PARK LIFE

CUTEST THING EVER: the little girl I sat next to in the cinema was so tiny (I reckon she was under 3 years old) that she wasn't heavy enough to make the flip-down seat stay down, so spent the movie kind of enveloped by the chair. Awww.

It's really quiet because everyone seems to've gone out of town for the bank holiday weekend, so there was no Stompy (whoever that is) to wake us up early on a Sunday morning, which was nice.

When I got back from church, we made a picnic and went to check out our local park for the first time - Malcolm X Park (officially called Meridian Hill Park). Turns out it's just a couple of blocks away and it's loooovely. The park itself is a steep hill with waterfalls running down it and a grassy bit to the side, where people sit amongst the trees. At the top, there is a flat rectangular open area with benches around the side - a little like small neighbourhood parks in Paris - but the grass was all closed off yesterday, for fertilising, or something.

It was soooo sunny and SO hot and we just lay out, as if on the beach. The crucial thing missing from this equation was the sea or a pool to dive into when we got hot, so I was pleased when Mum and Dad rang and I could chat to them from the shade.

While ranting at them about 'Atonement' from under a tree, an unsuspecting gay fellow cruised Max - setting up camp far closer to the shirtless Devo than was necessary (on the right of our green towel in this pic) and then just kind of staring at him. Max was unaware of all of this, as he was snoozing behind his sunglasses, but I felt bad when I had to return to the towel, revealing that not only was Max attached, but to quite the wrong make of person, too.

It was so relaxing to lie out in the sun, but the heat finally got too much and, in the absence of a pool, we headed to the next best thing for cooling off - an aggressively air conditioned cinema - to watch 'Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Skull', which we both really enjoyed because it was every inch an Indy film, complete with big stone cogs covered in cobwebs, turning to open a door into a big ancient vault, and stuff. Also, clothes hang off Harrison Ford really well - that's a skill.

We were starving after the movie, so made the mistake of going to a restaurant chain called Ruby Tuesday across the road. It just turned into one of those heinous meals where the service is terrible and the waiter forgets your order, everything takes HOURS to arrive and when it does it's wrong. But fortunately I got my whole meal free after kicking up a relatively small fuss, so it wasn't a complete disaster.