Inauguration Ball!!!

Tonight, I volunteered at the official Inauguration Ball in London. Alex was invited by someone else to volunteer, and she in turn invited me. I didn't bother to research what time Obama would be sworn in or when he would give his speech: I just assumed it would all take place during the dinner/ball and we would all watch it. No, apparently his speech took place as I was riding the tube to the ball. I was working most of the night (though it wasn't hard work), so didn't really get to see anything except a very sleepy-looking Obama arrive for lunch with Congress. My job sucked, because I was seen as a bad guy and people snapped at me. When everyone arrived, they were sent to the reception room for drinks. Then after an hour, they were supposed to head upstairs to the dining room for dinner, and the reception room would be converted into the "ballroom." The people organizing the ball anticipated that people would linger in the reception room, so they gave us the job of gently suggesting that people maybe move their asses along to the dining room. People did not like to receive this suggestion. Responses we heard included (all in annoyed voices), "Yeah, we're just finishing our bottle of champagne;" "I haven't even had my drink yet!" "Our table is at the back so we won't even get served for awhile;" "We're having a conversation." Not pleasant.

After 10pm, Alex and I headed downstairs to the "ball" (term used loosely.) We danced to some classic 70s dance hits, then headed upstairs for the first of three showings of Obama's speech. Though it did not bring tears to my eyes like some of his other speeches have, it was still very moving. Especially the part about solidarity for people living in poverty.

A couple thoughts:
1) I haven't been around that many American accents in months! It was weird to realize that I was surrounded by hundreds of people, and at least 85% of them were American. I didn't like it.
2) The people at the party were far from the best representatives of American hospitality. Everyone attending was rude! All the volunteers were American as well, and they all had stories of being yelled at. Barack Obama just became our president, people. Try to be happy and pleasant for once in your lives! I can't decide if I should dislike Americans, or American expatriates. Are they all rich snobs? Are they under some kind of delusion that their being abroad makes them better people than everyone else? Hey, guess what, jerks! I'm American, too, and I live abroad, too! So you can shove your bad attitudes!
3) During dinner, the attendees were instructed to thank volunteers wearing badges. The entire evening, one person thanked me. One.

So, while I liked Obama's speech, him talking about how great Americans are didn't really strike a chord in my heart. We're no better and no worse than the citizens of any other nation. We've got our fair share of self-righteous, ungrateful bastards.

On the bright side, apparently there's a Costco in London! I had Costco muffins tonight! Can you believe that? I can't!

New wellies

Oh, hello there, readers. You haven't given up on me yet? I meant to write about last weekend, but obviously, did not get around to it. I went to Holly's for one night. It was the coldest day in London in a decade, so it was even colder out in the countryside. The sky was clear and there was a full moon. Everything had a thick layer of frost. In places, it even looked like it had snowed. The frost plus the full moon made everything glow blue. Coming up Holly's driveway, two fluffy bunny rabbit tails hopped away from us. Holly's brother said their pond has frozen over, and he had been out on it. In the moonlight, we crunched across the frozen grass to the pond and timidly stepped onto the ice. It was pretty doggone solid, but I made sure to stay near the edge. I'm not even sure how deep the pond is normally, but it doesn't look big enough to get very deep. Anyway, I kept my ears open for any cracking sounds.

Holly and her mom and I went for a walk around a sort of nature preserve the next day. It was like a big park that you have to pay to get into. The weather had warmed up and the park was gorgeous. I wore my brand new wellies! They look like this:


So pretty!

The first week back at school was pretty good. My schedule is really relaxed, and I'm excited about my classes. Everyone has to take two classes for the next five weeks. One class is allocated all day Mon and Tues, plus Wed morning. The second class gets Wed afternoon, then all day Thurs and Fri. Well, my first class is Tuberculosis by distance learning, which means that I stay home all day Mon and Tues and read about TB. My second class is Conflict and Health, which is going to be really interesting (already is!), and we only have class Thursday morning, a couple Thursday afternoons, and Friday morning. It's a lot of free time, and I should use it for reading, but I probably won't. :-)

Stalking David Sedaris

Perfect, Jax. That's why I keep you around!

