The laptop zipped up in it’s case. The (damnable) Windows Mobile company cell phone is switched off and the battery detached. The security swipe card, photo pass and office key are on the shelf. The pre-dawn departures and post-sunset returns are finished for the year. Yup, I am on annual leave until January 4th.
So far, I have celebrated with 12 hours of (almost, we do have kids after all) uninterrupted sleep followed by a lazy read of the newspaper. Suitably prepared, I then took a trip with sprog No.3 to the pet shop for rabbit food and onto Argos for a new water-filtering kettle. This last purchase was precipitated by the old kettle dying just hours after I had seen an advertisement for a filtering kettle. Once cleaned and assembled, this little wonder has proven it self capable of turning our hard lime scale-ridden London water into stuff that makes a superb flavoursome cup of tea. After enduring endless recitations of ‘Tomorrow’ by sprog No.2 and friend (auditioning for a show), endless tickling attacks by sprog No.1 and a nice snoozy cuddle with No.4, I staggered to my feet to assist SWMBO with the portage of shopping from car to kitchen. Duty done, I have sought refuge from the fearsome five females in the spare room, busying myself with ripping MP3s from CDs to iTunes and chatting simultaneously with three friends on Trillian. In no particular order, these were:
-
PinkFairyCat, who also blogs to London.Metblogs.Com wanted to ensure that, as I’m not at work, I didn’t miss London Pillow Fight Club II as I had missed the last mobile clubbing event at Paddington.
-
Jason, a longtime cyber friend and PDA addict, who pointed me towards the most excellent “Underwear Goes Inside The Pants” video by LazyBoyTV. In return, I swung him by the morphed wonders of Korn’s video for their cover version of Cameo’s Word Up, which Jason mentioned when I told him I was ripping Gun‘s cover of the same song.
-
Andy, a Michael Stipe look-alike dislocated North Of England football fan, who nows lives somewhere cold and snowy in the US. After some idle banter about the ongoing boycott of InterBrew, how crappy American-imported Tetley’s teabags are and other important subjects, Andy buggered off to watch a UK football match that was being aired for free – a rare occurence in somewhere cold and snowy in the US.
Having just looked at the clock, it would seem that I have exactly 14 minutes to get ready for an evening out. In a very rare clash of dates, we have been invited to two parties on the same night so, once the babysitter arrives, it’ll be canapes and vino with our friends to the west and beers and snacks with the friends to the east. Make that 13 minutes.
my lo-fi ears are listening to Moonlight Sonata/Ludwig van Beethoven