Little rollercoasters

Going up.

• Much great food and drink action, including posh dinner at Quod with Significant Ex (bit too much drink action there, to be fair), wonderful spaghetti with tuna balls when we had K&M over for dinner, sublime leek and potato soup on Sunday, pasta bake with Malawian Nali hot sauce to comfort several of us in need of comforting, and at long long last a farmer's market in East Oxford!
  
• Jumper weather. And socks. But still summer. It's a winner with me.
  
• Amazing plumbing success story, in the form of taking out one hot water cylinder (downstairs, somewhere in Burford) and putting in another one (upstairs, same dwelling). No huge mistakes made, no major injuries, all reconnected, everyone happy. Plumbing S and I drove back punching the air to Alanis Morissette and feeling groovy.
  
• A Scanner Darkly. I thought I might be a) bored or b) confused but instead I was c) gripped and d) moved.
  
• Eraser, which provides some of the soundtrack to the above film. Possibly the least accessible album I have ever loved, but love it I do. This is fucked up, fucked up.
  
• Digital TV and radio coverage of Reading/Leeds - the Yeah Yeah Yeahs *and* a bed to sleep in!
  
• Another blinding party chez family M in Old Botley. Yurt: check. Carnival lighting: check. Bison grass vodka: check. Beautiful people: check. DJ who plays Joan Jett: check. Leaving by 1.30 before anyone passes out and while taxis can still be hailed and bread toasted: check. What's not to love?
  

Going down.

• This year's courgette glut, surely the biggest since records began. I do not want to see another one for many months.
• Work still sucks like a sucky thing with extra suction. I attack this at night with Temazepam - what a great drug - but know this is not a viable long term option. During the day I just don't pretend I don't hate it. Eventually this strategy will pay dividends.
  
• Bank Holiday Monday in Ikea, largely to purchase something which was 'in stock' on the website before we left and after we got home, but nowhere in evidence while we were actually there. What the hell were we thinking?
  

On balance... well, there isn't much balance right now. Enjoy the view going up, scream while going down, make sure you're strapped in securely and be glad you spent your teenage summers in training on the Grand National.

joella