Geological warfare

I always find it nice on that odd occasion when Mother Nature says "take that world! You may think you rule, but let me show you who is really boss". We had it in wintertime with the snow dumps; and now she has done it again, via volcanic activity.

Last weekend found the skies of London eerily quiet. No vapour trails slicing through the skies, but no roaring of 737s overhead either.

The weather was stunning, which led to the thought that the ash cloud is perhaps now nothing to do with an Icelandic volcano, and more about the vast number of bbqs which were lit on the afternoons of Saturday and Sunday.

Speaking of crazy thoughts, I do love a good conspiracy theory. Apparently this Icelandic ash cloud is actually just an excuse to get all the planes out of the sky because of a massive terrorism plot. Genius. Even the Met Service are involved it seems. Brilliant.

If only those in power were really that creative.

The romanticism of rail

Yesterday, for a dull reason I wont go into, I made my way to work by train, rather than the usual red double-decker 155.

There really is something quite romantic about arriving into a grand railway station like Waterloo. I felt I should have a stack of brown suitcases and a bodiced dress with a quaint hat for daytime wear. Certainly not trainers and a shoulder bag.

But all the same, it was quite lovely to step off into a nice piece of history, rather than my usual side of a road at Elephant & Castle. It just reminded me how much I love almost everything about rail, and that maybe it is nearing time for another rail adventure.

Just a B- week

It's been a B- week so far.

One of those weeks you can't quite put your finger on why it feels average; it just does. A week that is neither a complete fail, nor a blinding success; just hovering around the darker side of good.

It is the kind of week when your toast lands jam-side down. And three mornings in a row you see the bus accelerating away from the bus stop as you get to the end of your road. A week when it is bound to start raining just as you step outside, umbrella-less.

To coincide with the B- week, it has also been one of those infamous, and much dreaded 'what am I doing with my life?' weeks. To be fair they used to be a lot more common, so I should be thankful and put up with the odd 'life reassessing' week every few months.

I had to warn my colleagues to not pander my self-reflection; and don't get alarmed at my depth of feeling sorry for myself. Still it has been quite fun shocking them with alarming exclamations all week.

I guess sometimes it is nice to wallow for a bit. And the B- weeks make the A weeks feel all the better.

Repressing bridge urges

Every morning I make my way across Blackfriars bridge, towards my place of work.

Apart from spending my bridge time concentrating on not getting mown down by determined commuters, I spend most of my crossing trying to repress the urge to throw the entire contents of my pockets over the side, and jump over after it.

Don't get me wrong: life is good. It is just that I always get the strangest urge at high places to either jump off or throw precious things over the side.

I like to call it quirky not weird...

Five great things about today

1. My morning Jedi powers in getting the lights to turn red as the bus pulled up to the stop, and my charm to encourage the grumpy bus driver to re-open his door for me

2. Cliche I know, but it is a Friday. That's a great thing

3. The thermometer says 16 degrees, and Mr. Sun is spreading his cheer across London. Spring may well have finally arrived

4. Because of the balmy temperature, this evening I'm going to enjoy my first run home for this year

5. The fact that I just remembered I have all the ingredients for the perfect gin & tonic in the house, meaning I can soak up some late-evening sunshine on the terrace listening to the sound of ice cracking in a tall glass

Mr Fox's sunny spot

It seems nature is starting to come back to life, despite the continued chill.

A magnolia tree (my favourite of all the flowering trees) across the road from us is threatening to open up its alien-like flowers any day now. The bush in our backyard that has mountains of bright red berries for the wood pigeon in the summertime, has now re-gained its leaves. And the animals are making more of an appearance.

Despite encouragement from our kitchen window, one of our squirrels completely missed the fruits of the neighbour's Easter egg hunt this morning, instead going for something tasty in the compost bin.

And just before the rain that is now tapping on my skylight arrived, there was a spot of spring sunshine. And Mr Fox decided to make the most of it, by finding the sunniest spot he possibly could...

