My dad's retirement dinner was last night. It was all fine, except I pulled a couple of deadweights as table companions. On my left, the guy who spent the first 10 minutes telling me to get my dad to write down all his memories asap (implication: he's retired, ergo he'll die soon). On my right, one of those doctor/science types who deals only in facts and has no soul. Ah well. One of my dad's friends and colleagues gave a really lovely speech about him, and my dad's was really sweet, too. I felt so proud of him. We came back here and toasted him with champagne.

Yesterday, before the dinner, Ted and I went to Steyning, a really pretty Sussex village with lots of timbered buildings and a smashing Norman church. We'd been led to believe by our guidebook (Sussex Top Tens OMG They Rock!) that the carvings were pretty cool, and the guidebook was right. (Unlike the tea rooms in Ditchling a few weeks ago, which were L-A-M-E.) We had the most lovely picnic on the green, and he bought me an owl teapot in a charity shop ^_^

Today, we went for a walk in the wood, and I spotted a deer! It's the first time we've seen a deer here in daylight. The bluebells in the wood were fully out, and were breathtaking - quite literally, too, as they smell so good.

I'm sorry I'm not posting much during the week, and I'm especially sorry I'm not commenting. I don't have any Internet access aside from work, and work is really hectic. I've been doing a lot of writing about online communities, and have emails from Mahir "I Kiss You!" Cagir and Peter Pan Man to show for it. They both sound very nice, if a little scary. But I'd rather be talking to you. ^_^ I'm really hoping to sort something out so I can at least catch up on your posts during the week.

Anyway, I hope you all had nice weekends too - and I kiss you. xoxoxox

*collapses in a heap*

High and low culture
Last week, Lisa and I went to see DBC Pierre, author of Vernon God Little, give one of those Guardian talks. It was quite good, and we both agreed he was quite hot. There was a very strange collection of people there, and they all looked like Guardian readers with the possible exception of us. Then we decided we'd had quite enough culture, so we went back to hers for kebabs, beer and I'm a Celebrity. Nice juxtaposition, huh?

He ain't heavy
Met up with little brother on Thursday, who seems very happy. We had nice Chinese food and then we all went home to our respective beds nice and early. This was a good thing, because...

We want to have a good time - away baby, let's go!
...on Friday we went to see Primal Scream at Brixton, which seemed to involve cocktails first, then Thai curry, then large quantities of beer. We got to the second row (well, Ted and Martin and I did - Lisa was more sensible) and it was splendid. By the end, we had been utterly destroyed by rock music and the mosh, and I have some wonderful bruises. At that point, we tried to find people in Brixton but they were out, so we taxi'd back to Stokie where the Jolly Butchers disco awaited us - splendidly, they had the cricket on, so we danced and drank there, then Lisa and I sang "KP to the boun-da-ree!" all the way home via the kebab shop. We stayed up watching the cricket until about 5, when we all fell asleep on the sofa.

Four for tea...
Yesterday was lovely, 'cause Ted and I drove over to Midhurst to see littlebun and gleet - we met up for lunch/tea at Ye Olde Tea Shoppe, which was exactly as you might imagine. The sandwiches and scones were superb, although I have to admit, I was rather disappointed gleet passed on the jam tart and custard 'cause it looked really yummy and I was planning to steal a bit. We walked and talked of many things, mainly last.fm, bunnies and dolls.

Grr! Argh!
Today I have been wrestling with CSS for Ted's site. The layout's so simple, it really shouldn't be this hard. But I think I might be there, although I much prefer doing the pretty bit in PhotoShop first. Thank heavens for Molly, Andy and online template libraries.

Whatever the weather...
It's been really windy here - and rainy - and pretty grey. Still, it's December (anyone else a bit taken aback by that?) which is always nice.

(Now I'm off to cross stitch, which invariably seems to make me cross. Is that the point?)