I'm on the train to King's Cross right now, arriving in London in about 2 1/2 hours. It's a holiday in England today, "May Day" bank holiday. I have no idea what it's supposed to be celebrating, really (much like Labor Day in America, which is a day that's all about not working), but I'm not one to turn my nose at a free day off work. My computer is really open so I can work on my resume, which I will be doing for a good hour at least. I've got a cheese scone, a muffin, some really nice cheddar, and some water in my bag, but I'm not the least bit hungry as of yet since I've had another huge breakfast (bacon and scrambled eggs on toast plus lovely thick yogurt). My suitcase itself is overhead, and it's become very heavy, what with the beer, lemon drizzle loaf, and antique plates in it - but it was heavy beforehand anyway as I've got several books in it. As it turned out, we had great weather this weekend so I spent almost no time reading at all.

The landscape rolling by is full of sheep and horses. There are lambs everywhere. The horses seem to be of a much heavier stock than I'm used to seeing - probably better suited to the weather up here. It really is quite a bit colder than it is in London up north.

I wound up reading the "Little House on the Prairie Cookbook" this weekend and it has got me thinking: I really could make my own cheese. I'd have a hard time getting a cooling room set up, but I just bet I could do it. Maybe in the fall I'll check it out; my house gets really cold and the guest room is probably the perfect temperature for aging cheese properly.

After a day that was actually a little more than stumbling from one meeting to the next (hey! I went to volunteer training for a program where I'm going to help elementary school kids to speak French! and I did an employee review! and I made Emergency Stuff happen! and I did Coordination because we're understaffed and have more work than we have people!), I went to Soho to meet up with my friend Josela for dinner at Assa, a dumpy little Korean restaurant in that strip behind Centerpoint. Now, Josela is a GREAT person to have dinner with, because he likes the hot stuff, including Korean, which about nobody else I know likes. And we went balls to the wall with the hot stuff; rice dumplings with chile sauce; sauteed pork belly with tofu and more chile paste than you can shake a stick at; beef bulgogi with rice; more beef with mixed vegetables; pickled seaweed; bean sprouts with sesame oil; kimchee; and we ate it all. And the grand total was just under 30 quid. We will be back, and we WILL have hot pot.

Afterwards we went over to Josela's apartment and chatted and finally packed up the Mexican food goodies he'd had shipped over her for me ... AND the huge box of tea I'd ordered from the Perennial Tea room that he'd brought in his luggage back from Seattle. What a champ! We were just running out of almost every kind of tea I have so this is a huge relief.

On my way back home I was feeling so excited about a world in which people randomly invite me to go out for dinner after work. God, I like living here. And now I'm sitting in my living room eating some fantastic cheese wechsler brought back from France for me (Coulommiers, for those of you that speak Cheese), and life seems good. Yep, I bet I'm nearly over with this cold. Tomorrow: why Proust is like Star Wars, and a day of training in Sutton. It hardly gets better than this.

Now: back to the cheese!

Look at the picture accompanying this New York Times article about ricotta - and you will see what I'm having for dinner. (Note to vegetarians - this could be easily made without bacon.)

This is frustrating. I need to get some things done before my uncle comes in (or I wanted to) and without an internet connection I'm stuck. That said, I still went and did fun things that didn't require a computer last night: in this case, dinner at bathtubgin's house. I must figure out her salad dressing recipe, although I'm not going to use my Modena balsamic vinegar to make it.

Proust is up to page 266 (he's riding the train with his girlfriend and playing with her head). I'm going to take a break from reading him for a week and get through Kage Baker's The Sons of Heaven so that I can send it on to thewronghands when shadowdaddy heads to the States next week. I've been waiting to finish this series since summer 2000, when I first read In the Garden of Iden. I bet I'll have it done before Saturday, time with uncle aside.

For the record: the Queijo de Azeitao Quinta do Viso Grande cheese we picked up in the airport in Lisbon is quite good, like a brie but without the moldy skin. Yum!

Oh, and my uncle is coming to visit us for a week, arriving tonight at St. Pancras. I won't be around as much online, though I will certainly be seeing the usual complement of shows. Now is the start of holiday madness for me!

Despite getting in bed at a reasonable time, I was exhausted when I woke up this morning. I'm guessing I slept poorly or something - not sure what the problem was, though I had bad dreams in which people tore out the walls of my house to make it into a bar and then one in which my dog had his paw nailed to the floor with a spike by some mean person. My walk was pleasant, but I still just don't feel very good. I was coughing too much to make it through a meeting (one that required I talk a lot) yesterday and my throat still hurts. I've brought in another pile of ginger/lemon tisane bags, so hopefully I can work on my throat even if I can't fix the exhaustion and congestion.

