Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-First

Toast with apple & pear spread and orange juice.

First thing's, first: I think you should all sponsor my certifiably bananas friend who, rather than making use of our cronky rail network, is cycling from John o' Groats to Land's End (against the prevailing wind).

In other business: it seems to me that with all this to-morning-suit or not to-morning-suit kerfuffle, David Cameron is rather stealing La Middleton's thunder. All talk of "the dress" has been eclipsed by speculation on whether or not the PM's jacket will be be-tailed or not…

Breakfast the Sixty-Second

Toast with Pear & Apple Spread and Mango & Passion Fruit smoothie.

Today I have been mostly drinking tea. And wishing I lived in the tropics.

Also, a lady with a broken personal alarm delivered the census to fill in (happily it was ringing at reduced volume...). I'm rather sad to see that despite the best efforts of students all over the country in 2001, Jedi Knight has not made it on to the tick box list of religions you belong to. I'm sure I remember hearing that enough people said they were Jedi Knights it would make it on to the list for the next census...

Breakfast the Thirty-Seventh

Toast with pear & apple spread.

Recently I've been feeling very peeved that my parents didn't turn me into a child star. I'm sure I'd have sidestepped the descent into drug-addiction and kleptomania that seems to afflict most former silver-screen cherubs and instead I'd be starring in all sorts interesting things. I bet I'd have much nicer teeth too. If I have a daughter, I'm putting her on the stage.

Breakfast the Thirty-Fifth

Toast with pear & apple spread.

Today I caught a bus. Not something I'm required to do very often in Edinburgh, what with everything being pretty close by and so on. The number 16 rolled up, disgorged a few people and I made to get on: at which point the driver held up his hand in imperious fashion and scowled at me. I almost expected him to bellow "you shall not pass" before ushering Frodo Baggins on to the bus. Instead, after some time, some dithering and not entirely un-hobbit-like people tumbled out and the driver gestured that I might proceed. Whatever happened to speaking?

Edinburgh bus drivers, in my experience, are rather a cranky lot. I have on several occasions sprinted for the bus, arrived just as the doors were closing and then had the bus driver glower at me and drive off, leaving me panting (and swearing) on the pavement. Once I was hit by a bus -- well, technically the bus hit my bicycle -- and the bus driver, having established that I was alive, yelled at me. I was so gobsmacked I just dragged my bike (it no longer wheeled) to the side of the road and hobbled back to work.

Breakfast the Eighteenth

Bread with apple and pear spread, and a banana
(in case you were wondering what the yellow thing was).

Breakfast was quaffed on the run today. I bought some plasters for no reason other than that it seemed rude to walk out of the chemist with nothing. (I went in to buy shampoo, then decided against it as I would have had to lug it around all day.)

Breakfast the Tenth

Toast with pear and apple spread.

After a false start at one cinema, I saw the King's Speech this evening. Loved it. Top hole. And Colin Firth... Oh Mr Firth, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I wonder though, have I reached the moment where my love comes dangerously close to constituting an Electra complex? I swore off George Clooney recently after my father remarked that he and Mr Clooney were about the same age. (I don't recall if I was tactful enough to refrain from saying 'yes, but he's rather better preserved.')

Breakfast the Eighth

Toast with pear and apple spread again. 

Who mandated that we all be depressed today? The overriding feeling for me was one of hunger. Other than that, I've been feeling positively chipper.  Perhaps it's endorphins. I went running today (with my partner in crime) for the first time in actual whole months. I'm delaying going to bed because I know that the now slight pain in my legs is going to become an inability to move by the morning.

At least The Guardian didn't buy into the Blue Monday thing. Apparently Ben Goldacre debunked the myth some years ago. Good old Goldacre. It makes me more happy than is reasonable that he calls Gillian McKeith (who must surely be in cahoots with some Mung bean producing mogul) the Awful Poo Lady. I can't say I've ever paid particular attention to Gillian McKeith; but she's one of those people who somehow insinuates their way into your consciousness.

Breakfast the Sixth

Toast with pear and apple spread.

Rather a mean looking breakfast, but I was quaffing it while cooking lunch for friends: tomato and yellow pepper pasta sauce with some very vicious onions. I'm seriously considering wearing my swimming goggles in the kitchen again. I cottoned on to this wheeze the summer I was working in my parents' hotel. Guests kept ringing the bell while I was chopping onions and I'd arrive weeping copiously.