Fixed Speed Camera 30; Chang; Pippa

Have been clocked by a speed camera for the second time in my driving career. The criminal activity happened on the A40 between Ross-on-Wye and Gloucester - this stretch is single carriageway with a few 30mph zones in villages. If only I had consulted the handy list here of West Mercia Speed Camera Locations (but honestly, who does that kind of thing).

The little critter that snapped me was Fixed Speed Camera 30, on the A40 at Lea going towards Gloucester. Obviously, one doesn't really have a leg to stand on but it's somewhat galling given the infrequency with which I actually drive these days. I had been making a conscious effort to observe 30mph zones since my previous 'clocking', but obviously one's attention does wander occasionally. Perversely, if you do slow down to observe a 30mph limit, particularly on a trunk road such as the A40, you get tailgated by other drivers who are evidently impatient that you've slowed down to the speed limit. You just can't win. Will be sure to wave to Fixed Speed Camera 30 the next time I drive past it (which will be at 30mph or less, obviously) and repress all urges to smash its shiny face in.


I was somewhat surprised to see that there's a Wikipedia entry on the A40 - ideal for those (legions of us, probably) wanting to find out more about it. There's a description of the route and the towns it passes through/round.

The good news is that Ray's fab job boarding out and insulating our attic is now finished and shelving is installed. We've certainly got our money's worth out of the IVAR shelving units from IKEA we acquired for our first unfurnished flat around 12 years ago. I had fun on Sunday relocating various of my less-used possessions and unpacking the boxes that had been stored up there since we moved in. The snag with unpacking boxes is that there's a tendency to open the box and then remember exactly why you boxed the stuff up in the first place (because you couldn't think what the hell to do with it). The trick is probably to actually give it away and resist the urge to just box it up again.

Public pressure forced me to relocate Chang, the small furry thing (can't think of a more specific word) that my dad brought me back from China some years ago (see The Banishing of Chang). It has been claimed that he stinks (certainly had a weird smell originally, but I would contend that it's worn off now), is made out of domestic cat hair (highly probable, I would think) and that his eyes follow one around the room (wacko territory).

While going through my stuff found my collection of three Pippa dolls. Pippa was a cute pocket-sized fashion doll and I remember her being popular among girls at my primary school in the 1970s. I wasn't massively into dolls but I always preferred Pippa to Sindy (might just have been the name). All three of my dolls are currently naked - their clothes would appear to have been lost over the years - so if I were particularly sad I might buy them each an outfit - Pippa outfits appear to be available on eBay. (Naturally, I'm not that sad ...) The Asian variant on the right was named Jasmine, from memory. Websites related to Pippa include http://www.pippadoll.net/ and Pippa's Obituary.

Egyptian artefacts; Millennium Dome; crowds

I was in London on Saturday as my friend Helen had very kindly bought me (as a birthday present) a ticket to the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition at the O2. I knew frankly very little about the boy king himself or about ancient Egypt in general, so I did learn stuff. The golden death mask was not part of the exhibition, a fact that seems to have caused some controversy, although there was plenty of other beautiful stuff on display, including the 'Canopic Coffinette of Tutankhamun' - a jar that once held Tut's mummified liver. A fine substitute in anyone's terms….

I knew something about the plunder of the tomb back in the 1920s and did visit the exhibition of Egyptian stuff at Highclere Castle some years back (although I seem to recall that at the time, my sister and I were less than interested in the exhibition and breezed fairly quickly through it looking for the tearoom). The O2 exhibition did have quite a lot of space given over to pictures and details of the excavation, although it didn't focus at all on the dodgy moral questions surrounding desecration of a burial site.

The day I went was both the last day of the exhibition and the last Saturday of the school holidays, so to say that it was heaving would be an understatement. It was difficult to read the labels on some of the exhibits without a good deal of pushing and shoving, although I got a good enough view of most of the exhibits themselves.

The former Millennium Dome has certainly had an internal makeover, but it remains an odd and slightly nondescript venue. I do think, frankly, that the British Museum would have been a nicer and more appropriate venue for these ancient Egyptian exhibits, given its permanent Egyptian rooms and given that London's previous exhibition of treasures from Tutankhamun's tomb was held there (in 1972). The boat trip out there on the Thames Clipper was quite fun though.