Last night I was practically delirious by 8 PM - I couldn't focus, and I inadvertently bought a "double sheet set" when I was trying to buy pillowcases from Woolworths (oops). I never really read anything, just stumbled from one end of the apartment to another, making some food (Kraft macaroni and cheese, one of the magic boxes I brought with me from home), washing dishes, hanging up a few clothes, trying to remember why I was standing in front of the bookshelves. I didn't get home until late - I only made it to Putney at a quarter 'til 7 and discovere that most of the high street shops were getting ready to close (or had already done so) and made a panicked sweep throught the Woolworth's so I didn't get stuck without an alarm clock again. Then I went to the ... grocery store ... starts with a W ... er, the Yankee Hotel "Foxtrot," where I did my best to fill in the alimentary shortages of my kitchen without having a brain to assist me.

While shopping, I did get a call from shadowdaddy, who wanted to let me know his visa had been approved. There is now nothing to keep him from moving here and joining me and starting a whole new life in England. He started crying and I wasn't sure if he was happy or sad but I felt really bad that I wasn't there to give him a hug and tell him how excited I was for him and how happy I was for myself. Instead I stood in front of the cheese section and read off the options that would soon be his. "Double Gloucester ... Red Leicester ... Stilton and Cranberry ... Stilton and Pineapple ..." This made him laugh. Yay! I still know how to distract him.

I personally was distracted when I walked in front of the Wall of Cider. So many options ... I'm afraid I am prone to choose books by their cover, for I bought a bottle of the Black Fox Cider becaue it had the best label. Yum. I want to go through and try a bottle of every single variety that store carries. If only I could have fit more into my shopping basket ... but I was already at the limit of what I could carry home. I'll just have to go back ... over and over and over again.

Found some lovely Port Salut cheese and something else yummy (Parrano? -it's Spanish, and, of course, they're both from Trader Joe's) in the fridge. Had them with crackers (and a bowl of grapes) as a late night snack. They were a lovely accompaniment to some hot cider (with rum in it, of course). I ate them and drank and read Tableaux Vivants (since I was disgusted with all of my other books) and paid bills, and that was the rest of my Saturday night. Ooh baby!

I'd like to complain about two of the books I've started reading this week. One, Living with Cannibals and Other Women's Adventures, was billed as the thrilling true-life tales of globe-trotting adventuresses of yore. Alas, it appears to be written at an eighth grade level and is putting me to sleep. I will be giving this away soon; any takers? It would be perfect reading for the can, but mine is already well stocked with fine catalogues and last week's Stranger. The second, Furies of Calderon, is by Jim Butcher, the man whose Harry Dresden mystery novels I've been enjoying so much. Now I'm convinced he's a hack. Page 12 and I'm bored. This and its successor are coming off of my wish list stat. Thank God this one was from the library and didn't cost me anything!

Shockingly, a book I started earlier in the week is proving a total treat: Every Night, Josephine! It's by Jacqueline Susann and it's the story of her love affair with her poodle. Now, she's no Steinbeck (who wrote about his own poodle in Travels with Charley), but she's such a charming ignoramus about dogs and her voice is SO incredibly strong that I'm finding it a total treat to read. It's rather like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in that respect, only GPB was deliberately making fun of itself and I can't tell if JS has any idea she's a moron. I loved the harsh vision of Valley of the Dolls, which I read as a tale from a time when women really did have very limited choices and the interactions we had with men were so much more heavily structured by society. But reading this book makes the concept of "the little lady" so much more ... painful. At any rate, I'm getting a huge kick out of it, whatever my reasons, and this little Ebay purchase is making my reading time joyful. I'd love to have something a little more meaty, but, hey! That copy of Absalom, Absalom is right there any time I feel like picking it up again, where it's been sitting for about a year waiting for my attention, and Josephine is likely to be finished in about two days and then quickly making the rounds of my book loving friends. Sorry, Dead White Guy with a Really Labored Style! Sometimes you just can't win.

I dreamed last night I was staying in my grandmother's apartment and we got a visit from a building security guard. "Gas stove not leaking, check ... taps in the bathroom off, check ..." He then stood by the patio door, sniffing, then walked over to the dining room table and looked under it. "I think you might have had a skunk sneak into your apartment," he told us.

"Oh, that," I said, "I think it's just the cheese."

I will have to figure out what to do with it. Anyone local fancy a half pound of stinky cheese?