Finding your G-Plan

We've seen more than 10 houses in our search for a permanent base, but nothing's really grabbed us. Nothing, that is, apart from a lovely G-Plan dining table, chairs, and sideboard, and three 60s plastic bucket chairs that we spotted on one of our tours of duty. So, we dropped a note to the seller of the house, asking him to contact us if he was thinking of selling any of it. And he did, so we bought it (for a good price -- and more than he wanted for it), and, best of all, it all fitted into the back of the Golf. At different times, obviously, but still: that sideboard's not small. Or light.

Best. Commute. Ever

I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to have this much fun traveling to work in London. A seat on the open deck at the back of a Thames Clipper, sun glinting off the Thames, and the greatest view of the bank-side buildings. Best of all, no sweaty armpits pressing against your nose. It's almost enough to make me want to live in Canary Wharf.

Bourne stupid

I spent much of Tuesday night's viewing of The Bourne Ultimatum somewhat confused: the CIA was scanning mobile calls in London for the code word Blackfriar? How challenging, given that there's a train station with that name. After about an hour, I finally realized it was BlackBriar. Doh!

Of course, the fact that the CIA was seemingly unaware of an investigative Guardian journalist nosing around them -- despite the fact that he'd already published TWO parts of a security-related story -- left them looking rather unintelligent. I guess it's not only the kids that are only reading Harry Potter nowadays.

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside!

The glorious English summer continues.

Norwich 2: Southampton 1

Phew. One draw and a win in the Championship so far, and a thrashing of (ahem) Barnet in the Carling Cup. It's a promising start to a no doubt disappointing season.

Panic on the streets of Winchester

The Silver Fox's tale of his tawney counterpart's nocturnal visit reminded me of my own late-night encounter with the wild. While it wasn't a dark and stormy night, it was 3.15 am -- and PJ was in LA -- when I was awoken by the sounds of repetitive thumping. Thinking it was kids playing football against my fence, I looked out of the window, ready to shout and wave my stick at them. No kids. Okay. Perhaps I'd managed to trap an animal in my garden shed when putting my bike away. An invisible animal, of course -- well, it was 3.15 in the morning and I wasn't thinking particularly clearly. I decided to head downstairs to get a better look out of the kitchen window, opened the bedroom door, and realized the noises were coming from inside the house. Eek!

Bravely, I made lots of noise, turned the stair lights on, and figured I'd given any half-way decent burglar plenty of time to make an exit. No such luck. There, at the bottom of the stairs, was a fat white cat -- paused in the process of flinging itself repeatedly against our cat flap ... which was set to "open" coming in, but "locked" going out. Oops. Kitty fled into the front room to hide under the dining room table, I tried to calm my rapidly beating heart, and I then reset the cat flap, allowing my visitor to flee past me and back into the safer world outside.

It took me another hour to get back to sleep -- 20 minutes on the cross-trainer has nothing on being woken up by a cat burglar at 3.15 for raising your heart's BPMs.

Kamikaze snails

Cute, aren't they?