HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOG! xx

MOST HAZARDOUS DISCOVERY: it is annoying that shops don't open until noon, but they stay open until 10pm on Saturdays, which allows you to visit them after a cocktail or five, potentially leading to many misguided impulse buys.

Today is my sister's birthday - happy birthday, Bijou!

In other news, yesterday the temperature hit 89 degrees!! Have you *seen* how pale I am? Except I'm not now - I've gone all freckly and am building up something of a tan. It's just tricky to remember that even though we're not on holiday, I still need to wear suncream and a hat. I managed the cream bit yesterday, but not the hat and came over all peculiar.

I did so on a huge long walk we took so that I could show Max some of the neighbourhoods I discovered, like U Street and 14th Street. In doing so, we happened upon a great many extremely exciting boutiques and purveyors of snazzy threads. I am now the proud owner of a nice white tea dress, a slinky going-out top, some glittery heeled thongs (flip flops) AND some kickass white sunglasses that make me look like a bug (or Twiggy in the 60s).

We found the Black Cat, which is the main live music venue here and within walking distance of our flat, and some cool stationery shops and things, so everyone is in for good birthday presents this year! (erm, except Marina - sorryyyy!)

Last night, we went for dinner with Jeffrey and Helene. Jeffrey is one of Max's parents greatest friends who they met during their time at Princeton and who lives in New Jersey. Helene is his partner who we hadn't met before.

They picked a very popular and fancy Greek/Lebanese/Turkish restaurant down near Chinatown and it was fantastic. The food was all little bits of mezze, but all extremely tasty and we had some amazing wine. Yet another one for the list of restaurants to take people to when they come and visit.

Over supper, I got the feeling that Jeffrey and Helene had based their visit to DC around seeing us, so when they asked for recommendations of places to have breakfast in Adams Morgan, I suggested they come to our apartment. This meant a late night supermarket dash on the way home, but not before we ducked into a shoe shop and finally bought me a pair of MBT sandals (Mum, Dad and Tom say these things are amazing - they're 'physiological' shoes, which make you walk properly, help any joint problems and tone your legs, bum and tummy while you walk).

Bouncing around on my new shoes, I followed Max into Benetton (at 10pm! On a Saturday night!) to help him in his ongoing quest for a nice short-sleeved shirt and found that shopping while drunk makes you befriend shop assistants far more easily and perhaps buy more things than you need/want. Hey, but Gail was very nice and recommended a good volunteering website for me (as well as a fancy linen jacket for Max), so it wasn't not all bad.

We got caught in crazy torrential rain on the way home, which freshened things up such that today was actively chilly - a surprisingly welcome change to the insane heat and sunniness of the past couple of weeks.

We put on a fine breakfast spread for Jeffrey and Helene and fortunately it didn't matter a bit that they came half an hour earlier than arranged, as Stompy had already woken us up long before. Grrr.

Having been quite smug, and almost a little worried that they weren't working, when my MBTs appeared to have no effect on me last night, I woke up this morning feeling like I'd spent all yesterday doing stomach crunches. Aye carumba! So sore! But hey, if that's the pain I have to take for what I imagine is quite a lot of gain, then that's fine.

I left Jeffrey and Helene looking at the album of wedding photos that Tom and Bambi made for us and went to church for the first time since we got here. There's one just around the corner from our apartment. I was a little worried that the service would be really odd and difficult to follow, but it turns out that St Margaret's prides itself on its inclusivity. And its literature goes on at length about how it tries to be as gender-balanced as possible. As such - and Mum would've FREAKED - the vicar and two vergers were female, any reference to 'he' in the readings was changed to 'God' and I swear I heard them refer to the Holy Spirit as 'she'.

It was nice to sing familiar hymns and in fact the service was very similar to British ones, except there was real bread at communion and it was really really odd to hear the whole thing conducted in a southern American accent. But everyone was very welcoming and it seems a nice enough place. Weirdly though, it gave me only my second bout of homesickness, as I found myself missing St Peters back in Hammersmith.

This afternoon we ventured to yet another new part of town to see 'Shine A Light' and were very excited, as Word magazine says it's the best performance film ever made. We were a little skeptical, as we both love 'The Last Waltz', and indeed were not blown away. Although the concert looked all very exciting, it had no real soul or substance and certainly removed any inclination we had to see the Rolling Stones live, though did make us want to rush home and listen to the records again. It changed my opinion of Ronnie Wood from one of mook to good chap and Mick Jagger has a very nice wardrobe and teeny hips. Ooh, and Jack White (or Jack White III as he's apparently now known) and Christina Aguilera did great duets, but Buddy Guy was just amaaaazing. I spent most of the film hypnotized how weird and stringy all the Stones' arms are (and how Mick Jagger appeared to have an armadillo down his trousers), while Max couldn't get over the fact that Mick is the same age as our dads, but significantly more jiggy.

It was nice on the way there, because I couldn't remember which metro stop we had to get out at and no fewer than 5 people on the tube helped us. Two of whom travelled down the carriage to help, when they heard us asking for advice! Turns out they weren't right, but still - it's nice.