2 sleeps til Rome...

... and the world decides to break into swine flu epidemic. so much so that I am even going to go to Boots this afternoon and buy me some hand sanitiser, because god only knows I dont want to be catching no swine flu in Roma.

not making light of a serious situation, but rather discovering an innovative way to support it, designer Irina Blok has come up with some great face masks, proceeds from which go toward fighting the swine flu epidemic.

catty goes to america.. again!

we've just booked our trip to the west coast of the US of A tonight. i am so excited i'm beyond words cos guess what? guess where we're staying when we go to Vegas? *drum roll*

... THE Bellagio....


*squeals with excitement!*

times like this i thank the universe that hotels in Europe are massively over priced. Cos when you compare The Bellagio to an average 3 or 4 star hotel in Europe? well, let's put it this way, it came out cheaper than our hotel for Rome this weekend.

this is going to be the big trip of the year. We're also going to LA (Hollywood!) and San Fran to see my friend Anh, who I've promised and promised and never came... but here I come! And I cannot wait to see her, her two kids and her two dogs! Oh, and Johnny, her hubby :)

oh, and this trip is also sorta in celebration for me turning the big three-oh in September. gotta celebrate in style, right?

much a'fuss about twitter

So it seems that in the past month, twitter has gone from big-ish to really big, to an application of gargantuan proportions. I’ve been proud a twitterer since 2007, maybe i’m ahead of the curve, maybe i’m a social networking freak, but this my friends is the future of the internet. I mean guys, Oprah signed up last week. If that isn’t a sign of big things to come, I really don’t know what is.

This is the thing: once upon a time we talked about the Internet. Then we talked about broadband, email, www. Now? We are talking instant updates, instant search, the power of utilising every person on the web as a feed. News gets on twitter faster than it gets to the journalists. This is the power of instant social networks.

I mean, I use my twitter for just talking shite really, but hey, at least I’m using it *grin*

the lion king

on sunday afternoon, i took panu to The Lion King musical @ Lyceum Theatre. It was my third time, and you know what, it truly does get better and better every time.

Panu was never that interested in the show... I'd ask if he wanted to go and he'd umm and ahh enough that i'd get distracted and forget that i'd asked. anyway, eventually i just bought two tickets, awesome row F, and we went. Brilliant decision.

the host

Like many other fans of the Twilight series, when i got to the final page of Breaking Dawn, i felt lost, helpless, hopeless... and without a desire to ever read any other series again. Ever. I'd wander through Borders, touching random book covers and reading blurbs of books whose spines had caught my attention. But... nothing. In despair (oh, me the drama queen), i picked up the other Stephenie Meyer book, The Host, hoping that well, if she did so good with Twilight, she might just do good again.

The Host for me, was a roller coaster ride... I didn't immediately take to it, but then I grew to love it. And then I lost interest... and then it peaked again. And then i hated it. So, I can't recommend nor can I not recommend this book to anyone. I think it's up to you. The storyline is original, set in an alternate Earth where alien souls have taken over human bodies (and wipes our minds in the process). A particular soul Wanderer, takes over the body of a girl Melanie... who refuses to give up her mind. So together they go in search of Melanie's lover (who is still human and in hiding)... and together they become friends, and both fall in love with Jared....

Again, Stephenie Meyer has managed to turn a potentially thrilling sci-fi story into a love story instead - a great art she mastered with the Twilight series. I did like most of the book... but not the ending, and it's a pity that's what sticks in my mind.

eastery weekend

it's Sunday morning and i've just painted my nails. Painstaking french tips which look all right from afar, but ridiculously amateur close up. so don't look too closely. in an effort to not bodge my creation, i've resigned myself to be infront of the netbook for the next hour, so what better time to blog about the easter weekend than now.

Easter fell on the weekend four days after my long sojourn to Australia. We didn't plan any grande trips away just in case i didn't return in time (work and visa dictated). When I did find out i would be back before the long weekend, it was probably too late to book anything overseas (or too expensive, either way!) so we chose to stay in England and do some local sight seeing.

On Friday we joined a day tour group and headed to Leeds Castle, followed by the very small town of Rochester.

Leeds Castle I loved. It was peaceful, well kept and unbelievably beautiful. Rochester on the other hand, i thought was the tiniest and most boring town I have ever ever been to.

We were only given about 2 hours to wander around Leeds Castle, which is just not enough time. The castle aside (which isn't massive and takes maybe 30 minutes to wander through), the grounds cover something like 500 acres, including beautiful waterways, a duckery filled with peacocks and other more interesting feathery things than just ducks, restaurants, a hedge maze, amazing flowers and sprawling green grass for one and all to laze and picnic on. My recommendation to anyone thinking about going is to allocate a whole day there, it really is worth it.



















After Leeds Castle we piled back onto the tour bus for a short ride to Rochester. Rochester is only famous for the fact that Charles Dickens lived there, and referred to several locations in the town in his various books. Our tour guide had said that Rochester is a very small town so don't worry, you won't get lost. Boy was he not joking about that. The high street of Rochester is, and I am not exaggerating at all, one street, spanning maybe four blocks. Along this street there are pubs. and second hand stores. and a candy store. I shit you not, this is the entirety of Rochester. Oh yeh there is a castle (as with almost every town in England) and a cathedral, but they too were just on the high street, within the four blocks. Yawn. So bored we were that we headed back to the meeting point almost an hour early and sipped on some bad coffee while we waited.....











On Saturday, Panu and I went renegade on our own and headed to Brighton - a beach town on the south coast of England. Pity the weather was dreary, because Brighton I also loved, and can see the amazing potential of this place on a warm sunny day.

