Bowler Hat Day

Jeans day for the aids foundation, pink day for the breast cancer foundation, and Bowler Hat Day for Haiti. The English and their charities. Not only doesn't anyone seem to walk a longer distance than tube-home without raising money for a charity, offices do their part too. So for jeans day our head honcho sent round an email suggesting we could wear jeans to the office, if we paid £2 for charity. On pink day you had to pay £3 (partners £10) unless you were wearing something pink. And tomorrow there will be peeps selling bowler hats and bowler hat pins at London Bridge and Leadenhall Market, encouraging office workers to re-live the old days, whilst raising money for SOS Children's World Haiti.

Weekend

Mary is here, the Six Nations are starting and I am about to cook a lovely meal with fresh fish and veg from Borough Market. What more could a girl want?

Dinner with Mugabe

I finally finished the book on Mugabe I was reading. Dinner with Mugabe, by journo Heidi Holland (who jokes her next book will be Out to Lunch with Ahmadinejad). It's a fascinating insight in the transition from freedom fighter to tiran. It doesn't make excuses for what he has become but it tries to understand and explain. At the end of the book, the writer finally manages to interview Mugabe himself. She asks him how he would like to be remembered. His response?
"Just as the son of a peasant family who, alongside others, felt he had a responsibility to fight for his country. And did so to the best of his ability. And was grateful for the honour given him to lead a country and be remembered as one who was most grateful for the honour that the people gave him in leading them to victoria over British emperialism. Yes, for that I want to be remembered."

The man is a total and utter nutcase. But it makes for fascinating reading about the country I so loved when I visited it in 1997.

Snowy Amsterdam

Prinsengracht in the morning
Originally uploaded by Gypsy Saskia

It was effing freezing, it was snowing and it was so slippery I fell three times and still have the bruises to prove it. But it was also dinners with old and current colleagues, lunch with girlfriends, drinks with old friends and sing alongs in Cafe De Twee Zwaantjes. Happy days in the Dam.

Holiday

It's been a whole ten days since I've come back from Oz so it's about bloody time I start planning the next holiday. I think it might just be Malaysia. Few days in KL, week or so in Langkawi. Sightseeing in the city. Week on the beach with a load of books. Now just plan a period, wait for the airlines to release next season's tickets in February and book! In the meantime, Barca and Vienna are on the cards, and I might sneak in a weekend in Bologna too to get my Italy fix.

One of those Mondays

A quiet weekend, and still I woke up feeling not so great. Not ill. Just not so great. I must be coming down with a cold not-so-great. Not ready to go to work not-so-great. And on Mondays with no meetings in my calendar, the solution is easy. So I dropped my bosses a note that I'd be working from home today fighting off a cold.

WFH Mondays are great. I can look like a slob all day in my dressing gown or track suit. Hair is a mess, no make up. Cups of builders tea. Nice lattes. Loads of time for brekkie so I have yogurt with fresh mango, apple and blueberries. I watch the BBC breakfast news, which is not so newsy at all as they have all sorts of actors dropping by promoting their plays and films, while answering emails. I will spend the rest of the day ticking all the things off my to do list and be hugely productive, until it is almost six o'clock, by which I race to the gym for my pilates class assuming I feel all right.

Come Tuesday morning, I will be all relaxed, all prepared, and hopefully cold-free. And ready to face the world, the colleagues, and the office.

Fragonard Soleil

You'd think three different perfumes should be enough to cover all moods and occasions. Then again, you'd think one or two handbags would be sufficient and most women know that is nonsense. However, when a (male) mate commented I could always sell some of my handbags should I lose my job, I decided enough is enough (this was before the Mulberry Alexa came out I must admit). Still, the joy of a nice handbag or nice perfume is a great one. So when I came across a little French shop in Hobart, with beautiful perfume bottles, I was drawn in. Sensible enough not to buy a large bottle when on holiday and in a different mood, I fell for this tiny bottle of Soleil of Fragonard. And now I regret it of course. I loooove the bottle and love the fragrance. I feel prettier and sunnier and girlier when I wear it and imagine people's heads turn to see who's wearing that lovely jasmine scent. This 7ml of heaven in a bottle I will make last as long as possible. To feel good, and to remember that special holiday at the start of the decade-with-no-name (unless that name got sorted in my absence and I completely missed it.