DON'T GO, FLORIDA

Max's parents, Richard and Judy, arrived the day after we got back from Costa Rica, for a 5-day stay. It was lovely to see them and have a slice of 'home' here in DC (as well as the baking paper Judy bought me - you just can't get it over here!).

Max's brother Aaron got married in Taiwan while we were away, so we heard all about that (none of the family were there - it was more of an official thing, ahead of a big wedding banquet in Taipei next year) and got very excited that we're now related to Chun-Yin, because she's wonderful.

Emily was kind enough to arrange a tour of the West Wing for Judy and Richard on Saturday, which Max and I kept a surprise from them and which they absolutely loved - they were blown away and very excited. However, I wasn't with them because I had to stay home to prepare for a 2-day work trip to Florida which I'd been offered by a friend in London while in Costa Rica.

The job was for a company making a video for HSBC. They wanted me to go to Boca Raton and Orlando with a video camera, to conduct casting interviews with two heads of companies who HSBC are considering making a mini-film about.

As seems to be the way with selling one's soul to the corporate devil, the money was really good, so I took the job, but was a bit nervous about using the camera by myself as, although I've taken courses on it and used it for fun before, I haven't had to operate a camera and conduct an intervivew at the same time. So I stayed home while the Devos went around the White House, practising with the camera and a teddy bear, so that by the time I landed in Florida, I'd come across as a very competent pro (not in the prostitute sense of 'pro'...).

Having got my head around the camera, and worked out how to erect the tripod without getting caught up in it like in an old-school deckchair, I went to check in online on Sunday night, only to discover huge hurricane warnings all over the place! There was a hurricane heading straight for Florida, due to hit almost exactly when I was there.

So I was pretty nervous yesterday morning, as I headed into the eye of the storm, only to be made more nervous by a pilot and his son who were checking the internet during my change in Charlotte, reading out progress reports about when the hurricane was going to 'make landfall' and giving us real-time updates as to its path. It felt like we were all in a disaster movie, as everyone was huddled round, listening, presumably all wondering what on earth we were doing, boarding a plane to fly somewhere which had been declared a state of emergency.

I was doing pretty well at being brave and approaching the whole thing as an adventure until I got to West Palm Beach airport, where the rain was more torrential than anything we'd seen in Costa Rica, and the mean lady at the car rental place wouldn't give me the GPS unit that this entire endeavour was counting on.

So I had to drive by myself through the driving rain with only googlemap instructions to guide me. No Maxy in the passenger seat reading the map, no robot-voiced British lady on the satnav to tell me when to stay in the righthand lane or whatever.

One sobbing phone call to Max later, I headed off and managed to get to Boca Raton, where my interviewee lived in this weird gated country club community that looked a bit like something out of 'Pleasantville'.

The chap I interviewed - Roy - was really nice and I was really pleased with the interview, but I got all flustered with the camera because I noticed its focus slipped halfway through our chat, so I had to try to change the shot and hope for the best.

Roy didn't set the world alight and I can't imagine HSBC using him, but he did give me a bag of pretzels for the drive to Orlando, for which I was very grateful, as I hadn't managed to get lunch at Charlotte (which didn't help in the resiliance-against-scary-hurricanes stakes).

Mercifully the drive to Orlando was fairly dry and went ok. I even managed to sing like a loon to some CDs. But there was a very real sense that I was racing the storm and that it was just on my tail.

The road my lovely Holiday Inn was on was really weird - it was a bit like driving through a theme park, with garish shops and hotels and random fairground rides on it. When I checked in, I was handed a piece of paper with warnings and advice on it for when the hurricane hits which, I was assured by the concierge, would be the following day. Great. So either I'll be driving to/from my second interview or in a plane during the hurricane.

What was weird was all the British tourists milling around, nonchalantly booking themselves onto bus trips to Disney World for the following day, as if nothing was happening. Either it's because British tourists are only too familiar with rainy summer holidays, or it was an example of the gritty British pluck at times of hardship, or I was wildly overreacting.

