We went for a picnic in St. James's Park yesterday and took my camera for a walk . Picked up lunch in the Sainsburys "Market" at Victoria and strolled through the park, waved at the Queen (she wasn't in) and trundled up to Piccadilly Circus. (Flickr versions here.)

Lunch was a nice French flute with brie, duck pate, a couple of chicken kebabs - one marinaded in sweet chilli and one in hickory sauce - and a pile of olives. After that, we wandered through St. James's Park, back up to Buckingham Palace and through into Green Park then on up to Piccadilly, via a detour through Jermyn Street, finally ending up on Wimpole street for a glass of Guinness in The Toucan. As if that wasn't enough delight for the senses for one day, we rounded it off with dinner in Steff's (small, bijou little place covered in pink flamingoes and very gay - specialities include SPAM salad, amongst more "normal" dishes.). ]]> London totkat 2007-04-01T15:54:11+00:00 http://www.totkat.org/mt/archives/000996.html So I got a new phone, free (in as far as these things are ever free), from Orange; a Nokia 6300 It's rather nice, I must say. Dinky, slim, metal. It feels bloody heavy compared with my old phone, though Nokia say it is 1g lighter *shrug*. Claimed battery life is 14 days standby... let's see shall we?

It's a bit less "fashion" than my old phone (Nokia 7360 from the "Amour" range) and feels a lot less girly. Not sure how I feel about that. And trading infra-red for Bluetooth. Again, not sure about that. Shame Nokia don't supply connectivity software for Macs as well. It'd be nice to use my phone effectively with my MacBook.

Conversely, I do see the wobbly bits that are left and think, "that shouldn't be there". But I suspect that's the part of my brain that has been conditioned by the media that women should be tall, excessively slim and with legs that go on forever. In that, I am oddly comforted by the fact that my CEO this week commented that I was quite tall. Maybe I look taller than I used to because I'm now less wide?

Still. I bought a dress today. A small and (relatively) cheap one. Thing is, when I looked it up on the shop web site to see what it is supposed to look like (on a model), apart from there being no naffing picture of it, it says it is a top. (I'm sure it's the right thing because these shops give their clothes names.) *boggle* It has a tie waist and comes down to my knees. I don't get it.

Now, of course being not all that up on The Fashion, I feel both silly and confused. But after a little research, I find that the "tunic dress" is supposed to be the next big thing. Allegedly. So, I'm calling this garment I've just bought a tunic dress and that's the end of it.

I really do rather like my new camera. It takes a good photo, I think. I'm particularly enamoured of the lines and reflections in this one (taken inside City Hall on Sunday).]]> Photography totkat 2007-02-05T23:00:25+00:00 http://www.totkat.org/mt/archives/000991.html So, I bought a Canon 400D with a 17-85mm f4/5.6 IS USD lens. And I played with it a bit today... annoyingly, I upgraded Gallery yesterday and it's stopped being able to see ImageMagick, so isn't re-sizing apart from creating thumb-nails. So I need to fiddle a bit there some other time (edit:- actually it was me being thick and uploading the wrong thing, should be better now). Of course, I could always start using my Flickr account.

It was a very cold day in town today. We walked along the South Bank from Waterloo to the GLA building and stopped in for a look around, seeing as it was Open Weekend there.

For now... rugby on the telly.

Work is... worky. I might be getting an extra 3+1 minions soon, which will take me up to 20 in total. Still so much to be done and changed, but at least I'm not doing Problem Management as well as my real job so I can actually concentrate on getting Things done.

Cruel, Clever Cat

Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

And in other news, we're trying to engage an architect to do some clever idea proposals for us for the house. There are things we'd like to do, but no ideas about details and what will actually be possible without spending more than just an arm and a leg. It's a big project to us, but... no response from RIBA yet.

An ball. In Putney. Many photos here, but I can't grab out the relevant ones of us. (If you use the clicky arrow buttons - #21, #52 and #99 have one or both of us in them. Oddly if you use the right hand navigation its #21, #53 and #102.)

Still need more excuses to wear my dress, of course.

Stunned rabbits?    ]]> Random totkat 2006-12-21T22:55:46+00:00 http://www.totkat.org/mt/archives/000500.html but FFS; headlines like "Leona becomes first female to win X-Factor"... FEMALE WHAT? English has some perfectly good words to use; woman, lady, girl, wench, bint...

Photos from J's Christmas party. Ones of me I don't completely loathe; unheard of! The first one in the set, I didn't even notice being taken, which probably helps.

The event was a lot less outrageous than last year's, but still plenty of champagne. Which was nice. There was a pub quiz and our table's team came second, probably only because we were all too young to get some of the film questions ;o) ]]> Random totkat 2006-12-13T11:45:08+00:00 http://www.totkat.org/mt/archives/000498.html (WARNING:- 34MB AVI in link.)

Saks of 5th Avenue had a pretty Christmas light show (every 15 minutes or so from 16:15 to 21:45) with music and everything. The video doesn't do it justice (taken on an oldish Canon compact digital camera with minimal video capability); the sound was rich, full and very bassy. Crowd-stopping, it was. The sidewalks were full and barely moving on both sides of the street. I'm sure that kind of thing wouldn't be allowed in London...