The cup holder on my computer doesn't work!

Had a slight blonde moment today… I’d been rummaging around under my desk, trying to move a cable. Sat back down and started to work, and my email crashed – said the server was unavailable. This has happened before, so I dutifully called the help desk and reported the problem. The guy there asked a few questions, then asked if my internet connection worked. It didn’t, though it had quite recently. Had I checked the cable? Why no, I had not, and voila, the cable was, in fact, unplugged. How embarrassing.

I had a lovely Bank Holiday weekend. David and I met up with Brian and Kathy (as well as Laurel and Heather) on Saturday evening. They also met Robin, briefly (and survived!). I tried to take them to an interesting pub for dinner, but, unfortunately, it had stopped serving food for the evening, so we ended up at a (very good) chain pub down the road. The highlight of that meal was definitely watching the woman sitting just next door climb up onto her man, straddle him, and start making out. Charming indeed – welcome to London! We wandered down after that to Leicester Square and had some very decadent ice cream. It’s always a slightly strange thing to see family outside of normal family habitat – it’s sort of like seeing one’s teacher outside the classroom. Who knew they had a life – that they even go to the supermarket?

I went for a bike ride on Sunday, 66 miles up to the north of London. It was slightly marred by my bike not shifting properly, which turned out to be a problem with the new waterbottle cage I’d put on. It took going to the bike store to figure this out – also slightly embarrassing. As the bugs were out in abundance, I ate as many as possible, and provided a sticky, sunblock coated landing pad for the remainder. I like to be helpful. My knee was misbehaving itself a bit, and my bike was making creaky noises, so, all and all, it wasn’t as good of a ride as it could have been.

And we had a bbq on the roof yesterday evening with 4 people over. We sat up on the patio furniture shooting the breeze and the weather dutifully cooperated and decided to rain at exactly the moment we started to eat. Fortunately, between the table umbrella, and four golf umbrellas, we managed to stay relatively dry. It wouldn’t be a British bbq without a little crappy weather. David is a remarkably good bbq’er, whereas when I bbq, it tends to more resemble a minor nuclear holocaust. We did, however, have one exciting moment when the bbq wouldn’t light. David and Robin kept prodding it with lit pieces of paper – and – well, it did light, and took most of the hair off of one of Robin’s hands. Mmm – extra tasty. I had one beer and one Coke – between them I stayed awake for hours last night. How sad.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I think I have figured out the secret to keeping female pedestrians from wandering out into the road. If one just stares them down, and, if they start to cross, shout out a warning, ‘Bad woman! Bad woman! No mascara!’ This usually works unless they are already in possession and use of said mascara, in which case one is just hosed. One must press on…