Today, after work, we had cocktails and a President Obama cake.  I love working in a place where these things matter, are talked about, are celebrated.  Where I wasn’t the only person taking a picture on her mobile phone.

I’m pretty sure the cake was ordered from Lola’s Kitchen, a North London company which specialises in cupcakes.  While the Democrat blue icing might seem a bit off-putting at first, it was absolutely delicious – as was the chocolate cake inside.

I have to admit that cupcakes weren’t something I paid a lot of attention to before coming to London, but there are a few places here that do them very well.  I love the red velvet cupcakes from The Hummingbird Bakery in Notting Hill and the ’six packs’ of tiny cupcakes which are sometimes sold in egg cartons at the Whitecross Street Market on a Thursday or Friday.

And people say that there’s no decent food to be found in London…

Tash

According to elections.org.nz, there is 23 hours, 31 minutes and 13 seconds until Election Day in New Zealand.  Here in London, I’ve already voted.  I took the tube across London at eleven o’clock this morning.  There were free seats, and when I arrived, Piccadilly Circus was surprisingly quiet.  Only one person handing out flyers for cheap theatre tickets, and I think I only walked through one tourist photograph.  For the first time, I really noticed how grand the buildings are rather than being distracted by how annoying the crowds of people are.

But, with my early lunch break ticking away, it was on to Haymarket and to New Zealand House.  There was a sign in the window saying that New Zealanders  overseas could vote in the elections by downloading their voting papers and then faxing them back.  That just doesn’t seem like real voting to me.

So, I went in and there were the orange signs and the white ballot boxes.  The girl behind the desk almost gave me North Shore papers by mistake.  To be honest, I’d probably be more familiar with the candidates on the North Shore than the ones in Wellington Central, my current electorate because it’s the last place we lived in.  I filled in my name, address, job title, signed a declaration and then went into the boxes and made my two ticks.  Given our experience with the postal system, I doubt they’ll make it back to New Zealand before the winner is announced – but I’ll be watching the results come in on Saturday regardless.

While I was in the area, I also stopped in at Kiwifruits, a New Zealand store in the Royal Opera Arcade behind New Zealand House.  It was great to see a book by a fellow MA on the New Zealand fiction shelves… but what I was really there for was the Pineapple Lumps.

Judging from the faces of some of my colleagues this afternoon, the bubblegum textured squares of pineapplish goodness covered in chocolate may never catch on in England.  Without a ready supply in the corner stores, we must limit our Pineapple Lump consumption to the packets sourced on the rare trips home, the rather squashed bags that arrive in packages from the parents, and those sold at Kiwifruits.  There the rarity is reflected in the price: £2.75 a bag!

(That said, I still bought two bags.  I did intend to save at least one for Saturday, to eat as I watched the election coverage.  However, that second bag has, somehow, in the time since I arrived home tonight, opened itself and is half empty already).

Tash

After all the excitement of last night, the festivities surrounding the fact some guys once tried to blow up Parliament dulls in comparison.  Last year, we watched a public fireworks display in Battersea Park from across the river in Chelsea.

This year, I’m content with taking blurry photos through our kitchen window of a display that’s going on somewhere nearby.  Fireworks are a rather unsettling prospect in the London suburbs.  It’s hard to know where they originate from, and the explosions echo between the houses, along the narrow streets.

Still, the fact that I can see them at all, is an improvement from the New Year’s effort.  We made sure we were at Embankment.  We made sure that we had a good position – one with a great view of the London Eye.  We stood there, in the cold.  The fireworks started.  The smoke started.  The smoke mixed with the cold, and became like fog, and after a couple of minutes, our view of the fireworks had become completely obscured.

There were thousands of people there, walking along the strand.  There were streamers and the tubes home were free.

I can’t believe that the end of 2008 is almost here.

Tash

Went to West Side Story at the New Wimbledon Theatre last night.  It was the final performance of this 50th anniversary production.  It was London.  It was raining.  There were too many people to fit in the foyer, so arriving at quarter past seven, we had to stand outside in the rain while other patrons slowly filed through into their seats.

There’s so many shows to see in London that we’ve adopted a policy of buying the cheapest tickets available.  While this technically does mean that we can afford to see more, it often means that we’re unable to see less of the individual shows.  Last night, we were once again up the back, near the follow-spots, and the angle of the ceiling meant that we missed some of the balcony scenes.

But while we needed binoculars (on hire for 50p) to see the actor’s expressions, the dancing was enthusiastic and the voices were superb and there was song after song I knew.  The second act, in particular, packed an emotional punch and I found myself crying alongside Maria at Anton’s death.

50 years on, the language of West Side Story, with all it’s ‘buddy-boys’ and ‘daddios’, is somewhat dated.  But in a city where every week there’s a story in the papers of a teenage stabbing, the plot is sadly still all too relevant.

Tash

Well, I did it.  I survived Race for Life 2008.  And I ran the whole 5km, despite forgetting to wear sunglasses and my iPod dying around the 2km mark.  And despite how desperately emotional I felt at the start line, reading the back plates of the other runners which described who they were running for – people who had fought against cancer, many who were still fighting.

Afterwards, as we looked at a map of Regent’s Park, Matt asked me to point out the route that we ran, and I couldn’t.  I remember a lake and some green elephant statues, but apart from that, it was just a case of putting one foot in front of another and hoping the finish line appeared soon.

Eventually it did, and when it did, I was suprised to see that the clock read something like 28:59.  5km in under 30 minutes – I was pretty pleased with that, as it’s better than I’d done in any of my training sessions.  Matt and Cautney had barely had a chance to get through the food queues between the start and the end of the race.  For me it seemed much longer, and a week later I’ve still got the blisters on the soles of my feet.

All in all, I still don’t think I’m a candidate to run the London Marathon.  But another 5km in a year or so?  When sufficient time has passed so I can forget that last km of suffering? 

I’d consider it.

Tash

So it’s Wimbledon time again, and the billboards and the newspapers and BBC2 in the evenings is all about the tennis.  Matt and I actuatlly made it to the SW19 courts ourselves last Monday – in the evening of the first day of play.  Matt had suggested that I dress up for the event, so there I was, in the queue that weaved its way through Wimbledon Park Golf Club for half an hour in a skirt and high heels. 

Still, it was great to be there, to be given the official booklet (A Guide to Queueing for the Championships) and the stickers that confirmed we had.  After 5pm, grounds passes are £14, which I thought was okay as at this time of year, there’s plenty of daylight (and thus tennis) left after 5.

Our grounds tickets didn’t let us into Centre Court, but we found seats around Court 18, where we watched the Australian Guccione lose to Bozoljac from Serbia and then the British Mel South lose to Alyona Bondarenko from the Ukraine.  Even after one day of play, the grass on the court was beginning to show a bit of wear and tear.

After watching the two games, we found a picnic table and shared an expensive burger with a bottle of beer and a glass of wine, while watching Lleyton Hewitt (who won) on the big screen.

The weather’s been surprisingly good for Wimbledon this year – though it did suddenly pour down for half an hour on Friday afternoon, as if to remind us not to get complacent.  This is England after all.

Tash