Every time I go to the 12 Bar Club I mean to take this picture — I finally did last week when Kam and I went to see Rachael Sage.

The air is hazy as rain plummets from a dark grey sky, collecting in rushing streams on the soaked pavement. Tourists in shorts and tank tops huddle under the awnings of the Underground station, seeking shelter from the sudden downpour. They clearly missed the memo that you never go out in London without an umbrella, even if it is the middle of August. I fumble for my keys, stray raindrops pelting my bare legs, and curse myself for daring to wear a skirt when I knew better. Goosebumps form as the cold water makes contact with my skin.

By the time I close the door to my first floor flat, sunlight is seeping nonchalantly through a striking blue break in the cloud.

It’s the quintessential English summer.

I wonder if it’s a small-scale preview of the Indian monsoon.

I’m convinced it’s my fault the weather’s taken a turn for the autumnal — I had to go and book a couple of weeks off work. I had these grand visions of lazy August days in the park sprawled out with a book on my new picnic blanket, walks along the canal and the river, a riverboat trip to Greenwich to take hundreds of photos of historic buildings and lush views. Instead I’ve strolled around various galleries and ducked into shops and restaurants seeking warmth and sanctuary from the rain.

I defiantly managed to get in a few hours’ reading in Holland Park on Wednesday, but even though the thermometer crept up to a respectable 26 degrees it was still overcast most of the time.

So I’ve visited Tate Britain, the Photographer’s Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery this week, and expect I’ll make it to the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the National Gallery by the time I go back to work on Thursday.

I’ve eaten won ton soup in Chinatown, curry in Brick Lane, and scoped out several new veggie haunts around town. Between that and the funky new shoes I’ve allowed to entice me with the soft cooing of my name, this “staycation” hasn’t been quite as cheap as I’d assumed.

Still, it’s the first time I’ve taken holiday from work to just hang out around London on my own (rather than when Marlie came to visit) and I really needed the break to just be outside. This weekend I’ve mostly stayed in because I couldn’t face the cold and rain, and it’s made me antsy. But pilates class this afternoon has rendered me too tired to do anything other than flop down in front of a DVD. Hard to believe I only have three days left.

I always go to Kensington Gardens with my picnic blanket and a book, so I thought I’d finally go and check out Holland Park, just a little further down the road. I wasn’t expecting it to be so heavily wooded, and was pleasantly surprised by its nature reserve-like atmosphere. I rounded a corner and came across this pretty waterfall in the Kyoto Garden, one of a series of landscaped gardens within the park. (Click through to my Flickr set for more photos.) It was a strange feeling to step out onto Holland Park Avenue a few hours later, to a familiar street and the bustle of traffic.

This is actually a screen cap from some video I took, since I seem to be incapable of taking a non-blurry photo in the Green Note’s dim lighting. It’s becoming one of my favourite restaurants — good (veggie) food, good music, good atmosphere. It’s just a shame the mood lighting isn’t conducive to photography.

So, I recently got the official nod on going to India, which means it’s all I can think about — and talk about… to anyone who’ll listen. “Got any trips coming up?” “Oh, I’m going on a business trip to India.” “What have you got planned for the rest of the day?” “I need to do some shopping — I’m going on a business trip to India.” “What do you do for work?” “I’m a journalist… [blah, blah]” “That sounds cool.” “It is — I’m going on a business trip to India.” And on and on.

I’ve yet to get my business visa sorted, but I’ve already started shopping. Now’s the time — the summer sales are on and autumn clothes are already adorning shop windows. That’s my excuse, anyway.

I’d initially decided against linen because of the crease factor, but I picked up a lovely embroidered white linen dress and a white linen tunic from Monsoon, which is a shop I rarely set foot in because a full-price piece in there costs about as much as my monthly food bill, but they have good sales and they specialise in the kind of pretty, floaty, cotton-y things you want for a trip to India.

If I can get a flight a few days earlier I’ll be able to have a brief look around Delhi, and, excitingly, I understand Agra is a train ride away so I can take a day trip to see the Taj Mahal, which I’ve dreamed of doing since I saw a picture of it in a book I had as a kid. I already have the makings of an itinerary. (Getting ahead of my myself much?)

