Mostly musical

I've had my last extended break in London - from now on it's weekends only, and I will have to actively book days off rather than gadding about as and when I like. Instead, I will have a job, which I hope will offset the disadvantage of seeing rather less of friends and family than over the past five years.

I have mentioned that Lola II encouraged the idea of us signing up for an orchestral woodwind day in London, and she and I plus another friend, K, all went for it. Then K let me know that two days before the woodwind event, she and her sister and brother were holding a memorial service for their mother, who died in November last year. I combined this with a visit to mum and dad and the obligatory fun at Lola II's house.

It was a very informal memorial event, with readings and music and pictures and some time to chat afterwards. K and I were at secondary school together, and another of our peers is now a vicar, so she led the whole affair including her own memories of K's mum. I met up with several others from that period of my life, and we all wished we could see each other more, and not just at this type of event.

I stayed that evening at mum and dad's, tried to help with computer issues and climbed ladders to change light bulbs, and the next morning mum and I headed off to Kew where there is a Musical Museum. It specifically deals with 'automatic' self-playing instruments such as music boxes, pianolas and organs, and is extremely interesting, especially as we joined a tour, so many of the instruments were demonstrated for us.

The most interesting one had an automatically-played violin as well as piano strings, all running off a punched paper roll. The strings were kept taut by weights hanging off the scroll end, vibrato was added by wobbling the bridge, and each string had a little motorised cellulose roller above it. The strings were raised against the rollers when bowing was required, while the fingering was done by many pads being raised and lowered along the neck. Unlike with a human player, each string could be played independently and simultaneously, so really it had the capacity of four violins and a piano.

On to Lola II's house, and the woodwind event on Saturday. I was slightly apprehensive, not having played in a large group since I was 18, and having played my clarinet only a handful of times since then. I shouldn't have worried, as it was a very large group with a very personable man in charge who positively encouraged people to take a break if they needed to. The chap sitting on my left should have taken this advice - he never seemed to know what part he was playing or where we were; in one break I saw him take his glasses out of a jacket pocket, clean them, put them on, peer at the music for a few seconds, and then put them away again. He was the exception, though; most players seemed to be at a decent standard.

There were five conductors and six sessions of 45 minutes through the day, and in each session we were introduced to a new piece (or two in one session). By the end of the 45 minutes, we were able to run through from start to finish. Three of the pieces were composed by their conductors, and they were all very different - orchestral, 'swing', challenging time signatures, both classical and modern styles. I enjoyed it a lot, especially the main organising conductor who had a wonderful manner and reminded me of the best conductors from music school days, maintaining discipline and control as well as being amusing and sympathetic. So now I'm thinking of trying to find somewhere at home to play regularly, and wondering how I will fit it in with the badminton, and deciding to wait until I've got to grips with the routine of going to work every day.

I was looking forward to a bit of a rest on Sunday, but was persuaded in the morning to help Lola II with a piece of music written by one of her friends for her own wedding in two weeks' time. The bride is a professional pianist, and Lola II's idea was that I would record the piano part so she could practise the flute part over the next two weeks. Unfortunately, the piece is in 6/4 time with a few randomly included bars in 3/4, the piano starts with sextuplets where I had to count the ledger lines to work out what the notes were, and the majority of the piece is groups of 14 notes to fit into a bar of 6 crotchets. Not only was I utterly unable to play it, it would be completely impossible for Lola II to work out where the bars start and finish.

In the end, I recorded the vocal part on the piano against Lola II's flute part, and even then we had to try and accommodate groups of 2 and/or 4 notes against 3 beats, sometimes within a bar and sometimes across a bar line. This is flippin' difficult. And don't forget there will be 14 notes to the bar on the piano going on at the same time, and they're having, oh, two rehearsals altogether, except that one is not even a rehearsal, it's a 'run through'. I'm sure it will be fine, although I'm glad it's not me. Lola II says that some brides torture their best friends by making them dress up in ridiculous unflattering bridesmaids' dresses. This bride has been altogether more imaginative.

After all this I was looking forward to the slightly special lunch to celebrate my new job that I'd been promised, and then the bit of a rest that I was looking forward to. The slightly special lunch became very much more special when the guests that Lola II had invited arrived, as a lovely surprise. [With hindsight, this clarified why Lola II was so keen that we practise the wedding piece in the morning.] It was lovely. To top it off, Mr M produced a complicated dessert constructed from chocolate and sculptured Curly Wurlies filled with home made orange and lemon sorbet. And we went for a walk, and played on some grown-up exercise equipment that's in a nearby park, which you can see in the photo above.

So that was the penultimate proper weekend before my initiation as a working Dietitian with a real job that I have to do every weekday, and there's nowhere else I'd rather have spent it.

First time karaoke

My goodness, last night was fun. My first ever attempt at karaoke, and I was very unsure whether I would like it or not. Lola II set it up at a place she had been before, so that was a good sign, and it was in a very private establishment rather than a bar with loads of strangers or anything, and with just two other friends. Actually, there was one of Lola II's school friends (but I'd met her lots of times) and the other was one of sister D's friends whom I'd met only once, but who is Karaoke King. And it was brilliant, and for two hours we all sang and danced our hearts out, and I loved it. Very unexpectedly wonderful.

This was obviously in London, where I am having a 'holiday'. On Thursday, I travelled down and met dad and we went to an event at the Wellcome Collection, called 'A Cook's Tour', advertised as an exploration of 'the role of food, remedies and global interchange in our medical and cultural lives from the 17th century onwards'. It started with a short tour of relevant artifacts in the collection, and then a couple of lectures with some of the ancient books and manuscripts. It was no better than OK, and the final speaker wasn't very good, but some of it was interesting. The blurring of the distinction between culinary and medicinal use for many exotic spices, and the idea a few centuries back that local remedies rather than exotic imports were best for a local population.

Then I had dinner with sister D, and lunch next day with another old friend from school, who is going to join us on the planned Woodwind Orchestra day in January. I had a quick look at the Private Eye retrospective at the Victoria and Albert museum, and then on to the karaoke, followed by sushi.

The only other event of note up to this point on the trip has been the replacement of the smoke alarm battery at mum and dad's house, which, after being ignored for nine years, started to beep every 20 seconds. It hasn't bothered them too much up to now because a) they can't really hear it that well, and b) it's in the kitchen, a long way from their bedroom. I arrived on Thursday night, however, and realised within minutes that the job could not be put off until next day because a) I can hear it rather well and b) I was going to be sleeping in the room next to the kitchen. It proved to be a rather difficult job, but the alternative was unthinkable, and I managed it in the end. And I unscrambled dad's email, where somehow a filter had been applied that hid any email in his Inbox that he had read, goodness knows how.

