Ice cubes as toes and other such treats

If I close my eyes I could well imagine that the scorching heat on my back is the sun and not from the cranked up radiator I'm leaning against with all my body weight and will (caveat obviously of when would I ever lie in the sun to the point of scorching but you know, whatever...) It is FUCKING freezing here and well, snowing. Yes, that's right. Snowing. I didn't order snow, certainly not with two sleeps to go before flying back to Sydney. If it comes to it I will shovel snow from the runway personally to ensure we depart this godforsaken icebox on Friday.

It's been a lovely couple of weeks, mitigated by hellish trips to central London for Christmas shopping.....



Madness. The only festive cheer in this crowd is the whimpered exhalations of relief when your lungs start to uncrumple themselves and your internal organs begin to function unaided by an anonymous elbow wedged into them. I will not miss Christmas shopping in London.

What is beautiful is the lights and the decorations and the tuba players. Sloane Square was especially pretty when I was there the other week for my sloaney pony facial and some inadvertent celebrity spotting, in the form of Prince William's girlfriend Kate Middleton.


Last Friday LB surprised me with a gift voucher for a massage before taking me out to dinner at this beautiful little French bistro in Mayfair called Le Boudin Blanc. A belated celebration for surviving I mean finishing my dissertation. It was unbelievably delicious and I'm still having flashbacks to the mouthful of hot chocolate fondant that LB graciously donated from his own plate. Drool. As a total extravagance we then decided, being in the neighbourhood and all, that we should have a cocktail at the 28th floor bar at the Hilton on Park Lane. Another outing to tick off our list.

And speaking of lists (and in the spirit of Ye Olde Touriste) last Thursday LB and I went "ice-skating" at Somerset House. I say ice-skating in inverted commas because in fairness I'm not sure hovering tentatively six inches from the wall at all times really counts as skating. And I wish I could say that was LB... Sadly no. What struck me though about the outing, and the incredibly beautiful location, was how quintessentially English the whole excursion was. There were men who'd clearly come from work, still suited, with their young children taking to the ice with all the bonhomie of what is clearly an annual and much loved tradition.


I like the mulled wine part of the whole bonanza to be honest, even though I'm just as wobbly on my feet after several of those as I am on skates. Ice-skating was actually the night before we went out for dinner and then on Sunday we ticked off another outing: west end musical. We went to see The Lion King. Pretty cheesy but the puppetry and the African drumming and the ingenious sets were so beautiful.

Since then I've been resisting the urge to count down in minutes until Friday and resisting what I suspect is my body's early warning signs of a disgusting cold. Repeat after me: I will not get a runny nose or a sore ears or a scratchy throat or a temperature or anything that will prohibit me from effectively shovelling snow from the runway at Heathrow Terminal 3. I cannot wait to be home. It sounds melodramatic I know - but I really do need a bit of healthy time out from London and the space to work out how I'm going to approach next year in terms of employment and creative opportunities. Sigh. What I need most at the moment is a lychee martini by the pool with my gals and my ma. Two more big sleeps.