Hot days, frisbee & bowling

26/04 - Due to the new check-in regulations imposed after the Volcano erupted, I had to be up at 0520 in order to get to my flight on time. There were no queues at any point, so my early rising was all for nothing. When I got onto the plane, who should I encounter but Marie, who I met in Thailand in January of 2008 - I had not seen her in a little over two years, so we made a chap move seats so we could have a chat. It was nice, I thought it might be awkward but it was great to see her again. I made it into CERN just in time for lunch with Matt and Sara, on the most beautiful day so far - the sun is genuinely hot, and consequently I am now knackered and sticky.

I did not achieve much for the rest of the day, to be honest. My concentration span was almost nil, and so I decided the best thing to do was to get a pizza and have a nap - this plan of mine was nearly scuppered when Ricardo came in to have a discussion of our progress just after 6pm, meaning I only made it to the pizza place on my road 10 minutes before it closed. Phew.

27/04 - Today was much more productive - all sorts of good things with graphs happened. I spent a lovely lunch hour in the sun, had dinner in the sun too before doing my French homework in Restaurant 1 - forgetting, of course, that I had missed a lesson and so actually this work was for last Thursday's class. My French class was pretty good, I was able to do the right homework in the few minutes before the lesson, and we had a little comprehension test at the end in which I got full marks. I do, however, feel I may be punching a little below my weight here. The class, while it does remind me of a few useful things, is really easy.

When I got in, at 2245, I received a text saying that James and Dan had just finished making Sushi, and would I like to come over for some. I agreed, expecting them to have saved me a piece or two, but I was greeted by an enormous platter of treats. I devoured these gratefully and hung around for half an hour or so before going home and collapsing into bed where I spent some time researching ways to boost your wireless signal (such a geek) and reading Dawkins' The Greatest Show On Earth, which I am enjoying immensely.

28/04 - Today is James' birthday, and is also even nicer than yesterday. Consequently it is rather hard to stay in the office, so I am writing this sitting in the sun - the weather page says it is 25º, but I assume that that is the temperature in the shade - it is incredibly warm out here. The plan for evening goes thusly:

1730 Inaugural Ultimate Frisbee session, followed by beers.

1900 Head to the bowling alley which also does Pizza au metre.

later On the way home, stop by Brasseurs or anywhere else we can purchase a massive 5l tower of beer.

Well, we nearly achieved our goals. The frisbee happened and was exhausting - it got hotter as the day progressed, and so I managed about 40 minutes of running about in the sun before I became far too hot and had to go for a beer and a sit down. A few of us set off for bowling at around 7, in fact we ended up with 13 people for dinner, which was pizza "au metre a-gogo". The pizza itself was pretty good, although the salad and dessert were pretty unnecessary. We dragged our bloated selves down to the bowling alley, where we split into three lanes. I can't say I bowled very well, scoring an 83 and a 117 over two games, but the spread of ability was so wide (some scored in the 50s, there was one person who got 137 - well done Katy), but it was really fun - Jody had to run off half way through to go and do a night shift, and just before he left he finished the first game with three strikes in a row, kissed his girlfriend, downed a beer and ran off into the night. Quite an exit. Also, we learnt that they also do bowling a-gogo on Tuesday and Sunday nights for CHF20, which sounds pretty awesome. Also it is walking distance from where my French class takes place, so I may start coming along afterwards. Well, if I can find anyone who'll meet me there at 10pm on a Tuesday (we did not get the tower of beer, as we were all stuffed and knackered).

29/04 - Once again, a boring weekday. Nothing to report really, it was incredibly warm in the sun again, I did some poking around in some code I don't understand (which has suddenly stopped working), Dan and I had a coffee break at the top of an 8-storey staircase in the sun, and I spent about CHF 130 on stuff in the supermarket, including 4 bottles of wine from the surrounding areas. French class was fine, getting a little harder now which is good, I feel like I am learning.

30/04 - Today I have been given loads of work with not enough time to do it. I have, I will freely admit, been taking it easy for quite a while, but in the last few hours I have been tasked with presenting a talk on May 19th, getting a draft of a note done my May 15th, and presenting a few slides to Ricardo outlining where I am with everything on Monday. The problem with this is that Kelly is arriving this evening and staying until Tuesday morning, as it is Bank Holiday in the UK. Consequently I had not planned to come in on Monday, but it would appear that I must. I am now working on these slides until 2020, when I must flee to get the bus to the airport to pick up Kelly. Obviously writing this is not helping me to finish the slides, but a change is as good as a rest.

Dad's Party, Treasure hunt and a nice sunny weekend

I have got quite behind on this. I intended to write a little at the end of each day to document occurrences, but instead I end up writing nothing for ages, then having to spend a whole day writing stuff up, most of which I have forgotten, Consequently I shall attempt to be brief.

23/04 - On Friday morning I had to head straight to the dentist, where moulds were taken and I think I swallowed a fair bit of that rubbery goo they use to take impressions of the teeth. I then proceeded to putney, where I met Kelly on the train and we headed on to Chiswick for Dad and Hattie's party - The venue was a fair way from the station, and repeated references to maps and a couple of guesses were made before we arrived, at precisely the same time as my cousin and aunt. I aimed to find my Mum and greet here, but as she was on the far side of the restaurant this was quite a mission, as I had to run a gauntlet of faintly recognised (and, of course, more familiar) relatives to get to her. I remade some acquaintances I did not realise I had ever made and had a few too many glasses of champagne before lunch - it was tasty and free, so I found it hard to say no. The meal was great, I was positioned between Clare and my Aunt (the birthday girl) and a good way away from Kelly, but she seemed to fare pretty well on her own. There were some speeches and I feel I may have done some mild heckling at one point, when I was sharply shushed by a female voice - unsure whose, but I feel a bit bad about this. I had a great time, there were some good chats and an incident with a bra in a pocket, then all of a sudden it seemed to be time to go - Dad was being chivvied by Mum, most people had left and I had various invitations to stay in Chamonix and Luzerne at the weekend, which I agreed to enthusiastically but doubt I will be able to honour.

Dad and Hattie

My Dad and his Mum

Paul, flanked by Kelly and my uncle Alastair

As we were leaving to walk to the station we encountered my cousin Alex, the only other person who did not seem to have a pressing engagement, and adjourned up the river to a pub (Clare and Paul were keen to join us, but they had rabbits in tow and it was a very sunny day). We had a few more glasses of wine while he awaited his friend, the arrival of whom I have only just remembered. We went home to meet Simon and Ed at our house before going to see LCD Soundsystem in Brixton. We thought we were fine, but looking back I think Kelly and I may have been extremely drunk when we arrived. The gig was incredible, I know I enjoyed it a lot, danced about and sang loudly, and came out with the firm conviction that This Is Happening is my favourite album of 2010 so far. On our way home we persuaded the others to stop for another pint in the rather grimy Brixton Bar & Grill, then we headed home. On our arrival we cooked up some drunken snacks and I cooked a whole pack of sausages to make a point about sell-by dates, I think.

24/04 - Eugh. I did not feel ideal this morning - Ed gave us a shout at 9 am to see if we still needed to get up early to go and get tickets for the treasure hunt we were planning on doing. This we did, so I left to go and get them and left Kelly to catch me up. I was in Brick Lane by about half 11, it took me over an hour to get there as all transport in South London appeared to be closed. Anyway, I got the tickets and waited for the others - Ali was the first to arrive, followed by Clare and Kelly a few minutes before the hunt was due to begin, and Tim joined us en route. I have taken part in murder mysteries/treasure hunts organised by the same guy twice before, and they always prove to be fun and exciting. We did our very best sleuthing all over central London but still failed to solve the mystery - I won't go into detail about any of the clues now, but suffice to say they were all pretty ingenious (once again, pictures are on facebook in the same album). On the downside Kelly and I ruined our feet somehow, to the extent that we got a taxi to and from the restaurant we had chosen for dinner, as walking to the bus was simply not an option.