Now I am supervising Lola II's admin, which she won't do unless extreme measures are applied (in this case a force field preventing her from leaving the room). Then we will have moderate fun in some as yet unspecified manner until we drive back over to mum and dad's with Mr M, a new computer for mum, a tent in the boot, anticipation of another family gathering tomorrow, joy in our hearts and a song in our souls. Because that appears to be the impact that karaoke has on a Lola.

500th Blog Post Celebratory Quiz

Hello, Lola II here.

Lola has very kindly invited me to post her 500th blog. What an honour! And what a lovely Blog. Well done Lola I, and here's to the next 500!

So here's the quiz: What do the following items have in common:


and

and


The answer?? Our daddy, of course! Read on to find out why.


I regularly browse Lola I's past blog postings in a random fashion. I enjoy being faced with unexpected memories I've put aside, in anticipation of all the future fun.

Well, browsing back reminded me that this time last year I wrote all about our mummy, and it's about time our daddy got the same gift. So here's a post to right that wrong. Or if his name was Mr Rong, it would be to write that Rong...

Dad has many admirable qualities. Show him something broken and he'll fix it in a blink of an eye. Nowadays Dad single-handedly supports the old-fashioned attitude of FIX IT, DON'T THROW IT OUT. That's a value that has seeped its way down to his three daughters, on the odd occasion... He has high standards and is a thorough finisher of those many DIY projects. My personal favourite was the practical and effective repair to his headphones. The pads got thin and so he repaired it using washing-up sponges. What a vision to behold!

Give Dad a roast chicken and he'll have a lovely munch whilst performing an autopsy (a leftover from his medical training). He will happily tell you what it died from, and then proudly announce that the delicious bird "did not die in vain".

What are his loves? A good joke, Mum's chocolate mousse (impossible to recreate by anyone else), family gatherings, cheese, television, books, and the internet. He'll do anything for a rendition of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Dad knows so much about Herod that the National Geographic channel interviewed him for a programme on what Herod probably died of.

What is our Daddy good at? Explaining things; he's very clear thinking so that his explanation hits the mark first time - the relief was enormous when I didn't understand maths at school. Dad is a good listener (if he can hear you...), he is always pleased to hear from the family, and enjoys a good laugh.

Dad is good at drawing and also made a clay silouette of Mum's head. The carvings of heads from two pieces of driftwood are beautiful. We hold particularly fond memories of all the things he made out of zimmer frames; the contraption to hold the video under the tv, the dining room table extension, all manner of things for his lecture-giving days, the list is endless...

One day, many years ago, Dad very carefully cut walnuts in half, scraped out the contents and stuck them back together in order to make a walnut mobile. Unfortunately his hard work wasn't tidied away when Great Auntie Sylvia came to babysit. Upon his return home he discovered all his hard work smashed to smitherines, with Auntie Sylvia's comment ringing in his head - "you have some funny nuts this side of London".

Dad's currently trying to eat less. We all know how difficult it is, so WELL DONE, DAD. Keep at it and we'll be skipping around the boat together next October!

XXXXX

Breakdown and disease

In between all this decorating stuff I've had some other challenges to face. I got in the car to go to badminton on Monday, and it promptly started to beep furiously about its alternator. "Ow, ow, ow, my alternator hurts! You're hurting my alternator! Stop it! Beep beep beep beep!" I bravely continued to drive, thinking that I was only going a couple of miles, I really wanted to play badminton, and if the worst happened I could abandon it, walk home, and sort it out tomorrow. The stupid car shouted and beeped at me all the way home again, and further desultory research on the Interwebs suggested either a replacement alternator (expensive) or that a tensioner or belt needs tightening (not quite as expensive).

Off it went to the garage on Wednesday, and they phoned to say that a) the alternator does need replacing and b) they wanted to keep it overnight, which gave me palpitations in terms of labour charges but turned out to be because the supplier sent the wrong part. Anyway, that complicated life a little more because Wednesday night was when I wanted to go to my first local Diabetes UK group meeting. Mr A was kind enough to make my neglected bicycle more roadworthy and lent me some lights for it, but after a day's painting I was not really looking forward to cycling, and took up the neighbours' offer to use their car. I'm glad I did, because it absolutely chucked it down with rain. We have very nice neighbours.

The Diabetes UK meeting featured a podiatrist talking about foot care, and as seems traditional in all the diabetic foot care lectures I've been to (quite a few) the pictures they use to illustrate the various perils of neglecting your feet are second in their gruesome nature only to images of patients with burns. This is probably because diabetic foot ulcers and their consequences are the second greatest cause of amputation, I learned, nudged from top spot by trauma (car accidents and the like). So it's a serious topic. I learned two other interesting things: what Charcot Foot is, and that there is no effective treatment for verrucas - you just wait until your body deals with the virus that causes them.

After the meeting I chatted to a couple of people, and there was a cup of tea and the sort of raffle where there were almost more prizes than tickets, including such treasures as a bottle of bubble bath, a pair of rubber gloves, a tray of four pears and a scented geranium. Having me attending the meeting probably reduced the average age of the attendees by quite a few years. I would like to go again, though - next month there's a speaker talking about the very latest advances in treatments for diabetes. And it's great fodder for job interviews.

Then there has been the failure of the TV, which has never been quite right since the switchover from analogue to digital. We put it down to the antiquated nature of the digibox, which I am sure was a contributing factor, but then all signal was lost altogether and we think it's probably because of the aerial. It wasn't a big deal except we do like to watch the news now and again, so after a modicum of research I was dispatched to Argos where I picked up the cheapest Freesat box that exists. Miraculously, the satellite dish left by the previous house owners ten years ago still works, so we now have 175 channels to choose from, and we'll still only watch the news and QI.

Lola II has been visiting, and accompanied me on a mammoth trip round town visiting charity shops in order to upgrade my interview outfit as per the advice previously received. Leamington really has some high quality charity shops, and there are an awful lot of them. For just £8 I now have an extremely smart tailored jacket and a shirt to go with it, so I'm not sure how they will be able to resist giving me the job.

Mediation, not Meditation

Hello, Lola II here.

