Docked outside of Stu's office at Canary Wharf, the ye olde shippe 'Tenacious'!

Saddo that I am...here are my pride and joy, my tomato plants! Each one is almost the size of your palm, and I'm up to about 12 harvested with another 20 or so to go. Yum!

Meerkat on Patrol!

My little darling niece looking stunning in mauve silk. Roz are you sure her hair doesn't have a tinge of red of in it???

Moi wearing my fabulous birthday earrings and necklace in our living room

The gorillas are getting a new enclosure built for them, and it can't happen soon enough for this unhappy ape. Their current home is a miserable concrete and wire mesh enclosure.

Another zoo photo - here is a bird-eating spider, a type of tarantula. Sadly, we weren't allowed to hold them. And yes, they can actually kill and eat small birds! 

Seen: Kilburn tube station, at the weekend.

One man dressed in a natty pin stripe suit and bowler hat, swinging his umbrella as he walked. He stood in our carriage for two stops, before turning to look at everyone, smiling and wishing us all a good day and 'cheerio'!

It turns out he is a school teacher on holiday who is trying to help people feel more comfortable travelling on tubes since the bombings, and by dressing up people respond to him and interact with each other after he has gone. Fabulous!

Read more about him here: http://www.teachersupport.info/index.cfm

Happy birthday to me for the 22nd! We celebrated with a trip to the zoo on the Sunday, and then the Maritime Museum on the Monday. As you can see it managed to rain cats and dogs all day on my birthday! Thank you for all my cards and pressies - I'm wearing one of them around my neck - Thanks Brad and Roz!

The painted gallery at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. Nelson, the Admiral who kicked Napoleon's butt at Trafalgar lay in state at the top of this room for several days before his funeral at St Paul's cathedral.  

This is a keel-billed toucan with the most luminous lime colour I've ever seen on a living creature. He was as fascinated by us as we were by him!

Spot the 'little' giraffe - one of them is a 'baby'!

This tiger was incredible, I could have studied him for hours. He was oblivious to the hordes of kids trying to get his attention and the weary parents wishing they could feed their kids to him.  

Yawning owl!

Little Lauren, or should that be 'growing-up-very-fast-Lauren'! Look at all those teeth - where did they come from??? And those blonde locks - what a little angel :)

Swamp thing

You look out your office window and see cars, buildings, and people. I look outside my office window and see llamas! Three of them in fact, including a 7-day old little guy who is having problems feeding. He was a bit wobbly yesterday, but seems perkier this morning. Soooooo cute!

Exam results
Oh. My. God.

For those familiar with the British university system, I got 3 'firsts'.
For those familiar with the Australian system, I got an A and two A+ 's .

General Foundations of Psychology - 70%
Psychobiology - 77%
Research Methods (Statistics) - 95%

My chunking study technique was obviously quite effective.

Aye carumba!

My exam results are waiting for me at home. This is of course working on the assumption the muppets at Registry managed to update both my home and contact address details this time. I sent everyone a change of address letter when we moved, but they only updated my home address details - my re-enrollment information was sent to the old place. Luckily we have a mail re-direction in place, but it adds up to a week on delivery time!

I have butterflies the size of elephants. Hopefully tonight I will be celebrating!

Wedding Anniversary
Where do the weeks go? It was our third wedding anniversary on Wednesday and Stu took me out for dinner (my choice – Yo Sushi – yum and super quick) and to see David Schwimmer in the new Neil Labute Play ‘Some Girls’. I wasn’t expecting all that much, but was pleasantly surprised. It was a highly entertaining play and the acting was really good! On the way home I was bought some beautiful gladiolis, a towering armful of deep dark red and soft pink blooms strung along pale green stems and just gorgeous.

Gym bunny (or not)
I went for not one but two swims this week. AND a trip to the gym. I scammed a free day pass to a gym 15 minutes walk from home so went along and did some cardio and weights. I was thinking about joining but at 60 quid a month, I just won’t get my money’s worth when uni starts in October. (And no, still no exam results. ARGH!) Saw my butt in a full-length mirror for the first time in months (we don't have one at home). I believe the song goes "Baby Got Back"! I wish I could say it was all muscle, but I suspect a sizeable portion of it is linked to my crisp and Irish cider consumption. I would have been a great candidate for a Renoir model!

The Ashes
Just for the record, I may be an Australian living in London with my English husband, but for all sporting events involving Australia versus England, I always go for Australia. So enough already on the texts and phone calls! I do not support England! Got it?? And we’d better win the Ashes because it ensures bragging rights for me for the next few years!

Weekend
Off to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tonight with Cath, then am at another training course all weekend on different sorts of coaching (career, stress, executive and team). Our promised glorious sunny hot weekend has disappeared into rain and thunderstorms. Good thing I’ll be inside for all of it!