Advice like 'fill your bathtub with water as soon as possible, in case the water gets cut off' and 'keep your air conditioning unit on, even though rain in a hurricane tends to be horizontal so will come into your room via the a/c' and relentless scare-mongering on CNN and all other TV news stations just served to send me into a massive panic and Max The WonderHusband may or may not have received another teary phone call (he was a legend all day long - SO supportive).

My second interview was scheduled for 2.30pm and the hurricane was due to hit Orlando at 2pm, putting me in the car on a strange freeway during the storm. As it was obvious that my flight was going to be delayed or cancelled, I called US Airways last night to see if they'd put me up in a hotel if that happened. They couldn't tell me - conjuring up images in my head of scrambling through crowds at some information desk, desperately trying to get the last hotel room available to avoid a night spent sleeping in the airport like in news reports of baggage handler strikes - but the chap did mention in passing that I was allowed to make one change to my flight without incurring a fee.

In a rare moment of clarity, I called my interviewee to see if he could meet me any earlier and when he could, looked into any earlier flights out of Orlando. Already long story short, I booked myself on an earlier flight and went to sleep feeling way happier, if slightly disappointed that I'm such a massive baby.

Today went much better, no thanks to anyone I encountered wishing me good luck whenever I told them I was planning to fly back to DC this afternoon.

Getting to the interview went very smoothly and I arrived feeling really confident. Again, the dude lived in a weird gated country club community - that seems to be the Florida way of rich heads of businesses - and his house looked like a spectacular Middle Eastern hotel inside, all mahogony and exquisite furniture.

Vik (for that was my interviewee's name) wasn't as friendly as Roy and was way more businesslike - dressed in a sharp suit and with clearly not much time to spare. I thought I was looking pretty smart in my Mooks dress, but then I saw Vik's wife just mooching around the house in more makeup than I've ever seen in my life, a really fancy tight-fitting silk dress and vertiginously high heels. I wasn't that dressed up on my wedding day and I'm sure Vik thought I was an urchin off the street and certainly seemed surprised when it was only me - I think he was expecting a whole proper crew.

Anyway, the interview went fine. It only lasted 18 mins instead of an hour and the shot was shoddy again, but my eyes were firmly on the prize of getting the hell out of Dodge, so I didn't really care. Vik walked me out to my car through his garage, past his Lamborghini and Bentley, which I made suitably impressed noises about, while desperately trying to get out of there without letting the tripod swing wildly from my shoulder, smashing into one of the shiny cars.

It was a good thing that the interview was so short, because it took ages to offhire the car, but soon I was at the airport. Although none of the screens suggested a delay to my flight, I was taking no chances and indulged in a bit of panic buying at the shop - a comfy-looking blanket to sleep under, an absurd amount of bottled of water (probably enough to fill a bathtub) and a Patricia Cornwell book long enough to distract me from being stranded at an airport in the middle of a hurricane.

However, it wasn't long before me and my gigantic shopping bag were waddling onto the plane! Hooraaaay! I cannot begin to convey the relief. It felt like getting on the last chopper out of Saigon. And this was confirmed by the captain, who said we were very lucky to get on that flight, as Orlando airport was being closed in 20 minutes' time!! So if I hadn't rescheduled the interview and changed flights, I would've been stuck in Florida!

The flight went fine and I got back to DC, jumped on a SuperShuttle (where I met a very friendly Belgian man whose wife plays tennis and who told me about an amazing island of North Carolina that we must go to and talked me through the conflict between the Flemish and Walloons) and sped home to Maxy. Yippeeee!

I called Max to let him know I was nearby on the SuperShuttle, only to have the driver decide to drop everyone else off first, so it was ages before I actually got home - only to find a rather limp looking Maxy on the corner of our street with a 'WELCOME HOME SOPH' sign he'd been holding ever since I rang from around the corner about half an hour earlier!

I haven't really stopped clinging to Max since I got home. The grass looks greener, the air smells sweeter and I am categorically a massive wuss. But a wuss who's home and doesn't have to worry about horizontal rain or cancelled flights or having to read a Patricia Cornwell book under an airport blanket!

