Woohoo! Long weekend coming up. Even longer for me cos we’re going up to Suffolk to see Lee on his birthday on Tuesday. We’ve even bought him presents! Tomorrow Suzy will be here for food and gossip and Sam and John will also be returning from the land of flames and fire to show us their photos and to collect their car. Which reminds me, I must get it out of that ditch I drove it into.

We had a small happening yesterday in the shape of a small, malfunctioning chaffinch. Mum and Dad had first seen him in the gravel garden, not looking too bright and seemingly unperturbed by their close proximity. Then again, that is a trait with the birds in our garden; there was the collared dove that didn’t fly away until Dad had walked right up to it and poked it in the feathers. The chaffinch didn’t seem able to fly, his tail and wings seemed a bit wonky somehow. We gave him some seed from the bird feeder, but he seemed incapable of pecking it up, managing to only peck at the ground next to it. On the few occasions he managed to get a seed into his beak, it wasn’t long before he dropped it again.

Dad rang the RSPCA and they sent a couple of drivers to pick him up. The bird, not Dad. An oldish woman and an oldish man (who quite clearly couldn’t work out how old I was) duly turned up, put the bird in a box and carted him off to Folly Wildlife Rescue.

Yes, it’s that time of year again, when I deprive the slugs of my onions, pull them up and plait them together. The onions that is, not the slugs.

I gathered the not very impressive fruits of my not very impressive labours yesterday. I’m guessing that if I want onions the size of my head, I need to do more than shove the sets in the ground and walk off, saying, “see you in a few months”. I watered them and weeded them (when I really couldn’t put it off any longer) and they’ve presented me with a range of quite small to medium bulbs. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick I’d say.

I collected the onions from the garage between rain showers today and set about cleaning the dried mud and not-so-dried slugs and woodlouse off them. Hell, I even set the D50 up to take a picture of myself doing so. Shall I admit I took my glasses off for the photo, or shall I let you believe I can actually see what I’m doing here?

Ruddy kidney stone started bumping around inside me again last night. It hurt a lot, but at least I got to see my dinner in reverse. That’s always a treat. I went to the doc’s today and had a very helpful and thorough appointment with him. He’s written to the consultant to expedite the appointment for removing this damn thing. I discovered from a letter from the consultant to my GP that the stone is 1cm, which is roughly the size of a piece of gravel, and rather than simply going in to retrieve it, it’s going to be broken down with lasers. for those without a ruler to hand, I provide this handy comparison of a 1cm lump of gravel with a petit pois. Admittedly, this may mean nothing to the less culinary-minded among you. Go and buy a ruler. Let us be clear though, that this is not my kidney stone. But yes, should I pass it and catch it, it will be showcased here! On that, my friend, you may count.

For now, I can just top up on co-codamol when pain strikes. The doc also wants me to do a 24 hour urine collection, so I’ve been provided with an enormous plastic container in which I must collect a day’s worth of wee (only my own). This will then be sent off for analysis, or just tipped on someone’s prize-winning dahlias. Could be either. Oh, and I’ve got to have a blood test too, to check on levels of madness. And possibly calcium.

Kids stare/point/laugh at me and sometimes I have to walk them into walls to teach them a lesson. But then there are the little kids, such as the little boy last week, who just make me laugh with their lack of comprehension. Yesterday, I was in Boots in Tunbridge Wells with Mum, doing a bit of shopping. That’s a lie. All the Garnier wipes had gone, so I was wandering aimlessly. Anyway, yes, I was in Boots and as I passed by a little girl, I heard her muttering to her mother, but couldn’t be sure whether she was referring to me. It was only when I was a little distance away that I heard her tell her Mum, “Look, it’s an oompa loompa … there!”

Mum, Dad and I went to Karen’s this morning to admire their new conservatory and the bits and pieces done to the house since we were last there. I took my D50 - I must get a proper bag for it - and took photos while Mum and Dad showed Karen the photos from their trip to Bruges.

I managed to get out into the garden for a few minutes during a break in the rain, but the heavens were, on the whole, open during our visit. Still, it gave me some interesting shots of raindrops on the window and the rain splashing on the garden furniture.

Sarah #2 arrived home from a sleepover while we were there. She’d been up late watching Grease for what was possibly the seven billionth time, but there were no reports of Enid Blytonesque midnight feasts. I tried it a few times with friends from primary school. However, there was one time when the alarm roused neither me nor Sophie and so we had our “feast” at 4.07am, when I woke up for no apparent reason. Better late than never. But I’m just not sure you get the full effect unless you’re drinking ginger beer and you’ve been saving a pot of anchovy paste for the occasion, tucked away behind your lacrosse kit.

