Pearlies

Today was the annual Pearlie King and Queen harvest parade.

Mum and I went to see what it was all about and were very pleasantly surprised by the afternoon of sunshine, dancing, humour and more 'pearls' then you could poke a stick at.

There were dozens of Pearlie Kings and Queens along with a few Princes and Princesses. One of whom was only 5 weeks old! Very cute in her pearl (in this case actually buttons) dress and hat! Another little girl was only 2 and dressed beautifully along with her mum.

Also several Mayors of various locations - London, Essex and Sussex - all in their robes and Mayoral chains. Some Morris dancers, a few marching bands (of differing levels of enthusiasm...) and some little may pole dancers who were joined at one point by the Mayors and Pearlies. A lively and amusing moment!There were donkeys with carts carrying harvest goods and big dogs towing little carts with harvest goods amongst other things - a puppy was being carried in one cart.

Obsession

I have installed page counters on 2 of my blogs - would be all three if blog.com would allow them (stinkers!).

And as a result I have become completely obessed with the statistics! I love stats and this is an absolute dream to me!! I check them as often as possible and once even remembered after closing down the computer that I didn't actually blog anything. But the stats were interesting so who cares...

It even has a geolocation option so I can see where the readers are from. UK, USA, NZ, Singapore, Canada, Lebanon (?!!) and Australia so far. Must find out why my sister in Armenia doesn't show up!

So read on and keep me happy!

Brunch

Yesterday was Teresa's real birthday so we went out to brunch at her usual haunt.

All was good until one of the group found a piece of plastic in her hash browns. The manager eventually arrived and with a voice of complete mistrust asked some very pointed questions about where it was found, etc. And then went on to say the chef didn't recognise it as something that would be found in the kitchen. So without actually saying it she was accusing the woman of placing it in her hashbrown...

For the sake of £7 I don't think it would be worth that much effort.

We were then thinking of having some dessert and the manager then came over again and said we had to leave as the table was booked for 15 minutes time. Unbeknownst to us they had given us a 2 hour timeslot to have brunch.

By that point I was dead keen to leave.

We found a lovely cafe that did the most incredible cakes and had coffee and cake instead. Utterly divine and no bolshy wait staff at all!!

Slightly different to the dining experience of the night before.

Dinner

I went to dinner today with friends Teresa and Heather at the Ivy. It will be Teresa's birthday tomorrow so a celebration was needed.

Starting with a bottle of my favourite champers in the bar (hoping it was to everyone's taste... my taste buds were indeed impressed) and soon moved to our table for the evening.
A quick look around and there was John Cleese - my complete inability to star-spot is clearly high lighted here as I was facing him and didn't even recognise him after he was pointed out!

A short time later and Helena Bonham-Carter turned up with Tim Burton (has that man no hair brush???) and a few others to dine one table over from ours.

Charles Darwin sat in the corner eating alone... well, OK, we had no idea who he was, but he really did look like Charles Darwin and he was eating alone.

Some stringy haired lads appeared a little later... surely they must be 'someone' - why else would you let such a scruffy bunch in?

Who on earth was that at the head of the table behind us...? Very familiar face...

Rather unfortunate that on the night Lucy and I went last year, no one of any note turned up and we ate 'alone'.

The lobster was excruciatingly good again, as was the sticky toffee pudding and the wine.

The finale was offered when Teresa and Heather ordered a Baked Alaska to share and the waiteress turned up with all the ingredients and put on a seriously spectacular display of fire on a pudding.

Delicious...

Scary things eating stuff in the garden

I finished my contract yesterday so sit here today looking at my computer screen wondering what I really ought to be doing.

The fact is there a 1000 things I could be doing but instead choose to wander aimlessly around my (very small) room occassionally sitting at my computer for a game of Zuma or to play with some photos.

Earlier today I was in the garden talking to a soon-to-be dad of two when I noticed a very large spider in a very large web. Upon closer inspection, I realised there were, in fact, two very large spiders in two very large webs and one of them was eating something very big and very strange.

...just wondering how often I can use the word 'very' in one sentence...


I of course found my camera and now have 72 photos of above mentioned spiders. This is the one that was eating - but in this photo the thing being eaten is quite a bit smaller then is was when I was busy on the phone.



This one lost his web after a micro hurricane (a swift breeze in reality) wizzed through and bent a branch which caused his web's anchor to snap. The web became a little bundle of silk and Mr Spider walked up and down a thread a couple of times then gave up and went to bed.

Hmmm, a spider that thinks like me...

How safe is safe?

Last weekend I was on my way home and realised due to the Notting Hill Carnival that my usual route would not work.

I instead diverted and took the Hammersmith and City line. When I got on the train I thought there looked to be a lot of police. When I took a full 360 degree sweep of the carriage I realised there were not a lot, but a prodigious pack of police.

The ones I could see I counted... 42

Never before has the tube felt quite so safe.

Oh WOW!!

Tonight I made a mad dash straight from work to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden to see the Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe of China perform Swan Lake.

Boy am I glad I made it!

I think I just had one of the best nights entertainment I have had in as long as I can remember - but that may not mean much as my memory seems to be shot as a result of sleep deprivation...

But anyway, this was truly incredible.

I cannot hide my surprise when it comes to Swan Lake being performed by a bunch of rollerskating, juggling, trampolining, unicycling, pirouetting, flying, tightrope walking, acrobatic Chinese folk.

I could sit through it again - preferabley after a good night sleep though.

Words defy me right now...





When was the last time you saw someone standing en pointe on someone elses head? Or indeed performing a pirouette on afore mentioned head. The last time you saw four men dancing on their hands for several minutes (they can apparently do 30 minutes...!!) while dressed as frogs...? What about several men riding unicycles in time to Tchaikovsky while balancing the odd ballerina on his shoulders.

I saw it all plus more and loved every moment of it!!