Grand Surroundings

18 September - Took us ages to get back to London this afternoon - the weather had delayed our trip somewhat and there were substantial queues at Heathrow once we arrived but after a severe grilling by the immigration official (very concerned about my ability to support myself ... as am I, I suppose) we were back on English soil. We got back to Primrose Hill as quickly as possible where James got his shit together for work and we had a wee sample of an extra souvenir that had somehow made it through the web of security that is London customs (note to James, just because you take a spliff from Amsterdam to London doesn't make you a suave international drug smuggler) before heading out to Clerkenwell so James could get to work. I wandered around a bit before heading back to PH to move my stuff out to Islington, where I would be staying with Walber (Brazilian from Chang Mai).
An absolutely beautiful apartment in a secured block in Islington - full of expensive furniture and objects d'art and it was very, very tidy. Walber was quite relaxed but I always get concerned when staying in places that are more like design showrooms than places of residence, I feel that I have to make sure that when I drop my bag down it is symetrically aligned with the rug, clothes can't be just dumped on the floor and I can't do my usual habit of setting up a campfire in the bedroom for warmth ... but when in Rome ... His partner, Stefan, whose existence I was seriously beginning to doubt (i'd visited the place three times and he was never there), arrived at about 11 and we had a nice dinner - he's French but has lived in London for the past 10 years, they're both very nice, and this would have to be the most elegant surroundings i've stayed in since I started travelling (maybe not as homely as Chez Cucvarova in Slovakia but i'm not going to complain). Good way to finish off England before I move back into the horrors of travel accommodation when I head off to Canadia later in the week. I was still feeling quite wrecked from the weekend's exertions so I crashed out a little bit earlier than usual and then slept in - was woken up by workman painting the ceiling of the main room (??) but I didn’t have any serious plans for the day. Did another sesh of Bikram Yoga and sweated out most of the toxins that my body had accumulatetd from the Dam and then did a bit more exploring of the area (I'd read that Highbury-Islington had a free muni-wi-fi experiment across the whol area - found it but it didn't work unfortunately) then headed over to Turnpike Lane (just one stop further than my travelpass allowed) where Ade's sister, helen, lives. The plan, at this moment, is to eat a 'proper' English curry then head off to the pub few beers before we go see Nick's (Helen's husband) band rehearse ... Sounds like a plan to me.
Having issues with the email on my PDA, which is giving me no end of bother ... I can send them but I can't receive them so i'm trying to juggle responses to emails that I read online and hope that I align the subjects otherwise they get muddled up and one of the principle benefits of using gmail (the conversation) is lost ... Am sure i'll sort it out sooner or later though.