It's been aaaages since the Lovely Lola asked for me to contribute to her blog and so, finally, I'm happy to oblige. I have decided to write about my day job. I work for a charity involved in a couple of different areas.

1. Restorative Justice - helping victims and offenders to deal with the effects of a crime - something that the courts don't/can't deal with.

2. Workplace Mediation - helping colleagues to resolve difficulties. Mediation is a much quicker and cheaper alternative to a tribunal. Also, mediation can help with on-going work relationships if the individuals concerned are going to continue working with one another.

3. And my personal baby, Community Mediation - I help neighbours who are in conflict with one another due to noise, pets, communication, communal areas, gardens, shared facilities, parking, and my personal favourite - when Neighbour Lady 1 was disturbed by Neighbour Lady 2's snoring at night - plus much, much more. This is my main area of expertise, along with responsibilities of chief proof-reader, how to change our answerphone message, and Fun&Games Monitor.

A common misconception when it comes to neighbour conflict is that one person is the victim and one the perpetrator. This is very rarely ever the case. Neighbour 1 might be experiencing loud music until 3 a.m., however Neighbour 2 will, invariably, be feeling harassed from Neighbour 1's complaints, rightly or wrongly.

Just today a neighbour called me following her mediation meeting last week. At that meeting, she and her neighbour had agreed on a number of actions for the future, which were written down by the mediators and sent out to them both. She thanked me for the meeting and said that she'd never spoken up for herself like she had to her neighbour, and that she was really pleased she had. She thinks mediation is great and is telling everybody.

I speak to the neighbours from a totally impartial approach - their housing officer has asked me to contact them both - we're an independent charity, we don't take sides and we don't pronounce a judgement after our involvement. We're as far removed from the court system as you can get, other than solving the problem with fisticuffs in the playground.

Noise is the BIG problem. A lot of council housing has poor sound insulation and no money to rectify it. Many people I speak to wonder how mediation can help, since "I'm not going to stop my two and my five year olds playing!" What we find is that by helping neighbours clearly and constructively communicate to one another the 'impact' the difficulties are having on them, the complaint changes from a 'grumpy moan' to a reasonable person trying to live in peace in their home.

Mr S and Mr J fell out over the use of their shared balcony. Making our usual 12 week follow-up call after they reached agreement in mediation, Mr S told us that he invited Mr J to his party, since he realised if Mr J was going to be disturbed by the noise, he might as well be part of it. They'd shared a pot of mint tea after the mediation and, ever since, were getting on like a house on fire.

What I love most about my job is that I help people. I know the beauty of mediation and what it can achieve. My challenge is in encouraging people in conflict to accept mediation as a valid way to resolve their dispute.

8 out of 10 times that neighbours meet in mediation, agreement is reached. Close to 100% of neighbours who return our feedback form after the close of their case say that they would use us again and would recommend our service. I'm very proud.

The key message I work to get across is that people have to take responsibility for their own problems and not expect others to magically change their ways. Empowerment, that's our business.

I was at a networking event some years ago and a fellow delegate asked me "Do you travel to people in their homes?" "Yes," I said. "Do you bring your own candles?"...

I love mediation. Better than meditation any day.

Another camping holiday

I have been away, with Lola II, camping in Norfolk. But before that, I was with Lola II and Mr M at a comedy gig. And before that, someone came to service our boiler.

The comedy was very good, including great handling of a heckler by Milton Jones, and slapstick from another comedian that I laughed at despite myself (why is a red nose and a false beard funny? I don't know). We set off for Norfolk on Friday, but the route took us within half a mile of mum and dad's house, so by lunchtime we'd only got that far. Eventually we reached the very large campsite, pitched the tent (Mr A's very old tent-with-a-porch that we can cook inside), and went off to the local pub for dinner.

While everywhere else in the country was scorching hot, our weekend was freezing. Lola II thinks it's her fault - every time she goes away, home has great weather while wherever she is ends up cold and/or wet. The first night, it was very windy, the tent flapped like nobody's business, and it rained. Luckily we had pitched the tent properly and stayed dry, then spent the day at a cold and windy nature reserve with mostly ducks. But also red squirrels, except they were taking the sensible option and staying indoors. There was also a Little Owl, which I particularly liked, and a world-leading collection of cranes. It was quite good, but cold.

When we got back to the campsite, we discovered that some of the tent had fallen down in the wind, and a large hole in the side of the porch area had been made by the upturned table. Mr A wasn't too disappointed by the news, and has in fact embraced the need for a new tent, spending a large amount of time researching what we might get, ranging from 30 quid on ebay to 300 quid including an internal wall-mounted storage system. I'm only sorry I didn't make his day by ruining his tent years ago.

Lola II took on cooking duties, and produced turkey stew and rice noodles for supper, and our traditional camp breakfast next morning: noodles with courgettes and prawns. I know, not your usual breakfast, but we like it. It was windy and rained overnight again, but it had stopped by morning and we drove to the coast, and Cromer. Having been lured by the potential of a seaside town, at the pay and display car park we anticipated a visit of many hours, before finding it was really windy, very cold indeed, and not much was going on in Cromer. The town museum didn't open until 1 p.m. and there wasn't much else to do, although we visited the lifeboat museum and then had lunch in a very pleasant cafe looking out over the grey, cold, windswept sea.

After Cromer we headed off up the coast to Sheringham, the sun nearly came out a couple of times, and we found a bustling little town that would have been much more interesting to visit for longer. As it was, we got 15 minutes looking at a display about offshore wind power and a look out at the sea from the tower before the museum closed and we were out in the cold again and back to the car before the traffic wardens found us.

It was warm enough to sit outside the tent reading the paper for about an hour before I retired inside the tent and Lola II cooked up frankfurter wraps with creme fraiche, sugar-snap peas, olives, and the beans we couldn't open for the stew the night before because I'd neglected to bring a tin opener. That night was still, so at least the tent didn't flap, but I was still wearing a fleece, tracksuit bottoms and thick socks over my pyjamas.

On the bright side, the campsite was fine, and we had a lovely time really. After breakfast and a look around a local town we had a long drive along the coast road before I dropped Lola II off to catch the train at Kings Lynn and drove myself home. I almost got heatstroke on the three hour journey. The weather was beautiful once I'd left Norfolk.