The restaurant in question is Lola Rojo, a Spanish place on Northcote Road which Kelly has declared to be her favourite in London. It was delicious and great value - we had some incredible octopus, cod and black pudding parcels, massive prawns, chorizo lollipops, fig and serrano ham salad, a course I have forgotten and a cheese selection, all accompanied by some great wines, and followed by massive glasses of strong fino. My only complaint might be that Kelly and the waitress both recommended three courses each, which is ample for tiny ladies such as themselves, but I was definitely not full when I got home and had to have some crumpets to top myself up.

Potato parcels filled with cod and black pudding

25/04 - Today could be best described as pleasant. After a lazy morning I went onto the Common with Henry and Ed to play some frisbee, we ran about a while and got back to the house just as Kelly was ready to come and join us. Instead we decided to go on a bike ride, so Kelly and I got some helmets (at her insistence) and rode down to Battersea Park, around the Thames path a bit and stopped in the Draft House for a third of ale. We then went home and persuaded the others to come and see Acora, a film about the fall of Alexandria - good, and the audience had no choice but to side with Rachel Weisz's atheist Hypathia, but it felt a bit more like a BBC miniseries or a feature length episode of Rome than a film in its own right. Back at home we had a simple but great dinner, a massive sirloin steak cooked rare and cut into strips, topped with roasted vegetables and griddled tomatoes with a load of salad, heavy on the goats cheese.

Dinner at Jody's and getting back to the UK

20/04 - Well, I screwed today up. Just before I went to bed I decide to play Sim City for a little bit, in an "I'll stop after such-and-such an event" kind of way. Somehow time rapidly passed, and when I finally stopped playing it was 6 am. As I did not wake up until half past 12 I decided to stay at home, had a look at some work and then went to my French class in the evening. This went pretty well, I had a stunted conversation in French with a chap named Emilio then I had a mixed kebab from the guy on the corner on my way home. One thing I did achieve today was picking up my train ticket to Paris from the station, which hopefully I will not need. On my way to French class I noticed a pretty spectacular sunset, much pinker than usual (possibly due to the ash cloud). Also a helicopter flew by, in stark defiance of the closed airspace...

The helicopter at sunset

21/04 - In an attempt to compensate for yesterday's preposterous lethargy I tried to make it in a little earlier today, arriving at exactly 10 o'clock. I stayed in the office until 7, which I feel is respectable, then James, Sarah and I headed over to Jody's flat in St. Genis, where he was cooking us dinner. He made a Thai green curry from scratch, and it was delicious. There was a lot of wine and an amazing dessert too, brought by Tanya and Paul. It was glistening, octagonal and delicious. This was only the second time I have ever ventured over to St. Genis, the first time being when Sarah and I wandered over last June or so. I quite liked the flats, they were a little scruffier than our ones, and Jody's bed situation looked decidedly more temporary than mine (he has two sofa beds, as opposed to my one permanent double), but on the upside they are right next to a river and a big Carrefour which was still open when we went in at 8pm, unlike all the supermarkets in Geneva at that hour. On our way home James, Dan and I stopped off at the airport to see if flights seemed to be going - it was about midnight and the place was absolutely empty and eerily silent - there was noone there apart from a few unfortunate folk who were camping under an escalator, awaiting a morning flight home, I assume.

22/04 - I got up and went straight to the airport, where I queued for ages at the information desk and was informed that my flight should definitely be running this evening. I then managed to get to the train ticket office and cancel my train with two minutes to spare before it left. I enquired about the possibility of changing my evening flight to an afternoon one, but she quoted me a change fee of "Three hundred…" at which point I laughed and left, not requiring either the rest of a the number or a currency to know that I couldn't afford it. I headed back into town, found somewhere to buy a massive merguez sausage sandwich and found a nice park near the Gare Routiere which was pleasantly sunny in which to eat it.

I made it back to my flight with plenty of time to kill (which I did by sitting in the sun in the car park), and eventually made it back to London about 11 hours after leaving my house this morning. I got a text from Kelly as I walked through the arrivals gate informing me that she was going to be late. I could already see her when I read this, so the intended surprise didn't really work. We went home and feasted on a huge mound of chicken, couscous, amazing balsamic roasted tomatoes and stuff, accompanied by a nice Rioja. I am very glad to be back in the UK.

The first days of summer, and I'm going to Disneyland...

18/04 - Well, today was a lovely day in Geneva (apart from the fact that all Kelly's flight options are definitely cancelled). I woke up feeling approximately a billion times better than yesterday, had some leftover pizza for breakfast and went about rallying people for a picnic. This took longer then anticipated as (a) Dan Short was in St. Genis, (b) James was unreachable and (c) I downloaded Sim City 4 this morning and had to give it a try. Eventually we went and woke James up, fetched a load of food from our various flats, bought some cold white wine and a baguette and settled down in the park for a picnic and some Aerobie. Dan S. arrived after a while with a bottle of gin, and went and bought tonic and a pizza (apparently our incredible spread of sandwich ingredients wasn't good enough for him). I should mention where he bought his pizza - there is a shop on our road which is definitely closed on Sundays, but there was a kids party going on inside. Oblivious to the signs, Dan walked straight in and ordered a pizza from a child, who went about making it with the aid of an adult, apparently.

We stayed in the park until the sun sank behind the trees, investigated the garden behind our building and arranged to meet at Dan's for a film at half 9. I went home and promptly fell asleep for an hour and a half, as I was full of wine and sleepy from the sun - I think I even got a little burnt through my (admittedly low quality gig) t-shirt. I was awoken by a phone call from Dan asking when I'd be over - I lied and said I was en route, gave myself a minute to wake up then popped round to watch The Science Of Sleep, a Michel Gondry film about a chap who can't separate his dreams from reality. I really liked it, thought it was innocent and whimsical, but I think some of the others may have been seeking more from it, by their reactions.

19/04 - So today I had to come up with and make a presentation by 3pm, but instead I prioritised sorting out this flight situation - I have to be back by 12 noon on Friday, no matter what, for Dad and Hattie's birthday party. I was on the eurostar website for ages trying to book a seat, but every time I got to the stage where I would actually book a ticket, it told me that the ticket I was looking for had gone in the time it had taken me to get this far. After a while I found their number and rang them instead, and after half an hour of Can't Get You Out Of My Head on repeat I got through, only to be informed that the only way I could get home on Thursday was to buy a ticket from Disneyland Paris to London, as there was room on that branch, and even then only on the 1937 train, getting in at 2112. I took this option, and paid £192 for the privilege. I then booked a much more reasonable TGV from Geneva to Paris for about £70, and now I have a backup plan in place should the flights still be cancelled on Thursday. I made sure that both of these tickets were fully refundable as well, just in case they lift the restrictions and I can get my flight.

I headed to the supermarket on the way home, and the temperature display at the pharmacy informed me that it was 26º today, which is crazy considering that on Friday night it was down to 4º. I think summer is definitely here, which has made me pretty happy in spite of the rather large outlay of cash earlier. I came home, made a delicious steak sandwich with red onions, mustard seeds and Café de Paris butter, and watched some of 'Bang goes the Theory' on BBC2, which was examining why volcanic ash is so dangerous to planes. It is now half 11 and I think I have run out of energy - I am going to try and get up early to go to the train station and pick up my ticket. I tried to do so on the way home, but the queue was out of the door, probably due to people returning from late ski holidays whose flights have been cancelled. Unlucky, at least Kelly and I have both been prevented from going away, not getting home.

Night shift - Fuck volcanoes.

