On this Eastern European issue that's got the country up in arms (well the Daily Mail anyway) I was thinking about it on the way to work this morning. The Polish are working everywhere but seem quite nice people (if a little pale) and they don't seem to have troubled my lifestyle at all. The Polish deserve a life of comfort after their chaps helped us during the Battle of Britain anyway. Now the Uncle Bulgarians are lining up to invade I predict a riot but I'm not sure it's too bad a deal.
Give it twenty years when these funny sounding folk have settled down and bred into the mix I'm sure there will be room for everyone. I'm thinking ahead but anything that might fix my pension shortfall has got to be a good thing. We've been told time and time again that there will be more old people than young in 2000 and something so perhaps the smell of cabbage and dodgy brickwork might be worth it afterall, especially if it keeps me in a bag of cough candy and the Racing Post.

Had a smashing weekend. Amy, the nicest niece in the world, came to the seaside! She threw pebbles, ran amok on the promenade, collided with old people who didn't mind one bit, stoked dogs and played on the pier. It was fab. I loved it. You can't really top a day with a little girl who says "duck, duck" to seagulls.

One hates to book too far in advance but an Eddi Reader concert is the best reason to smash the piggy bank! I've been online and booked two tickets for February 2007! I have not booked in the stalls this time, I've plumped for a level back. Last time we were in the bloody front row and could see right up her hooter (if we had wanted to, we are too well mannered and averted our gaze to the fiddler's fingers instead) Anyway, that's that, a treat for the depths of winter when our wind and rain lashed cheeks will warm to 'ae fond kiss' (although I have had enough of the old Burns stuff)

I drove through a rather effluent area of the home counties the other day and in a rather expensive chemists (where you're more likely to buy Clarins than cough mixture) I saw advertised in the window a perfume by that remedial bint from Big Brother (the one that looks like a pig) Is she taking the piss? I'm not being funny but isn't the perfume industry fueled on image and the odorous glandular secretion from the male musk deer? Are people not normally hoodwinked into thinking that if they splash themselves in Chanel they're going to feel like Audrey Hepburn and not the stretch of water between the Isle of Wight and Dieppe? I know I am. When it comes to a bottle of scent from a mahogany counter in Selfridges or the shelves of Superdrug I know where I'm whipping out my Switch card. Hmmm, so I don't know how Jade Goody is going to fare. When I think Chanel I think of Audrey and Breakfast at Tiffany's, when I think Jade Goody I think of Breakfast at McDonalds.

Yesterday was fun, I went up to the big smoke. I went to Columbia Road flower market, Spittlefields and Brick Lane. It was amazing. Amazing because of the architecture. There were beautiful Georgian houses in various states of undress. Some were so shabby the rooftops had caved in and others stood in perfect condition. It took my breath away, they've been standing for well over a hundred years and look like they have no intention of going anywhere. There's so much history in every nook and cranny, every brick and window. Jack the Ripper used to knock about in the area and I felt like was on a film set for the best part of an afternoon. Looming in the skyline was the Gherkin building and it made for quite a juxtaposition. It pleased me. I plan to go again.

We live on a bit of a flight path, nothing nasty, the china doesn't rattle in the cupboard when the 7.45 to Amsterdam goes over (did I tell you I'm off there for a Christmas mini break? I did? oh ok) we just hear them as they make their way to and from Heathrow. It's quite handy really, whenever I get one of those mornings when I wake up too early and I struggle to get back to sleep, tossing and turning etc, if the silence is broken by a distant rumble of a jumbo I know flights have resumed and there's little point in sleeping as I'll have to get up soon anyway.
Anyway, moving on, we live on a flight path BUT this week we have had some interesting developments, it's not the polluting lumps of metal going over the rooftops that have grabbed my attentin but Geese - and lots of 'em. They make an amazing noise and are incredible timekeepers, like clockwork they form their positions and "yak, yak" much to my delight. This is the first year I've seen them do it on my manor and I'm cock-a-hoop.