On top of the neighbour's fence. What a way to spend a weekend afternoon.

Cold snap

March is traditionally the time when you start to have those exciting moments of: 'am I now putting my scarf away for good?', 'is this the last time I'll wear my thick winter coat?', 'will I possibly feel like going for a run today because I actually might not be chasing my breath around the common?' and so on...

Unfortunately it can also be the time of false hope, with right now being the perfect example.

We have reversed back to winter. Back-pedalled into the ice age of the past five months. And it is a bit demoralising to tell you the truth. Especially with a four day weekend approaching, and the internet illustrating the weather to me as large clouds with quite determined rain falling from them, and a temperature hovering around ten degrees for all four days.

Right now half of Scotland seems to be completely buried under a thick wad of snow. Tomorrow is the 1st of April and the forecast for London is sleet. And I'm pretty sure they're not kidding.

Come on spring. WHERE ARE YOU?

Fostering tube fondness

Where I can, I try to take the bus. It is altogether a more pleasant ride. But there are always those occasions when going underground is unavoidable. And as much as we all moan, whinge and complain about riding the 'tube', I do try to remind myself that it has some charms.

I guess we should remember when something breaks down there, that it is the oldest underground railway system in the world, opening in 1863. Some of the stations are actually quite beautiful with their tile mosaics and other variations of underground art.

I call it 'the underground', despite 55% of it being above ground.

I like the way the platforms of St Paul's and Baker Street come in large sweeping bends. On platforms, Angel tube station has a ridiculously wide, shiny one, making you feel a little like you're on an ice rink. That unusual feeling of underground spaciousness is quite charming.

Sometimes at Clapham Common, if you look closely at the tracks, you can see the tiny mice who make the tube stations their home. Teeny, sooty, furry balls with spaghetti tails, they are like a made-up critter from a Miyazaki film; weaving their way around the rails and occasional puddle. I saw a particularly brave one make a break across the platform at Embankment the other night.

I like that there is no mobile phone signal down there too. You don't have to sit next to someone having a shouty conversation at seven in the morning.

Although I never use them, and it would probably be a rubbish job, there is a novelty in having newsagents underground, living in what look like colourful dollhouses at some of the Circle line stations. Waiting for the newspaper or crisps emergency.

And we must remember just how many people it shifts around this grand city every day. The tube recorded over one billion journeys in 2007.

All in all it is a pretty amazing feat.

Time with a genius

Last night I was lucky enough to have ninety minutes with my most favourite novellist. Not that he calls himself a novellist. He believes he is first and foremost a poet. All the while I'm quietly despairing that the writer of the greatest book ever written doesn't even class himself as a writer of books.

Vikram Seth is a genius. The 21st century J.R.R. Tolkien. And in a lecture theatre at London School of Economics, he chatted to the crowd, whilst occasionally topping up his wine glass with what he called the 'lubricant of life'.

He was there to discuss 'Friendship and Poetry' but I would have been happy if he'd just talked about the shop he did at Sainsbury's yesterday. He was consistently witty, charming, and poetic in everything he said.

Vikram read a number of poems to us, including some 8th century Chinese poetry which he had translated himself. And I came to realise something about poetry, which I have never really had enough of an appreciation for: reading poetry is like reading the lyrics of a song; what you really need is someone to sing it for you. And in his own melodic way, that is just what Vikram did.

The season of the triffid

We've had a visitor in our kitchen of late. A lovely amaryllis has been bringing the spring that has yet to arrive outside, inside for us.

It grew so quickly, it was unfortunately nicknamed the 'triffid'. It shot up two inches in about 48 hours at one stage. We nervously laughed at the triffid; giving it sideways glances as we edged out of the room...

But soon it started to look more like a harmless plant, and less like something from a post-apocalyptic 1960s film

And then it flowered

And flowered, and flowered.