Today was another good day of good friends. I had tea with Holly and we just sat and talked for ages, then I met Carina, Alex, and Alex's parents for dinner. I felt bad because I was late and got sort of lost. I knew exactly where I was, I just didn't know where they were. I was literally standing right next to Buckingham Palace, hoping a prince would come along and give me directions. Alex and Co. grabbed a taxi and came to pick me up, though, and we went for dinner at a nice Italian place. Yummy! Her parents were really nice. Have I mentioned before that Alex is a Georgia peach? Cuz she is. Tanya calls her Georgia. All this to say that her parents had adorable southern accents. We hung out and talked for a while, then Alex, Carina, and I walked to Alex's tiny closet-apartment and talked a little longer. Alex thought she heard her friends coming in, so she went out into the hall to meet them, but it was just this guy she doesn't really like, so she had to pretend she was going to the bathroom. This made Carina comment that Alex was "so awkward!" which made me think of David Sedaris, so I asked Alex if she had ever read David Sedaris. She looked at me like I had horns and said, "Have we not had this conversation?" No, we haven't. She said David Sedaris was her favorite author, and he lives down the street from her here in London, so she STALKED HIS BOYFRIEND, HUGH! She literally loitered outside their house until she saw Hugh at the window! And she plans to go back and stalk them some more when David Sedaris gets back from his book tour in the US! So funny!!! Carina was appalled, but Alex assured her that it's okay to stalk people if you're a cute girl. I'm highly amused by the whole thing, and am tempted to stalk David Sedaris with her. Anyway, I thought you guys (especially Jocky) would get a kick out of that.

Taking it easy

Pictures pictures pictures! (some of which I stole from Jacque)

Christmas at Holly's

London with Jacque

I've been taking it real easy for the last few days, especially on Tuesday, when I wore my pajamas and sat in bed the entire day. I've been spending lots of quality time with Rania and Ben, which is really nice, and yesterday, I got to see Holly. Alex and Carina are back in town, now, and I should get to see them both tonight. Yippee! And Laura is on her way back to London today, so maybe I'll get to see her tomorrow. It might be a bit selfish of me, because they all probably want to be at home still, but I'm really glad they're all coming back. I really like these people and have missed them for the last couple weeks. And I'm sort of looking forward to class starting again, because my classes are really interesting this quarter. I'm taking Tuberculosis, and Conflict and Health. Exciting, no? I think so.

I have finalized my plans for Spring Break. I'm going to Hamburg for about 10 days to see Ingo, then I'm going to fly from there to Stockholm, Sweden, for three nights, then back to London. Yay! I've never really traveled alone before, and I know it won't be as fun because when I see something cool, I can't turn to friend or sister and say, "Isn't that cool?!" But it'll be an adventure and I'm sure I'll have a good time. I'm really excited!

Officially a tourist

I used to be addicted to blogging. I'd think constantly about how I was going to write up any given event. I'm over that now and despite having all day to sit around on my ass (which I dutifully did, in my pyjamas), I didn't even think about the fact that I should maybe update people on life, especially as it feels like I haven't talked to some of you in AGES.

So. Sightseeing with Jacque was fun, though it was quite cold and we are both wusses, so we were mildly unhappy through much of it. We kept trying to find indoor sightseeing activities. Still, I think we got a lot done, and it was all fun and interesting!

We started with Camden Market, which I love. There so much interesting stuff there, unlike any of the other markets I've been to. Then we went to Harrods, the polar opposite. In the pets section of the store, along with designer collars, leashes, and dog pillows, we discovered that Harrods actually sells pets. Two thousand pounds for a Chihuahua puppy! Soon after we got there, a man came along and shooed us away, saying, "Viewing the livestock is closed for the day." Puppies, kitties, and ferrets=livestock! That's Harrod's for you, I suppose.

We went to Greenwich for the National Maritime Museum, then had three minutes to straddle the prime meridian before they closed for the day. I definitely want to go back there, first because we didn't make it to the Royal Observatory, but second because the park there looked nice. Maybe it was just because it was twilight, but it reminded me of an Austen novel. Actually, lots of things reminded us of an Austen novel, and we would link arms and say, "Let's take a turn about the park!" In the evening, we failed to procure cheap tickets to either Mamma Mia or Spamalot, so we wandered down to Westminster to marvel at the Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and the London Eye. That whole area is really breath-taking at night. Then again, maybe that was the cold.

