So I'm just going to....

give up apologising. To anyone who actually reads these rare posts, I'm afraid that as part of the package you'll need to come to terms with the fact that I am utterly useless at keeping this thing going.

Anyway, this post is to mark the special occasion of Rachel's birthday.

As for me I find myself in London this weekend. Visits to London are always charged with emotion, I was trying to put my finger on why this is the case whilst sittng on the bus this evening. I think one reason is that I have all sorts of those fuzzy warm childhood memories of London, especially of Christmas visits to Harrods, that resurface when I'm here. Also London forces you to confront life in both it's grandness and griminess, something that can easily be escaped elsewhere. On top of that it is in some ways the centre of my Englishness, it has echoes of what it was, and is, to be British.

It's hard to explain these kinds of emotions...