It's summer and it's time to play cricket.

Ultimate hilarity this morning as instead of going straight to work like any normal person, I have been having a variety of adventures. The day kicked off at six am when N had to get up, and I managed to keep my eyes open for all of ten seconds, which is some sort of record for me at that time in the morning. Anyway, I vaguely remember Classic FM for a while and it being sunny and me telling N not to go and to call in sick or something (I am SUCH a good influence). Next thing I know, it’s two hours later and I am completely tangled in the duvet. For some reason I thought I was in my room at my parents house (maybe because of the classical music?) and I was a bit worried that I couldn’t remember going there last night. Anyway, I went to wake up JA, who put me to shame by already having showered and being ready for work. After failing to adequately explain what a brioche is, I went to have a shower, where I saw that JA had left his tresemmé in the shower, so for the first time in ages, I could use conditioner on my hair. Mint. I have no concept of personal property when it comes to the bathroom. My philosophy is, if it’s in the bathroom, I’m going to use it (some sort of variant of ‘the grass is always greener’ is at play here, something like ‘your soap is better than my soap’). I hasten to add that I am not a complete skank and I do have my own shampoo and soap and everything, I just have conditioner-envy.

As I was locking the front door, I met N’s next-door neighbour and we had a chat. She was very sweet but VERY dykey. Anyway, I headed off to the bus stop. As I got there a very polite lady gave me something “to read on the bus”. On closer inspection it was a leaflet entitled ‘Do You Have an Immortal Spirit?’ Yes, the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Although normally I would say “ewww! Take it away!” I was feeling benevolent so I smiled and then stood at the other side of the bus stop.

An old man came over and stood near me. “Alright darling,” he said. “You going anywhere nice? Off to spend all your money?”

“No,” I told him, wondering whether I had a neon sign above my head attracting all the weirdos in southeast London, “I’m going to the post office and then I’m going to work.”

“Lovely,” he said, grinning apeishly. Lovely??? Is that REALLY lovely, or are you talking out of your arse? “I like your dress,” he told me.

“Thanks,” I said and decided to forget about the bus and walk to the Rye instead.

I’d got no further than two hundred metres down the road before some dude in a car shouted out of the window at me: “Hey, nice dress!”

“What is it with my dress?” I shouted back. “Do you want to wear it or something?”

Needless to say, I didn’t get a response.

While walking to the Rye (which today smelt of chips and chocolate, instead of the normal fried chicken aroma), I got accosted by another woman who was actually hissing, but I declined to acknowledge her, and then had to walk in the road for a while as there were literally fifty small children on the pavement. Standards are slipping in the British educational system, it seems. I walked past another bastion of education, a city academy, and thought about the poor kids there whose fancy new school will be shut down within a decade thanks to the forward thinking government and the business men who run the whole project. Whenever I go past the academy, they’re having PE lessons. But they don’t have any grass. They have all their PE lessons on tarmac. I guess all inner London state schools must be like that, but it’s certainly very different from the field that we had at secondary school, with the wastelands next to the school where we did cross country (or in my case, hid, while everyone else did cross country, cos I hated it). Anyway, just as I was thinking about this, I came across a patch of tarmac on the pavement that was new and soft. I had an overwhelming urge to take my shoes off and dig my toes into it but I couldn’t really face the necessary scrubbing of feet that this would involve, so I kept my shoes on and pushed my foot down as hard as it would go. I love the feeling of warm, soft tarmac. It’s surprisingly sensual. Now, that may make me sound like a pervert, wanting to submerge my feet in warm wetness. But yeah, I guess I am, so fair dinkum.

After waiting for ages for a bus (I lie: I did at this point go into Primark and buy a very cool dress, but I don’t think I missed a bus while I was in the shop, so I might as well have been waiting outside), I finally got one. But – fun!! – it got as far as the Aylesbury estate before it broke down! I really like it when things break down and I’m not in a rush to get anywhere. I mean, I had to go to work and I was already late, but I wasn’t LATE late. By the time the next bus arrived, however, I was LATE. This bus didn’t seem in a particular hurry either, and stopped to chat to the broken bus. Then it too broke down just up the road. I briefly considered calling work to explain but couldn’t be arsed. I finally got to work an hour late but in a far better mood than I normally am at work, so if you ask me, the bus should break down everyday because if there’s one thing I like, it’s a disaster.

Yesterday turned into quite a cool day as my ballet class went really well. Normally there are certain things that I always mess up, but I got most of them right, and I actually did the enchainement at the end perfectly. And this was despite the fact that we couldn’t open any of the windows and it was about 30 degrees in the room, with fifteen people. I have never seen the class look so collectively sweaty. I was wearing tights. I nearly died. I came home and we all drank tea (me) and Horlicks (the boys) and watched a documentary about Bernard Manning, who sang a song about how great Manchester was. I tried and failed to stop myself pointing at JA and saying "hahahahaha!"

Going back to the subject of disasters, I was having a conversation the other day about how I thought we were due another catastrophe of some sort. Natural disasters are always good (volcano, tsunami etc) although earthquakes are a bit rubbish because you don’t tend to get it on film. I wondered whether I was a heartless bint for thinking that I wanted a disaster just for the tv footage, but then I thought back to September the 11th. Cinematic masterpiece, that was. Having said all of that, I am looking forward to bird flu as it will be reminiscent of the plague, and although it may be a controversial statement, I think the plague was pretty fucking cool, as epidemics go. R disagrees with me and thinks that a gunman running through the building would be better. I say instant gratification is a sign of immaturity and if a gunman ever gets in, I will send him straight up to her floor.