The Warrington

Friday 27th: I stopped by the mighty Warrington pub in Maida Vale on the way home for a quick drink with Jerry. I've wanted to have a look at it for ages as it's recently been bought and restored by Gordon Ramsay.

I used to go there with my old friend Jason, about 15 years ago, before he left for Hong Kong.

It's a truly magnificent example of a late Victorian pub. Further work was done to it after 1900 when the extravagant art noveau mosaics and plaster work were added. Wish I'd taken more pictures but lost my nerve.

Georgi

Georgi is back with us for 2 weeks and it's really lovely to see her again.

Each time we see her, she's a little more mature and calmer. We're determined that this visit that we'll crack the integration with the cats with a strict 'carrot and stick' regime and she's already responding well.

Hopefully the cats will also stick up for themselves more, they only need to give Georgi a hiss and she backs off. Josie is predictably, the bravest with her and Putty the scariest.

These pictures of Georgi, looking absolutely adorable, were taken at 7.00 this morning whilst we were playing in the garden.

The wonderful mind within my Ipod that selects which tunes get shuffled was on tremendously eclectic form this morning, as I rode into work.

1. Offenbach - Gaite Parisienne, The Can Can
2. The Orb - Asylum
3. The Killers - My List
4. Bentley's Rhythm Ace - Mind the Gap
5. Amy Winehouse - Addicted
6. Massive Attack - Heat Miser
7. Visage - Fade to Grey
8. The Flaming Lips - One More Robot
9. Miles Davis - Flamenco Sketches

It sounds really pompous but hearing the Miles Davis track, from the 'Kind of Blue' album, felt almost like a spiritual experience. It's sublime beauty, constructed with such spare economy, is haunting and can easily point to some kind of divine intervention. Each musician plays an equal contribiution to the authorship of the whole so I checked on Google to see who they were; John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley on saxophones, Bill Evans on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums.

Hydrangea Bush

Thursday: on my usual Thursday morning walk through Tufnell Park, I came across this glorious hydrangea bush which filled me with tremendous envy. I want a big hydrangea bush SO much.

I aslo passed this rather lovely vintage Ferrari.

Ibs made this fantastic noodle stir fry dinner the other night. Putting the picture here will hopefully remind me to make sure she makes it again. She always makes wondeful things which we end up forgetting and don't get made again.

Street Art

Tuesday: at Tate Modern for a meeting and took a few snaps of these huge, magnificent images on the front of the building, created for the 'Street Art' exhibition.
The artists are, and I'm not sure which one is who, Blu from Bologna, Italy; the artist collective Faile from New York, USA; JR from Paris, France; Nunca and Os Gêmeos, both from São Paulo, Brazil and Sixeart from Barcelona, Spain.

This is how they look from St Paul's, image from Google.

Planet Terror

Monday. Popped round to Jerry's in Maida Vale for a Mediocre Movie Monday. This is what we do if we get together on a Monday, we watch a film that has to be something we wouldn't normally watch on our own or with wives or girlfriends. This means the film should really be quite bad but actually ends up being quite good.

Last night we watched Robert Rodriguez' 'Planet Terror', his spoof of low budget, drive-in, zombie movies. A really, fun and enjoyable film and far better the Tarrentino's 'Death Proof'.

Both films were shown together in the States as a double bill called 'Grindhouse' but it's failure at the box office meant they were shown separately in the UK.

Jerry made homemade burgers and I cycled home just after 10.00.

Summer Solstice

Sunday. Actually the solstice was yesterday meaning that now, everyday is getting shorter than the previous day, a really grim thought.

I finished painting the kitchen, wrote my blog twice, got in a bit of time to read the Observer in the garden.

Ibs made a delicious fruit pie and for dinner I made roast chicken with roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips and spinach. We watched the 2nd part of the brilliant documentary about Quincy Jones. What an absolute genius! And afterwards, started to watch the film 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'. A magnificent film, sumptuously shot by Roger Deakins. It's a very slow burning movie and we'll watch the 2nd part, later in the week.

The cats seem to be sensing the tle One inside Ibs' tummy. We keep waking to find either Putty or Josie lying on top of her tummy, with another one very close by. I'm sure her tummy must feel warmer than normal but I really like to think they can feel some kind of connection and are being somehow, protective, even maternal? Either way, it's very adorable and sweet to wake up to us all (cats, Ibs, Little One and I) all cosy and snug together.

This was Ibs' wonderfully expanding tummy, yesterday evening.

Kitchen and Nursery

Saturday. I spent a couple of hours today on the blog and lost the whole lot with an accidental knock of the keyboard. So here's my second attempt.