I did visit the venue in 2000, together with Ray and his nephew Adam, when it was the actual Millennium Dome. I have to say I never grasped the point of the whole project and think that arguably the Labour Government should have called a halt to it when they came to power. There are a number of other fantastic Millennium (or thereabouts) projects which will leave a much greater legacy - the Tate Modern, the London Eye, the Angel of the North. From my memory of the displays and activities inside the dome, it lacked focus and veered between trying to be a museum and trying to be an amusement park. The 'Body' was probably the most feted exhibit but an excessive amount of queuing to then shuffle slowly past a plastic pancreas wasn't my idea of fun. And we'd got there early for breakfast and the coffee was bad - enough said. At least in its current incarnation as the O₂, there are now some nice-looking restaurants there. Although as I was alone, I sat on a bench and ate my M&S sandwich. The only downside of a day out by yourself.

Hungerford; Somerfield nee Gateway; long weekend

Half way through a four-day week, which, unaccountably, never seem any shorter than five-day weeks.

Continued birthday celebrations throughout the rest of last week. On Wednesday, while on my way to spend a lovely evening with my friends Julie and Dave, I stopped off for a few hours at Hungerford, where my parents lived for a few years in the early 1990s. I hadn't visited it much since then and there have been a few changes, including a couple of rather helpful mini-roundabouts, particularly the one on the junction of the High Street and Park Street. Somerfield (formerly Gateway), where my sister and I used to frequently trot for that emergency bottle of wine, is now housed in a new building set back from the road. The former pub on Charnham Street that I last remember as a Tex-Mex restaurant called The Damn Yankee is now a garish shade of yellow and called Casanova.

Despite not being particularly interested in antiques, I went for a wander around Hungerford Arcade to kill some time. If memory serves, in the coffee lounge on the upper floor there used to be a crocodile skin hanging over a side rail which I always found somewhat alarming, but as the coffee shop was closed at the time of my visit I was unable to check out whether it was still there.

The following day, I and my hire car (great notion, these - you just show your driving licence and get given a new(ish) car! How cool is that?) proceeded westwards to spend a few days with my parents, which included a nice meal at their local bistro. Ruth joined me on Friday night and we spent a relaxing Saturday including a stroll to check out the views of the Black Mountains.

We proceeded back to Berkshire on Sunday to spend an extra day rurally-retreating, this time near the Ridgeway being fed delicious food and, in my case at least, sitting around idly - though I did label some jam pots. Driving home on Monday, I was reminded of how it's best to stay off the roads in Reading on the August Bank Holiday while the Reading Festival traffic disperses.

The Big 4-0

Well, I'm 40 … feel like I should be overcome with the significance of the moment. A year or so ago I was, oddly enough, but a lot has happened since then.

Fabulous birthday weekend ... myhotel Bloomsbury turned out to be appropriately smart and boutique-y, although I have never seen a bathroom crammed into such a small space. For a hotel that advertises its feng shui influences, you would think that a bathroom design whereby one has to step out of the bath onto the floor via the toilet bowl would flout some sort of law or at the very least obstruct the flow of chi.

Lovely surprise dinner at Chronicles on Saturday night and still amazed I had had no idea what was being planned. Thanks so much to Ruth for organising it and to Ray, Claire, Julie, Helen and Ali for turning out to celebrate with me. Typically and somewhat annoyingly, I was enjoying myself so much I forgot to take any photos. My keenness to document significant events in my life in photographs is continually thwarted by my inability to remember to actually take any.

Spent Sunday at The Sanctuary in Covent Garden, which was an interesting experience - slightly surreal being surrounded by a crowd of other women all in white robes, and some of the treatments involved wearing worryingly insubstantial paper pants. I made the most of the day with an exfoliating salt scrub (very nice), a back and shoulder massage (slightly painful) and a pedicure (much needed). Ruth spent much of the day dozing by the koi pond but did push the boat out in the morning with a full body polish. We ended the day with a Sleep Retreat session which involved lying on Sound Wave Therapy beds listening to a guided visualisation through headphones. The fairly loud vibrating of the SWT beds did detract slightly from the audio-instructions to imagine oneself lying in hammock in idyllic garden, listening to sounds of birdsong. I also tend to lose concentration during guided visualisations and realise with a jolt that I am still in my hammock when in fact I am supposed to have got out of it and be walking beside a stream. Cue rushing to get out of hammock, leading to probable tangling up in same, skidding on muddy path, falling into stream, etc.

Yesterday's abortive wait-in for the gas man at least enabled me to start reading our next Book Group book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini of The Kite Runner fame. Already suitably depressed, and one senses there are plenty of horrors still to come. Will follow it up with comic or similar.