Brighton was more than I expected it to be. It was buzzing with life, much larger than I thought it would be (especially after being to Rochester), and totally groovy. There's an area appropriately named The Lanes, which are intertwining little streets, some closed off to traffic. The shops are eclectic, the people even more so and the cafe culture is oozing from every pore. Reminded me too much of my beloved Newtown. We spent the night in Brighton, at a plush hotel known simply as The Grand. Loved every minute of it.





















The only thing I didn't get about Brighton? Pebbly beaches! You can't even walk properly on it.. how. do. you. sunbake?

As usual, the rest of the photos from the weekend can be found here.

still here

apologies for lack of blogging over the last week. it's been a hectic week to say the least. been working a couple of nights to meet a deadline and been in a workshop for most of today. i promise i'll be back to tell you all about our wonderfully relaxing, albeit grey and dreary Easter weekend last week!

Ciao.

ps. got a replacement phone - life is swoit again!

pps. watched Twilight again last night (oh don't act so surprised). Got Mags into loving Edward too!

lost

on Wednesday, i was massively punished for being lazy.

i left work a smidgin early (act of lazy #1) to pick up a wee little birthday 'magic' cake for Panu from Konditor & Cook; it's just up the road from my office.. possibly a 15 minute walk at the most. But being a little bit rushed (and lazy), i jumped on the bus to go up the road three whole stops (act of lazy #2). On the bus, I checked some emails on my phone which I didn't get a chance to check before I left the office. I typed away, replied to a few and put my phone in my jacket pocket. This may not have been obvious to innocent bystanders, but I had just committed act of lazy #3. Everything, and I mean everything falls out of my pocket. I never, ever, put anything in my pocket and I knew this, as I was putting my phone in my pocket, that it would probably fall out. But at that point in time, it seemed all too hard to undo a clasp on my bag, slip the phone in the pouch and clasp it back up. Heck, i didn't even have to clasp it back up, the phone would still have been way safer.

Anyway, in the pocket. Three stops down I hop off and dash quickly to the cake shop, which was recommended to me earlier in the day by a friend. I reached for my phone to text her, to say oh my god the cakes are definitely the most adorable things in the world! but oh F*&%, where is my phone?!?!?! WHERE IS IT? i squeezed and scrunched my pocket in a million different ways, i check my bag two million ways in case somehow, i hoped dearly, that my subconscious had sneakily won the earlier battle and i had slipped my phone into my bag.

But it was not to be. I borrowed the shop's phone and call myself over and over, hoping someone would pick up. Because I know it's exciting and all to find a shiny new gadget on the bus, but I would have paid the potential thief £300 (retail price of my phone) just to give it back. they could have gone and bought an even shinier new one! But after ringing out a number of times (and wow do I really sound like that on my voicemail?), someone turned the phone off, and i knew it was gone. Gone.

The thing with this phone is that... up until late last year I had a regular yee-olde mobile phone which made and received calls and sent and received text messages. I didnt even have picture messaging! But then I was given this great smart phone by my work and slowly but surely, it wriggled its way into my life as my oncall Personal Assistant. it knows my diary, it has my notes, it has my emails, my photos, my spreadsheets, my (and yes, please kindly kick my ass for this one) passwords!!! I hyperventilate now as I think about my passwords floating around in the great abyss that is London.

I've come to rely so much on my phone that not only is it lost, I am lost without it... *sigh* work is getting me another one.. but it's just not the same - half my life was on the lost phone.

got my little hands on...

this blu ray dvd yesterday...

'ludicrous' doesn't even begin to explain...

a fellow blogger posted this article about complaints BBC have been receiving against a presenter on one of their kids shows, CBeebies, solely because the presenter was born with one arm. You would think that in this day and age, acceptance of a person's ability to perform a role would go beyond race, gender and certainly physical abilities. Sadly, it appears we are still living in the Middle Ages, where hunch-backed, one-eyed and perhaps even one-armed creatures dwell in our kids nightmares.


Cerrie Burnell has received such fierce complaints, being accused of positive discrimination (obtaining the role purely because of her disability) and even being called a c*** by one viewer. Like that has anything to do with anything, moron.

i was absolutely flabbergasted and ashamed at society for such a ridiculous backlash. I know, i know, i dont have children so what would i know about what gives them nightmares? I'll admit i know nothing on the subject. But surely keeping images of another human being, one who is perfectly capable and attractive, away from them isn't going to stop the nightmares.

have you seen what else is on the idiot box these days??

ok. vented.

in other news, i am back in London, after a long 23 hour flight from Sydney. I would have been comfortable, however there was a rather large norwegian man spilling into my seat, and oh, he has a bladder the size of a peanut. glorious. nonetheless, happy to be back and getting my cuddles again!

time flies

On the final day of my work stint in Sydney, i have a meeting from 4pm-5pm. i know, that sucks. this trip has completely fried my brain, yes, even this normally workaholic brain and I am itching to head back to London.

Five weeks has passed so quickly. it seemed like only yesterday that I was pondering whether my little heart could stand being apart from its mate for so long. but look at this, it's been five weeks and I didnt even have time to count sleeps!

absolute gold

not sure if you've ever had the urge to scroll down to my reads & links section on the left navigation bar, but if you haven't clicked on Lexxus' blog, you really ought to. not for the uber-conservative, but if you have a sense of humour, you will love him.

i've been a bit behind in reading his blog, but read this post today and proceeded to wet myself laughing, right here at my desk.