Today we went to Charing Cross Road. Home to a large number of theatres and an even larger number of book stores. I've had a desire to see this street ever since reading 84 Charing Cross Road as a young and soppy teenager. We saw number 84, though it is no longer a book shop. Many of the smaller stores were closed but now we know where everything is we know we'll be back.
We started out in Foyles, a four storey bookshop with a staggering number of books. I can't recall how long we spent in this store, but we revived our selves in the cafe on the first floor before heading on the the next bookshop. Murder One — a crime book shop — was unfortunately closed. So Hayley is now plotting her return at a time when they are open. We looked into a couple of the second hand book shops then a shop called Blackwells, which while only a ground floor establishment covered a large area with many nooks and crannys. We also had a quick look in the Borders, but by this time we were starting to flag. So we headed home to relax from our browsing — I can't call it shopping as we didn't buy anything.
Yesterday Hayley and Bronwyn went to the Portobello Market in Notting Hill. They said it was a sea of antique and peculiarity stores. One stall was devoted to different sorts of magnifying glasses. The weather was appalling and both Bronwyn and Hayley being tall by British standadrs were at constant risk of being poked in the eye by the multitude of umbrellas present.
While Hayley was out I went shopping too, and while I failed to purchase any Christmas presents for a certain person I did manage to buy a lovely warm pair of gloves.
Posted by Nick
It's been a very busy month. We've now finished our international Christmas shopping which is, as we speak, winging it's way southward after Hayley braved the lunatics and professional queue standers that inhabit our local Royal Mail shop.
Due to the slight interruption to our service we felt we should offer a recap of our activities.
At the start of the month was Guy Fawkes night. Night is a slight misnomer as week would be a more accurate representation of the festivities. The English are very keen on fireworks — for around a week either side of the fifth, we were treated to a nightly procession of audible if not visible explosions. On the night itself we went for a stroll around the neighbourhood and watched the lights all over the city. The best display we saw was on the following Saturday as most of the explosions were taking place directly over our house. The sound was deafening and the colours were brilliant and bright. We had our own fireworks display one night — a sparkler each : )
We went to see Matrix Revolutions the weekend it came out. The movie is not without it flaws, something that has been pointed out on websites far more prestigious than ours, but it is not without it's entertaining sequences. The opening night club scene being a prime example of the good points while the extended battle sequence had us twitching in our seats.
While not packed with a star studded cast a visit from our nephew was still very entertaining. Reuben and his friend Tim were over in England after a tour of duty as camp counsellors in America. They managed to fit in a visit to Wimbledon just prior to heading off to Scotland. It was good to catch up with Reuben and we hope the rest of his travels go just as smoothly as they have done so far.
PS: Bro you'd better stock the larder, he's already talking about the real food he's looking forward to eating in you apartment once he gets back into Wellington.
The following evening we (Hayley and I) met at Tottenham Court Road Station. Hayley had arrived early and so thinking "what should I do to fill in time till Nick gets here", headed along to the British Museum and studied the Rosetta Stone. From the tube station we 
headed down to the Congress Centre where we waited in line with an assortment of goths, comic book freaks and wierdos like us to see Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean.
It was a thoroughly entertaining evening. First up Neil read his latest children's book, The Wolves in the Walls. Then he settled down with Dave McKean (artist) and the two of them were interviewed by broadcaster Jonathan Ross — who is apparently very famous here, but we've never heard of him. It was very funny and informative. We got to hear about the new movie they're working on, books that are being or going to be written and other fun factoids. After about an hour the floor was thrown open for questions and these were answered with depth and enthusiasm by all parties.
The evening concluded with the signing of various works that had been purchased or brought by the multitudes. We were near the front of the auditorium and almost precisely where the queue was started so we got to the front of the queue very quickly. We had bought a copy of Wolves and had brought our cd's of Coraline (with artwork on the case) to be signed. We were slightly selfish when we got to the front of the queue and we monopolised both Neil and Dave a bit more than most of the people preceeding us. It's not our fault they wanted to answer our questions and hear our stories : )
The next day dawned Black. The All Blacks were playing and nothing more will be said of the game. We went round to Sonja's new house to watch the game and have breakfast. I busied myself in the kitchen preparing bacon & eggs and other foods. I feel this was a better option than actually watching the game.
Part of the reason we've been slightly behind schedule on updates this month is that we have installed Apple's new operating system, Panther, on our laptop. This has gone smoothly but due to the state of our hard drive (it's dying, we've ordered a replacement) we had to back up all our data and not all of it has made it's way back on yet. I could go on about this in pain staking detail but I'm grounded enough to know there are probably only two people out there who would care/understand the technical mumbo jumbo. Needless to say, until the other day I didn't even have any tools with which to edit our website.
On the 22nd Duncan, Hayley and I went on an outing to the London Mac Expo in Islington. This show is similar to the one Duncan and I went to in September, only in English. It was good, there were lots of toys to play with and competitions to enter. If we're lucky we'll soon be the proud owners of an iPod a PowerBook, a copy of Microsoft Office and some other stuff — We won't hold our breath though. We briefly considered buying a £1500 A2 printer, but we decided we didn't really have room in the flat for it.
The 22nd was also Sarah's birthday — Happy Birthday
The 23rd was Bronwyn's birthday and we had cake and Bronwyn shared her present opening with us. She got lots of fun presents and did I mention we had cake.
The month is now almost over and the weather is settling itself in for the winter ahead. Work is going well and in spite of my best efforts I seem to be enjoying it. Next month we will try to post on a more orthodox schedule, but I make no promises — You never know when you'll get swept up in a vortex of time bending non updatedness.
Posted by Nick
