Tuesday 29 April 2008

Random ramblings

Weeks are flying past a bit quickly for my liking at the moment...Here's what I've been up to over the past few days...

Friday

Busy week of work for Aspire, a network of social enterprises creating jobs for people who are or have been homeless. I’m helping them with various projects and spent Friday at their offices, in various meetings. The end result was that I had a proper “Friday feeling” by the end of the day, which I don’t get so much when I’m working from home.

Luckily I had someone to share it with as I met my friend Emily for a few post-work drinks and, sensibly, some food. We parted company about 8pm as she left to get her train back to Hove (approx 1 hr!) and I walked home along the Thames from pub to flat (approx 7 mins!) Sometimes I really have to pinch myself!!

Kevin was out with his work, watching “Bremner, Bird and Fortune” being filmed out at Wembley, so I passed some time flopped in front of TV watching gems like Question of Sport (!). He returned about 9.30 and we popped out for a quick drink just before closing time.

Saturday

Up relatively early for a Saturday, breakfasted etc, then out to the pub (again!) for Chelsea v Man Utd – a veritable six pointer. We have lots of local pubs – there must be around 20 within 5-10 mins walk from us. For footie watching and reasonably priced pints, the Lord Clyde is where we usually end up and unlike most of the places near the river, it’s much more of a proper London boozer. Kevin was just about the only Man U fan there but everyone was very friendly (although maybe only because Chelsea won!)

It was a gorgeous sunny day here on Saturday, so we ended up wandering around for a few hours, soaking up the Borough Market atmosphere and ambling along the river to St Paul’s. We went inside and as always, I had that feeling of ‘if you’ve seen one cathedral, you’ve seen them all’ – they always look better from the outside!

Then, in the evening, it was down to Wimbledon for a trip to the greyhounds - a ‘propah saaf Landan’ night out (according to Time Out’s London for Londoners guide, that is).

I realise there are big animal rights concerns about the greyhound racing industry – and for all I know, they may be totally legitimate – but the dogs we saw looked really healthy and happy and the owners and trainers seemed to be very affectionate towards them. It was disconcerting and uncomfortable to think about what we’d heard goes on behind the scenes and I was aware that by supporting the racing, we were supporting potentially dodgy stuff under the surface, but putting those concerns to one side, I have to say it was a really good night out.



We had the full ‘dinner & race card” package, which was a 3 course meal at a table looking out onto the tracks. There were 13 races in total, one every 15 mins, and we didn’t even have to leave our seats to bet – someone came round and kindly took our money for us! We’d set ourselves a limit of £30 each (about £2 a race) but happily we didn’t reach this limit. The first few races were a write-off but then we hit a purple patch and won something on just about every race from 5 – 12. Overall we were down about £25 between us, which didn’t feel too painful. I think our luck turned when we stopped trying to work out form and just went for whichever dogs we felt like!


The night finished early enough to get a tube home and I fell asleep on the couch while watching taped ER. Too much excitement you see!

Sunday

A day of pottering, relaxing and generally not doing much at all. Our water supply was off in the morning thanks to a massive burst water main which has also flooded City Hall! Went shopping in the afternoon on a quest for lightbulbs (all our lights have gone at the same time) and ended up purchasing a bit of a new wardrobe (amazing how quickly you can buy 2 pairs of shoes, new jeans, a couple of vest tops and several other tops!).

Monday

Work, work, work. Good day, got quite a bit done. Also did a ‘mind map’ of everything I’ve got to do over the next few months which made me feel slightly better about getting it done and will at least stop me perpetually scribbling yet more to do lists on random bits of paper as I remember them! Yet another sign of me turning into my mum though!

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