thundering April in May

Always when things feel like they're about to get on top of me, good and proper, something will happen to make everything okay. Just look at my workload for Oxfam, here I was thinking I would be up all night trying to meet tomorrow morning's deadline when I got an email saying the deadline was extended...till Thursday- so I won't have to stay up all that late tonight after all.

Friday and the weekend were wonderful. I had dinner with Claudia at Chez Gerrard and had the biggest, bloodiest steak ever. Poor Claudia had to watch me devour my way through red meat, while she ate demure salmon and greens. We had a fantastic chat, and our mood was quite light, and how I'm going to miss her! We say Dream Story by Strindberg, and while Easter was not something to write home about, Dream Story was outta this world. Quite literally, it was the start of surrealism in theatre. It was a fantastic play though made me dream some crazy crazy stuff. And in fact since then, I've been in a kind of memory limbo, where I catch myself thinking I'm back at school- on the oval, looking over the 'Hellespont'...strange Geelong feeling.

On Saturday I worked all day and G went to his dad's, but I got 160 cuttings done which I was very proud of. It was Nikki's 30th, so in the evening I met her in Chelsea- it was raucous and crowded with Chelsea supporters, but as always it was wonderful to see her and Gilles and other familiar faces. I was tired though, and after three double whiskies, although the prospect of continuing the party elsewhere was tempting, getting back home in the wee hours was not. So I tubed it home and found G already asleep, wearing the sating eye mask I had left on his pillow. His says "No sex on the first date" and mine says "That tickles!"

We slept until 12 on Sunday, had breakfast at about 2pm and then made it to the Tate at about 4.30 to see Strindberg's paintings and photographs. The weather was mental all weekend and it was lovely to see the sky change and dance over St Paul's across the river.
After the Tate we walked to the NFT, ate risotto by the window and then watched Rebel without a Cause. What a sweet film. And James Dean...NICE. Perhaps we'll go see another James Dean film on my birthday.
Afterwards, we sat and drank horribly adulterated martini biancos and listened to a poor homeless man being hassled behind us.
The walk across Hungerford Bridge on the way home was inspiring and heart rending and pushed London further into my heart.

What happened at home...well, decency prevents me going into details, but suffice to say the neighbourhood was kept awake, there were fireworks, and afterwards, I slept very VERY well...
Lhasa tonight.

Just one more thing- the Waifs concert last week. Heartbreaking and homesick making and wonderful. I'm in London still.
i took the tube over to Camden to wander around
i bought some funky records with that old motown sound
and i miss you like my left arm that's been lost in a war
today i dream of home and not of london anymore
i'm in london stilli'm in la ha london stilli'm in london still
you know its okay i'm kinda happy here for now
i think i finally grown up and got myself a lover now
and if i ever come home and i think i will
i hope your gonna wanna hang at my place on sunday still
oh yeah i hope you will
cos i'm in london still
and now we got it sorted here we've really got it down
to a fine art on sunday in a sleepy sunday town
i wonder what i'm missing i think of songs I've never heard
I'm dreaming of your voices and i'm dreaming of your hurt
i'm in london still