15/04 - OK, I am at 6am, 7 hours into the shift. I have exhausted all the options facebook, BoingBoing and Make Magazine's Math Monday have to offer. Collisions started about half an hour ago, there was a brief flurry of excitement when I thought something had gone wrong, but then found out it was something that is known about and went away on its own quickly. I am glad I have made it through tonight with only one coffee and no game playing as of yet - however I am now bored of the internet, so tomorrow I may have to bust out the Naruto. I am not quite at Dwarf Fortress boredom levels yet. Also, my prawn salad at 3am was disappointing, but my 6am roast beef and mozzarella baguette is delicious. I posted a picture of me in the control room on facebook, and got an enormous amount of reaction to it - people seem to think it's pretty interesting, or at least pretty cool.

That was an odd night. I made it home by about 0730, having dashed off as soon as my replacement arrived. I remembered to pull the blinds this time, and fell asleep pretty quickly, waking up at about one. I decided this was a silly time and went back to bed until half three, when I got up, had some sugar puffs (thank you Kelly) and somehow faffed around until I had to leave at half 6. I went to balexert on a sandwich mission and ended up with a jambon cru and parmesan focaccia and a chicken satay and rice. I must admit to having a cheeky burger too, as I walked past McDonalds and the smell was too tempting to refuse. My French class was fine, still quite basic stuff but I am learning extra vocab nonetheless. I can tell there are a few people who may mildly annoy me (bossy Italian woman who interrupts all the time, I'm talking about you), and the teacher both praised and criticised my pronunciation. The first time I did it at natural speed and received a "bon", whereas when I had a bit more to read he mildly mocked my accent, saying it was "trop Anglais", especially when pronouncing Beaujolais-Villages. I tried again, and didn't seem to do much better. I am glad of the instruction, just not sure why he's criticising me but ignoring the people who pronounce every single letter in every word, whether it's meant to be heard or not.

I managed to talk to Kelly a little before my shift, and got some bad news - Kelly is supposed to be flying out tomorrow evening, but the Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption may have thrown a spanner in the works - all flights in and out of the UK are cancelled until further notice. That further notice is meant to come at 0230 UK time, so I await it with baited breath. Oh, also I reckon that I ate 4 1/2 meals yesterday, and as I spent a large chunk of the day sitting still I don't think night shifts are going to be good for my health.

16/04 - The shift is no more exciting than yesterdays, as it is now 3am and nothing has happened yet. We are awaiting the first physics fill of the night, god knows when it will start. There are an awful lot of people in fleeces in this control room. It seems to be the de rigeur item of clothing for physicists. I am listening to Major Lazer to keep me awake. 'What U Like'? Absolute filth. It's not looking too good from the flight point of view, the Met Office is giving an update at 0600. Fingers crossed.

Shit. Their update was at 0330 my time, and it isn't good. Most flights are closed until 1900 - Kelly's is at 1840. I think I'll suggest trying to change to a flight on Saturday morning, as it's free, and if they cancel that then we'll have to use the flights another weekend. Preferably the most expensive flights on the most expensive weekend ever - obviously none of this is actually easyjet's fault, but it's always nice to get one over on them.

Bugger. No good news, and it's now the end of my shift - 7am. I have devoured my chicken satay (ropey) and my focaccia (bone dry), found a sofabed upstairs near the vending machine, and been refreshing BBC news every few seconds. It's looking like all flights are cancelled until at least Saturday night.

Friday afternoon/evening was pretty fun - I enlisted a few people to come on an adventure around the Planpalais area, led by me on my bike. We went to a couple of bars and a Peruvian restaurant which served enormous portions, I realised that Dakers lived on the road we were on so I invited him to join us, and at 0145 I cycled (slowly) home.

17/04 - I was in my dressing gown about to go to bed when I heard some commotion outside - it was about 10 or so people who I had left in the bar, all of whom were going up to Mike Alexander's flat for a few more drinks. As I was still on night shift time I was the last up - we drank a lot of wine and then moved on to ill-advised whisky, which meant that I stayed up until far too late, got far too drunk and woke up far too late and far too hungover.

Kelly rang to tell me her new flights had been cancelled too, and she had rebooked onto yet another, on Sunday morning - she informed me that I was very lucky this had happened, and rightly so, as I would have been absolutely no fun if she had arrived today. I felt absolutely awful, really weak, sick, hot and angry, and I could do nothing to dispel any of these feelings. I made it as far as the park at the end of my road, where I lay in the foetal position cradling a carton of ice tea until I mustered the energy to go and find food. I had to have a sit down every few hundred metres as I felt faint, and eventually I found somewhere which would sell me a pizza. I took this home, ate half and had to get back into bed until Kelly rang. I was still frustrated and angry at something (probably that volcano), and I felt that my only option was to have a bath, the most relaxing option available to me. This I did, called Kelly back in my more relaxed state, and passed out at around midnight, despite having only been awake for about 8 hours. I am a confused mess, I am not sure about these night shifts...

Goodbye to Ed, and preparing to be nocturnal.

13/04 - I took Ed to the airport and headed to CERN, where I had meatballs for lunch and worked a bit, until about half 6. I popped along to the control room ro see if anything had changed since my shadow shift, had goat's cheese risotto and some sweet and sour prawns for dinner then I went to the first session of my French course at the École-Club Migros. We started off with restaurant French, which is probably the part I know best. I think I am at the right level, nobody seems to be much better than me. Not much else happened in the evening, to be honest - I came home and had the first proper chat with Kelly for a few days, which was a relief. I have my first night shift tomorrow night in the ATLAS control room, so I decided to see how late I could stay up, sleep all day tomorrow and hopefully get into a rhythm for the next few days. I kind of failed, I managed to watch four episodes of LOST before falling asleep at about half past four. They were pretty awesome, I am glad I have stuck with this for the last 113 episodes - only seven more left, I hope some of my questions are answered here.

14/04 - Well, I woke up at 1 o'clock (I'll close my blinds next time, whoops), spent a chunk of the day messing around with my computer, and went on a mission down to the Arve river to get sandwiches for tonight. I took my bike and found the ice hockey stadium and a load of bars and restaurants which I intend to check out properly at some point. Dan very kindly brought me a pizza for dinner, and I went and joined them for Zombieland, a mental film I saw a while ago which mainly involves Woody Harrelson beating the crap out of a load of the undead. I made it into CERN for 2245, found my card didn't work and had to get someone to let me in, and took over by 2250. I signed in, checked some stuff and waited for the first checklist to turn up - this didn't happen for about half an hour as I had forgotten to press the 'ready' button on the signing in box. Oops. I had a bit of a chat with Clare and Kelly, with them on video and me using gestures as I can't really be having an obvious chat while I'm on shift.

Oh, I was just having a look at facebook and found my mate Jan, who I stayed with on Koh Phi Phi in Thailand, and who now appears to have become a divemaster on the Gili Islands. Bastard. I am not even half way through this shift, bugger.

Birdie's Visit to Geneva

10/04 - As seems traditional in these visits, Birdie and I had a wander round the old town with some coffee and croissants, frequented some chocolate shops, climbed the cathedral (which was hard, yesterday's margaritas took their toll) and headed down to the Bois de la Bâtie and walked along the Viaduc de la Jonction, from where one can see where the Rhône and the Arve meet. We went back to Parc des Bastions where we hung out with a sandwich and a beer, watching the various punk kids messing around. There were a lot of beers and a surprising amount of hookah pipes, and loads of grubby looking students doing near sports like poi as they wandered about the grass. Next on our packed itinerary was a nap, which was intended to last half an hour but ended up being more like an hour and a half.