Sam and John are currently holidaying in Portugal - one assumes they haven’t been flambéed.

Photos on Flickr

Last night was good - went out to dinner at Wagamama with Lauren, Helen and Suzy. As we couldn’t reserve a table and it was a Friday, Suzy and I tried to get there a little early, but Lauren still beat us to it, despite coming from further afield. She called me as we were parking to let me know she was going to grab us a table.

On our way from the multi-storey to the restaurant, Suzy and I witnessed the first delight of the evening: man peeing against building. It wasn’t yet 8pm, but the beer can in his one free hand was obviously not his first. Another guy, further down the road and not visible to us, started yelling at Mr Peeing Man for not using the toilet that was a few metres away. A gruff yelling match ensued, mostly unintelligible - although I swear the peeing man shouted “Chelsea” at one point.

We scurried across the road, endeavouring not to make eye contact with this guy, and made our way to the restaurant, where we found Lauren waiting for us inside. We sat down and ordered our drinks and waited for Helen. Turning up still before the originally agreed time of 8pm, Helen was not amused to find that, despite being early, she was still last to arrive - sorry! :)

I’d brought my D50 with me and showed it off, before starting to annoy the crap out of everyone for the rest of the evening by taking photos constantly. I’d filled my 512mb card by the end of the evening - although a lot will be chucked as they’re unflattering or out of focus. The camera did pretty well in the low light. I turned it to automatic and switched the flash off and let it sort out its own aperture and shutter speed. It also helped that the table was at the perfect height to rest my elbow on in an attempt to keep steady. I promised everyone that I wouldn’t bring the camera every time; although it’s nice to document evenings out, taking that many photos, I did find that I tuned out of the conversation a little now and again.

Having studied the menus a while, we placed our orders. I had yasai yaki soba and a side dish of duck gyoza with sweet hoi sin sauce. I didn’t register that this would be the same sauce as you get in a Chinese restaurant with crispy duck pancakes until Lauren said, “You just got that for the sauce, didn’t you?!”. And as she had missed the trip to Sun Do restaurant, Helen was then treated to the story of how I tend to clean up all the leftover hoi sin sauce with my finger once all the duck, cucumber and pancakes have gone.

It was quite hot in the restaurant and, as you will see from the photos, it became apparent that this was down to the enormous flames just a few feet from us. The food was all being cooked over to our left, but we couldn’t see much because of the half-height dividing wall. But we could see the enormous flames.

I enjoy eating out much more now I’ve made my peace with the fact that I won’t ever clear my plate, I just need to eat what I (comfortably) can. But I was still quite impressed with the expert way in which Lauren cleared her plate almost before we’d picked up our cutlery. I was the only one with a noodle dish last night, the others had rice, so I think I was the only one using chopsticks. Unless you count Helen running hers through her hair as “use”.

As always happens when the four of us get together, we talked and talked and talked. We’d finished our desserts (wild berry sorbets for three and mango lolly for Helen) and sat there with our various recepticles of green teas, coke and water and gossiped as the restaurant emptied and the staff started to clean up. A tall waiter approached and asked, “is everything alright?”. Yes, thank you, we said, with Helen adding “we’re not leaving!” as he walked away.

One of the things to come up in conversation was how deaf we - at least Helen, Suzy and I - are. A little later, Lauren said something. I didn’t catch what it was, but didn’t say anything as I was used to this being the case. I was then relieved and very amused to see both Suzy and Helen lean in quizzically and ask, “what?”.

Before we went , Helen and I went to spend a penny upstairs. However, we were making each other laugh so much that we couldn’t “concentrate” and had to give up on what we went to do. Outside the cubicles was an artistic collection of willow twigs, maybe five or six feet long, in a container. Naturally we grabbed one each and had a quick fencing match. As all grownups do.

So that was Japan on our culinary tour. Where next?

Photos on flickr

The D50 turned up yesterday, was thrust into my hands by the courier, who said, “with love from Amazon” and then shot off, without giving me anything to sign. DHL are still investigating as everything should be signed for. The replacement camera from Amazon is now also on its way to me, but interestingly, the Parcelforce tracking for that one currently says “Undeliverable - insufficient / incorrect address”. Is it simply that all courier drivers are in need of a good digital camera nowadays?!

Anyway, it’s here and within a few shots, I was already taking fabulous photos - that is, once I’d figured out how to get the neck strap attached to the camera. The automatic setting is amazing, you just point and shoot and the camera goes all suave and says, ‘Ok, I’ll focus on this bit and throw the rest out of focus …. how’s that?’ And you promptly fall down in tongue-lolling admiration of the camera and yourself.