We visited Kensington Gardens and the palace, caught the very tail end of the changing of the guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace, had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, and....the afternoon is a blank. Any help, Jacque? In the evening, Jacque's friend's friend got us really good seats for Blood Brothers for ee to the frizzle! Okay, I might have just tried to mix pig-latin and Snoop Dogg speak. Anyway, free. And the show was really good, if depressing. In my mind, I thought Blood Brothers=Band of Brothers and so I assumed it was a war story, but it totally wasn't. Which is good because war=BORING!! Beforehand, we bought Kinder Surprise eggs, then opened them in the theater and made asses of ourselves by playing with them. Fun!

We bought tickets to go to Stratford-on-Avon on Wednesday, but just barely missed our bus. :-((( Luckily, the ticket man we talked to was super dooper dooper nice and offered to change our tickets to Friday for no charge, even though that wasn't really allowed. I love you, Ticket Man, wherever you are! So instead of Stratford, we hopped on a bus to Windsor. We checked out the queen's weekend digs, saw Queen Mary's dollhouse, etc. Actually, that was mostly it. Then we returned to London and spontaneously decided to see Twelfth Night. After that, we followed the crowds down towards Big Ben to see the fireworks. We weren't exactly sure where the fireworks were going to be, so we walked until the crowd was so thick that we couldn't go any further. We got ourselves lodged into the middle of a seething crush of people, and then waited for two hours to see if we had picked the right spot. We were basically on a street parallel to the river, but separated from the river by a long row of buildings. We were standing on the road looking at the space between two buildings, so if the fireworks weren't visible in the space between the two buildings, we would have waited two hours in a bone-crushing crowd to see jack squat. Luckily, though, we had happened upon the correct spot, as the fireworks were basically directly in front of us! Then we went to my school and used the internet for two hours, before returning home to drink vodka with juice. Good times!

Thursday, Rania and Ben arrived. Yay!!! Jacque and I wanted to go to Shakespeare's Globe Theater (a reproduction of the original), so we dragged jet-lagged Rania and Ben along. What with lunch, and sitting around chatting, we didn't make it to the theater until dusk, but it was still awesome! They even gave us each a cup of mulled wine to warm us up in the open-air theater. The theater was gorgeous and I definitely want to go see a play in spring or summer. Rania and Ben headed home to rest after a long flight, and Jacque and I walked along the river, then crossed Tower Bridge. I *heart* Tower Bridge! It's so beautiful.

Friday was more Shakespeare fun as we headed to his birthplace, Stratford-Upon-Avon. If you buy a ticket to the house the Bard was born in, you also get free admission to four other homes loosely associated with him. We skipped the two houses that were outside of town, ie. the farm his mum grew up on, and his girlfriend's house. But we did see the house of his daughter and son-in-law, and the house of his granddaughter, which was adjacent to the ruins of the house he bought when he became rich and famous (which some grumpy old clergyman bought, then tore down when he got fed up with tourists trying to get a piece of good ol' Shaksey's mulberry tree.)

We headed to Portabello Road market on Saturday, but I think the market was seriously truncated that day. It seemed to end quicker than usual. Still, Jacque bought a really gorgeous pair of earrings, so it's all good! Afterward, we were feeling too cold and tired to do any more sightseeing, so I took Jacque to Oxford Street to go shopping, and I spent a bit of money. John Lewis was having a sale on YARN, which I couldn't resist, though perhaps I didn't need 12 balls. At Debenham's, I bought two pairs of really cute pyjama bottoms. Adorable and cozy! We tried Mamma Mia again in the evening, to no avail, so we went home. The internet network in my building was still down, and so we were forced to watch some random show that Jacque had on her iPod. It was called "Three Moons Over Milford," and was an ABC Family pilot about a town dealing with the fact that the moon has been split into three parts by an asteroid, and the planet will, at some unknown time, be destroyed when one of those pieces falls to earth. All the elements required for an uplifting family drama, right? It is ridiculous how ABC Family so effortlessly makes a heartwarming tale out of a girl accidentally burning down the school during a Wiccan ritual. What a little rascal! And her underaged brother steals his dad's car, then makes out with an older woman. Haha! Those silly kids! And the dad leaves the family to chase adventure in Africa, so they're all penniless, but they've still got each other, and that's all that matters in the end, isn't it? If only all families could have sweet, law-breaking, school-burning, Wiccan children!

Twelfth Night and Christmas

Wow, so much time, so little to say! Strike that. Reverse it.