Follow up

It turns out there are consequences of my little swooning fit. The National Blood Service has now followed up my case, and is threatening to withdraw my donation privileges, because I had already left the centre when it happened. I am strangely disappointed that I may not be allowed to endure the nuisance and boredom of giving blood in future, mainly because I know it to be one of the most worthwhile activities at no cost to me beyond a couple of hours every four months and the occasional bruise. Anyway, because the reason is fairly clear, and because I was in a hurry and left the centre before I normally would, they are going to discuss my case and get back to me.

I have travelled south now, and am ensconced in Lola II's parlour, watching the resident garden robin bouncing and pecking about in an amusing way. It has been warm enough to sit outside in the afternoons over the weekend and admire what Mr M is doing with the garden.

Lola II and I were out in London during Saturday, unfortunately accompanied by my wheeled suitcase of baggage for the conference. We still managed to complete a number of tasks, including the compulsory Japanese meal, and we visited the shop where Lola II had bought her flute so that they could advise on a small problem she was having. She was very impressed when the nice man immediately started taking the flute apart, fixed the problem, put it together and didn't charge her for it. Proper customer service.

On Sunday we thought long and hard about whether to go for a walk, paint the skirting board, buy me some trousers that fit, or go to the London Transport museum. In the end Lola II started preparing for painting the skirting, Mr M applied a bit more creosote to the fence, and I was given the job of creating a ring tone for Lola II's phone using free audio editing software that I can only just use. After all that we still had time for the walk, so we did that too.

The weekend ended with an episode of Dr Who featuring David Tennant, only the second episode I've seen since watching Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker wander around rickety sets while I was hiding behind the sofa. It was pretty good, but nowhere near as scary as the original stuff. Either that, or I'm now braver than I was at the age of 10.

The last two weekends

The week of low self esteem the week before last was followed by a family weekend. I went home on Friday night and Mr A and I became reacquainted - I recognised him straight away, and I think he knew who I was, even though he denied it. I reminded him that I'm the one who used to do most of the laundry. Then we went to the pub. He says that without me there, the house is rather quiet, mysteriously messy, and his clean clothes don't magically appear on the kitchen chair. We had a lovely evening, but all too soon I was away down south to visit mum and dad and meet up with Lola II.

Lola II has been reading me books at bedtime whenever we're in the same location. We started with 'My Friend Mr Leakey', and we're now coming to the end of 'The Phantom Tollbooth', and were wondering what to read next. Lola II had forgotten to bring a book with her this time, so I chose a book of Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen from the bookcase, and asked for the last story, which happened to be called 'Booby Hans'. Booby Hans follows his brothers to see if the princess will marry him, and brings her presents that he found on the way: a dead crow, an old shoe and some mud. I think it's the translation that made it so funny. It's definitely going to be our next bedtime book.

Then this weekend I was off to Sheffield and meeting Lola II and sister D on one of their rare journeys into the North. On Saturday we experienced a large number of policemen, which was unexpected but could have been anticipated, because the Liberal Democrats were having a Spring Conference. We caught a tiny bit of a demo from a distance, but the police were far more prominent than any rabble.

In brief, we went on a geological walk in the city centre looking at different rocks that have been used for paving, shop fronts, benches and decorative stuff, visited a shop that sells amazing hot chocolate four times, ate Japanese, Korean and Moroccan food, saw a film, went to a museum with a Sports Science exhibition and an Art Gallery whose cafe was closed, spent a short time in the botanical gardens and the Winter Garden. It only rained on Sunday morning. The Bed and Breakfast where we stayed was astonishingly good and thoroughly recommended, and we all had a lovely time.

Back at work now, and I'm going to be doing stroke and diabetes for the next three weeks, which I am looking forward to a great deal more than what I have done so far. I have a lot of things I ought to be catching up with at home, but instead I have been to badminton this evening and will do the same tomorrow, and may even go out on Thursday as well. It's slightly frustrating that I am not devoting much time to blogging, but I'm sure I'll get back to it when time allows - I still have lots to say!

It gets better

Here I am again. It's been too long, hasn't it? But my days are full at the moment, especially as I've been applying for jobs. Applications take up much spare evening time, and I'm not prepared to compromise on badminton time. Last week I played on both Monday and Tuesday, and I did the same this week. I also spent quality time with Landlady Lola III, and there's homework from school. At some point I will need to spend probably more than one evening on my 'Journal Club' assignment, which is where I present an interesting article from a recent journal to members of the dietetic department. I haven't even looked at the article since I chose it in week 1.

Enough excuses, what has actually been going on? I have more than a week of work to write about, seeing as how I refused to write about it last time.

I have been doing work.

There, that just about covers it. Last week was not nice, I did not enjoy it, but it turns out I was being overly sensitive and self-critical and I was actually doing very well, rather than astonishingly badly. Who'd have thought?

The sort of work I was doing involved watching other people doing dietitian-type activities and wondering how on earth I could possibly presume to offer dietetic advice to sick people. I had a go a couple of times, but I thought I was a bit rubbish, except for the presentation I did about healthy eating to a group of five patients with lung disease and three of their relatives. I like giving presentations and I'm good at them, so it was very demoralising to think that I was being criticised. Except it turns out that I wasn't. Really, this work experience lark is very confusing.

So it has been much better so far this week, although I am still having to spend time in different hospitals all the time. On Monday I was at one hospital, on Tuesday at an 'intermediate care' home (where they put patients who are not ill enough to be in hospital but not well enough to go home) and then a GP clinic, and today I was at the same hospital as Monday in the morning, and then a school in the afternoon. Tomorrow and Friday I'm at two more different hospitals before the dreaded 'Reflection' on Friday. And then a weekend with Lola II and sister D. I'm hoping for some adventures!

Markets, and I am a winner (again)

Sunday's fun was promised, so Sunday's fun is what you shall have. We decided to reward ourselves for Saturday's toil by going out somewhere, and settled on Spitalfields and the Columbia Road markets. I suggested that we set off quite early, and then felt quite guilty about that, because as proper employed working people Lola II and Mr M don't get many opportunities to sleep late.

We took a detour to Petticoat Lane, which is a haven for clothes, luggage and the usual tat of an outdoor market. Spitalfields itself is a more upmarket place than I expected - I think I was imagining an indoor Petticoat Lane, but here were beautiful things with prices to match. Lunch was at Wagamama, because we were a bit too cold to enjoy street food, although if I'd seen Brick Lane market beforehand then I might have changed my mind. It would have taken forever, though, because I would have had to examine every stall before making a choice, and there were a lot of stalls. Lola II and I both had pork dumpling soup and shared a portion of noodles. Yum. Mr M had a rice dish that he wasn't that keen on.