Rhône (left) meeting L'Arve (right)

We rushed off to Café de Paris for dinner, which was exactly as delicious as last time, and then went to a little bar near the Manor supermarket, whose name I do not know. I do know it is pretty much a gay bar, which became more obvious later on as the waiters removed their shirts. Not wanting to confine ourselves to one bar, Dan took us towards La Galerie in Grottes, but as this was closed we ended up in the bar next door, a bizarre place which only had three beers for sale. Not three types of beer, but three beers (two Heinekens and a Super Bock) which we shared between us while the chap at the next table rolled a massive joint and swigged from a bottle of wine. We started our walk home but were distracted by Les Brasseurs, where we purchased a three litre giraffe of bière blonde and watched some rugby.

The stroll home went pretty quickly, and I invited Dan and James in for a nightcap, which ended up being a litre of questionable Côtes du Rhône (under CHF 5 from Denner) and lasting until 5 am. A lot of chat about the upcoming election was had, we looked at They Work For You to find out where our MPs stood and what they had voted for, and discussed why not voting is a bad idea. Some of the arguments put forward are a little hazy now, but I remain convinced.

11/04 - For some reason Ed and I were up at 10 am, only 5 short hours after we went to bed. After some milling around we went to Mike Wong's for a spicy wake up breakfast, and then we decide to head up La Salève as it was a very clear day. We had a bit of a slog on our hands, as we decided to walk up to the radio tower at the top - we went up there on the advice of Matt Fraser (who also told us about the bridge over the meeting of the rivers). We were very grateful indeed for the presence of the bar at the top, where I drank an Orangina that was almost immediately absorbed by my tongue, as we had brought no water with us. After a bit of a sit down and a vain attempt to get a better view which involved scaling a shed, we started the walk down - we passed the hanggliding (or paragliding - I'm not sure) school, which is basically an area of green matting laid down on top of the grass running up to the edge of the cliff, and a wooden walkway (or runway, I suppose) which leads straight off the edge, with a yellow line painted on it which I can only assume marks the point of no return.

Path off the edge of the mountain

Ed observes Geneva

We had a nap when we got home, which of course overran (god knows why we got up after 5 hours last night), meaning that we only just got to Bains Des Paquis in time for fondue before they closed. Ed enjoyed it, it was pretty good (as always), and afterwards we went back to the flats and ended up watching Terry Gilliam's Brazil with the Dans (Short and Hayden). It was an absolutely bonkers film, but really good - It had some crazy sets, a very 1984-style storyline (Gilliam has admitted that he was heavily influenced by Orwell) and Robert De Niro is a plumber. It also had that weird unattractive love interest thing that happened in a few films in the early eighties. A couple of glasses of wine and a cup of tea later we went to bed.

12/04 - Todays plan was to go to all the international organisations. First up we headed to CERN for lunch and a tour - calimari steak and roughly the same tour I gave Kelly. I took Ed to the ATLAS control room and we listened in to a tour that a guy from CMS was giving. (Apparently the CMS guys have a different shift system to us, in that they do a normal day shift then switch management of their systems to Fermilab for the next 8 hours, then to somewhere in Beijing, then back to CERN. This avoids the need for night shifts, which is what I am doing right now as I write this on Wednesday night at 2am). We then proceeded to Microcosm where I tried to explain cosmic rays and neutrinos a bit. Not sure how much I succeeded.

We got the tram to the UN, saw the landmine chair (a 12 metre monument dedicated to landmine victims, advocating a worldwide ban) and wandered through the park to the entrance. We got in and nearly had a sleep on the sofas, but we were called for our tour. This was interesting, and had a few good facts thrown in, but was essentially a tour of an enormous grand conference centre.

The, umm, big room at the UN

The landmine chair

We headed back and went to the Lady Godiva pub quiz, where we were in first place at the half way point, but then we dropped down to fifth at the end. We still beat the other CERN team, so we had a small victory. Back at the flat we watched some Black Books, Ed packed and we went to bed. I've enjoyed having Ed here, makes a real difference having someone I've known as long as him, a very different atmosphere to hanging out with people I've only known for the last year or two.

Dan Short's Birthday drinks, and Ed arrives.

09/04 - I completely forgot to mention the best thing that happened yesterday. Kelly phoned me to let me know that she had been roped into helping with our friend Elise's art show. She made me promise not to tell Clare about this, as she thought that Clare would definitely disapprove, and she wanted to prolong the surprise. While doing this she had to don a tie-dye swimming costume and a hairband, and after helping people choose a costume and song she danced at them to encourage them to dance back, all on film. I wish I could have been there, although I am not sure about enforced dancing. Clare later sent me a picture of Kelly in costume, with a subject which simply said "Ahem". I am in two minds about whether to include the picture here - I feel it would be more polite if I did not, or at least I would get in less trouble.

Anyway, this morning I had to part with CHF 480 (about £300) for my French course, which hurt a bit. Hopefully I can get £250 of this back, as I have some money for language courses in my training budget - I thought about using it for a Spanish course, but I'm not sure if I could justify this when I'm in Switzerland. I had a pretty good meeting this morning, I was able to explain a concept to everyone else and noone interrupted me or told me I was wrong for once. I had a questionable interpretation of nasi goreng for lunch, managed to smash a bowl of salad on the terrace, basked in the sun for a while and came back to try and wrap everything up and make a plan for the next few days' worth of tasks before 6pm today, as I am on night shifts next week and I don't expect that I'll be in the office much during normal working hours. I have also printed off some 'things to do in Geneva' lists, as Birdie will be here tonight until Tuesday and I have no idea what we'll do. I have three New York Times' articles - 36 hours in Geneva, Geneva with the kids and Frugal Geneva, out of which we should be able to find some good stuff to do. I have asked a few people what they would do apart from the normal sightseeing and fondue, and the general response has been "no idea, but if you find anything let me know." Not too encouraging.

So, after work and a few beers in honour of Dan Short's birthday a few of us headed to Mañana, a Mexican restaurant near Cornavin where I had an enormous platter of nachos, a beef burrito and 4 margaritas before going to get Ed from the Airport. We went straight from there to Le Roi Ubu, or King's Arms, for a few more drinks - Matt Fraser was there, and he gave us a load of good advice on what we should do while Ed's here. Dan had become incredibly drunk in the time it took me to go and get Ed, and just before closing time he ordered a couple of drinks and wandered off, so Ed and I cleared them up on Zoe's orders. We stayed until the bar closed at 2, then walked home and possibly had a few glasses of wine before bed.

Back to Geneva, CERN is deserted...

06/04 - Kelly and I were up at 7, and went downstairs to find an unexpected Jim Byrne in the kitchen, who had apparently turned up about 10 minutes after we went to bed (he may be in town to participate in a trial of an anti-cancer drug, but he is not definitely eligible). We got a taxi to Paddington at 0745, dropping Kelly off on the way. It has been wonderful being at home/in Yorkshire with her for the last 10 days, although a downside is that it makes it much harder to part than if it had just been a weekend. Oh well, less than two weeks until she's out in Geneva next, so it's not so bad. Even with checking in baggage, I had an hour to spare at the airport (I need to get better at this), and got to my desk at 1320 GVA time (4 1/2 hours door to door - I reckon I can get it down to 3:45).

There was nobody about in the office, as everyone else seems to have taken the week off. I hung around until about 6, mainly writing up the last few days on here, then went home, dumped my bags, threw out the more unpleasant items I had left in the fridge and promptly dozed off until Zack rang me to see how I was, and I ended up going over to his house for pizza. I brought them some Kinder eggs as an easter gift, as it was all I had in the house. Masa has not yet had their son, although apparently last Thursday was the expected due date so she is massive and a little impatient to have him. We watched a bit of The West Wing and I had to explain the LHC to a Croation friend of Masa's, during which I think I lied/made things up a bit. I cycled back home, which took about 5 minutes, and had taken about 90 seconds on the way down. I am not walking anywhere ever again.

