Pissing in the wind and living with a blog hog.

Karen has been giving me crap about my lack of blog. But it is a bit hard to write a blog when you live with a BLOG HOG! No names, *cough,cough* Kaddy!

The weeks here in London since Spain have sucked weather wise. It has been cold, gloomy and rainy. I read about Seasonal Affect Disorder at home and thought "Pansies" but now living through the seasonal changes I can feel how much the sun does change my mood. Today it is a beautiful sunny afternoon. And I have been happy and chatty and laughing all day. Yesterday it was dark, grey, rainy and I was a big fat grump all day. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I have Seasonal Affect Disorder or anything, but I no longer see it as an excuse. The weather over here does play a huge part in your mood.

Last Wednesday night I cooked up a storm for Davina when she came over. I thought I would get all "Jamie Oliver" and consulted the cookbooks. Even wrote down the ingredients I needed and was very proud of myself when I remembered to take the list with me in the morning so I could go shopping after school. All well and good in theory but I then left the list at school, didn't I? So I wandered around Sainsbury's plucking things off the shelf that might have been on the piece of paper. To add to the problem I had written 3 different sets of ingredients on the piece of paper because I hadn't fully decided what I was going to make. In the end I guessed and brought home what I remembered. Then I sat down with the book and picked a recipe that matched what ingredients I had bought home. The end result was a spicy tomato chicken and rice concoction that I am pleased to report, did not kill anyone who ate it. We fashioned a table out of my computer work desk and brought in the camper chairs that our skanky landlord left behind. It was slap-dash, but it worked a treat!

To say that Davina is a character is to say the least. I love her sense of humour and her view of the world around her. She has this scattered feel about her but in reality she has her finger on the pulse of many projects. She feeds the homeless, learns Spanish, belongs to church groups, teaches special needs kids and beyond all that, she's a classic. And she proved this at dinner. When Karen went back to Oz she picked up an Aussie slang dictionary to prove to Adriaan that we weren't just making up words. The dictionary became Davina's sidekick for the evening and we ended up having to put Aussie slang into each of our conversations. Unbeknown to Kaddy and I, Davina had taught Adriaan a few "Aussieisms" so he could participate but didn't tell him what they meant . Unfortunately the one that he chose to share was probably not the best choice. I'll let you be the judge...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09tqfs3IUbU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPWH2PVfGzY

P.S: Unless you want to explain to your child what the sayings mean, it might be wise to skip the videos.

On Thursday we headed into Holborn to see Nicola for her birthday. Nicola, Karen and I met 10 years ago in Sydney when Nicola came over to visit her friend Rachel. Rachel and Karen went to school together and Rachel and I knew each other through the fire brigade. Six degrees of separation.

Directions are no longer my strength (just talk to Rebecca about Tarragona in Spain) and Karen is queen of Google maps so it should not surprise anyone that we spent an hour walking in 3 different but all completely wrong directions before hoping in a cab only to find out that the pub was around the corner from where we were. ARRRGGGHHH! Had a great time eating the ultimate burger at "The Ultimate Burger" and sipping on a few glasses of a lovely rosè.

I was very concerned though when I went to the bathroom. What's with the two toilets in the one cubicle? I love my friends but not enough to pee in front of them! There are some things that should not occur in life and this is quite clearly one of them! By the way Kaddy, I see your Japanese loo blog picture and raise you a London loo blog picture! :)

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a market floosy. I love markets. All markets really, although food ones do tend to bore me. I'd already scoured Notting Hill markets and found some bargain antiques to take home, but had never managed to get up to Camden markets so I made the trek North East and was definitely not disappointed. There is nothing like shopping with Muslim ladies in full burkas on one side and goth witches on the other! Only in London! The markets were awesome and I am keen to take Cleland's girlfriend, Belle, up there to keep the search going. Because no matter how many stalls you visit, how many purchases you make or how many corners you turn those markets just keep on going! They never, ever end. Karen was in search of some gumboots (see link to her blog) but ended up picking up some awesome vintage clothes in a goth shop. Check out the skeleton in the coffin up in the left hand corner!

Davina's flatmate had a birthday party on Saturday night so we decided to attempt to make Christie's famous cheesy spinach cob loaf dip. Only problem was we couldn't buy any cobb loaf, couldn't remember what was in the dip and couldn't figure out how we were going to transport it to Davina's house. Never to be undone by logic and reason, we overcame this problem by buying an ordinary long loaf and guessing that it had spinach, cheese and sour cream in it. Then we added a few other things we had in the cupboard and voila! We had the dip! My job was to figure out transportation. Never fear! I had a Play School craft box moment and used the cardboard box from my Special K and shoved last week's copy of the TNT magazine inside before wrapping it all in Simon and Richard's dodgy Italian cling wrap. Again, voila! Transportation sorted! And they say that those who can't do, teach! Ha! I can do and teach! So there!