a few of my favourite things

These are a few of my favourite things from yesterday.

Watching lindy-hopping while thawing out at the Royal Festival Hall with my friend Poster Girl.
"That girl in the tartan mini skirt and black tights is amazing," said Poster Girl. 
"Actually that's a man in a tartan mini skirt and black tights," I said.
"So it is," Poster Girl replied, with no surprise in her voice.  "Silly me."

The German Christmas Market on the banks of Thames.

Father Christmas playing "Let it Snow" on the steel drums on the Golden Jubilee Bridge.

My darling little cat looking at me when I came home from the garden centre with soil on my jumper and pine needles in my hair (from carry a tree)

the streets of Philadelphia

After New York, we took the train down to Philly for the conference.  I'd never been there before, and I'm not sure that I can claim that I've really been there now as I mostly saw the inside of the conference centre.  However, I did run away from the conference for 3 hours after our talks, and sloshed through the pouring rain to the Old City. It's very pretty...

jetlag

You know you have jetlag when:
you are grocery shopping and you briefly consider putting a packet of minced lamb in your basket, when you haven't eaten red meat for 21 years
you spend a full five seconds wondering why your washing machine looks different before you realise you're looking at the fridge
there's a bar of chocolate in the aforementioned fridge but it holds no appeal whatsoever
you think it's a good idea to watch a tv programme about a 17-year-old girl giving birth to her second child instead of - well, pretty much anything else

trumpeting

Things that happened today:

1. Our symposium packed out a 250-seat room to standing room only
2. We all got a good number of questions afer our talks
3. All my jokes got proper laughs
4. Among those who came up to me after the symposium to ask follow-up questions was one of my heroes (hugely published, charming, leader in our field.  One of those people you want to poke to make sure they're real)
5. After the last session of the day, Dr Glamorous, Dr Hippie and I went for luscious, pink, pomegranate martinis
6. And we got ever so squiffy!

a chapter of accidents

1)  yesterday evening the six of us gathered in my hotel room to run through our talks and make adjustments and generally have a collective panic.  Quarter way through the proceedings we ordered beer from room service, and a bit later on we ordered another round.  Ten bottles of beer (I don't drink beer), one ice bucket and a flimsy tray later, everyone else left to put away their laptops and meet in the foyer to go out to dinner, leaving me to clear up my room.  The flimsy tray didn't like being picked up and threw two of the bottles off onto the bathroom floor.  Glass everywhere, including my finger.  (It's fine, the bleeding stopped pretty quickly).

2)  On the way to dinner last night, I stopped to get some more money out of an ATM, having the princely sum of $7 in my purse.  The maching spat my card out and asked me to contact my financial institution.  Now, I had telephoned my bank the day before I left London to say I was off to America so I was quite concerned about this - and concerned about how I could manage on $7 until Thursday night...

3)  I woke up at 4.00am (still jet-lagged, can you believe!) to the most attractive cold sore on my lip.  However, one good thing - I rang my bank and sorted out the money problem.

4)  Dr Hippie was freaking out about her talk this morning so we arranged to skip a lecture and she would come to my room so that I would help her.  Dr Hippie is always hungry so I ran across to the 7-11 and bought a bag of pretzels.  We both dove straight into them - and a huge chunk of filling broke off one of my teeth.  The pain is currently being kept basically under control by anti-inflammatories and all I am hoping for now is that I can get through my talk tomorrow and get home on Friday with minimum pain.

5)  And just to finish off this excellent 24 hours, somewhere between the CVS pharmacy down the street from the hotel (Advil run) and my room, I lost my key-card...

first we take Manhattan

I have spent the most gloriously frenetic day and a half in NYC.  It was my 4th visit to that amazing city but the first time for 2 of my colleagues and it was lovely watching their reactions to everything.  The weather was perfect (bright but chilly) which made it all the better.  Dr Beardie (one of the NY newbies) wandered around saying "f*ck, is this real?" pretty much the whole time.  He almost fell over when I led him to Grand Central and told him to look up as well as around.  The Hobbit (another colleague but one familiar with NY) took Dr Beardie to MoMA later on, and Dr Beardie's head about exploded.

Dr Hippie (the other newbie) wandered around in silent awe, although she did let out a squeak on Friday night when I turned her around and waited for her eyes to fall on the Empire State Building.

FYI - the cast of characters for the past weekend and the coming week (in a different city, indeed state) are:
Dr Beardie, senior consultant and convener of the symposium we are giving at this international conference.  I have known him for 13 years and I do believe that he is responsible for most of my grey hairs.
Dr Moody, senior consultant at a relatively young age.  Often charming, more often not.
Dr Hippie and Dr Glamorous, junior to the other two but senior in general. Very lovely women, but I sat with them on the flight over and it was 8 hours of talk about their children (2 each)...
The Hobbit - very junior doctor but ridiculously clever.  Very nice chap but oh my - no "off" switch.
And me.

tempus fugit

Guess where I am off to this afternoon?!