07/04 - Today was productive but dull, and not worthy of more than a couple of lines (many of my days are like this during the week). I had a productive morning, by which I mean I got my laundry, another month's internet and travelcard before 10am. It was rainy but I had dressed for summer, there is still almost nobody about, and I spent most of the morning moving computers and screens to my new desk (formerly Teresa's), I had lunch alone and popped to the supermarket on my way home where I picked up some exciting things like a sieve and a measuring jug, then cooked a failure of a meal (meant to be pasta with chorizo and basil, but had no pasta left so it ended up as soggy fried rice). The rest of the evening was spent downloading and converting episodes of Lost and Naruto so I could watch them on my iPod. A dull day, as I said.

08/04 - I watched Lost on the tram on the way in, which put me in a bit of an odd mood. I had a meeting with Ricardo during which I completely forgot how to get hold of some plots I needed. I remembered as soon as the meeting was over. I had a massive tuna pizza, covered in tabasco, parmesan and chilli oil, after which I felt extremely dozy. I think that tonight I am not going to get up to much more than yesterday, as Birdie is coming out tomorrow and I need to clean my flat beforehand (although I doubt he'll really care). I tried to get some supplies yesterday, but ended up just getting some cheap red wine in - I have a massive drawer with about 13 bottles of wine in now, plus the bag-in-box from France. I really need to start actually drinking some.

Well I achieved that at least - since I wrote the above Dan, James and I got a Mike Wong's takeaway and came back to mine for dinner and some wine, and also they showed me a game called Dwarf Fortress which they have been playing while on shift. It looks worryingly addictive, so I am going to put off playing it for as long as possible.

A feast, a roast and returning to London.

03/04 - This morning was productive, in a non-fun sort of way. Kelly had been tasked with sorting through a few boxes of stuff which had been moved out of her Mum's house to her Dad's garage, so I helped out a bit, and we got through about 5 or 6 boxes, and ended up with two boxes less than we started with, although I must confess to being a little confused about some of the stuff Kelly opted to keep (mainly school books/notes, as far as I could see). I had my uneaten emergency pasty for lunch and we headed over to her Mum's house in the early afternoon, said hi and then quickly borrowed her car for so that we could drive into Beverley. Kelly headed off to Tesco to get soem stuff for dinner while I went to get a haircut - quite a massive deal, as it is the first one I have had in well over a year. I was rather nervous about my ability to tell them what I wanted, and I was pretty shocked at how short some of it is, but now I am used to it I quite like it. I reckon they took about 8 inches off, judging by the offcuts on the floor.

We headed over to Kelly's sister's house for a play with Olivia and then to cook them dinner. Kelly had chosen all Amy's favourite foods. We were the first overnight guests in their new house, and the first to cook for them, and Kelly had decided that this was to be a surprise dinner so we had to shut them out for an hour or so while we cooked so Amy couldn't guess what we were making. The reason this took so long is that the main course required us to reduce 2 litres of stock down to an eighth of its original volume. The actual cooking was pretty simple - we made creamy garlic mushrooms, steak a l'échalotte and microwave treacle sponge pudding, all of which went down very well indeed. We also had prosecco (all of us), rosé (Amy and Liam), rioja (Liam and I) and a white wine (Kelly and the garlic mushrooms) to go with it all. We went to bed in the spare room in a den of sofa cushions and duvets, full and happy.

Liam and Amy, wondering what we have cooked for them.

Amy's Birthday sponge

04/04 - Kelly leapt out of bed to go and play with Olivia, while I took the opportunity to doze a bit more. Olivia and I had some good games going, and she was pretty chatty by the time we left. For some reason I was feeling exhausted and a bit cranky, but I had to ignore this and be on my best behaviour as we dropped by Kelly's Aunt's house - the Aunt who let us stay in her house in the south of France the other week. On arrival, Kelly's uncle started telling me about his Open University science course, and I ended up basically checking his homework for him - I didn't really mind though, physics is much easier to do when tired than scintillating conversation.

Olivia says cheese

When we got to Kelly's Mum's, a massive transformation had taken place, the place was almost completely unpacked (yesterday it had been full of sofas and boxes, stacked to the ceiling). There then began another round of visitors, and when the last ones left at about 4 we snuck upstairs for a nap. Unfortunately this took a bit longer than expected, and we woke up 2 hours later to the smell of roast lamb. Dinner was good (Kelly drank about half a pint of gravy, having transferred it from jug to plate to spoon for manners' sake), and we had a much more relaxing evening than the previous three.

05/04 - There isn't too much to say about today - we got up and got our train back to London, met Clare after work for tea (which, due to a lack of tea rooms, turned into a hot chocolate and a millefeuille at Chez Gérard) then went home and cooked a chilli con carne for ourselves, Sophie and Ed. After this I packed (I bought 4 litres of Ribena to take back to Geneva, which means I have to have hold luggage on my return - totally worth the extra hassle), we watched QI and then went to bed. A busy Monday.

Easter in Yorkshire part 1 - Jorvik Viking Centre!

01/04 - I had a dentist's appointment this morning, which turned out to be completely pointless - all we got done was to reschedule another appointment for the 23rd. I hung around Fulham Road until noon so I could go to Mexicali for enchiladas, then I headed into town to start my many missions of the day. These involved firstly getting a doll for Olivia, Kelly's niece - the previous one was lost in the move. I picked up a tiny Baby Born doll from Argos, which came in a MASSIVE box, which I then had to carry around for the next few hours. Next stop was to try and get some new shoes to replace my ailing Nike Dunks, which my Dad bought me in the autumn of 2002. This mission nearly failed, until I let myself be persuaded of the awesomeness of a (frankly flamboyant) pair of blood red high-tops by the man in Size?. As I was on a bit of a spree, I then went to Oxford street to see if there was anything else I fancies. No.

I was very early for the train, so I had a cheeky double cheeseburger as I knew dinner was a long way away - when I met Kelly I found that she had bought me an "emergency pasty" to make sure I didn't get hungry (which means grumpy) on our 2 hour train ride together. This turned out to be a bit more than 2 hours, as we sat outside Peterborough for an hour due to some unspecified problem. All this meant that by the time we got in, Kelly's Dad had decided it was too late to do anything for dinner, so we popped to Tesco and got some stuff to make a quick one. Howie decided that, rather than just letting us cook for him, he would grab something easy and microwavable, in spite of our protests,

This meant that when we got home, Kelly and I had venison, chilli and merlot sausages on french bread with roasted vine tomatoes, accompanied by a goats cheese, rocket, apple and onion salad. Howie had a sweaty paella. I think we made the better choice. Also I should note that it was only half past 8, so I am not sure why Howie had decided that this counted as 'late', especially as we then sat up and drank a couple of bottles of wine until about midnight, when we went to bed and Kelly's stepsister arrived, who then stayed up drinking more wine with Howie until about 0245.

02/04 - We got off to a late start today, eventually heading into York around 1. We started with lunch at Betty's, a tea-room which is apparently a York institution. Kelly neglected to mention (or indeed notice at all) that Betty's is a Swiss tea-room, with raclette and gruyère all over the menu. I have had quite enough of Switzerland recently, so I went for the Welsh rarebit.

Betty's Welsh Rarebit

Next on the itinerary was the Jorvik Viking Centre, the main reason I was excited about York. Upon entering the first thing one notices is the smell, which I suppose must be authentically Viking (smells rather of middens and unwashed animal skins). The main bit is a ride, somewhat akin to a horizontal chairlift from the future, during which you have commentary from speakers in your seat, which occasionally converses with animatronic vikings. I loved it.

Apparently these three were having an argument about dinner.

This chap was, umm, I can't remember but my chair had a chat with him.

This fellow was on the loo - may I remind you there were smells.