Columbia Road market sells plants and flowers, and at this time of year, a lot of Christmas trees too. It was nearing the end of opening hours, and traders were knocking their prices down, and it was quite narrow and there were a lot of people. Mr M bought hyacinth bulbs and Lola II bought a cactus and I bought the same type of cactus and gave it to mum when I visited later in the day. Mum's very good at raising cactuses, and then giving them to me when they are about to flower. I get all the colourful display, and then they die, I don't know why. I also adjusted the security light and had a cup of tea and a square of tiramisu before borrowing a book for the tube journey back to Lola II, because I'd forgotten to bring one and it's too noisy underground to listen to podcasts.

Coming back home on Monday morning, I settled down to carry on writing up my research project. I am glad to report that of course, I will finish it in time to send a draft to my supervisor on Thursday. That won't stop me from worrying, and complaining about having to spend so much time on it.

Anyway, Monday night is badminton night, and the club staged its annual tournament. You may remember that last year, with my partner S, we won! This time things started looking up when we were freakily drawn as partners again. And we won again! The little trophy has returned to its spot on the trophy shelf, and we are better off by another bottle of wine. I think next year the draw will have to be done differently so we don't end up as partners again, just to give someone else a chance.

Interviewing the furniture

I'm now happily taking a break in lovely London with the luscious Lola II and the marvellous Mr M. Before coming down here, Mr A and I celebrated the end of term with a trip to the Red Lion, in which we ate dinner, drank great beer, and caught up with Smurf, who happened to be working there. It's a great feeling, to be welcomed to a pub by someone you know, directed to the best table, given a recommendation for the guest beer, introduced to other punters, and generally looked after.

What with the feeling of end-of-term freedom and a generalised love for all humanity, I became quite tipsy. Which meant that I didn't get up until after 9 a.m. on Friday, gathered all my stuff, mislaid my ipod, found it again, and made it down to London in time for Japanese lunch with Lola II, who took the day off work in my honour. And because she has quite a lot of time owed to her. Salmon hand roll and tempura udon ramen, in case you wondered. Delicious.

We spent the afternoon catching up with Lola Life, which is after all the main focus of this blog. I think I am allowed to reveal (I will check) that she and Mr M are planning to live together, starting in the New Year, so I asked if there were any further preparations. I was expecting to hear about practical issues like hiring a van or complex financial spreadsheets, but what she said was "We've been preparing to interview the furniture." I'm not sure that this statement, written down, conveys the utter lunacy of conducting formal interviews to see which furniture will join them in the combined accommodation, but it still makes me laugh thinking about it now.

In the evening, Lola II's music group was meeting informally at someone's house to play a few things together. Lola II was prepared to miss it on my behalf, but I bravely volunteered to join in, bringing my clarinet out of its sullen retirement on a high shelf in my office. I think it must be at least five years since I took it out of its case, so I was a little nervous, but it went very well. It's extraordinary how your fingers remember things that you don't consciously know, especially when you are plunged into the world of 13/8 time signatures and a double sharp thrown in without warning. I had a wonderful time.

Saturday was a day for business. Despite repeated attempts to set her up for independent living, Lola II seems incapable of dealing with the inevitable administration that accompanies an employed adult homeowner. I had to force her into her office and set up an imaginary forcefield, prison guards, and a complicated system of parole to ensure that it was all either thrown away or filed. And I had to fend off Mr M's attempts to evade security on Lola II's behalf, by smuggling a metal file inside a newspaper for 'recycling', to break through the prison bars. He was sent upstairs to assemble a wardrobe, and then to get our lunch (bagels and salt beef).

We worked through the day, Lola II filed and threw stuff away, and Mr M assembled a great deal of wardrobe. They had a longstanding dinner engagement in the evening, which allowed me to indulge in my second Japanese fix of the weekend: aromatic duck with rice and another salmon roll. Delicious again. Then I did some homework for school, which is starting to make me panic a little bit because I have to hand in a draft next week and it doesn't feel like I've done enough.

More news of Sunday's fun to follow (probably).

Progress with coursework

This week has been a busy one, where I've been in to university every day except Friday, and Mr A has been hard at work on his course, but also cooking and trying to sort out our snow holiday with friends. At last it is booked; last night at 11 p.m. the last click was clicked and we are going to Austria in January, between my exams and the clinical placement.

At uni I was working on my research project at the start of the week, and my other research-based coursework at the end of the week, interspersed with a meeting with my project supervisor, presentations from other students about their ideas for a community nutrition intervention, and presentations including mine about Dietetic Support Workers and Assistant Practitioners, who are NHS employees at lower grades than dietitians. A bit like us students operating on our clinical placements, where we're not quite good enough to be dietitians, but there are still a lot of things we can do competently.

My project about food and visual impairment is plodding along at the moment. Having done the interviews and transcribed them word-for-word, I have then had to try and pick out common aspects from the transcripts, and see if they can be grouped logically in themes. For example, all of them mentioned the importance of good lighting, particularly for shopping, cooking and reading menus, and some also highlighted the difficulties they have when lighting is not good, in restaurants for example. Some of the areas that interest me most are about how they feel about living with sight loss, sometimes making light of it with jokes, but also more seriously speculating on what the future holds.

I identified some themes that I think make sense, and then was advised to use a software package called NVivo to help with coding. That took a solid day and a half non-stop at the computer. I've now been given some guidance and reading to do around the next step, which is to start to make a story out of what I find, ready for writing into a paper. There's a lot to do, and as always, not enough time.

My supervisor is also very enthusiastic about the possibility of publishing this research in various academic journals, and even submitting it for inclusion in the British Dietetic Association Conference next year. Inconveniently, the conference takes place in the week before the final exam period next May, and the submission deadline for proposed papers is two days before the submission deadline for this coursework.

But I must away, Lola II is visiting this weekend and is due any minute. And we've had snow! The first snow of the season, and in November. The temperature outside is zero (Celsius) and Lola II is a cold-blooded creature, so we've got the heating on and some emergency clothing for her.

A Special Day

Hello, Lola II here.

Today is our mummy's birthday! There's really nothing that she wants or needs and she is always adamant that she doesn't want any old rubbish, just for the sake of giving her a present. Lola and myself wholeheartedly agree with this view of birthday presents. However, this blog is one of the things Mum loves most in the world, so it is fitting, therefore, to celebrate her 29 (again) years by posting something especially for her.