Reading the India Mike forums, I’m becoming an especially unattractive shade of green (which they all are to me because I have an irrational disdain for the colour green) in envy of people who get to travel around such a vast, fascinating country for weeks, or months, on end.

As far as I can tell it’ll be the tail end of monsoon season, so this may all be moot and I’ll end up sitting in a hotel somewhere looking forlornly out the window at the torrential rain, but I have a feeling I’ll be planning a holiday — rather than a work trip — as soon as my financial situation allows. I haven’t even set foot in the country yet, but I’m already kinda hooked.

As I’ve been catching up on my blog reading lately I realised I never posted about the “Ladies’ Night” screening of Sex and the City that Kam and I went to… which is now ancient history in the blogosphere, but still.

My local Odeon sold tickets for a pre-screening private party in the bar, complete with a hunky shirtless waiter serving free champagne, cheap Cosmopolitans and Manhattans, and a jazz band led by a zany female singer in a pink wig and plastic “skirt” entertaining the crowd of overdressed women in cute shoes (myself included, I must confess) and the handful of reluctant men who floundered around awkwardly like fish out of water.

Sadly it wasn’t until we were standing there taking it all in, bemused, that I realised I had neither camera nor phone with me, so no pictures of either the hunk or the cabaret singer’s costume changes (think towering heels, stockings, leopard print). I know, I suck as even an amateur photographer.

I don’t think I’ve ever been to a film where there was so much squealing and applause; it really was a fun atmosphere. I was reeled in from the first scene in the Diane von Furstenberg store — I almost had a squeeing moment of my own — and I can’t wait for the DVD just to ogle that Vivienne Westwood dress again.

But I have to say, I never really got the whole “Mr. Big” thing. I mean all through the series (most of which I caught up with in the last year on my beloved video-on-demand channel) I found myself hoping Carrie wouldn’t end up with him, and then he behaved so crappy in the film…

Basically I’m with Kim Cattrall:

“As Samantha and as Kim and as a fan of the show, I never thought he was good enough for her. I found him unreliable and incredibly selfish and so many things had to be on his terms,” she said.

“He was not interested in integrating except on very slim occasions, and he was very withholding even then … and I found him a horrific bore. I’ve met men like that, they’re those A-type personalities, and everything is on their terms. I don’t even want a friendship with somebody like that, because it’s so one-sided, never mind a relationship.”

Still, the Paramount Comedy Channel is making me very happy by showing a double bill of SATC every weeknight (we’re in early series 2 on the umpteenth go round as I type) followed by an episode of Coupling, which is one of the greatest combinations in the history of TV scheduling — even better than Channel 5’s recent Thursday night House/Grey’s Anatomy effort.

I’ve you’ve never seen Coupling, go here to watch some clips on YouTube, then buy all four series on DVD, because, trust me, that much funny never gets old.

I ate my takeaway dinner in the park on this lovely summer evening — I took this in Kensington Gardens as the sun was slowly inching toward the horizon. After I’d left the park there was a gorgeous pink and purple sunset and I wish I’d stayed to capture it.

It’s hard to believe it’s exactly a year to the day since I went to my first ever Barbra Streisand concert.

This is what I wrote that afternoon in a random Notepad file that’s been sitting on my desktop for the past year:

Last night I did what I always do the night before a big event in my life — take an indulgently long bath. It was a clichéd single girl bath — complete with candles (cinnamon scented), chocolate (Galaxy Minstrels), and a glass of alcohol (Tinto de Verano I brought back from Spain.)

I listened to the live concert CD Barbra put out after last year’s North American tour and tried to wrap my head around the fact that I was actually going to see her live in less than 24 hours. I didn’t do a very good job because I still can’t get my head around it.

That’s as far as I got because then, as now, I was at a loss for words.