Howie picked us up and took us to dinner, which was in a pub called the Pipe and Glass (the recipient of East Yorkshire's first and only Michelin star). For a reason that I have forgotten, Kelly's dad has little or no sense of taste or smell. I wonder if I would have treated five people to such a delicious dinner if I had lost my sense of taste - would you take people to a gig if you were deaf, or a film if you were blind? Maybe those are fatuous comparisons, but I couldn't help feeling bad that he couldn't taste any of the amazing foods we were enjoying. The meal was amazing, I had the fried rabbit rissoles followed by the fillet steak, which was one of the best I have ever had. Kelly had the monkfish cheeks with kipper veloute & something else fishy, and a side salad about a yard long. More wine was drunk, along with some cider brandy to finish - this had such a strong flavour that it got through Howie's taste barrier and he declared that he liked it.

Kelly's fish dish and yard of salad

My perfect steak

IoP conference dinner and eating Kangaroo & locusts

30/03 - Incredibly, despite oversleeping by an hour, Kelly and I both made it to UCL by half 9 this morning - it only took 30 minutes door to door, instead of the hour Kelly claims it usually takes. I think that by going earlier, one catches rush hour, which causes a longer delay than just waiting a bit. This was probably a bit of a waste of effort though, as I dozed off on my desk within about 20 minutes of getting in. After the coffee break I stayed in the 'quiet room', sorting some stuff out on my laptop before going for a walk over to meet Kelly for a cup of tea (ended up being a coconut muffin and a pear juice) on Queen Square.

The afternoon's talks were of marginal relevance and interest, which finished just in time for Matt, Tina and I to squeeze in a pint before the conference dinner, which was held in the rather grand Russell Hotel. As far as I remember (I am writing this over a week later), dinner was pretty good, especially the mini rack of lamb we had for the main course - nice and crisp on the outside, pink in the middle. Tegid Wyn Jones, a slightly crazy emeritus Welshman from UCL, gave the after dinner speech, which was rambling but enjoyable, mainly due to his incredible voice. We had four bottles of wine per table, which we soon polished off, and after dessert I popped over to see how Rich was doing. Rich's table had 8 bottles of wine, as there was an empty table next to them which now had no bottles. A waitress came over later and gave them two more as well, so I hung around for a while. It was looking like the UCL people intended to make a night of it, and I was tempted to join them, but I thought better of it and snuck off to meet Kelly in Soho, where we popped to the Evaristo club for a couple of cheeky rums before bed.

31/03 - I was not in as early as yesterday, and while seeking out a better lunch than the somewhat puny sandwiches on offer (they had got a lot worse since Monday) I bumped into Rich in Subway. He had an enormous hangover and I was knackered, so we spent a while in the 'quiet room' munching through our respective enormous meals. We went along to the afternoon talks and struggled through, before going for Rich's birthday drinks. It was here that I discovered something rather amusing/tragic that happened last night. Mark Lancaster, the head of the UCL high energy physics group and Rich's supervisor/my former supervisor had had a bit of a tumble last night, smashing his head on the pavement and gaining a black eye, some fierce bruising and losing a tooth. He has an emergency dentist's appointment tomorrow to reattach/replace the tooth, but nothing can be done about his eye. I tried not to laugh when he came in, and failed completely when he asked me for "a Guiness and a straw."

Kelly turned up after a while, we stayed until all the others started looking for somewhere to watch the football, then borrowed Rich's iPhone to look up anywhere close we could use Kelly's taste card for half price food. Incredibly, the closest option was Archipelago, a place Kelly had talked about in the past which has a reputation for serving exotic meats, such as zebra and scorpion. When we arrived we found that both of these were off the menu, so we had Sarawaki Seafood followed by pink gin, lychee and mango palate cleansers, then Hot Marsupial (marinated kangaroo), Menelik's Catch (Berber spiced tilapia fish), Love Bug Salad (deep fried crickets & locusts)and Mouse In The House to finish (cheeses). With our discount card all this only came to £52, including two glasses of wine each (admittedly they forgot to charge us for the second one).

Feeling at home & the first day of the IOP

29/03 - I feel I have missed an essential element out of the last few entries. This is to point out just how glad I am to be back in London, actually living in my house rather than just visiting. The best thing about last night was that I knew I wouldn't have to get up early and dash off to the airport. After Kelly left this morning I spent some time making some shelves for our room, washing a load of clothes, doing some washing up and generally doing house stuff, which I really enjoyed, it made the place feel a little more like home.

I left the house at 11 and made it to UCL with plenty of time left for registration for the IOP meeting, which is ostensibly my reason for being here. I saw a few people I wanted to talk to, more who I knew and loads who I recognised. I ended up mostly chatting to Rich over the sandwiches (blue cheese and apple, crayfish, chorizo, and other surprisingly tasty options). The first session today is the STFC town meeting, which is mainly some folk from the research council outlining and defending their funding choices for the next year. In summary: there's not much money and everyone's unhappy about it.

Well, the rest of the day continued in much the same manner. There were many talks, some more interesting than others, and at 6 we had a drinks reception with some awesome canapés, and a large selection of real ales for us. Kelly joined us for a while, we had some slightly awkward chats with some physicists, and then left to go and meet Simon and Clare in the Norfolk Arms, a pub near King's Cross which does pretty good Spanish food. Simon told us stories about his recent trip to New Orleans (he got back yesterday), especially focussing on the food - deep-fried oyster po-boy sandwich anyone? The meal was really good, but a couple of things went wrong - firstly our desserts took nearly 40 minutes to arrive, as the waiter had clearly just forgotten all about them and made some rubbish excuse. When I ordered my second glass of wine, they brought me a large glass when I had specified small - this wouldn't have really mattered, but the difference was at least a couple of quid and I was already quite full enough of booze. For the above reasons we ignored their 12.5% service charge and left about £4 instead (I am never any good at this, saying no when the tip is already on the bill, but to be honest the service was pretty crap).

Westfield, Bowling, FLC, Imperial War Museum, a curry and Tigerland

27/03 - I woke up before 9, feeling a little woozy. I was confused as I thought I hadn't had that much, but then I remembered the glass of wine at the airport, the complimentary bottle on the plane, the cava with dinner and the few pints in the merchant - as they had all occurred in different places with little gaps between them, I had not considered the possibility that they would have a combined effect. They did.

I had a delicious but unusual breakfast of leftover salad, coronation chicken and a cup of tea, and Kelly and I pottered around the house for a while before heading off to Westfield - we had jokingly proposed it last night, but in the cold light of day it seemed much less tempting. My intent was to go and get some shoes and a few items, but in the end I didn't find anything I wanted. Upon walking in I could smell a combination of floor polish, air conditioning and an odd citrus scent which, combined, gave me a headache and reminded me of all the big malls in Singapore and Bangkok. It wasn't a very pleasant place, and although it is on a grand scale architecturally I found it to be pretty oppressive and grim. When the time came to leave, we headed to the exit and found that it was pouring down with rain, so stayed inside, weaving between the throngs, and dashed across the road to the station, accidentally stomping in a number of puddles along the way.

Next on our agenda we went to meet Gordon, the head of Kelly's MBPhD course, in The Lamb. He has helped her enormously during the last year or so, and was a very smart and interesting guy. I wasn't sure what we would talk about, but luckily I had some random knowledge of the pay structure of Somalian pirates which I was able to pull out, as well as knowing some stuff about positrons, which popped up in conversation too. At half six we met Clare, Frau, Ed, Joe & Adam and went for Ed's birthday dinner next door at Ciao Bella (without Gordon), where I had a rather disappointing meal (again - the gnocchi last time was slimy, the penne putanesca was pretty bland. Everyone else's looked delicious, I am going to let other people decide for me next time).