For interest, the other things Mum loves most in the world are her family (I'm assuming), her garden, mushroom vol au vents, finishing off biros, helping others, the colour of horse chestnuts fresh off the tree, the look on Dad's face when she makes chocolate mousse, the annual photo calendar from our sister D, people who speak clearly, times when her daughters don't look like they've been dragged through a hedge backwards, good quality jokes that she's not heard before, and a little taste of chocolate at the start of a journey home.

Mum's love for this blog is so great, that if ever I make the mistake during a telephone call of mentioning that Lola has posted a new entry, she will bring the conversation to a rapid close and race to her computer to view the latest. Lola II vs Blog? Lola II loses every time. I don't mind, though. I love Lola and her blog too.

So you've heard all about our mummy and now you'll have to hang on until May to hear the same about our lovely daddy.

I have a film to show you how truly magical our mum is, with her trick of a mouse made from a handkerchief. Unfortunately, Mr M has been working all evening to try and upload it onto Lola's Blog and it's not working.

In the meantime until we get it sorted, take it from me, she's wonderful. Happy Birthday Mum xxx

Another camping break

These posts don't write themselves, more's the pity. Hand-crafted quality like this takes time and effort. I'm feeling quite short of time, despite having no scheduled teaching today - going camping on Friday morning and coming back on Sunday morning has taken up the time that's usually needed for organising my life.

The weather wasn't quite as bad as it might have been, and Saturday was quite a pleasant day. I collected Lola II on the way down south on Friday, but I was half an hour late because of being disorganised (spot the theme here). We drove down to the accompaniment of DJ Lola II choosing tracks from our ipods that are particularly suited to singing. It was wet but not raining when we arrived at the campsite and pitched the tent.

No point hanging around the campsite when there's food to be bought and fun to be had in the local town. We drove down to Swanage, and Lola II was disappointed to realise that we've been there before. I don't mind that much - it's a nice place and I was happy to visit again. We went to the cinema this time, before driving back to the campsite for a late supper, prepared inside the wonderful porch of the tent. Over to Lola II:

One of my favourite parts of camping, apart from Lola's company of course, is the cooking. Lola has all the kit, and night-time cooking is the best. I think it's probably because sunset limits our options and it makes the tent warm too. Always a winner for me. The useful tent porch comes into its own. Table and chairs? Check. Headtorches in position? Check. On the right way around so the light is shining down, not up? It is now. Check. Ok, soldier, light that gas!

It was quite cold overnight, but dry, and Saturday breakfast was an outdoor affair: hotdogs made from frankfurters and Dairylea cheese slices in brioche rolls. I'd never go near food like that at home, but this is camping! I insisted on having some cucumber and tomato with it, because it is against the law to have a meal without vegetables.

Saturday was spent in Dorchester, initially in camping shops where I found a splendid wind-up camping light, and Lola II ingratiated herself with the staff in the shop to the extent that they let her use a staff cupboard to try out a headtorch (and the wind-up light). I encouraged them to lock her in there, but they insisted on letting her out.

We explored a little bit of Dorchester's history on foot, including a statue of Thomas Hardy and an excavated Roman villa. We would have liked to stay a little longer, but we headed back as it started to rain, and after a short nap we spent the evening on a pub crawl in Langton Matravers. There are only two pubs, but we had a drink in each, read the newspaper in one and played Trivial Pursuit in the other.

The rain continued on and off through the night, occasionally coming down hard enough to wake me up, and the wind was pretty strong too. There was a lot of noisy flapping - only a little bit of the tent had fallen down; the guy ropes holding the porch came off, but no damage done and nothing was too wet in the morning. But we didn't feel like breakfast, and saved ourselves for a slap-up lunch in a pub on the way home. Lovely weekend with Lola II, as usual.

Today I've been busy with little things, like trying to sort out car insurance, booking a car service, washing dishes and clothes and drying out all the camping things in the garden, while Alf and his sons continue mending and painting our house. I really must get down to some school work soon, or I'll be in trouble.

In London again

Thanks to Lola II, you haven't been deprived of top quality blog fodder while I've been taking it easy after 12 whole weeks of working. If only all jobs could last just 12 weeks, then give you two weeks off before starting again. [On reflection, if you get 6 weeks holiday a year, then they could.]

After the frenzy that was the Food and Drink Festival, I had three days of more sedate activity, including some home cooking and some paperwork and a bit of tidying up before launching myself down to London. At one point I had about six lists on the go, covering future plans, daily plans, longterm plans, a shopping list, and a plan to use up all the leftovers in the fridge that accumulated while Mr A was in charge of the kitchen.

Now I'm sitting at Lola II's kitchen table, contemplating the list of jobs she's given me to do while she's out, and considering my options for entertainment in London for the next two days. I feel another list coming on...

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Thursday and Friday

So, out on the streets of London I have met a couple of friends to catch up, and helped Mr M to nearly win the pub quiz (actually they lost on the tie break and I didn't really help at all). My list is nearly untouched, having done no jobs for Lola II, but all my shopping for Japanese goods.

I spent the afternoon in Lola II's office, doing homework for school: reading and commenting on a chapter about DNA replication. I learned some more things, but by the end of the chapter I was struggling to understand what was going on. It reminded me of how much knowledge we have about the molecules that constitute our bodies, and how much there is still to learn. The sum of human knowledge is truly remarkable.

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Weekend

This morning the sun is shining, I'm still in bed, providing valuable moral support at a distance for Lola II who is cleaning her shower. She is cleaning it so thoroughly that it has taken all morning. We did necessary admin work all afternoon and most of the evening, taking a break for just an hour or so to eat Japanese food.

Then there was a family party to celebrate the departure of 2nd nephew to university, which included food and piano playing and hairdressing and digging in the garden, followed by a tortuous journey taking mum and dad home by car. 22 miles, 2 hours, average speed 11 mph. I won't volunteer to do that again, we'll go by public transport like everyone else.

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Monday

Jobs for the parents: cleaning the scum out of the heating header tank, downloading a security update, and advising on ways to edit and classify images before creating Powerpoint presentations. I now need to document all the programs and what they do, so that dad can get started on creating his lectures electronically rather than using the old-fashioned (but reliable) method of a slide projector.

Food & Drink Festival

Hello, Lola II here.

