London, Day 9 I know, I know. I have a couple of days of catching up to do. When I wrote my previous entry, I *was* really hungover. But, I don't understand why. I left the production company with my friend J, who works there (he's the really tall guy in the pictures from the pub night I linked to earlier). He had kindly agreed to host a dinner party for me, and I left early with him to help prepare all the food. We stopped at Tescos to get the last remaining things we needed and then off to his sweet house in Brixton that he shares with 4 other people. He prepared really excellent Spainish food. It's amazing how tasty things can be using only a few ingredients. Chicken wings. Chorizo. Peas and chorizo. Meat balls. And the best: Toast some bread, take a ripe tomato and slice it in half, rub it's juices all over the bread, drizzle really good olive oil on it, and add a bit of salt if you want. So freakin' good. I helped prepare the toast. So, I guess I had a lot of time to drink wine. My friend B and I were the last to leave (it was well after 1:00 a.m.). Like the bread, I was toasted. Totally. They poured me into the cab that B and shared, me to my hotel and then B to his flat in Bethnal Green. I had a bit of a walk to my hotel from where the cab let me off and it took all my concentration *not to stagger*. Back in my room, I drank a ton of water, had lots of ibuprofen, and fell asleep immediately. When I woke up (around 10:30), it was raining. I had missed breakfast anyway (they stop serving at 9:00), so I just went back to sleep for a bit. At about noon, when the chamber maid woke me, I decided that I really needed to get up and out. Moving very slowly, I showered, dressed, packed my little napsack with the days neccessisities (water and ibuprofen), got a coffee and made my way to the internet cafe, where *all* I was able to do was write yesterday's paltry paragraphs. I went back to my hotel and slept until 4:00. At 6:00, there was a Softimage London User Group meeting. I met a few more people that I had corresponded with over the years I've spent at Soft. And I drank lots and lots and lots complimentary mineral water. Got home at around 11:00 and caught an in-depth documentary on ITV on the porn industry. Very illuminating. Apparently, you can show a flaccid penis on British TV, but not an erect one. They showed a lot of flaccid penises. Not sure what I'm going to do today except meet my Soho buddies for a goodbye pub night later this evening. I had intentions of seeing the Chelsea flower show, but all the tickets are sold out. It would have made me jealous anyway. I am getting homesick, and I miss my little garden and my little furry guys (Benny, Rosie, Nomar, and Punkin). And I miss my friends. One thing I must say is that having internet access while I'm away has been amazing. Getting email from my pals at home, and being able to share my exploits with you via this blog has been really great.