beach hut boogie

that would be a great name for a song, wouldn't it?

(more later - I was absent for three days, you can just imagine what I came back to, can't you!) (you can't? oh, how I wish I could say the same. . .)

I,LTV takes it all back

I'm totally in love with my new netbookI haven't charged it for three days and the battery is only just now on its last (proverbial) legs; I'm sure I ought to be sharing with you what a wonderful time I'm having, but I'm so busy having it I haven't had an opportunity to write about it
.

I hope you have a great day
.
(-:
.
XXX

blogging from the beach

from here in fact. . .

(-:

(might have to relocate I,LTV Towers to a beach hut for a while. . .)(NOBGM says even one of those might be slightly out of my price range!)

time out

as I purchased my newspaper this morning I couldn't help but notice the cover of this week's Time Out magazineno, not the image above, but one of a naked man "blogging": his laptop covering his laptop (if you can visualise that) (better than the alternative, I think) (most things are better than the alternative, wouldn't you say)

the cover story being how London bloggers reveal the details ("all the details", according to the tagline on the cover) of their sex lives: never fear, dear reader, you won't find such smut here, will you? no, not because I don't actually have a sex life - but because I don't blog about such stuff (as you, dear reader, know well)

instead I shall share with you the fact that second flower box of the cafe (I had to come out for coffee, having used up all the milk making smoothies for the POVS yesterday) has been replanted - no more weeds, but at least seven different varieties of lettuce (green leaved, red leaved, crinkly leaved, raggedy edged leaved, lambs lettuce leaved, red with white veins leaved and something quite indescribably) (I'd take a photo to give you a full visual, only the camera on my phone has given up the ghost again, so I'll leave it up to your imagination)

I was somewhat perturbed to find out, whilst searching Mrs G Image a while back, that my new haunt is frequented by various glitterati of the SWsomethingorother London scene, including, amongst others, a certain Colin Firth Esq and a Mr Nick Clegg. . .

Colin and Clegg consuming cappuccino in my fave cafe

both might be known to you in one guise or another (one for best chest in a wet 'n' wild linen shirt competition a few years back, one as being Chief Fag to GB's Current Head Boy) (and seeing as I don't do politics here either, I'll leave it at that) (and no, when I write the word "fag" I don't mean nicotine stick in this case, I mean this) (see, I might not "do" politics or sex, but I do "do" education) (in the broadest sense of the word, you understand)

not much of a competition, is it?

never one to force my opinion on anyone, I'll leave it up to you; but it does bring to mind something The Teen shared with me the other evening. . .

he'd been reading a magazine I'd carelessly left lying about (Vogue) and showed me a page that interested him (I really do worry about that boy): the advert for an expensive rental apartment (now you understand my concern - mag full of scantily clad girlies and he's looking at the property pages) (on the other hand, he is his father's son I suppose), the details of which he found quite fascinating. . .

.

"what's a Guest Cloakroom, mum?" he asked excitedly, expecting - I think - that it meant the flat came with something equivalent to a personal Jeeves for each and every visitor and if not that then at least the space for people to hang up their coats and hats in a different closet to his own such that upon leaving noone would ever depart with either his topper or his Panama (yes, I treated him) by mistake

.

you'll understand how disappointed he was when I explained; another part of the listing also confused him: the Plant Room (I had no idea what that actually was, but told him I didn't think it was where occupants might nurture their lilies, orchid or other delicate flower collections)

.

I,LTV Towers: a hot bed of confusion (so what's new?) (not much)

.

(anyhoo - as expected, being the second week of Wimbledon, the skies are clouding over and I can sense impending rain, so I'll be off for the mo) (x) (have an unconfused day, dear reader!)

blogging from out-and-about (again)

I must just tell you that it's very noisy here - police car sirens, traffic in general, other people in the coffee shop (yes, more annoying étrangers) (actually, it's not so much the people, more their accents) (why oh why does this bother me so?), to name but a few disturbances of my petit sojourn au extérieur. . . also the weather is very changeable - within seconds it goes from hot and sunny and balmy (I take off my cardigan and order a coke with lots of ice) to windy and nippy (I put the cardigan on again and try and attract the waiter's attention to bring me another coffee) (it's such a hard life, eh) (altho I do not expect any pity whatsoever!!)

