Hypatia Avenue

"At the moment, I feel very strong yet light."

Ah, such are the benefits of contemporary dance and pilates (and a bit of yoga). I've been talking to the lovely and unmindful Jojou who is writing in his delightful blog about living in a natural rhythm - something I am longing to do as London suddenly seems... weird in springtime. There should be more bird song, more leaves on trees, more pleasant, soft breezes carrying the smell of the earth warming up and waking... I just smell traffic and hear car alarms. And I spend all day staring at this computer screen, feeling an itch in all my joints to get up and run around, feeling - at last! - the sun on my hair and on my face. It's not going to happen in Zone 1.

On Monday, Former Flatmate A called me at work to let me know she was in the BBC Radio Studios in Brighton with a sound engineer at the ready to do some recording and did I have a few minutes to answer some questions on fanfiction? It was all tremendously exciting, me crouched in the corridor outside the office with my mobile phone and some notes, talking away about one of my favourite ever literary subjects... this will be included in a piece Former Flatmate A is putting together for BBC World Service - there will be endless plugs on this blog when it is ready and scheduled for broadcast, trust me. Woo!

How did I get involved in all this? Well, dear Former Flatmate A is now re-located on the South Coast, learning how to be a journalist and I went to visit her for the weekend hoping to catch up with Former Flatmate B too who was briefly stationed out there training to be A Doctor - but she was on her way to New York to be with the Lawyer Boyfriend and so I missed her. Boo. But! Old chum and Former University Housemate Vixen has also re-located to the South Coast and we had a jolly catch-up, we three old friends, in an extraordinarily noisy pizza place and then a rather lovely courtyard of a bar. Nice. During my visit, Former Flatmate A arranged some recording time and talked over what she was planning for her radio piece and I got on board and off we went... I'm proud and pleased for her, and rather pleased for myself too. Woo!

I'm about to go to see my bro and my folks to test the Pilot Birthday Cake currently hogging their fridge. It's a prototype cake for the joint birthday cake we're to expect in May, for my bro and me, created by a Big Time French Pastry Chef to the Stars who happens to be a good friend of my bro-in-law.

I'm double-booked, actually: I've had an invite to see the fiancee of a post-grad friend do another runny mascara, multilingual, accordion-bashing and foot-stamping jazz gig on a barge in Battersea: I was quite emotionally drained after the last gig I went to which I'm not prepared for in this week of my upbeat mood but will definitely be there for the next one. Anyone interested in coming along? Email me and we'll soak up some sounds... nice. Smooth. Yeah...

Another invite I had this evening which I am turning down in order to consume lots of cake and have dinner cooked for me by my folks is from dear Taxloss who is playing table football with the people who put together the luscious Icon Magazine. Sorry I'm not going - I just can't do ball sports, even the table top kind.

Ahhh. It's been a busy and interesting time for me. I'm telling you, friends: I ain't nothing if not well-connected. Yeah.