"Avante-garde is French for bullshit." - John Lennon

Things are still quiet on this end, but look for upcoming posts on:

* fabulous birthday celebrations
* truth, justice and the American way a.k.a. Genevieve does jury duty
* a possible trip to The Islands

Lucy has just rung to tell me that instead of coming to New York to visit me, she, Mum and J are going to Croatia and Bosnia for Fall half-term holidays. I've been dumped for this:

Is it really any wonder?!

I am so envious, I had heart palpitations when she told me. I haven't been to any new beautiful and exotic places this year. Wisconsin SO does not count. Aileen better make good on her promise to take me to Puerto Rico next spring. I'm almost tempted to go whole hog and blow the thousand bucks it would cost to go to Bermuda for my birthday. But I'm not that crazy just yet.

A quick update: we are all moved in to the new digs on Wall Street. We don't have a bed yet or a bookcase yet, but soon. Nearly done with the painting. The wall in our living room went up yesterday. I think I've run out of headaches. Oh happy day! I promise to post some pictures soon.

It's a little guy's birthday today

Jonathan was born seven years ago today. It was a Monday. It was a crazy day. Lucy rang at 6 am to tell me, "I have a son." Dad had to leave for Heathrow aiport shortly after to catch a flight home to Saudi Arabia. Mum arrived home from the hospital later in the morning. I remember helping her make the bed, we were in a bit of a daze, and she called me auntie for the first time. We made a dash to Mothercare to buy little person clothes - I couldn't believe how tiny the socks were - and at 3pm that afternoon I held my little friend for the first time.
I wasn't prepared for a little baby to come into my life. It meant complete upheaval at home, and truly, the flat - actually my whole life - has never been the same since. He looked like me. People used to stop the three of us in the street and tell my sister she had such a gorgeous little nephew. It’s the dark hair. We match. We spent four years together before I moved to New York. We had wonderful adventures, especially Barceloooona.

Now he’s seven. He’s the smartest kid in his class/school/county/the universe. He says prayers that could part the Red Sea if he so needed. He’s interested in everything: astronomy, history, trains, teletubbie custard. He talks about them all, without ever stopping for air. And most importantly – finally something we can take credit for – he knows his family loves him and he’s a happy, secure little boy.

Happy Birthday Jonathan!!

Eat your heart out Roger Moore! The world of knitting pattern modelling has a new star.
Michael is showing off my latest creation. My first creation, actually. I learned how to knit again while home in England and this is my first completed luxury wool garment. It's a 2 x 2 rib in splash chunky wool. It's gorgeous, if I do say so myself. I had a pattern for shaping the rounded crown, but it didn't make any sense, so I just made it up. And it worked. I couldn't believe it! I hope you are all in need of a new woolly hat this winter, because I'm on a roll.

WE GOT IT !!!!!!

I will be moving to 45 Wall St. They gave us the apartment. I am so happy, I could just about explode.

This has been the most stressful and draining couple of days in my whole life. I flew back to New York on Monday and have had rather bad jet lag and consequently very little sleep since. I've spent the last two days recruiting roommates and worrying, worrying, worrying about this apartment business. I haven't been eating. I've only had three meals since the dinner on my flight, and that count includes the lunch I'm gulping down as I write this. Even after we got the green light from the apartment company this morning, the stress wasn't over. Kelly and I had problems with money at the bank, and... well, it's all sorted now. Nor more stress, a nice dinner and a couple of tylenol PMs and that should ensure I get a proper night's sleep tonight at last.

It has been madness, but I have to say that it's all been survivable thanks to some much appreciated divine intervention and unending support from friends and especially my wonderful family. I'm a lucky girl!

My six-year-old nephew has just written his own primary talk. Is it really safe for any one child to be this intelligent??!

Must dash. It's 8.30, Jonathan's bedtime. We watch 30 mins of Thomas the Tank Engine together every night at this time. Nighty, night.

I'm having issues with my flickr account. It expired and when I tried to renew the other day, it demanded my mother's paypal system, which takes 10 days to clear a Eurocheque. I'm completely at a loss! So stuff this delay, here's what I've been up to at home in England this week. (Most of the links are to pictures on flickr.)