so, a little more about the cafe, just to put you in the picture. . . from here I can see bay trees and rosemary plants in the adjoining restaurant (I don't think they'd distract an outside diner from the traffic, double red lines and tarmac of the South Circular - but at least someone's tried); a large blue and orange sign reading "Budget" (which I'm sure is useful if you want to hire a car, but it spoils my outlook); and a banner proclaiming "Virgin Active" (quite clearly not aimed at my good self, seeing as I am neither) (*sigh* those were the days, dear reader - youth is wasted on the young, is it not?)

here the front boundary of the place is planted on one side with some kind of weed (not dandelion, but it has yellow flowers and is quite pretty) and trays of six or seven types of lettuce on the other (I think the weeds are meant to reinforce the cafe's green credentials, I hope the lettuce - with its proximity to the traffic fumes - will not end up in someone's salad); the awning flaps about in the breeze and blocks out the sun which would otherwise be shining down on me, in between being itself blocked out by the clouds which are scudding across the early summer sky (is it summer in June, or merely late spring? I never know if summer comprises June, July and August or July, August and September) (but weird, eh, that the longest day of the year approaches and I haven't yet had one opportunity to avail myself of the bonus long well lit evenings)

before my arrival I purchased a newspaper just in case the netbook's battery gives out, or the internet connection wouldn't connect; it remains in my bag and will probably stay there until it ends up in the recycling - how much of the bulk that is a Sunday paper do you ever manage to get thru?); I also brought along The Lacuna, which I finished last night

there was one passage in almost the final section which I marked by turning over a page corner: having written the other day of my piece of "knitted fabric" which was unravelling and ripped to shreds, I then read a similar analogy in The Lacuna (my copy purchased before it won the award, published before the cover will be emblazoned to that effect), so page 613 in my book, the narrator describes "knitting away at the front of the long knotted scarf that will have to be unraveled at the back"

ho hum

is there such a thing as an original thought anymore? I know I've touched on that topic before, but the notion returns time and again like a piece of driftwood bobbing up and down on a shore on the incoming and outgoing tides; not that I'm particuarly bothered, despite it coming to my attention so frequently the same thoughts spoken by a different voice still have their own degree of uniqueness, don't they?

multitasking

woo-hoo!! (@ Wallace & Co)

I'm here!! at the cafe!! (no, I'm not the grey haired man in the picture, I'm actually sitting just to the side of the butcher's block at the middle right of the image); and the multitasking? sitting (as explained), drinking (coffee), smoking (fags), reading (paper), blogging (you don't really need an explanation of that one do you?)

crikey - I can't believe I made it ("it" having taken me about an hour: 55 minutes to sort out my aforementioned bag and then 5 minutes to sort out the dongle and its connection to teh webnetinterthingy) and actually, I'm quite in need of a spot of relaxation now, so if you'll excuse me I'll leave you alone for a bit while I recover. . .

further thoughts

(on roaming)

one is subjected to the noises of traffic (I think I'm sitting slap-bang next to the inner London circular style traffic system) (quite why all these trucks can't drive about at night, when there are fewer people sitting next to the road I don't understand) and the conversations of the other people in the cafe (if I say I'm fed up with hearing the voices of Australians, would you forgive me or dismiss me as a miserable old cow?); erm, I think those are my only two grouches

and others (the Australians, probably not the truck drivers) are subjected to my snorts of either laughter or derision as I sip my coffee and read thru the paper, cover to cover (fortunately I didn't snort the coffee out of my nose). . .

. . .I'd tell you about the most interesting things I have learnt this morning (traffic and foreigners aside) only I think the battery might be running out, so you're spared

I,LTV mobilises

now, apparently, my new netbook travels

without the need for a power cable - amazing! - and, so long as it has something called a "dongle" attached, apparently, it will connect to teh web - incredible!!

so, perhaps, if I get my act together, I could transport it in my handbag* (as above, only gold in colour) to a nearby establishment (one which serves the very decent cups of coffee I've been having recently) and browse teh web whilst sipping wonderful coffee**

.

*(yes, I'm a girl, I have one of those) (actually, that's a fib) (no, not the bit about being a girl) (the bit about having a handbag) (being a bit of a girl, I have hundreds of those) (this fact prompted a debate at I,LTV Towers recently. . . when a teen boy complained that teen girls - and their mothers - needed to have more than one bag) (hand or other) (I pointed out to the teen boy involved that he had more than one xBox game) (ha!!!! how to call a teen boy's bluff or what, eh)

.

**now. . .that might be true - I'll have to find out for myself (not the sipping coffee bit, but the browsing teh web bit)

.

only first, I have to empty said bag of its contents in order to fit the netthingy into it

.

don't hold your breath - I may be some time