthy cause indeed!!

Thanks to Mr Wolf for a positive comment too, not that I don't want the negative ones but obviously nicer ones are................... nicer!!!

braved the rust bucket pages, met the inimitable Luigi and now am the proud possessor of a VW golf!!! called Gordon! sweet! sweet! sweet! Gordon will be coming home with me tonight and I will look after him for as long as he lives, which considering his age and rust bucketness might not be too long but he was cheap and that was the major factor on my list! So Gordon and I will hopefully have a long and fruitful relationship, travel many many miles together and enjoy each other's company!!!! Anyone want a visit just let me know when you are free... I want to journey!!!!!

time zipps too much! it's now wednesday and nearly a week since I wrote anything!! So what has happened in the meantime???.... had an internet date that was quite enjoyable!!! That's an unusual occurance indeed! Restores one's faith a bit! So I might even see him again! But not getting too excited about it... quite happy on my own really at the moment....

am enjoying the unusual pleasure of having money in my bank account, I know this one defintely wont last but it's a fleeting pleasure nevertheless... and was quite excited to purchase new saucepans and other stuff for the kitchen, now how exciting a life do I lead???!!! Purchased paint for the kitchen too... now this is where it really does get exciting.... four lushciously vibrant colours were selelcted by J and myself, spent a while on the choice and then some more time on the choice of which colour for which wall... so the major colours for the main walls are a deep purple and a rich turquoise, these are opposite each other and inbetween are a strawberry- almost pillar box red and a marvellously sunshine yellow for the wall with the window........ and oddly it works really really well, I mean surprisingly well! It has made the kitchen warm and vibrant and pleasant to be in, and definitely added a touch of individualism to it! Odd as I have spent the last 20 years painting all walls white and shying away from any colour experience....

went to see Ocean's 12 on saturday with the girls... pleasant film ...pleasant evening...

now attempting to purchase a cheap car...before I spend all my tax rebate on fripperies....where to start?????? without a car I cant go looking at garages that sell them...and buying from the small adds seems fraught with potential rust buckets??? any suggestions?

of course the nice thing once I have actually bought a car is that I will be able to visit old friends again, go off on weekends whenever I want, purchase more than one carrier bag full of shopping at a time and get phone calls in the middle of the night from J or J pleading for a lift!!! Plus might cut down on alcohol consumption... perhaps....

happy happy happy... tax rebates make you happy....

back on the auction site... have found a cooker... loads of money... half price so far... if I keep my cool and wait until 10 seconds before the close I might get it!!!!!! It closes at 5.00 so crossing fingers that no-one else bids in the meantime...

and have had a look at bloggernity again and Delilah is now No. 5 in Most Popular and No. 6 in Top Rated!!! and no it wasn't me that did the other hits!!!!

ah the excitement of the chase... discovered the delights of bidding on an internet auction yesterday .... and the agony!!!

was trundling around looking for a reconditioned cooker as my cooker needs a repair and I wondered if it would be cheaper to get a newish one... and I discovered Comet Clearance auctions!! trawled through the pages and spotted a small freezer with a standing bid of £61 and the auction finished at 5.00! Yes I know I was looking for a cooker but I need a freezer too!!!! and this was potentially cheap... so I made my bid for the next price which was £71... after half an hour of mild interest I was outbid... so I decided to try to outwit my fellow bidder and I waited deciding that 4.58 would be the right time to place my next bid.... after literally clock watching for nearly an hour I clicked on confirm bid.... the page flashed Bidding Closed and my fist punched the air in excitement!! but my inbox was flashing with an incoming mail... I hadn't made the final bid... someone else got there in the closing seconds!!!!!!!

Made the afternoon much more interesting though!!!