Our next stop was Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes, for the main event of the evening - bowling and a Fun Lovin' Criminals gig. This turned out to be fraught with more disappointment. Firstly they had no cocktails, which meant no white russians. Then all the draught beers were off, so we were confined to bottles of everything. Then we found out that our lane had been cancelled, as Fun Lovin' Criminals wanted to film the gig and didn't want any sound feedback from bowling. Our lane was therefore moved from 2130 to midnight, which was a bit unsatisfactory. We were given a round of drinks, which was scant compensation. When the band came on we realised that this was maybe the least appropriate gig venue possible, as it has a low ceiling and is in a basement. It was rammed and boiling, and we couldn't see a thing. Clare decided to leave, as it was too hot and she hadn't heard of the band anyway. Kelly and I snuck round the side, and ended up standing on top of the ball return of one of the lanes, the only place from which one could actually see the band. After a shaky start (of new material) they broke into the songs that everyone know (Scooby Snacks, King Of New York, Fun Lovin' Criminals etc.) which were pretty awesome. The actual bowling was fun, I opened with a strike and a spare and followed it by two frames of gutterballs. We entered into a row with a massive bloke on the next lane about 'ownership' of the 12 lb ball. In the end a security guard stepped in and told us to ask him, and he would get any ball we wanted. We did pretty awfully actually, Frau won with 92, not a particularly impressive score. We left at one, intending to head to the Evaristo for a drink, but as it was closed we ended up having expensive sandwiches from Valentino's and getting the bus home.

28/03 - Kelly and I woke up at 1245, which wasn't unreasonable as we had gone to bed at 0345, but this was still pretty late. Too late for lunch, in fact, as I immediately received texts telling me that Ed, Bob and Joe were going for lunch, had gone for lunch, and were heading back from lunch. They were already back by the time we had sorted ourselves out with showers and tea, so we said goodbye to Joe and went off for our Sunday activity - the Imperial War Museum. On our way there we walked past a hostel of some description outside which there was an unconscious man on the pavement, next to whom someone was having a wee. Outside the museum there were a huge number of drunken, possibly homeless, people sitting and lying about on the grass. Kelly said she thought there was a Polish holiday going on (all the beers I saw were Polish brands, and most people were speaking Polish, but a quick Google has yielded no results).

The museum itself was really good - I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. There was a Terry Deary based exhibition called Terrible Trenches, which was designed for children but during which I improved my rather insufficient knowledge of the first world war. Our next stop was the WWI history section, including 'The Trench Experience'. We didn't have time to go through to WWII (and 'The Blitz Experience'), as the museum closed and we had to leave. We had a pretty good curry for dinner and, after a rather long debate, watched Tigerland, a film about Colin Farrell's character going through training before the Vietnam war, pretty much entirely unwillingly. I really enjoyed it, mainly because the protagonist hated everything about the army and refused to bend to the will of various drill sergeants etc. Bob thought it was rubbish, maybe for exactly the same reason.

A Chinese, a very long trip back to London and Kelly's feast

25/03 - I struggle to recall the events of Thursday. Nothing much happened during the day, I had lunch with Ben and Ricardo during which we discussed what I should do for the note we are working on, then I went back to the office and failed to get some code working for a while. I went to beers with Tina, Lawrence and Dan, sitting just near all the LTA lot who were having a farewell drink with Gemma. I don't know Gemma very well, and consequently felt a little bad about what happened next - I was walking to the bus stop, saw the bus leave and so got a lift with Matilde to Planpalais, where Gemma et al were going for dinner. My plan was to go home, but I was persuaded to go to Fouille de Banane, a Chinese restaurant which has a three course all-duck option on the menu (it didn't take much persuading, to be honest). This turned out to be much pricier than my choice, a chicken in dry chili sauce dish which I would describe as adequate. I tried some of the duck things, and I was particularly impressed by the duck skin pancakes (fried duck skin wrapped in pancakes, not pancakes made of duck skin as I had hoped).

26/03 - Hmm. I write this sitting at Geneva airport, awaiting a delayed flight. I managed to get a reasonable amount of work done this morning, produced a plot I was happy with, and, due to Kelly's worrying, got the 3pm shuttle to the airport. I was through security and waiting at the gate by 1515, for my flight at 1650. I have sat here messing around on the internet since then, and have just been informed that my flight has been delayed by an hour for some reason. Bugger. I could have got the shuttle at 4, or even later, and been fine.

Well, my journey from desk to front door took me 6 1/4 hours, compared to 4 1/2 hours last time. I eventually got back to Clapham at 8, to find that Kelly had taken my suggestion of a chicken salad for dinner and gone a little crazy. We had roasted squash with pecorino and prosciutto, a mango, pepper and rocket salad with orange-marinated chicken, ciabatta with prosciutto and goat's cheese and with a tasty cheese and chilli topping. We also had Joe Hawkins for dinner (as a guest, not a course), as I was a lot later than anticipated. We had planned to go to Kelly's friend Olly's birthday drinks and then on to Dalston for some gypsy balkan music, but after dinner we decided that it would take too long to get there (over an hour each way, according to TFL) and it was a bit late anyway. As we were getting ready Kelly suddenly felt awful, and sent Joe and I off to the pub on our own. We played some table football and drank some pints, and after a few tries I got through to Kelly and found she had fallen asleep, soon after which she came and joined us for a couple of drinks before we were asked to leave at midnight. The bouncer was a bit odd - he advised us that we couldn't take our drinks out, then that we could in bottles, but had to pour them in inside the pub, and Kelly's had to be drunk. Consequently Joe and I made a huge mess decanting our beers back into the bottle, and we reluctantly helped Kelly get rid of her remaining cider.

Summer comes to Geneva

23/03 - Today wasn't very eventful, as it was taken up mostly with reading and going through code to try and figure out how the hell to do what I am meant to have already done. The most interesting thing about the day was the weather - it was a steady 16º with not a cloud in the sky all day, so I made use of this by doing some reading out in the sun after lunch and by taking the long route home. I picked up a Mike Wong curry on my way home, threw open all my windows, poured myself a glass or two of bag in box, listened to Off The Wall pretty loudly and wrote up the last week on here. Quite a nice evening really.

Oh, I nearly forgot, something else happened today - I had a missed call from a Geneva number earlier, rang them back, encountered a language barrier and thought no more about it. When I got home I was trying to input the advanced passenger information for my flight back on Friday, and couldn't find my passport. I then remembered the phone call, and thought I may have heard the word 'Fust' somewhere in amongst all the French. I bought my replacement phone from there on Monday morning, so I ended up going through the Swiss yellow pages and finding the contact number for the store I had gone to, and found it matched my missed call.

24/03 - I went to Fust in the morning, asked around and got my passport back, which was a big relief. I did some more reading today, had a cured ham pizza for lunch, sat in the sun for a while and then went to the b-tagging meeting at 2 o'clock. This meeting was interminably long, and was still going when I eventually gave up and left at 1810. Ridiculous, what's the point of a 4 1/2 hour meeting? I only made it through because I decided to use my lunch break to lie in the sun and call Clare. It was an incredible day, the place is covered in daffodils, daisies, bluebells and a few wasps, all of which definitely weren't here on Friday.

All the supermarkets had closed by the time I got to them, so I decided to make the best I could out of what I had in the house - I should also mention that an email was sent out today to all the LTA students asking if anyone wanted to buy an oven for CHF 45, which I replied to immediately and very enthusiastically - I am now the proud owner of a big silver electric oven, which is sitting in the corner of my room as there is no space in the kitchen. I was going to just knock up some pasta & pesto but Kelly and Clare are throwing a dinner party in our house in London tonight, making a chorizo stew, so while I was on Skype to them all I made a chorizo and bean mix-up. On their advice I then topped it with loads of gruyère and grilled in the new oven. It is delicious, I will probably eat the whole thing (3 servings, according to the internet) in one go. I am halfway through already...

The Chorizo and Haricot Mélange (with pasta as I had already cooked it).

Greasy close-up.

