Eat Pray Love

Last night I went to see the film 'Eat Pray Love'.  It's quite long, but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.  I thought Julia Roberts was so believable in the role (and I think she's gorgeous anyway, so no hardship watching her eat spaghetti in close up).

Notting Hill Carnival

Having never been to the Notting Hill Carnival before, I decided it was high time I went along to see this (apparently) world-renowned celebration of Caribbean culture happening almost on my doorstep. Accordingly a friend and I caught the tube into London on Sunday, dropped our overnight bags off at the Whiteleaf Hotel in Bayswater and walked along to Notting Hill. We arrived early. The crowd control measures were already in place with metal barriers lining some of the route the carnival procession would take, and well-policed 'sterile zones' at the junctions.

This is one of the 'sterile zones'.
In the background you can see barbecue smoke

All around the route were vendors barbecueing Jerk Chicken, corn cobs, etc, smoke rising into the Sunday morning air. The weather was behaving; reasonably mellow - a few spits and spots of rain and occasional gusts of wind, but mostly harmless.

Some guys enjoying the procession from their balcony, the guy in the white t-shirt dancing like a Thunderbird puppet!

There were some highly creative costumes - very colourful and elaborate - I've put some more photos on my homepage. Email me if you'd like the link.

After watching the carnival procession, we caught the tube to Leicester Square and watched The Last Airbender in 3D. I thoroughly enjoyed the film - it had some interesting, complex characters, fantastic effects in 3D, amazing performances and I liked the story. Very much looking forward to the sequel!

After a meal in Yates (one of our favourite eating places in London), we walked back to the Hotel. We'd booked in advance thinking that with it being Bank Holiday weekend and the Notting Hill Carnival, rooms would be hard to find. In fact it looked like there were plenty of vacancies, and lower prices than the online rates. Oh well, can't win 'em all. Earlier in the year I spent a long weekend in Norfolk, and my room there was at the top of the three-storey Guest House, with several narrow staircases and corridors to get there. Same story at the Whiteleaf Hotel, with a tortuous route all through the building and up countless flights of stairs. Despite the many sessions I spend at the gym, my heart was beating pretty fast by the time I was able to put my key in the door and let myself in. When you look at the outside of the buildings in Inverness Terrace, you get the idea that once upon a time, it was a wealthy area. I like the architecture. It's a little sad that the once-gracious proportions of the rooms at the Whiteleaf Hotel are now lost as they've been divided into such small units.

It was reasonably clean but offering none of the refinements (no fridge in the room, no complimentary shampoo/shower gel), and although breakfast was included, all that was on offer was cornflakes and toast. Overall I guess it was cheap enough but I can't recommend it.

Some work, some play

Had a lovely weekend - Vicky came to visit. Saturday afternoon we went to see the exhibitions on at The Light Box in Woking - 'Escape to Wonderland', a history of children's book illustration, and Lord Snowdon's photographs of artists. Back home we played a game of Scrabble, the first I've played in a long time. It was my mother's favourite game - she played daily with my aunt, and I imagined them watching over our shoulders as we played, whispering tips in our ears.

Dave and Vic had been working hard on the construction of Dave's garden room, so we invited them over in the evening to share a home-made curry with all the trimmings, followed by games of Dominoes and a card game Vicky taught us called, charmingly, 'sh-t-head'. Dave spotted the Scrabble box and commented that there's been a change of rules which has hit the headlines in a major way - apparently you can now use real names. I confess the news had escaped my notice and I can't really understand why the change anyway. Oh well, time moves on.

Sunday Vicky and I went to see 'Step Up' in 3D. There are some amazingly talented dancers out there these days - some of those moves are just mind-boggling - how do their bodies do that?!? Incredible strength and flexibility, I guess.

"To infinity ... and beyond!"

Yes, folks, I went to see the latest Toy Story in 3D. A friend said it was recommended to him and a little reluctantly I agreed to go along. We went to a showing at 8.25 pm - which seemed a little late to me for what I thought of as a 'kid's film' - but with an audience aged late teens right through to senior citizens, I didn't feel at all out of place. It was brilliant! I thoroughly enjoyed it and can now understand why adults are recommending it to other adults.

Inception

I've mentioned blackcurrants a few times ... this morning I spent three hours over the allotment. I did some weeding then picked some more blackcurrants. Here is today's crop - they're now very ripe, plump little globes of goodness packed with vitamin C - and this bowlful represents about two thirds of one plant's harvest.

After a busy day it was nice to be whisked away to Woking to see Inception. I found it gripping - it didn't have many relaxing moments! Amazing cinematography and special effects - absolutely incredible! Very clever stuff, with an intriguing theme and storyline. I liked how the cast handled it. They seemed natural together and likeable, helping to draw you into the film. The friend who took me recognised a building in the film and on the way home we detoured to see it. That was pretty neat, too.

Tooth Fairy & Letters to Juliet

Monday night's treat was a trip to Woking to see The Tooth Fairy which had me laughing out loud. It was an early screening and we had a tasty meal at the Auberge afterwards. Then Thursday night my gallant escort suggested another trip to the cinema, this time for the romantic Letters to Juliet. Given the later start I had time to get home from work and prepare us a simple meal before we went. It was an enjoyable end to a good day - earlier in the day I'd visited a couple of community activities (in my role as a Community Development Worker) and felt a sense of things going ok. I notice I'm dialling back my positivity a notch - I want to say things went well - not sure what that's about unless perhaps a fear that being overly positive could adversely affect outcomes.

The message of The Tooth Fairy is the value of dreams, and interestingly enough, synchronistically enough, the Word For Today has also been exploring the value of dreams and dreamers. As it's now 10 pm, perhaps it's time for me to sign off here and go and dream a little ...

The First Day, The Last Song

Started work today - it felt great! The people are muy simpático (ok, that's exhausted my Spanish vocabulary). I think I'm going to enjoy the work. Then this evening I went to see Miley Cyrus in The Last Song and enjoyed that, too. Once again my friend and I took advantage of the bargain Monday at Woking cinema which tends to be surprisingly under-utilised - there were just 9 people in the theatre for the film.