Saturday I got off the airport bus and went straight to Avis to collect our car for the next four days. We had a lowkey afternoon, just driving around some of the local villages where my mother's family lived before the last century. After catching up with everyone at church on Sunday morning, we headed to the Suffolk coast (that's the bump bit of England to the east). We were heading for Aldeburgh, a seaside town my Mum has been wanting to visit for sometime. Turns out it's rather a posh little place with lots of Londoners inhabiting the beautiful sea front houses over the long weekend. Jonathan had a wonderful time, chucking hundreds of pebbles into the sea.

We stayed over night and spent most of Monday exploring places along the nearby coast, like Felixstowe, Woodbridge, and Orford, where we climbed to the top of a castle.

The drive home was exciting. We joined the little car parade. English roads are chock full of dinky little cars (most of them, ironically, imported from large European countries like France, Spain and Italy). We were driving a modest sized French-made Peugot, which could just about handle the 70 mph speed limit, when we were suddenly passed by three tiny little cars you almost needed a magnifying glass to see. They were like Jonathan's toy cars, yet some of them were doing at least 85. A physical impossibility I would have thought. We all chased each other for miles, passing and repassing, until the parade broke up when we turned off onto the A6.

Tuesday, Lucy was back at work so Mum and Jonathan and I had one last day out in the car. We went to the Welney Wetlands Center in the morning to see ducks and other wild fowl. It's a nature reserve in the middle on the fenlands of Cambridgeshire. The fens are marshlands that have been drained for agriculture. The roads are all built up several feet above the level of the land and the water is drained into a system of canals. The Welney reserve is the winter grounds for thousands of ducks and swans. In the summer, it's a little quieter, but we did see a little family of ducks up close, as well as swans and several South African swallows who are here for the winter (in S.A. that is). The arrival of the swallows is a sign the summer has come. The little fellows were darting about all over the place.

Then we headed west, via the Houghton Water Mill (the last working water mill in the East of England), to see the Eleanor Cross in the village of Geddington. If you've seen Braveheart (my condolences if you have), the old king of England in the film is Edward I, and Eleanor was his wife. She was on a pilgrimage to Lincoln Catherdral 200 miles north of London when she popped her clogs. Her body was brought back to London in a grand procession and everywhere they stopped for the night, Edward had an "Eleanor Cross" built to mark the spot. There were fourteen, but only three have survived the last 800 years.

Our last stop was Kirby Hall, which Lauren will recognise as Mansfield Park. The house is actually a ruin, except for the wing of the house with the rounded bay windows. Jonathan really got into the audio tour, insisting on listening to entire commentary for each room. I don't have the patience and kept wandering on ahead, much to Jonathan's consternation (he likes things done in proper order). He's cheerful in this photo, but the moment before he was giving me the evil eye for walking into the library before he was done with the previous room.

There are lots more pictures here, but they're in reverse order. The last two days I've been playing games with Jonathan and doing battle with him for control of the television and computer. Tomorrow we're going to London to see the Queen. And shop!

I'm enjoying my holiday by the sea...

I arrived home on Saturday, only to be told that I wasn't allowed in the living room. After some 10 minutes of patience in my bedroom, Jonathan emerged from the living room, having put the finishing touches on my welcome home present. It's a book, held together with two wonky little staples. It tells the story of my journey home.

The Shins

After bitter and crushing disappointment last year, I finally got tickets to see The Shins this summer. I hadn't been this excited about a show since Duff and I went to Interpol at Hammerstein. McCarren Pool in Williamsburg was the location. Are The Shins one of my favourite bands? I'd be ashamed to say no. What would that say about my musical tastes! The lads were in adorable matching outfits. James Mercer is the singer, but the short one is definitely the boss. He was a jolly little chap. There was a lot more bass and drums than on the records which gave the songs a bigger, exciting, arena-filling sound. I think they played them all. Oh and they completely fluffed Pink Bullets. We were all swaying in rapture, when Jimbo tripped over the words and it all came to a grinding halt. A few giggles from the boys and they picked it up, only to fluff it AGAIN. And we just loved them all the more! I was almost too happy to breath.

Then Mike proposed a little pizza for dinner...

And here are a couple pics of me for good measure...

I love these t-shirts

Hot off the press: Capitol Records has just signed Interpol. These guys are one of my top favourite bands. We'll release their third album next year. I'll get to work on that!! I'm so excited.

Lauren and I were (a little) obsessed with Interpol for a while there. She lived probably like two streets away from them and we even saw Paul Banks on 11th street. And that was the show where we saw David Bowie in the audience. Oh, this is almost too good to be true.