Beatrice and Denis left at 7.30 of Saturday morning to head up to Yorkshire to see Thomas. After they went I started work decorating the kitchen. Ibs went out to the hairdresser for round two of her new cut and colour (I love her new cut and on top of her pregnant glow, she's looking looking fantastic). Adam, one of Paul's Polish workmen, came round and finished stripping the wallpaper in the old dialysis room, the new nursery.

This weekend has been a very rare one with nothing to take me away from the house, apart from a few round trips to Tesco. We caught up on 3 films we'd recorded that have been shown again on More4, part of their Peter Kosminsky season. They were; 'The Government Inspector', 'No Child of Mine' and 'Warriors'. I can't think of any finer examples of British produced TV drama in recent years and they are as remarkable, harrowing and moving as anything I've seen in any media for a very long time.

Decorating the kitchen enabled me to catch up on a very big backlog of music, that I've been trying to find the time to listen to for ages. It turned out to be a very rich seam and has revitalised my interest in new music and made me hungry to seek out more. Here's what I listened to, roughly in order of how good I think it is.

Roisin Murphy - Overpowered

Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue

Mint Royale - See you in the Morning

Vampire Weekend - Vampire WeekendLaura Maling - Alas, I Cannott SwimCansei der Ser Sexy - CSS

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Spiritualized - A&E

Foals - Antidotes

Wallpaper

The day finally arrived for the wallpaper hanging. Our friend Sarah volunteered to help us but in the end actually put it up all by herself. It took about 3 hours, with a pause for my fish pie for dinner. Ibs had been extremely sceptical about the design, Sarah had been too polite to comment but my choice was vindicated when it was all up and Ibs and Sarah love it, as I do.

Beatrice and Denis are stopping over tonight, on their way to Yorkshire. Tomorrow I'm going to start painting the kitchen and we've also got one of Paul's men in to work on Little One's room.

Cy Twombly

Went to 1st night of the Cy Twombly retrospective at Tate Modern with Ibs, Stephen, Pete and Karen. I really enjoyed the show and is significant for Pete, Stephen and I as we went together, 20 years ago, to see the last big show he had in the UK at the Whitechappel, also curated by Nicholas Serota.
Twombly made a huge impression on me back then, although the impact of his work on me now has diminished, they are still hugely likable and enjoyable paintings. Shame about the awful sculptures.

We all went on afterwards for a Turkish meal at Tas.

Ranos Tuesday

3 fantastic episodes and the hottest food we've ever eaten.
We're mid way through Series 4, Tony's killed Ralph after acusing him of killing his horse, Christopher's descending into Heroin addiction and sat on Adriana's 'dawg'! Camella is falling for Federico and Uncle Junior fell down the steps at his trial and is now faining Alzheimer's. Could it get any better?

I avoided drinking for the 1st time, to Stephen and Mark's displeasure and we ate a delivered Thai meal, which was incredibly hot. Mark and Stephen ate ice cubes afterwards and Stephen commented this morning that his 'bowel movements have been like many salmon leaping through hoops of fire'.

Week 16

I woke up with butterflies in my stomach and couldn't get back to sleep from the anxiety about today's hospital visit and the results of all Ibs' blood and urine tests. I was convinced there must be a problem and the ride to St Mary's was nerve racking. I braced myself for the worst when the Midwife took out her file but to my enormous relief everything couldn't have better with Ibs and the Little One. The test are so comprehensive and thorough but everything was as it should be and everything's good, 'in all possible worlds'.
We were desperate for another scan but the receptionist said no and said 'you just got to let the baby cook' which I really liked. However the midwife asked if we wanted to listen to Little One's heart and we both screamed we would!
A little rummaging with the device over Ibs' tummy and Little One's heart was located and was booming through the microphone, loud and clear. It was a powerful, fast paced beat and the most lovely sound in the world. We both felt such enormous relief and sheer happiness that the results were good and that heart beat is drumming - fast and furious. We both had a good cry and felt so good afterwards.
Everyone is lovely at St Mary's, we talked about bikes with the Spanish male Midwife we spoke to last time and everyone there makes the place feel happy, efficient and confident. The blood test nurse is particularly lovely, in a mature Eastern European way, she's just like Madame Souza in Belleville Rendezvous. She looks at Ibs in the eye when she takes blood, explains what she's doing and how she is NOT to worry about anything. She's brilliant.
Just got to try and wait until 27th July for the next scan. I'm already thinking about filming it so in year's to come, Little One will be able to see him/herself moving in Mummy's tummy. Wouldn't that be cool?