Beautiful Freddie, aged 2 weeks, who we met for the first time at Iain and Cesca's yesterday. He is a little bundle of absolute perfection - teensy tiny fingers and toes and gentle little gurgles. I'm in love!

Freddie is such a good little baby, and Iain and Cesca seem to have taken to parenthood like ducks to water, both so relaxed and captivated by their little angel. Freddie sleeps well and eats well, hardly cried while we were there, just slept and looked so tranquil and sweet. Although being so young he does need feeding and changing every few hours around the clock so does deprive his loving parents of some sleep! When he is in deep sleep he gets little twitches in his hands, and incredibly he has REM sleep - you can see his little eyes moving underneath tightly shut lids. I wonder what he's dreaming about?? More milk! More Mum! More of Dad's cuddles!

Seen in Marie's garden, Sunday August 7, 2005. A fluffy fuzzy buzzing bumblebee and some kind of exquisite dainty butterfly. God I love my camera for being able to take such beautiful close-up shots!

Ladies Wot Lunch
Sheesh - look at all these short hairstyles! Here I am trying to grow glamorous long locks and you're all cutting yours off! Chlo, Fi, Beth and Su lunching at the Crunchy Toad cafe, sorry, Country Road cafe, in Perth. Whatever it is you're eating it looks YUM!

It's really really lovely to get photos from home. Please email more - I love seeing them!

Life is so much more precious when you perceive it as slightly more tenuous than it was. I savoured my weekly swim today, the swelling and rippling motion of the water as I lolled about in it, the myriad shades of blue and green sliding through each wave and dip. As I looked out of my window I took in the blue blue skies above rolling green fields dotted with horses and cows, shaded by puffs of white cloud slipping across the sky. I could smell the sweetness of the raspberries sitting on my desk, little plump pink jewels of deliciousness waiting to stain my fingers red and my tongue with delight. I baked a loaf of ciabatta last night, massaging the dough into a silky pliable smoothness, soft and yeasty in my hands, filling the house with its homely baked bread smells. And last night I sat awhile under the night sky on the back terrace, the cool air swirling over bare limbs, sipping the silence alternating with the sounds of the city. Quiet, reflective, calm.

Kings Cross had police wearing bullet proof vests and carrying machine guns throughout the station again this morning, highly alert and aware. Some people find their presence reassuring. I personally find it unsettling and surreal. Do I really live somewhere where heavily armed police are necessary? Am I really someone who is a target because of where I was born and live? Because I don’t have a car and have to use the tube? A little beagle sniffs around my ankles and my first thought is ‘how cute’, then I process the policeman at the end of the leash and realise he’s sniffing for explosives. Do I really live like this?

The debate has been raging between Muslim and non-Muslim groups. Some comments make me yell and rant and throw things at the TV, others humble me in their perceptiveness and delicacy of description. That there are youth so jaded and desperate they are willing to die violently, murder and maim those around them…that there are men and women so manipulative and cunning they would brainwash and turn those seeking purpose in life into a wasted death…I just cannot comprehend it.

Many people are blaming the Iraq War, but I don't think it can be simplified into an x=y Iraq=bombing equation. What did they blame when the USS Cole was blown up? When the US embassy was bombed? When the bar in Bali was bombed? When the planes flew into the Twin Towers? It’s not simply about the Iraq War, I fear it’s more far reaching and insidious than that. This monster is not going to die quietly or quickly.

Darth Cleaner at planet Grandma's. Little Darth Tidy (aka Arthur) was off polishing the floor somewhere...! 

Stu with former Arsenal goal keeping legend Bob Wilson. We rounded off Stu's birthday celebrations with a guided tour of Highbury, home to the Arsenal. 

Stu emerging from the players' tunnel from where they all run onto the pitch at the start of every game - it's really narrow!  

People were surprised I wanted to go on a tour of Highbury - the tour included the mens changing rooms! Me standing where Theirry gets his kit off every game! 

We've had no home internet access for 10 days now. BT decided to cease our service for no apparent reason, and are taking their sweet time restoring it. I wonder what they'll do when we refused to pay a quarter of our next monthly bill??

Had the first quiet weekend at home in months, it was bliss. Spoke to the family, had a massage to ease my poor aching back (little miss good samaritan helped a lady carry her baby stroller down two flights of stairs, thought she had cleared the last step but hadn't, ouch goes the wrenched neck and back), Stu and I wandered around Camden markets awhile, bought a fabulous new card magic book (I've taken up card magic!), Stu got some records, and on Sunday we cooked a gorgeous Kylie Kwong roast duck with a fig and shitake mushroom sauce. Now when can we have another weekend like this one??