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It’s been so long since I’ve properly written anything on here. So, where were we? I left off in Innsbruck, after we’d been climbing up and down the mountains. It really was very beautiful, if a bit giddy-making, but eventually we had to leave, and so took the train across the border to Munich and then on to Frankfurt, which was a very businessy city full of tall buildings that seemed to spring out of nowhere. Felt quite American in a lot of ways.

The motor show was on, so of course we popped in there for a poke around, and then the next day Paul flew home and I took the train on to Paris for the Apple Expo, which was hard work but very useful. It is definately very French-focused, though, and since getting back I have been reading a lot of French press releases trying to get a grip on the news.

Of course, going straight there from holiday meant I had my suitcase with me, which was a pain on the Metro. The Paris underground really isn’t built for those without nimble legs (I don’t know how you would manage if you actually qualified for one of those disabled seats on the trains), so carting my case around was a far from pleasant experience, particularly as it was three changes and 40 minutes of travel to get from our hotel to the venue. We did get the taxi once, but it took almost an hour when we got caught up in the roadworks to build the new tram system, so gave up on that idea from then on.

I got back in the late part of last week, so should really have made big efforts to get on here and get updated, but the time between them and now has just been swallowed up somehow in a general blur of activity, and Barbara, my iBook, has been blinded in my absence and now can’t use her screen, which is why I’m writing this in the office before work kicks off.

Thursday and Friday were of course spent catching up on the things I’d missed. Had a call from the BBC on Friday afternoon asking if I could do a live spot on News 24 for them at half seven. I agreed, and they offered to drive me all the way home afterwards, which is standard BBC procedure and always strikes me as a criminal waste of the license fee so I always refuse. Three minutes later, though, the producer rang back to say they’d shifted it until later in the evening, which meant I wouldn’t be home much before midnight so I had to turn them down.

Saturday I worked in the morning (despite it being my birthday) and then went to town in the afternoon to fight with the crowds. I’m not much of a one for birthdays so would happily have let it slip by without marking the event, but Paul arranged for us to meet up with Trevor and Jon and we went out for the most fantastic meal in Pleshey. Dad announced he’ll be arriving for a couple of days in mid-October, so perhaps I’ll take him there. We repeated the whole dining experience around at mum’s on Sunday night, and then it was back to work yesterday, when the at-home technology problems compounded as the Internet disappeared and wouldn’t come back.

Which brings us to this morning, when I’d agreed to do a slot on the breakfast show on 6music. All went very well. I took in the iPod nano, which we all agreed was beautifully put together, and although none of us needed one we all wanted one.

So there we go. All up to date in 700 words or less. Speed blogging. In brief.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2005 at 9:44 am and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.