Christmas at Holly's was AMAZING. I could not have picked a better surrogate family to spend it with. I had so much fun! There was:

1. Christmas Eve dinner at The Hatch, where Holly's sister and her sister's husband announced they're expecting (they showed a series of photos, which were ultrasound photos, and asked people to guess what they were, and Holly's cousin guessed, "A dead rabbit!")
2. Gifts on Christmas morning, and though I had no gifts from family (shame on you all; just kidding), Holly's mom got me lots of really nice, little gifts, including several items from Cath Kidston.
3. Brunch involving bacon baguettes. Mmm!
4. A treasure hunt (totally awesome! We must do this from now on!)
5. Christmas dinner at Holly's, followed by musical Christmas crackers in which everyone gets a whistle with a number from 1 to 8. The different numbers are different pitches, and they give you a baton and a sheet of "music" with the numbers necessary for several songs. We attempted most of the songs, and anytime we got through a song without a mistake, we all cheered. On one song, number 7 whistle kept missing his cue and we ridiculed him heartily, until we realized that his whole section of the table had been given the wrong sheet music. They were playing a different song! We had so much fun and I couldn't help thinking that it would have gone completely differently if Grandpa Peterson had been there.
6. Boxing day mulled wine and Morris dancing at The Hatch. The Morris dancers danced around flapping handkerchiefs and could not have looked much more ridiculous.

The day after boxing day, I rushed home, then rushed out to Heathrow to meet Jacque! We've been having lots of fun, though the temperature decided to drop as soon as she arrived and we've been quite cold for several days now. There's too much to recount right now (after all, it's 1:30 am on New Year's Day and there is drinking to be done!), but this evening, we decided to try to see a show. Mamma Mia was completely gated up, so we headed to Spamalot to see if they had any reserve tickets. On the way, we saw a theater showing Twelfth Night, so we decided to try that instead. For £10 each, we got to stand behind the very back row of the balcony. I was worried we wouldn't be able to see, but that wasn't a problem. It was a really good show and it felt very romantic to imagine myself a poor peasant who can only afford to stand at the back to see a Shakespeare production. As opposed to last night, when Jacque's theater connections secured us amazing seats to Blood Brothers...for free!

Rania arrives in just a few hours, so I guess I'd better get on with the revelry and grab a couple hours sleep before meeting her and Ben. Yay!

Rough weekend

Whew, tough weekend. Those friends who haven't left yet are leaving today. All of them. I'm all alone...

Friday, my policy essay was due, so I had to actually sit down and write it. I thought it would take all day, but by noon, I had run out of things to say and I was at about 1500 words, so I wrapped it up and went to turn it in. I also emailed my TB essay to my tutor. Then I picked up the scores for my extended epi test. The thing about this test was:

1. the midterm test (back in Nov) was take-home, open-note, and I still got 4 answers wrong
2. this final test was in-class, closed-note, so I knew I'd get at least 4 wrong
   
3. the score doesn't count for anything, it's just to let us know where we are
4. they held a review session in class the day before
5. the review session did not cover certain details, so I figured they weren't important to learn, but then they appeared on the test
6. at the end of the review session, the professor said, "This test is really no big deal, so I don't want anyone worrying about it"
7. the test was awful and horribly hard and almost everyone came out of it dejected and surprised with how difficult it was

I felt like I was guessing on at least 50% of the answers, so I was sure that my score was going to be awful. Everyone else I talked to felt the same. Well, my score was a 17 out of 20. I don't even understand how that's possible! I guess I'm just one smart cookie.

Anyway, all this to say that I was feeling extremely pleased with myself on Friday afternoon. But there was no one around to share my joy with, so it kind of dissipated. I went home and watched tv online until 6:30, when Carina came over for pizza and drinks. It was our school's Christmas party that night, and we were planning on going dancing afterward.

The party was a bit, well, empty. We got there late and there was still not many people there, so we really didn't stay long. At one point, though, Carina said, "That boy in the jumper is cute. Let's go talk to him." To which I replied, "Um, no! You can't just walk up to a strange boy and start chatting him up!" But apparently you can, because Carina grabbed my hand and dragged me over to him and his friend to chat them up. Unfortunately, though, they were not very friendly boys and clearly did not appreciate the fact that two hot girls were chatting them up. Their loss!

Kate at the party, with a ridiculously large glass of beer.

