Happy Birthday Joan

So the time has come for me to travel on. It was with considerable sadness that I said goodbye to Phillip, Nagma and Samir but I believe we will be seeing each other in about a year.

I am at the moment pleasing myself with London's treasures. But last Friday I had coffee with David and raved on about the wonderful world of television. then had an evening with my cousin Kaz her partner Simon and their new bub, Harrison aged one fortnight. I enjoyed catching up with them as it is about ten years since I saw my cousins and their families and I had the pleasure of all the rest of the Christchurch family last year.

On Saturday I joined Phillip and family at the Natural History Museum (Yeah we do all descend from the apes- and some wacky looking Dino's apparently) then we did a walk down to the London Eye which we discovered closed much to Samir's chagrin for yearly maintenance.Anyway it was nothing that copious amounts of chocolate couldn't fix.

Sunday we drove down to Salisbury plain to take pictures of Stonehenge(it was too perishing cold to spend any time looking at it. And drove through some lovely English countryside on the way home.

So yesterday I checked into a budget London hotel the size of a shoebox and escaped by going to see Spamalot. This is the show is ripped off (Eric Idle's words) from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and doesn't miss a beat in capturing the movies anarchic charm but still being true to the essence of the theatre. Wonderful.

Today I wandered past Buck House on my way to coffee with Matt- wide ranging talk about my trip his weeding my intended work and his current project and on the way Debs, Sean and others were mentioned- he thinks I have a great story for you Sean. Then I wandered along to the Tate and then a tour of the Globe. Great! Tonight I am seeing the new Coen brothers film.

Tomorrow is a little open as I can't plan it but Friday I fly to the states.

See you on the other side of that.

PS the seventeenth is my mothers birthday- so send some good thoughts along with mine and wish her a happy one. Rob ring your mother.