I have a confession

First things first. Guys I am sick! I have been since saturday, and I just want to sleep forever and forever. The doctor had no idea what I have (as usual) and all I can do is wait and hope it goes away. So I'm lying low at the moment and lurking around (in my breaks between dozing and feeling sorry for myself.) Anyway. My confession. I wanted to confess that yes, I do like some of Phil Collins songs. *hangs head in shame* There is one particular Phil Collins song that I really love. *blushes in embarrassment* Here it is as heard in one of my favourite scenes from a film. (You can so totally tell my age from this clip!)
*sigh* The Paris metro is so much more like the NY metro than London's one... There are days when I really miss Paris...I have a confession

I am a year older

...which is pretty much bleurgh. Can I stay 30 for ever? Or even better 22? Last weekend I went to LFA2011 again and this week I had training at work (which was a lot of condescending rubbish) and last Thursday my mother came for a visit. So now I am enjoying a lot of arguing going on between my mother and my grandmother. Fun, fun, fun. Yesterday was my birthday! For my birthday I went shopping down-town with my mother where I made her get me the loveliest waterproof mac from Hobbs.

It's gorgeous, isn't it? Afterwards I had booked a table at Rosso Pomondorro (an italian restaurant) in Covent Garden. It was a nice restaurant, with good food and they put up with me changing the number of people the reservation was for multiple times. But on the other hand, the service wasn't the best. Maybe because it was Saturday and they were too busy and harassed? In any case, not the best service. I had a small gathering of eight in the end: my sister and her boyfriend (who got me a lovely book from Dover books with Kay Nielsen's fairytale illustrations and some adorable postcards with ink drawings of anthropomorphised animals), Natasha and Theo (who got me a cute ethnic cushion) and my friend Amin from Paris - who had come over to present a paper at a conference in Cambridge - who brought two friends of his with him. We had fun and it was a laugh. Not a bad birthday gathering. My only wibble was that I was sort of hoping to share a birthday with Natasha's any minute to be born baby boy. But it was not be. He's still not ready to come out.

100 things: 100 photos - photo 3

I am really behind on my 100 things. I have got to step it up, or I will never finish! I am thinking that since it's summer and I am stuck in this miserably wet english weather they call summer here, I will just inundate you with photos from better climes and better times. So be prepared for lots of summer vacation holiday photos! Every summer I always used to spent at least a week on an island or somewhere by the sea in Greece. When I was a kid with my parents, and since I turned 16 with friends. Sometimes it was just a week, other summers I went for as long as a month. Prices used to be cheap, both boat fares - especially if you had a student card - and rented rooms. Then when prices went up, I started going camping. Sometimes organised camping and sometimes free camping. This will possibly be my first year of not going anywhere. Even last year, I pitched a tent in a forest on a small island for a week before coming to the UK. So yeah, summer with no sun and no sea is not really summer for me. This is a photo from August 2010, taken on the seafront promenade of the village of Panormos in Tinos. It is such a typically greek summer vista. It is evening, as you can see from the long shadows under the chairs. After a long day of sightseeing - we had rented a car to see the island - and swimming, we finally sat down on a seafront taverna to eat. I took this photo while sitting down at our table. The sky is typically cloudless and the sea dark blue. What you can see of the island is barren and arid, as the Cycladic islands are. And of course boats... Okay, now I'm getting maudlin and home-sick.

Last weekend

Remember how I keep on telling you what a bad blogger I am? Here's some more proof. A whole week later I have decided to tell you about what I got up to last weekend. Maybe next week I will tell you about this weekend. So the London Festival of Architecture is on. It lasts about three weeks. I went to see some things the weekend before, and I went to see some more things last weekend, (and this weekend too). Exhibitions, actions and events in parks and squares, architectural practices letting you visit and showing you around. Last Saturday night I went to an indie concert in a little pub in Farrington. You know the sort of concert where it's you and the bands's closest friends. We went because the headliners, the Occasional Flicker's, are a greek indie band - based in Edinburgh - are kind of known in the greek indie circuit. Which isn't hard to do. There are so few bands, that we know them all. They aren't a bad little band, with some nice tunes. The singer has the strongest greek accent though!

Opening acts were John Collins that tried his best to make interesting and engaging banter, but wasn't really my thing, and another scottish band, Spaghetti Anywhere. No, unfortunately, there were no spaghetti western references in their music. I was very disappointed. They were a typical miserable scottish indie band. (There is only one Belle and Sebastian!) The singer had an interesting voice, if they just wrote some more interesting melodies...

Hear that accent? Because I can never resist a scottish accent (any scots on my flist?), I drank a pint of cider, screwed up my courage and chatted up the singer a bit after the gig. He was a very nice guy, we had the typical awkward conversation you have with a fellow indie person... I spent the night with my sister and her boyfriend in Wimbledon. I slept in their south-african room-mates empty bed - he was on holiday. And next day I went to an architectural walk organised by Atkins - a very big architectural and engineering company. The walk was led by one of their senior architects and was very enjoyable. One of the best things I've been on in this festival. That and the Developing City exhibition in the Walbrook Building (just opposite Cannon Street Station). If you live in London, are interested in the history of the City and like big well made models of buildings, you should check the exhibition out! It's free and open until the 9th of September, except Mondays.