Carina disappeared for a while, and returned with her brother. I was a bit surprised to see her brother in our crappy school bar, because he is used to hanging out in really posh places. For example, just the night before he had texted Carina to tell her that he was standing next to Rod Stewart. Later in the evening, he sent another text saying, "William and Harry are here." WILLIAM AND HARRY, PEOPLE!!!!!! But he came to our little, orange-painted bar to gather us up and whisk us off to Chelsea for dancing. We took a taxi! It was my first time in a taxi in London! When we got to Chelsea, we met Carina's brother's friend's friends, who were all Swiss. One of them shook my hand and introduced himself. When he heard that I was American, he said, "Oh, that's why you're distant." Um, excuse me? This guy turned out to be not very nice. Later in the evening, he insulted Anita's French, and not in a flirty, friendly way.

So, I had a good time Friday night, but by the end of the night, I was feeling like chopped liver. In the club, there were about 3 men for every woman, and all the other girls in my group were getting attention from the boys, but I got nothing! I danced for ages, and no one danced with me. The guys there would rather dance with each other than with me. All in all, I got the impression that men want nothing to do with me, and I think that mixed with too much red wine to make me quite depressed. I was hungover Saturday morning, and I just ended up moping in my room the entire day. French/English/Swiss Laura was going out for birthday drinks, and I had told her I would go, but I was still feeling really depressed when it was time to go. I thought going out might cheer me up, though, so I went. And you know what? It did cheer me up! I got to see a few of my classmates before they all leave for the holidays, so it was really good. The night ended early, though, and I was still feeling like being out, so I texted Carina to see if she was out and about. She invited me to a house party, so I went and I had a really good time. It also boosted my self-esteem, because a cute boy there thought I was cute (no less than two people told me that). Also, there was this other guy who introduced himself to me, and when I told him I was from Seattle, he said, "Oh, like in 'Battle in Seattle!'" (a movie about the 1999 WTO protests, starring Woody Harrelson.) Then he kept pulling other guys aside and saying, "This girl's from Seattle!" and they would all respond, "Oh, as in 'Battle in Seattle!'" I felt very popular for a while. So, Saturday made up for Friday, and I feel all better now. It is clear, though, that I should never go clubbing in Chelsea.

The house with the party used to be a brothel, and the
landlord painted this sign in an attempt to warn men
that the house was no longer a brothel.
Apparently, they still get guys ringing the doorbell
thinking they're gonna get some action.

Barbershopera

It worries me how little studying I've been doing lately. Oh well! Life goes on!

Tonight, I went to a performance called, "Barbershopera," with my classmates, Claire and French/English/Swiss Laura (not to be confused with Scottish Laura). A musical sung (almost) entirely in Barber Shop Quartet, it had to be interesting at least. Claire's friend wrote and starred in it, and it sounded like it might be fun.

It was absolutely BRILLIANT! It was in a tiny theater above a pub in Clapham Junction (south of the river! Gasp!) It was about a barber shop quartet who lose their tenor the day before a huge competition. In desparation, they hire an unemployed, female! opera singer to replace the tenor. It was amazing. The songs, the choreography, the jokes. I had so much fun! It kind of made up for the two sort of lame/scary pantomimes I went to. This was real theater! Or theatre, I should say.

Okay, back to studying. It's just after midnight and I want to get my essay to 500 words before going to bed. (Yes, I just started it an hour or so ago.)

Recap

A bit of Banksy for your viewing pleasure:


Man, it's been ages since I posted. Like, a whole week! Can you believe it? So much going on. I shouldn't even be posting now; I'm trying to study for two tests (neither of which count toward anything) and write an essay (which also doesn't count toward anything.) I know, life is rough, right?

Tuesday: Went to "Cinderella" pantomime. It was super bizarre. The ugly step-sisters were scary (both played by men) and if I was a seven-year-old, I would have been crying. Also, they changed the story of Cinderella! Her dad was alive, but her step-mom was dead. Her two step-sisters made her do all the chores and generally treated her like a slave, and her dad, who was supposed to be nice and sweet, just stood by and watched. He didn't even really wring his hands much.

