A pretty cool week.

I got to spend another fun day in London last week, researching and doing interviews for the final two features I had to write for the magazine I've been working on.
On Thursday morning I went to Notting Hill to meet the very talented Nikki Tibbles, founder of floral empire Wild At Heart. Her first shop was at the so-called Turquoise Island on Westbourne Grove, and is little more than a shed-sized building attached to a toilet block. Westbourne Grove has certainly come up in the world since I lived in west London and it was at once alarming and nice to see how much things have changed. Once again I couldn't help noticing the total lack of West Indian people, replaced by those in barbours, oversized sunglasses and expensive cars. While I was waiting for Nikki's photoshoot to finish, I spotted an actress and a model popping in for flowers. Nikki invited me back to her house to do the interview which I was really thrilled about as it meant I got to have a massive perve around her huge house. Her house is like ours - a 4-storey Georgian townhouse - with the slight difference that hers is in Notting Hill, walking distance from Portobello Road and Ladbroke Grove, whereas mine is...well, you know. Anyhoo, the house didn't disappoint, filled with incredible art, furniture and her spectaculat vase collection. Nikki's mantra is that if a vase isn't beautiful enough to stand alone then it has no business having flowers in it. But then she also advocates using jam jars and buckets, so there you go. Once we'd finished our interview and, curiously a pot of rice pudding each, I left her home and wandered through the streets, down to Bayswater where I got the tube to St Pancras. I hadn't visited since the huge renovation turned a rather grim train station into a hotel and home for the Eurostar trains.  There's an incredible glass roof, an oyster bar, some fancy shops and a huge, hideous sculpture of a couple embracing. I must admit I was really disappointed, expecting something more like Madrid's super cool Atocha station that keeps the trains outside and the people and the trees inside. On then to Clerkenwell for a stroll before my second interview with a bloke whose job is advising residential developers on how to incorporate art and culture into the finished project which was really interesting.
We'd been watching all the Sport Relief stuff on telly all week, including the documentary on the extraordinary efforts of my old Manchester Poly mate, comedian John Bishop. His week of hell involved cycling from Paris to Calais in under 24 hours, then rowing across the channel, then running a marathon every day for 3 days until he reached London.
On Sunday Scarlett and I got dressed in our US Halloween costumes for our, admittedly much smaller effort , running The Mile for Sport Relief.  I was really impressed with Scarlett, running much faster and harder than I did. She now wants to do the 5km Race for Life in July and is already talking about doing the 6 mile run for Sport Relief next year.  She raised 272 quid in the end, which I think is pretty good for an 8 year old.

The weather was amazing again yesterday so we walked down to the new Jerwood Gallery on the seafront and met Janice and Roger for lunch on the sun-drenched balcony overlooking the fishing boats. It was pretty perfect.

Florence is 5. Hooray.

 That's my Florence, with her huge brown eyes, impossibly long lashes and happy demeanor. She's our  dancer, our smiling ball of sunshine, our loves-a-cuddle queen. After a hard day of smiling, jumping, dancing and laughing, she likes nothing more than curling up on a lap, like a big cat, thumb in mouth and reaching up behind her to stroke the neck of the lap owner. I can't believe it's 5 years since she burst into our lives. Here she is, enjoying her big day. We started out with the big present opening in bed, in which she kissed each present as she opened it. We spent the morning at the cinema watching the new Muppet movie, followed by a bouncy castle party with 10 mates from school, and then a family dinner at Pizza Express. Happy birthday sweetheart.

Oh I do like to be beside a nuclear power station...

It might sound weird, but Scarlett, Flo and I had a brilliant afternoon at Dungeness, the small spit of land a few miles along the coast from Hastings, that is actually in Kent. Weird because, as well as being home to an eclectic assortment of  beach houses and shacks (including Derek Jarman's, below), a scattering of fishing boats, two lighthouses and a miniature steam railway, it is also the site of Dungeness Nuclear power station.  This monolithic building dominates the flat landscape and provides the backdrop to every view, but there's something really rather beautiful about the desolation and loneliness of the place, that I loved. The sun was shining, the beach was littered with fishermen and we walked and played on the beach, perved at some of the more stylish beach houses and then drove home via Camber Sands for a 99.

Spring!!!!

In the last few weeks spring appeared to arrive, then retreat, but it's back with a vengeance. I dug two new garden beds this week for Scarlett and Flo. Yesterday they planted sunflower and cornflower seeds and I started off my seed potatoes in two sacks on the deck. Flo has been ill for over a week and after a whisper of 'mumps' in the playground, I took her to the doctor on Wednesday with swollen glands and a temperature. Diagnosis - ear infection. Since she's started taking the antibiotics she has improved hugely and is back to her old self. Unfortunately my Dad's chest infection led him to a two night hospital stay, as any small illness sends his blood sugar levels crazy and he feels very unwell.  He is now home and feeling a little better, but is still not the 101% he likes to be.
My writing work on this magazine project is drawing to a close. I now only have four more stories left to write and then I'll help out with the editing. Fortunately, one is on London's luxury spas and on Tuesday I am going to the Chuan Spa at the fabulous Langham Hotel to review a treatment called Indoceane. It lasts two hours and promises to take me on 'the ultimate luxury of a journey to distant continents for total relaxation. To Egypt to bathe in the veil of the precious milk bath. Then to India to release tensions with an energising balm and luxurious massage. In the Chinese step, the entire body is wrapped in sublime silk." Not bad for 180 quid.

Lastly, here's a shot of Flo in school last week when the fuzz came for a visit. All the kids got to dress up in police uniforms and sit in the police car with the lights flashing.

Happy 8th birthday Scarlett

There's my big girl. My first born. The blonde, blue-eyed one who looks like me as a kid, but whose temperament is more like Rob. Whose textbook delivery fooled me into thinking I could go again. She's the one who loves to read, read, read, and write lists and notes and messages and who adores pens, paper and all other office accessories as much as I do. She's the one who can't sit still, can't stop talking, won't stop asking. She makes friends easily, loves school but loves being at home more. She can be old beyond her years, but still needs cuddles when she can get them. Scarlett turned 8 this week, which astonished us just as much as last year and the years before. Her height chart, recorded each year on her birthday, shows she has grown almost 3 inches. She has gone up a shoe size and needs longer trousers, but she's still as lithe, slim and supple as ever. Here she is in her annual jeans and t-shirt shot and a few more pics to show how we celebrated the anniversary of the birth of our darling girl.