I distinctly remember the day I became a devoted Barbra Streisand fan: August 28, 1995, four days after my 14th birthday, Sky One showed the TV special of her 1994 concert tour. They’d promoted it heavily, with clips of Barbra in her gorgeous black Donna Karan gown belting He Touched Me gracing what seemed like every other commercial break. Over the years I’d been aware of how good she was thanks to my mum’s love of A Star is Born, which she watched faithfully every time it came on TV. So I looked forward to the special with anticipation, settling myself on the floor in front of the TV that evening, and by the time it was over I was hooked.

I couldn’t get the songs out of my mind, and when the (now-defunct) Britannia Music catalogue came through the post, I begged my mum to order Back to Broadway, One Voice, and the A Star is Born albums. Not long after that I recorded The Prince of Tides from TV and my obsessiveness was complete.

What followed was several years of traipsing around London to various music/video/book shops to track down CDs and imported magazines — I stood in shops flicking through more copies of the National Enquirer looking for any and all Barbra references than I care to admit.

In a way I miss that, in these days of Amazon, eBay, and online news/magazines — stumbling upon new sources of memorabilia, the anticipation of walking up to a display of magazines and walking away with a new article for the folder I’d created that was brimming with clippings divided by sections: music reviews, film, interviews, etc. It became even more fun when Kam joined in with my obsession and we frantically phoned each other to share news of our latest finds, one of us often buying double copies of things to give it to the other.

Despite the increasing rumours I didn’t really think I would ever see Barbra Streisand live, hear the magic of that voice, described as liquid gold, in person. During the final of the three London concerts, the woman sitting next to me whispered to her S.O. something like “I can’t believe I’m actually seeing Barbra Streisand live.” Indeed.

I just found another random file (this one in Word) I wrote the afternoon before that first show:

I’ve dreamed of this moment for nearly 13 years and now the whole thing seems surreal, as if any moment someone will pop up and say “haha just kidding — did you seriously think this would ever really happen?” The truth is I didn’t. Even as I held out hope that some day Barbra would return to London on stage, I never really expected her to do it. She hates performing, she’s happy in LA with her marriage and her house — why would she. Even when she did her U.S. tour and the rumour mill was spinning about London, it never seemed real. That would explain why I never got around to putting aside money for tickets.

So now I’m going to not one or even two, but THREE Barbra shows, each time in bullshit nosebleed seats where I’m sure she’ll just be a speck on stage.

As much I’m excited, I don’t think it’s ever going to seem real. The waiting, the 13 years of waiting cannot be eclipsed by a couple of hours that will fly by as if in a dream.

And I was right — it never stopped feeling like a dream, especially the third show, when I managed to score top price tickets for Kam and myself that Ticketmaster was selling off for the same price as the upper seats and we were close enough to really see her face and feel present, in the moment rather than observing it from afar. For her encores people were standing and rushing closer to the stage, so I got to stand at the front of of our section and be closer than I ever could’ve imagined.

My inevitable fatalism is never lurking far below the surface, and even at the fulfillment of this dream it reared its conflicted head:

As excited as I am about actually, finally going to see her, to hear her live, I’m feeling almost overwhelmingly sad. Because although I was waiting all that time, at least the potential was there — I might happen one day. But now she is. And now, when it’s over, it’s over. I won’t have that hope to hang on to anymore, to look forward to. That one day I’ll go to one of her concerts. Because she’ll have done them for the last time. This really is a once in a lifetime deal.

Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way. In fact, I know I am. I should soak up the excitement and enjoy every moment, revel in every second. Those few hours will be a highlight of my life and I should live in them, not waste them by getting ahead of myself to when they’re over. That’s a ridiculous waste.

A year later, it’s a lesson I’m still trying to apply.

Here’s the final song of the show, My Shining Hour, from the last night of the tour:

My IM window pops open with a jarring ding and a flash of orange in the taskbar.
Editor: “How do you feel about going to India to cover our events in September?”
Me: *falls off chair* “Would love to!”

I’ve been hesitant to write about this until it’s official, something to do with tempting fate, jinxing, and all that — this being my life after all — but after a phone conversation I had yesterday at work I think it’s safe to say I’m going on a business trip to India in September. [Insert several rows of exclamation points and much squeeing… !!!]

