Caterham and London

I have been staying at Jane and Ian's place for two and a half weeks. I have spent quite a lot of time with Ben and Zoe and I have dropped then off and picked them up from school quite a few times. I am getting to know some of the mums, but I cannot say that I am in with the in crowd just yet. Ben and Zoe are cute and energetic as always. Over time I have gotten to know their routines and limits so that plaintive cries of "Mummy said that we can!" or "Mummy lets us do it!" are now met with a little bit more scepticism.

My main goal on returning from Wales had been to sell my car. I sold the car to the first person who answered my advertisement, which was a lot easier than I had expected.

I have caught up with a few friends. Mark and I tripped around London looking at a few of the less "touristy" sights. One was Ely Place in Holborn. Ely Place is a cul-de-sac and is not technically part of London but is an enclave of Cambridgeshire. The reality appears to be less interesting, with a notice for the Borough of Camden attached to one of the lamp posts in Ely place. We had a pint at the "Old Cheshire Cheese" one of the oldest pubs in London. It has an atmospherically gloomy interior.


I had a great night out with Jessie, James, Celia, Graeme, Nikki and Olly last Friday. On Saturday they and James' (and Graeme's) parents visited Buckingham Palace. For budgetary reasons, and because lavish decoration does start to pale after a while, I skipped the Palace and joined them later at the Royal Academy of the Arts, to be meet by a very long queue for the exhibition. On Sunday I caught up with Caroline who cooked me a lovely meal.


I had lunch with Manuela yesterday in Marylebone. It was all very nice until we went to leave and realised that Manuela's handbag had been stolen! Luckily she did not have much of value in it. However, her house had been burgled on Monday, so she was not having a good week. Manuela's mobile phone was found today, but not her handbag. Yesterday evening I had a long chat with Ernie over a few pints.

Jame's recently commented that he thought my blog was perhaps not "personal" enough. I agree that my thoughts and feelings are rarely expressed other than in a cursory manner. However, on the whole, I think that this blog is remarkably open, at least for me. Should I reveal more? Well, as OMC said, "Wanna know the rest? Hey, buy the rights..."