Wednesday: Skipped epi to go to the doctor. Was told the wait might be up to an hour. In fact, it was an hour and 15 minutes and I hadn't taken a book with me. The doctor said it was probably viral (so not caused by evil evil alcohol as I had postulated). When I mentioned blood in my sputum, he prescribed a chest x-ray just in case. I'm confident the blood came from my throat, though, and not my lungs. In the afternoon, I gave my Health Policy presentation. It went really well, despite the fact that I HATE THAT CLASS WITH ALL MY BEING.

Thursday: Went to class and spread my germs. Forgot I was sick at one point and handed out cake to a couple people. We'll have to see if they get sick! In the evening, bought an adorable party dress for the Christmas party, then came home to a box full of wonderful goodies from home!

SHOES!!!

Friday: Skipped morning class due to feeling crappy. Started knitting (yay for knitting needles and yarn!) and decided to skip afternoon class as well. Why spread germs when you can knit? Knitted myself a hat to match my scarf, then went to our class Christmas party. Fun fun fun! Was invited to no less than three after-parties, but declined all due to being sickly. Pictures here.


Saturday: Studied (a bit), mailed packages home, then went to another Christmas party. It was raining on the way there, and I got soaked, then my coat was all damp on the way home. Just great. Add pneumonia to my list of ills! (just kidding: I'm vaccinated against it)

Sunday: Studied (a bit), went for burritos with Adorable Alex. Yum yum!

Tuesday: Saw some proper Bobbies walking around school. I told Laura about it, and she said something crude about what their hats look like. I love Laura.

I am sad for all my lovely friends to leave me during Christmas. :-( Laura is going to Scotland, then Korea, then back to Scotland. Alex is going home to Georgia. Tanya is going home, Carina will be going to Geneva, etc. Even Holly is going off to Bath. I'll probably tag along at some point. But it won't be long until Jacque is here, and then Rania will be here soon after. YAAAYYY!!!!

I'm not getting sick, again

So...what have I been up to lately? Not much, I guess. I'm a bit sick, again. Not happy about it.

I've noticed something weird since I've been in London. Anytime I have an alcoholic drink, even if it's just a half-pint of cider and I don't even get tipsy, I wake up the next morning with a scratchy throat. On Halloween, the sort throat turned into a full-on infection, and I was coughing for a couple weeks. Then this week, I had that cup of mulled wine on Saturday, and woke up Sunday with a scratchy throat that has worsened over the last couple days. I looked at my throat with a flashlight on Sunday, and the whole back of my throat looked bloodshot. Sunday night, I dreamt of cough drops. I bought some yesterday, and today in class, after sucking on one, my throat got completely itchy and inflamed. I had to do that gross thing where you try to scratch your throat with the back of your tongue (Becky knows what I'm talking about). This morning, I coughed up some phlegm, and there was blood in it! I'm clearly dying of TB.

Anyway, my throat hates me. I had a doctor appointment scheduled for tomorrow night, but they just called to cancel. I'll have to skip part of epidemiology to go in. I can't continue with my throat like this!

All in all, though, I'm not letting my throat stand in the way of life in London. On Sunday, I went Christmas shopping with Holly, but only ended up spending money on clothes for myself. There is a green shirt that I decided I had to own in order to go on living a happy life. I feel a bit bad for that, because I really haven't been spending much on anyone else. You're all getting cheap trinkets and stuff. :-) But I did make up for it a bit by going Christmas shopping on Monday and returning some of the clothes I bought for myself. Sunday night, I met my friend, Alex, in the library and got a couple hours of work done on my TB essay. Then Alex came over and we watched Love, Actually in my residence hall DVD room. It felt weird to look at all the scenes I had seen before and think, "I live there," instead of "I really want to live there." Result!

Monday night, Laura and I went to the inaugural session of Dance Aerobics in our hall. For some reason, I thought it would be heavier on the aerobics and lighter on the dance. Silly me. What with having neither rhythm nor coordination, I had a bit of trouble. Luckily, so did everyone else (though not as much trouble as me). The teacher quickly realized that we were all useless, and had to slowly walk us through each step. I think it was really frustrating for her as a dancer, but she was really nice about it. Not like those parkour drill sargeants. It's becoming more and more clear to me that I'm really not meant to exercise. I can walk miles around London, but anything more strenuous than that and my body collapses into a heap of aching, uncoordinated spasms.

In about half an hour, I set off for Cinderella pantomime. Yaaayy!! I'm so excited about it, I even shaved my legs. Then I covered them up with jeans, but the effort is what counts.