I'm sitting in a hotspot in the kitchen - no, not on the oven hob but within a internet wireless network! Free broadband? Yes it is, and I've not signed up for anything. It's all a bit sneaky but I'm piggybacking on a neighbour's connection, I'm not sure who it is, but there is a toff a few doors up who looks like the sort who might have gone all wi-fi on us. I have been assured by those in the know that they wont find out which is a comfort. I don't have to sit in fear waiting for the knock at the door. I look like someone from the French Resistance at the moment surreptitiously sending this message whilst the threat of being switched off looms large. I shall have to pop something nice through their flap at Christmas to rebalance my Karma. (By the way Victoria - Just you wait a - Minett I believe I win on the mentioning Christmas front yet again) Right, I'm off to download a bit of Neil Sedaka.

The Ladyfriend and I are off the sauce. We have been on the wagon for a whole week, it's amazing what you can achieve without the stuff. Trouble is, whilst a detox is good for the body it aint good for the complexion. The tectonic plates of my face have shifted and several small volcanoes have erupted. Nice.
We have noticed the days grow longer without wine, on saturday night we normally open a cheeky little number but this week it was Corporation pop instead. By seven thirty we were restless, usually we are sprawled out watching tv but with new vim and vigour we decided to go OUT. We went down to the seafront. The promenade was alive with end of season holiday makers and day trippers, we went on the pier and shot zombies in the arcade, watched a huge moon float above the black sea and heard music at the band stand. Lovely.

The kids are back at school and what was once a pleasant motor to work has turned into torture. I have toyed with different routes but all of them encounter school children of every size and shape. Damn them. Damn there parents more so. There was talk of penalising cars with only one person in, I say fine cars that have children in, they are the ones causing the gridlock, pollution and carnage.
If parents want to school their children beyond the confines of a healthy walk then let them pay for it, whatever the Congestion Charge is in London so let it apply to the home counties kids. That will whip a few of those ludicrous people carriers off of the country roads. The parents can weigh up £100 a month or the holiday home and see where their priorities lie.
I don't see why the countries work force should suffer anylonger. Let school begin at 7am instead when I'm still tucked up in bed.

What exactly IS Sky tv for? The ladyfriend and I don't subscribe, we still get our visual pleasure from four channels - Five is fuzz. My Mum and Dad have Sky and we have spent our house sitting time going up and down the squillions of channels and have found nothing that we want to watch. If you like Will and Grace or Rick Stein you're laughing if, like me, you've had enough of effeminate chefs then you're buggered.
However, something that did catch my attention as I was flicking up and down was 'Decoupage for every occasion' it was absolutely insane but I felt myself strangely drawn. Fat people making greetings cards out of fiddly bits of paper, worth setting the video for.

Each day I have looked out at the back garden at my mum's house and seen a huge rabbit - not in the Donny Darko kind of way mind you - infact, I'm not sure if it's not a hare. It's all in the ears isn't it? Anyway, it wasn't there this morning but my word we had some weather last night. Autumn has most certainly laid claim to the land and I'm thrilled. The Ladyfriend and I were hit by a falling acorn yesterday, last night we watched the X Factor which we always associate with bottles of red wine and dark evenings AND as the preliminary rounds of that musical massacre began so too have our Christmas shopping lists!
Now, before you shriek, we have been looking ahead and wish to avoid the pitfalls that we always plunge into during the festive season. This year we have booked a long weekend away to Amsterdam so close to Christmas day that you can almost smell the brussel sprouts. We have no intention of panic so have decided to have the whole present thing wrapped up by the end of September.
We made a start yesterday. I have discovered a huge out of town shopping monstrosity close to where I work. Under normal circumstances I would rather poke my eyes out with a blunt instrument (like a trumpet or banjo) BUT this one is special it has a HUGE Borders book shop. The Ladyfriend and I went in there at 11, went our separate ways and met up in the Self Help section at 12.30! It is vast and, if you can avoid the constant 'laid back but incessant' badgering of the staff, a pleasurable experience. They have IMPORTED magazines, I was in heaven.