Hyperlinked!

Well, here we are on Monday morning – back at my post.

It's been a great week off. I feel rested and relaxed - apart from a sore throat. More on that later.

On Saturday I ordered my trellis for the back yard and bought loads of plants. Thing is that the trellis won't arrive till next Saturday so I can't do the fun bit which is actually put the plants in. So, as you saw I just messed around on the mac in the garden instead...

On Sunday morning I painted half the spare room ( which will be my work office once the damn furniture arrives) in er.. taupe . I hate painting (literally like watching paint dry ) but I did it in about an hour. The other half gets done when I get the furniture and can move all the junk from one side of the room to the other.

It was also J's birthday but as she had been invaded by family on Saturday, we'd already agreed to celebrate together later in the week.

Anyway - to start from the beginning:

The whole London trip with J was great .

It started on Wednesday morning with First Class to King's Cross ( including lunch on the train) and then booking into the hotel. Much much shopping later ( including The Apple Shop and Ted Baker ) we got changed and headed off to Koko for The National's gig. This is the fourth time I've seen them and yet again they were superb - a brilliant combination of musicality, poetry, commitment and sly sexiness. The support band Devastations were great too - I already had both their CDs and they were just as good live. J gave the lead singer's moustache a thumbs down though...

Thursday morning was a late breakfast and then off to Jerwood Space ( hiding as I passed my London Office ) to see Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard's video piece "Walking After Acconci ( Redirected Approaches) " which was really good and also amazingly threatening. Basically it's a piece to camera acted by the rapper Plan B . I don't like his music much but he was superb in this.

Then a quick trip to Tate Modern followed by lunch at the NFT ( Blimey! All these hyperlinks! ) and a nap at the hotel ( Actually I was getting quite tired by then.) before heading off the The Poetry Cafe for J's reading, alongside Bob and Andy with music from Milo, Sean and Kev.

It was a great night and they read really well. J was the best of course - poised, cool sharp and sexy. We had about 30 people show up which was quite good, although, considering that the Poetry Cafe is part of the Poetry Society, the setting is really small and shabbby. They all piled off to the pub afterwards but I was exhausted so went back to the hotel - J arrived back er.. a little later..

Yeah - the tiredness/sickness thing. I mentioned it to the clinic when I had my jab on Friday. Although I've resisted it till now, I asked for some anti sickness tablets and they seem ( so far ) to have really done the job. I've felt much better over the weekend - apart from a sore throat. That could be another side effect I suppose - it's not an infection - my temperature's fine.

So. Off to Brum tomorrow. Three days this time - including the QIA Annual Conference. Be good to see all my ex LSDA colleagues.