Much Ado

New baby Bea made her arrival on Christmas Eve afternoon just before three. Bless. The very special delivery weighed 8lbs 3oz and the daughter is feeling fine.

Christmas Present

It's Christmas Eve. The presents are wrapped and under the tree. The turkey is in the fridge. I will peel the potatoes and carrots later ... but for now I am hanging by the phone waiting for news.
The daughter who was the bride who inspired this blog is having a baby. Probably today. The birth pool has been filled. The midwives have arrived. The TENS machine hasn't given up the ghost yet.
And all those of us miles away can do is wait, hope and pray.
(And stick a bottle of bubbly on ice.)

Gee Whizz

I may only post intermittently but I regularly check out my favourite bloggers. Some are more prolific than others – and some write something every day (which certainly puts me to shame). Today Z (http://razorbladeoflife.blogspot.com) wrote about ten things she loves that begin with the letter R. She also invited her readers to take part in the exercise. It goes like this.

You are given a letter. You think of 10 things you love that start with this letter. You explain your choices on your blog. Then anyone who comments can also ask for a letter and so it goes on …

My letter is G. So – 10 things I love that begin with a G

1. Garibaldi biscuits. As children we called them dead fly biscuits. They are not too calorific and I can always kid myself that they might even count towards my five-a-day.

2. Garnets. My birthstones. I never exactly got engaged but, long before we married, the man who is now my husband bought me an antique gold ring with five garnets in a claw setting. I don’t wear it as often as I’d like because it tends to catch on things and if I don’t take it off to wash my hands, the soap clogs up the claws. But I still love it.

3. Grannydom. I didn’t think becoming a grandmother would make much difference to me. I have never been a cootchy-coo, baby-mad kind of woman. I used to say I preferred infants once they could walk and talk. But although my first grandson is (as yet) doing neither, I am besotted. And I don’t mind how many times I have to read Elephant Wellyphant to him.

4. Guinness. With or without added brandy or champagne.

5. Geraniums in pots (and I know they are properly called pelargoniums, because my mother, God bless her, would always correct me). We always have lots in the garden, but they never look quite as splendid as the ones you see in planters and window boxes in France.

6. Georgette Heyer. If I’m feeling really ropey I’ll take to my bed and re-read one after another of my teenage favourites. Faro’s Daughter, Black Sheep, Charity Girl – all full of delights such as this (not to mention the proper use of the colon) “I started in the petticoat line at Eton: that’s why they expelled me.” And where else do you come across words like fribble or coxcomb these days?

7. Girona airport. In that it is the gateway to our Catalan bolthole near Sa Tuna on the Costa Brava.

8. Guy Fawkes Night. Bonfires, fireworks (probably rain – but that’s OK unless it’s a total washout) bangers and beer. Much more fun than all that imported trick or treating nonsense.

9. Gaudi: Parc Guell, La Pedrera. La Sagrada Familia …. need I say more

10. G my son. Even when he is infuriatingly wrong - and when he is even more infuriatingly right.

PS Just asked husband for his 10
H said: G (the son); the Gunners (Arsenal); G-strings; G-spots; Geography: Gastronomy; Guitars; Goodness; God; Gym Girls Naked (I didn't dare ask!)

Virtual weddings

You’ve probably read about the wife who sued for divorce after she caught her husband’s avatar cheating in Second Life.

If not, all the details can be found online (you could try www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/nov/13/second-life-divorce
for example).

What interested me was not the cheating/divorce part of the story – a love rat is a love rat no matter where he operates – but the idea of having a virtual wedding as well as a real one. It struck me that in these belt-tightening times, it would be a perfect way to indulge your wildest dreams without breaking the bank.

You could arrive at the church/woodlandgrove/funfair in a vintage Bentley/winged chariot/customised Harley Davidson, dressed in head to toe Szarovski crystals/leather and black lace/nothing at all.

You could invite whoever you liked without worrying about upsetting family or friends. You could pick a venue and a menu for the wedding feast that wouldn’t involve snooty caterers. And so on.

At least, I assume that’s how it works. Anyone know different?

Oh - and this is not a picture of the love-rat's wedding on Second Life. It's Laurelyne Laville getting married to the wonderful Del Hotaling.

The Far Pavilion

It’s nice that weddings are for the young at heart as well as the young.
Last week the neighbours who have lived two houses away from us for the past twenty-odd years tied the knot. (Their semi is almost exactly the same as ours, given that the two pairs of houses were built by the same builder in 1911, but that’s another story.)
The ceremony took place at the Ladies Pavilion in Central Park, the witnesses were their two grown-up children and, according to the groom, ‘the rest of the congregation comprised a variety of ducks and some basking turtles.’
Afterwards they all (bar the wildlife) went for lunch in the Union Square Café and then spent the evening at the Blue Note Jazz Club listening to the Dizzy Gillespie All Stars.
It sounds wonderful – and so much classier than tying the knot in Las Vegas.
The Ladies Pavilion looks very romantic but has had a rather chequered history.
It was originally a shelter for people waiting for the trolley at 8th Avenue and 59th Street and was moved from its original location to Hernshead around 1912, probably to clear the way for the construction of the Maine Monument.
By the late 1960s – perhaps around the time our happy couple met – the pavilion had fallen into a state of severe disrepair. In 1971 vandals knocked down what was left of it and the bits that could be salvaged were kept in storage until funds were found for reconstruction. The opening ceremony took place on October 30, 1973.

Candid camera

On rainy days I cheer myself up by checking out the weather on two beaches near our place in Catalonia. If it's sunny - even at this time of year - there will be people sunbathing or paddling in the sea. Just as there are today.

I bet most of them have no idea that they can be seen by anyone who logs on to http://www.tamariu.eu/webcam.php.


I expect I will visit one or both of the beaches when I'm out in Spain next week and, as usual, I won't be able to resist the temptation to wave in the general direction of where the webcams must be.

It's a jungle out there

A whole month has flown by since the last post. Partly because I’ve been busy, busy, busy – but also because I was feeling ever so slightly inhibited.
My own fault, of course. I tend to assume no-one reads what I write – not on this blog, anyway. But it seems they do.
So … I’ve been to a wedding, but I am not going to post anything about it other than to say it all went wonderfully well and that mother of the bride (and her husband) deserve a pat on the back for a job well done.
I don’t think any more invitations are in the offing - not because people think I might blog about their impending nuptials but because no one I know, young or old, appears likely to take the plunge into matrimony in the near future.
My diary isn’t completely empty, however. I’m going to a speed-hacking evening (a cross between speed-dating and journalism training). A firm I freelance for occasionally is having a birthday party at Ronnie Scott’s. There’s the press club ball with the dinosaurs (real ones, not just old journos) and a girlie trip to Spain with one of my best mates in the hope of catching some sunshine before we batten down the hatches for winter.