The good news is, India is one of my absolute dream travel destinations. The bad news is, it being a business trip I’ll fly in, attend the conference… and fly home again. There’s a TV advert for the airline bmi about a businessman phoning home from various dingy hotel rooms overlooking motorways and car parks and he’s all “no, I can’t quite see the Pyramids”, “Chicago’s great”, and “no, I haven’t had a chance to have a dip in the Red Sea yet.” So true and so what it’s going to be like.

But who am I to complain — I’ll be in India! For free! (Well, except for that whole working part.) And since I’ll actually be going to two one-day conferences — one in New Delhi and the other in Mumbai — I’m hoping I’ll get to see something other than the inside of a hotel as I travel between the two cities. That in itself is fabulous — not only will I be in India, but I’ll be going to two different cities.

So the jist of the phone call was that the editor I work with is waiting for word from on high confirming that I’m definitely going so I can move ahead with arranging a visa and flights/accomodation and all that logistical stuff. This will be the first time I’m assigned to cover an event abroad so it’s all new to me. Of course all I’ve been preoccupied with ever since that first IM exchange has been what the hell I’m going to wear.

It’s going to be a challenge to come up with stylish outfits that will keep me cool, comfortable, neither overdressed nor underdressed, and won’t need ironing. I’ve ruled out black suits and anything linen. So far it’s a great excuse to keep stalking eBay for Diane von Furstenberg wrap dresses.

On the logistics side of things I’m desperately hoping there’s a way I can extend my stay so I can spend some time out and about in one of the cities. But for now I’m taking it one step at a time. I won’t quite believe it’s really going to happen until there’s written proof, and even then… the whole thing is so surreal.

I feel such a huge sense of regression. I didn’t even realize it until those words came into my mind, unbidden, as I lay here working my way through my neglected Feedreader.

I was doing so well — going into the office every day, ratcheting up my productivity, having something of a social life, coming up with new vegan dishes to cook.

Then one day it all came apart.

The pain has inexorably returned, curving violently around the base of my spine to my hip bone, crawling down my leg to pull at the nerves in my toes. I lose my will get out of bed, when it’s like this. If it wasn’t for my laptop and a broadband connection, I’d have been unemployed a long time ago. Instead I’m just in exile.

I haven’t wanted to go out, talk to people, even on those days when it’s not so bad. It’s even worse when I do want to. This weekend an old friend was having a party while I lay on my mother’s settee whining like a child about the pain shooting through the right side of my body. Sitting in my fridge is a bottle of white wine I’d bought to take with me. But as the day drew on and my ability to put weight on my right foot diminished, I knew it was destined for a different story, for a night at home alone with TV and takeaway.

It’s about the only thing in my fridge right now, aside from a red pepper and some long out-of-date olive oil spread. I haven’t had the ability or the inclination to go to the supermarket and I was living on Oatibix till I ran out of oat milk. I avoided my dilemma by spending the weekend at my mother’s, where food was brought to my permanent location on the settee, but I’m home now, and feeling nauseous from a day subsisting on leftover cinema sweet popcorn and a bumper bag of Swizzels Matlow “assortment of children’s favourite sweets”. (Fizzers, oh how I’ve missed you.)

It feels so much like a defeat this time. I don’t want to deal with people because I don’t want to deal with the “how are you question” after disappearing for a couple of weeks, but I don’t want to say “I’m fine” and move on because I can’t block out the pain enough to have normal social interaction.

Last night I found a temporary solution — after a long soak in a bath so hot beads of sweat poured down my reddened skin, there was a marginal improvement and I limped off to the cinema with The Bookworm to see The Edge of Love. Watching a film in the dark doesn’t require any effort of conversation on my part and I can just be, there in the dark with a whole other story unfolding before my eyes, captivating my attention.

Of course, sitting for over two hours is likely part of the reason for the stabbing ache overwhelming me tonight. I’d down a painkiller or two if I had some food to take them with.