the view from my bed

these are the two flats just below mine

I don't know what to think about the one on the right. the effect is a bit muted in the photograph, but in real life it is really something. every possible square inch of the TINY little door for an elf is taken up with flowers and plaques and statues of lions. I have no idea what kind of person lives here. almost anyone could walk out of that door, and it would not surprise me. a few doors down from this flat is one that is really just covered with english flags and st georges crosses and that, which obviously does make me a bit scared. Today's a bank holiday, and when we got here earlier, there were all these people in the "square" listening to music. all really going for it with the scraped back hair and the coughing and smoking and being a bit fat with terrible jeans and anguished expressions and eating horrible food. 

playlist

a) tina turner

b) matchbox 20

it does feel a little bit like i have wondered on to the set of a movie that is v grimly intent on depicting the Lives Of The Underclass Peppered As They Are With A Mix Of Squalor And Gaiety. but then my room is so lovely and white and light, and I'm so so close to hampstead heath and primrose hill and everywhere nice, and also they are not baddies, these people. 

last week mae and dan went for their first scan of the baby

Mae has been very adamant that she doesn't want to know what the sex of her baby is. I wouldn't be able to not know, but I thought it was so cool that  they actually were going to wait. then last week i went to meet them at the ultrasound place, and when i got there mae was lying there with the gel on her tummy and you could see the TINY BABY on the screen. it really is a cool thing to look at, you get to see its little spine and its little hands and its giant brain. 

then the doctor accidentally told them the sex, which cast a bit of a pall over everything.

(doctor (not looking at mae and dan): do you know what the sex is?

mae and dan: no

doctor (still peering irritatingly at screen): it's a boy, yes?

dan and rosa: OH GREAT MAE'S GOING TO FREAK OUT.

mae: gales of laughter)

so it was all okay, and now they are extra excited and pleased. 

on saturday night i ate an entire packet of these while chelsea smoked herself SICK

I can't believe how much I miss smoking. I can't believe how much i am drawn to fake strawberry flavour since i stopped smoking.

apparently my magnetic north here is the zoo

i get lost almost constantly, of course. and it's horrible because everything takes like three times longer than i imagine it will anyway, and I keep arriving places looking a bit terrified and breathless and like i have been swearing a lot, but what makes it okay is that i know that when i do get lost, the place i will somehow end up at is the zoo. it's amazing. i'll have no idea where the hell i am, walking very fast and angrily around streets that all look the same, and then i will hear exotic bird noises, or the noise of a lion or a camel, and I'll realise that i have been somehow irresistibly drawn to the zoo. again. 

here is the canal just below the zoo. i don't know why, but this picture makes it look quite horrible and scruffs, when really it is VERY FLASH. rom and me sat on a bench here and drank a lot of whisky out the bottle. to the left of this is a chinese restaurant on a boat that i am adding to my list of places to go when i'm not such an appalling poor. 

i walked to holloway yesterday trying to find a junk sale that 100% does not exist

on the way i got hayfever and also lost. the best thing i saw the whole time was this. there are at least two big things i like about it. 

b) olives

needless to say, everyone in oxford has a slightly rickety bike

if you were to look through all my pictures from oxford, you would see that i am eating in every single one.

this is because 

a) i was trying to stop smoking then.

b) sightseeing makes a person hungry.

things i was eating:

a) apples

b) olives

c) peanuts

d) bananas

e) a combination of same.

i've stopped smoking now! now i just chew gum all the time (orbit complete strawberry, but dan says this gum called Five that comes in a flash box is the way to go) and eat a bajillion almonds and peanuts. mae put on her coat the other day, stuck her hands in the pockets, and pulled out a handful of peanut shells.

"i see you borrowed my coat," is what she said.

when i look at this picture i can hear bells ringing (real bells not metaphorical ones)

there was lots of wisteria all over simon's college

look here I am in oxford