Leaving France, La Salève, Alice & Fondue

20/03 - We crawled out of bed slightly the worse for wear, probably due to the aforementioned 'bit if rough' that I had last night. We had a tiny breakfast of leftovers and were faced with the task of clearing up the house, washing all the bedding and stuff and generally making it nice. This wasn't too arduous, and by lunchtime we were on our way back to Geneva. It was a very long very dull drive back. On more than one occasion the satnav told us something like "in 303 km, bear right." I was impressed Kelly managed to maintain concentration for the required 5 1/2 hours. The most interesting part was when, on the motorway in the middle of nowhere, the fuel light went on and we were informed that we had only 50km of petrol left. We carried on on our way, hoping to encounter a garage before too long, but this didn't work out too well so we had to take a detour to the nearest small town. By the time we arrived, the estimated km remaining was showing "---", so I assume we made it just in time. We ran out of Euros on the way back as well, and ended up trying four different cards at the péage before one worked and we could actually get on the final stretch.

When we arrived back at the rental office we found that someone had parked in their single parking spot, and as there was nothing else about we ended up nuzzling in behind them, with the back metre or so of our Micra sticking out onto the pavement. Kelly asked a passing policeman if this was fine, and I think the response was "Oui, c'est bon. No billet", but I can't be sure as I was off looking for a parking space and Kelly doesn't speak any French. We went for dinner at La Trattoria, as it was nearby and not too pricey, during which we discussed whether or not we would go skiing on Sunday. We started off with me proposing it and Kelly being unsure, and ended up with Kelly insisting she should go, and me questioning whether she would actually enjoy it at all after her horrible time last week. Confusing. We went home and I sewed up the leg of her salopettes, which took much longer than I expected, then we set alarms for 0645 and went to bed.

21/03 - As it turned out we needn't have worried. We woke up at the allotted time, I checked the forecast for all the places we might have gone on the bus, found them all to be rainy and rubbish, and we went back to sleep for another four hours. Definitely the right decision. With our newfound extra time and money we got the bus to La Salève, a massive table of rock that sticks out just over the French border east of Geneva. Cloudy as it was, the views were still pretty impressive.

Geneva from atop La Salève

Mont Blanc & some alps, obscured by cloud

We came back and went to see Alice in Wonderland, during which Kelly went to get popcorn, and found she only had enough for a small. However, she then found the CHF 2 required to get a medium, and the lady behind the counter refused to sell her one, claiming "I have already made this one." What the hell? Since when does one 'make' popcorn by putting it into a box? I'm sure it's fairly easy to move this popcorn into another box and add more. Anyway, after the film Kelly grumbled about the 'snacks bitch' for a while and we decided she should have probably lobbed the popcorn or 2 franc piece at her head. We now know for next time. We went on a bit of a restaurant search and ended up in Café La Demi Lune for two big tapas platters, and a few glasses of wine each, all of which were delicious. Back at the flat we packed, had some of the bag in box wine I got the other day and watched Wonders Of The Solar System on BBC2 Northern Ireland before bed. Perfect.

22/03 - Less perfect was the next morning, when Kelly awoke at 0345, dozed fitfully until getting up at 0445 and actually leaving at at 5. For some reason I chose 5 am as a good time to go and pick up my laundry from downstairs, hang it up and then fall asleep for another three hours. On my way in I bought a new phone to replace the one I dropped in the lake the other day, had lunch with James and read papers (scientific, not news) all afternoon. At 7ish I got a lift with Ricardo and some others to Bains des Pâquis, where we were having a leaving meal for Teresa. Unfortunately she was chairing a meeting which overran massively, so by the time she arrived we had already eaten our share, and left her some - this may seem impatient, but they were closing at 9 so we left ordering as late as we could. we had a drink somewhere up the road afterwards, which Teresa insisted on paying for - we had covered her fondue and wine, but actually the round of drinks came to more than our individual contributions. Simon mildly berated us PhD students, asking how much actual work we had done today. I think I avoided the question quite well.

Narbonne, Pissevaches and Ken & John

19/03 - I had the remains of last night's enormous pizza for breakfast (classy), and we set off on another vineyard mission, this time to Camplong d'Aude, which supposedly is home to a vineyard cooperative with great wines. However, every single place in the town was closed, so after we drove about for a while we gave up and drive on to Narbonne-Plage, near which was another vineyard we wanted to visit. As it was about lunchtime we thought we would explore the town a little and seek out the vineyard later. This turned out to be a mistake, in my view. Narbonne-Plage is one of the most depressing places I have ever been. It is clearly a holiday resort in summer, and in winter it is just a collection of empty identical orange buildings, ugly and desolate. Nothing whatsoever was open, there were no people on the streets, and there were zebra crossings roughly every 20 metres so the elderly people living in the awful houses could toddle over to the promenade/carpark. We didn't stay any longer than we could help, fleeing north immediately. The problem was that Narbonne-Plage became St. Pierre sur la Mer, before petering out and turning into the Etang de Pissevaches, a somewhat grim lake/swamp/marsh which we had our lunch by the side of.

L'Etang de Pissevaches. This translates as Lake of Cow Urine, I believe.

Well, we stayed in the car and I angrily threw an unripe pear into the water as an act of protest. During our meal I managed to get a reasonable amount of cornichon water and roquefort on the seats, but hopefully managed to do a good enough job of clearing it up. On the upside, when I packed the picnic I had included the Limoux and some orange juice, so we were able to make buck's fizz to brighten up our grim surroundings.

Kelly enjoys making some buck's fizz.

I grumpily do the same.

We soon decided we had had enough of Pissevaches, so we drove off in search of the vineyard we had bee told about, but had forgotten to bring any details of. In the end we stopped at the Caveau de Sarrat de Goundy, mainly because there were clearly people going in and out. It was pretty impressive, they had huge vats with what looked like petrol pumps attached, with the variety and price chalked on the side - the cheapest was only €1 a litre, ranging up to €6 for the rosé - we asked to try a few of the bottles, and the lady was very obliging. We tried maybe 3 reds, 2 rosés and 3 whites, a few of which I bought - three of the sweetest white, and one of the middle-priced red. Also I made what I see as a very important and frugal purchase (in the long run) - a gallon 'bag in box' of the cheapest red we tried (but by no means the cheapest in the shop), 5 litres for €10.30, which I definitely view as a bargain. I am drinking some now as I wrote this a few days later, it's pretty damn good. We headed home via Intermarché, where we picked up a few things for dinner. We intended to have a cheap, simple meal, but ended up buying scallops, langoustines, steak, rocket and 6 kinder eggs. This may be my fault as I had not been spitting out any of the wines we had tried, unlike sensible Kelly. Consequently I had probably ingested about 600ml on top of my earlier buck's fizz, so I had probably had the equivalent of about a bottle of wine. And it was four o'clock. Consequently I was rather sleepy in the car on the way home, and had a mild hangover by the time it came to cook dinner, which I combatted by opening one of the whites.

Our 'cheap and simple' dinner.

After our delicious and sumptuous dinner we had to go over to see Ken and John, a couple who live in the village and look after the house in Kelly's aunt's absence. They are an odd couple, who Kelly described as having "rejected Britain because it had rejected them". They are two gentlemen of 60-odd, who live in part of a fantastic house up the road. When we got there they mildly berated us for being late (we were 20 minutes late and had phoned earlier to let them know), gently mocked our choice of wine to bring (to be fair it was the remains of the one we had with dinner, and the one I bought yesterday more out of politeness than choice. We ended up staying for a couple of hours, discussing topics as wide-ranging as the location of prostitutes in London to Ken's PhD in Scottish literature at Stanford and John's brand new tooth (he had one more today than when he had popped over on Wednesday). Eventually we said our goodbyes and went home, drunker than we had expected - 'the boys', as they seem to be known, had provided us with a very nice bottle of white and then kept us topped up with "a bit of rough" from their unmarked bottles - possibly the same stuff we had seen in the vats earlier.