Auugghhh! I just got my paycheck and I'm paying nearly 29% income tax. That can't be right! For that sort of money, I want a free national health service and every homeless person in NYC put up in the Ritz Carlton for the night.

I think I got duped at my orientation because they suggested I claim only one exemption on my W-4. I sent in a new one the other day bumping that up to three, but I guess it hasn't taken effect yet. I need cash to move apartment. The government is only going to spend it on bombs. This is SOO unfair.

Jonathan just rang me to announce that he has lost his first tooth!! We have one ecstatic little boy on our hands. It wasn't easy to get a picture as he's been bouncing round the house all evening in fits of delight, but here he is, Mr. Gappy himself:

It took him a couple weeks to get it out. He's squeamish like me and he let it hang in there till it fell out rather than him pulling it. So tonight the tooth is going in a special tooth pillow (a bit of foresight on the part of Father Christmas this past year), hopefully to be exchanged for some bright shiny coinage he can spend on their daytrip to Brighton tomorrow. I hear the going rate for a tooth these days is about two quid. We asked what he wanted to spend it on and he replied, with accompanying sound effects, "the slide that goes round and round and round and round". He's referring to the helter skelter on Brighton Pier. I used to love going on that when I was a kid, despite the mild terror of being over the water as you wooshed around the far side of it. It's a REALLY long way down, but even that couldn't stop us hurtling back up the steps to have another go.

I told Jonathan he should have some fun with his gap, whistling and squirting water through it. Lucy says there's definitely a bit of a lisp going on there and Jonathan himself declared, "it's tricky to speak properly." He can't wait to show all his friends, and I suspect the people on the train tomorrow are going to hear all about it.

On a side note, Jonathan told my brother last week that he loves him very much, so much so, in fact, that he, and the rest of the family, are his third favourite thing. The running order: "trains, Chilli's, then family, and tunnels." I'd say we placed fairly well over all.

Uh oh

In case you haven't heard, there was a bit of a plot underway, involving the destruction of US airliners flying from London to major US destinations. New York, as usual, was top of the list. This one comes a little too close to home, seeing as I'm going to London in just over two weeks, coming back in early September. How soon they were planning to execute this is unclear, but it's quite possible I've just had my life spared. Thank you MI-5. I've been watching the third series of Spooks on DVD this week. Suddenly it's not just entertainment. These are the people who keep us in one piece. Good work, my friends.

I don't intend to change my travel plans, but I am a little rattled at the moment. I'll tell you one thing though. I'm flying on American Airlines this time (one of the airlines that was targeted), but in future I think I'm going to stick to Pakistan Airlines or Royal Jordanian. I figure I should get myself onto an airplane carrying as many Muslims as possible. I'm sorry if that sounds a bit naughty... but think about it!!! And here's another thought. If some fanatic punk decides to blow up the plane I'm on, guess what, it's me** that's going straight to heaven, not him. SO THERE!!!!

**In the interests of humility, I would like to say that I am by no means sure, merely hopeful that I wouldn't go straight to hell. I try. I have much to improve.

I emailed my family yesterday to complain about their lack of interest in my blog and the absence of comments on my posts. According to my site meter, Dad and someone in England, either Mum or Lucy, had a look later in the afternoon. Keep it up!

Then today I received the following message from my charming brother:

"GET STUFFED!!! Will continue to read at monthly intervals in order to leave outdated posts that no one except you will ever see."

I have one thing to say to that: "COBBBLERRRSS!" My brother is such a punk. I love it. He makes me laugh like mad. I was going to go back on my threat to embarass him, but, oh, go on then...

Is he just cute as a button!

For a recap of my exciting Saturday morning, I refer you to the NYCBros.

Jonathan rang me this afternoon to ask a favour, which I duly granted. How could I possibly say no to my baby. Then I was looking at some pictures of my friends, and it got me thinking about what Jonathan will be like when he's all grown up. He'll have girlfriends and jobs and - hopefully - fashion sense. He's got his grandfather's genes so fashion sense is probably a given. I wonder where he'll live. Although Jonathan is concerned about it, I don't think he'll end up in prison, but he could be just about anywhere else. I hope he'll have wonderful friends and lots more crazy Bovee children. Can you imagine... one day I'll a great-auntie!