Lola I, blog-owner extraordinaire, made a little harmless comment recently that there have been no contributions to her blog from anyone else for a while. Since I am the only official guest contributor (I don't mean you lovely commenters), I assumed that what she was actually saying was:

"I've had to go to work for weeks now and it's exhausting and it would be really helpful if you could do a little writing. Firstly because it'll be a nice break for me, but mostly because I love your writing style, you are eloquent, your grammar are second to a none and your speelling is exemplorrie".

My own motivation for writing is that Lola's brain is the size of a planet, near full capacity, and unless I give her a break and do a little writing myself, it is likely to explode. Not such a problem except that she is due to come and stay with me from today until Sunday, and I hate cleaning.

Last weekend Mr M & I visited Lola I and Mr A, and dropped in on the Leamington Food and Drink Festival.

The Taste Trail comprised of nine restaurants offering free food in return for a rating from the tasting public. The restaurant's hope is that, by the end, they will be classed as GOLD! Our part of the arrangement was free food, and entry in raffle to win a dinner for two. Mr M said he'd donate the meal we were sure to win to Lola and Mr A. Mr M is a much nicer person than me. I generously conceded that I would visit them before our meal.

Meanwhile, in a park nearby, there were oodles of stalls selling and demonstrating and tasting a variety of food, from Caribbean to Greek to French to Thai to Sausage Heaven and Olive Oil-tastic. All accompanied by soft background music, punctuated by the singer saying "oh sorry, that was the wrong verse".

My objection on the sampling food front is to the man who got the last piece of a pork pie and fed it to his greyhound. I stood back to watch the stallholder's reaction, ready to dive in and support local industry in light of this grossly unjust and disrespectful behaviour! In the blink of an eye I considered whether I was prepared to wade into a fist fight. Possibly. One with a dog involved? Oh yes, I love dogs.

What does the stallholder say? He says "is that an ex-racer?" SampleStealingMan says yes and the stallholder gave him the thumbs up!!!! Unbelievable. It's a sorry state of affairs when a proper sampling law-abiding person such as myself is trumped at the pork pie stand by a doggie. Hrrmph.

Top notch moments were the free bites to eat in Sabai Sabai (Thai) and Kayal (South Indian),the best chocolate florentine I've EVER had - crystallised ginger was inspired. Having a little dance with Mr M, his first cobnut, and seeing Mr A run like greased lightening down the stairs and out of the house with Lola realising almost immediately that it was because there was some kind of fancy airplane zooming past outside. Turns out it was a Spitfire, so Mr A's attempt to break the four second mile was justified.

We had a Rocky Road disaster, Portuguese nata cake-thing that wasn't up to scratch and the worst nutella crepes I have EVER experienced in all my life. Worst of all was when I popped off to the public loo and I saw a 14 year old girl walking towards the men's. In my super-helpful citizen mode I shouted out "no, that's the men's!" The child turned to me and said, "yes, I know". That little boy should jolly well get his hair cut.

Eighth week and punting

I'm sure I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again, this "working all day" thing is definitely not as good as lounging around as a full time student. I seem to be tired all the time, although going away last weekend probably contributed to the fatigue. Not that I did anything exhausting, but going away meant that I didn't have weekend recovery time at home.

I've lost track of which Dietetic Week we're in, other than this was my eighth week out of twelve, and I don't think there was any theme. The great news is that my Healthy Eating presentation is done and delivered to a charming group of older people, mostly ladies, in the lounge of a sheltered housing complex. I haven't had my written feedback yet, but the supervising dietitian seemed pleased on the whole, albeit with some valid criticisms of the content I'd chosen.

I've felt more competent overall, although there are occasional glitches when I feel very incompetent indeed. There was one minor indiscretion where I queried something in a patient's medical notes to my supervising dietitian and the person who had written it was standing next to us, but I think I got away with it. I have had to go to my placement mentor to let off some steam about one of the other dietitians, but we came up with a plan together to cope with it. It's all going quite well, really.

Last weekend was splendid, in the company of friends who have been friends for such a long time it feels nostalgic to think back to when we got to know one another at university in the mid-1980's. More than 25 years ago. Family JJL&J invited the group of friends that tend to spend New Year together every so often, and many of us assembled on Saturday to set up our campsite in their back garden. Mr A couldn't come - he was on a pre-arranged motorcycle trip in southern Scotland, getting devoured by midges and sleeping in some hammock arrangement.

I brought Mr A's enormous 1980's A-frame tent, Lola II and Mr M brought Lola's little dome pop-up tent, and our other camping neighbours M&N brought a tent that they'd bought three years ago when camping was trendy (they are a trend-setting couple after all) and never used. This palatial nylon residence not only had a hallway and two rooms, but came with a lighting system. Now that they have actually slept in it, I doubt that it will emerge from its compact storage bag again - I don't think they are that keen on camping, really.

Once all the tents were up and we had eaten lunch, we all went punting. Unfortunately the weather was changeable, and there were a succession of small bursts of rain, but nothing to dampen our spirits. We needed two punts to cater for the full party, but of course Lola II had brought walky-talkies, although the main use for these was to hurl distant abuse and sing songs to each other. We briefly moored to eat cake, but the weather wasn't great for leisurely dallying. Other punting parties provided the most amusement, especially the hen party who had an inflatable 'member' in their punt, which distracted our navigators to the extent that we hit the bank.

The rest of the weekend passed in an enjoyable manner, including games, food, more games, more food, walking and more food. It was lovely to see everyone, and look forward to our next get-together at New Year.

Shiny red toes

Outside work there's been a little bit of activity, which on top of the week's work has exhausted me. I'm definitely not as young as I was.

On Friday we journeyed south to the Ealing Comedy Festival, to see Henning Wehn in particular and a bunch of other comedians in general. Unfortunately, Henning Wehn was one of the best acts on the bill, and he was only given about 10 minutes at the beginning of the show. One of the comedians was so poor that I felt no shame in leaving the tent to go to the toilet during his act - luckily, I was near the end of the row of seats. We also had some painfully noisy punters behind us, yelling incomprehensibly and deafeningly loudly. It wasn't anything like as good as I'd hoped, unlike the pre-show cocktail provided by Mr M, which was very fine indeed.

Saturday was Family Day. Lola II treated me to a pedicure, which I've never had before. I liked the bit where you put your feet into warm water, and the bit where the pedicurist massages oil into your feet, and the lovely shiny new red toes. I didn't like the cuticle-trimming bit, nor the bit where she buffed my nails before putting on the polish. Combined with the need to check every preparation for parabens and tocopherol (both of which bring me out in a rash), it was less luxurious and relaxing than I'd hoped.

So it was also a bit disappointing, but the lovely pedicure lady and Lola II and mum arriving to chat halfway through were some compensation. I was also able to give mum a present I'd been saving for her for a while - a biro with the ink nearly run out. She loves to finish off a biro and throw it away, so I always try to save mine for her when they get to that state.

We were scheduled for Good Deeds for the rest of Saturday morning at Lola II's house. Dad fitted fancy covers on the screws holding Lola II's bathroom mirror. Mr A was supposed to help dad with his computer, but failed to find the correct port to plug in the screen until brother-in-law (BiL) arrived. BiL swiftly started on the installation of a security light, Mr A worked on the software installation using his laptop for backup, while Lola II and I tried to schedule train tickets to Altrincham using a laptop each and cross-checking. Then the delivery van turned up with Lola II's bed which they constructed in her bedroom, Mr M and Mr A moved a dresser upstairs and a piano downstairs (!), we ordered Persian food for lunch from a takeaway menu, Mr M went to pick it up and sister D arrived. We had lunch (delicious), transferred a microwave from one car to another, loaded dad's computer back into his car, and set off home.

I had to let Mr A take over the driving when we were only halfway home, and I went to sleep for two hours when we arrived.

There is one other irrelevant yet vaguely interesting event to report. The way that our TV reports our viewing to the BARB panel was malfunctioning, so they got in touch and asked if we'd mind if they sent an engineer round to try and fix it. I am keen to accommodate them in every way, because they will soon be financing a new dishwasher in the same way as they contributed to my ipod.

Some time ago we acquired a Sky box, in the knowledge that when Digital Switchover comes to our area we'd need something to receive it. Our house came with a satellite dish that we never bothered to remove, so we plugged everything in. It seemed to work for a day or two, and then stopped, and we did nothing at all about it because we're really not very interested in most TV. When the BARB engineer came round he moved the card from one slot to another slot indistinguishable in every way from the first slot, and then when I came home from badminton Mr A was watching The Last Samurai on ITV2.

Last time we had temporary access to tens of channels instead of just four, we watched a couple of old episodes of The Sweeney and Starsky and Hutch and then went straight back to BBCs 1 and 2 like the middle class Radio 4 listeners that we are. I expect the same will happen this time.

Family

It's been a bit hectic, considering these were supposed to be lazy leisurely post-exam days. Lola II woke me up with good news and bad news. The good news: the flight that our cousin M, her son A and friend J were arriving on was early. The bad news: the flight was early! Our preparations, bedmaking, cleaning and tidying had to be squeezed into a shorter time, and I had to go and buy euros, given that I'd failed to do so for weeks and only had one working day left before we were due to travel to Bruges.

Meeting the party at the airport, we held up our sign, which had A's name in large letters and M and J in very small letters underneath. An elderly man was moving along the line of people holding their signs, obviously trying to find someone waiting for him. He paused at ours, and looked at us hopefully. We laughed and we told him we were waiting for a 5-year old boy and his mother and friend. "If they don't show up?" he said. "No problem," we said.

The journeys to and from Heathrow were inordinately long - all the trains seemed to be running slowly and we kept having to wait, and it was awfully hot. But we all reached Lola II's house in the end. M and J made the mistake of leaving Lola II and me unattended for an hour or two in charge of 5 year-old A, while they had a jet-lagged sleep. We painted A's toes with nail polish: a different colour for each toe. He chose the colours, and then he chose the colour for my toenails. We just can't be trusted with any childcare responsibility.

Since then, there has been much conversation, a huge family Chinese meal, serious Lego action, sitting in Lola II's garden admiring Mr M's garden management skills, and luxuriating in the unusual heat at 10 p.m. Now Mr A and I are bracing ourselves for a very early start to our European holiday tomorrow.

Messing about after the exams

In order of unpleasantness, there is revision, housework, blogging and messing about. While revising, housework is definitely allowed, blogging within reason but no messing about. When revision is over, messing about takes up a lot of time, blogging is neglected and housework doesn't stand a chance.

The last exam took place in a large echoing sports hall packed to the rafters with students on the main campus of the university. It demanded more than the usual amount of focus and concentration from me because of all the other people there, the unfamiliar environment and noises and distractions. But I think I did OK, then drove home, we went out to dinner, and I couldn't stop smiling with the relief of not having to revise any more. Since then I've been messing about all over the place: getting my hair cut, cooking, and most importantly, packing for a few days in London and then a week in Bruges.

I came down to London yesterday and met up with an old friend and ex-work colleague. It was lovely to see him, and there's always a good story to hear: this time about how a tree he was cutting down ended up falling on top of him. There was some current news and updates on people I used to work with, and a little reminiscing, like the time we had a team Christmas meal out, when life was good and our jobs were fulfilling and satisfying. That was the best team ever, but people change and move on and we can't expect such good times to last forever. So then we talked about drugs for cholesterol and the Big Bang and global warming and bowel movements, the sort of thing any friends might talk about. I love meeting up, and I even found out that he reads this blog. I'm sorry I forgot to take a photo, but I was having too much fun.

It didn't take much thinking for me to decide on eating at my regular Japanese outlet before moving on to the pub quiz where Mr M is a regular. My contribution (Utah, Stephen King, Nicholas Witchell, ELO and Rock Aria) was enough to take us to first place and the prize of a round of drinks, but by that time I was ready to go back to Lola II's house and sleep. I remember the same thing happened when we did a regular quiz at home - the only time we ever won was when a 'ringer' joined the team who hadn't played before (and never joined us again).

So now on to today, which started with a list of jobs for me to do while Lola II went to work, involving planning transport options to meet our American cousin and her son and her friend at Heathrow, and trying to work out what Oyster card rules apply to a 5-year-old. Then I met Lola II and Mr M at Westfield Shopping Centre (more like a town to a rural bumpkin like me), where we had lunch and then Lola II and I shopped for hours.

As usual, I failed to find any of the things I really wanted - a mac or raincoat and sandals - and bought socks and underwear instead. It was really hot, and Lola II flaked out while I had one last shot at looking for sandals, and then we came home by bus and it was still really hot, and we still have much to do. We must shop for household food, and I still have to buy euros for the trip to Belgium, and we need to order the Chinese food for Sunday when we are having a family get together in honour of our visiting US cousin. But now it is supper time, and Lola II is dishing up the pasta, and I must publish this.