PHOTOS: COSTA RICA

COOLEST THINGS WE SAW BUT DIDN'T GET PHOTOS OF:
a gigantic sea turtle laying eggs
an active volcano spewing lava at night
me surfing
a stripey treefrog the same as the one on our guidebook and from 'Planet Earth'

Click HERE for photos of San Jose and Tortuguero
Click HERE for photos of Arenal and Manuel Antonio
Click HERE for photos of Playa Samara

VERY JOLLY HOLIDAYS

We're back! (erm, it's also October, but let's ignore that and move on...)

As promised, I won't blog properly about Costa Rica, but must report that it ROCKS. We had an amazing, amazing fortnight that felt a whole lot longer.

Some Costa factoids:
- it is quite small, which makes a 2-week holiday very nice
- turtles lay eggs on the beach there and the eggs look like ping pong balls
- there are very many monkeys there, some of whom steal Pringles tins from people's bags
- there is at least one 3-legged raccoon there
- as a country, it engenders travel sickness even in those who have never previously suffered from it
- it gets dark very early there
- the nicest beer is Pilsen, but the national beer is Imperial
- Carillo Beach airport looks like a bus shelter
- I am very good at Yahtzee there. Perhaps it's the altitude. Or maybe the climate.
- the ice there is made from mineral water
- filet means fish, not the steak we thought we'd be getting (and had been dreaming about) on our last night
- I have it on good authority (Reynaldo at the car hire place) that you could build 100 houses in Costa Rica for what we paid for our flat in London

Ah, Reynaldo - we'll always have La Fortuna... He was a nice man in a car hire place who I had to spend about half an hour with while Maxy waited at our hotel for our taxi (long story). My Spanish and his English ran out at about minute #2, so we communicated via the wonders of Google Translator, typing in what we meant, waiting for the other to read it and then respond. If it had been a romcom, it would've been quite romantic. As it was, it was in a teeny office on a backstreet in central Costa Rica...

We were pretty lucky with the weather and only had solid rain in Arenal - the place with the active volcano - which made our amazing bungalow at the foot of the volcano somewhat frustrating and redundant as it was permanently shrouded in cloud. In fact, I became quite convinced that the volcano was a myth, dreamed up by the inhabitants of a town blighted by constant rain, in an attempt to attract tourists there.

However, after a hike around the volcano in rain so torrential and hardcore that we were soaked within seconds of stepping off the minibus (during which we met a fun American girl who wants to be the first female football commentator in the country), we did manage to see the volcano erupt on our last night there, which was really extremely awesome. Volcanoes are my favourite natural feature.

Our tour operator lady did us proud, by booking us into really amazing hotels - not fancy, but extremely nice and unusual and 'us'. Except for the San Jose Best Western where we spent our first night - we were mortified to find that the hotel restaurant was a Denny's (think Wimpy) and that there was a Subway (think Subway) across the road.

The hotels kind of built to a crescendo - each was a little nicer than the one before, until we got to Manuel Antonio, where our room at Hotel Costa Verde was firstly enormous, then imbedded in the jungle on one side and had a beautiful clifftop view of stunning Pacific Ocean on the other. On our first morning there, I went to peek at what the weather was doing, only to see a family of squirrel monkeys - the rarest monkeys in Costa Rica - scampering right across the huge leaves in front of our balcony! It was like those leaves were the M25 and the monkeys were all commuting, cos there were loads of them. And there were lots of squirrel monkeys just hanging out around the trees of the hotel, too.

We had a really keen and interesting guide in Tortuguero (the place in the jungle that you can only reach by water or air), called Mario. He a little bit made me cry, because people weren't that interested in what he had to say and he was painfully keen that everyone have a good time. But we had a good chat with him on our last night and it turns out that he spent 25 years living in the heart of the jungle, so knows what leaves to eat if you get stranded and stuff.

He told us this amazing story of his encounter with a jaguar, which should've killed him, but didn't. Apparently they're very antisocial creatures so if you come across one, it's because they've come to find you. Mario compared their sense of smell to when you walk into a house where roast chicken is cooking and it smells delicious - that's what the jaguar (and most other animals) smells as soon as a human sets foot in the jungle, even if they're miles away - we're that distinctive and easy to find.

Our tour in Manuel Antonio State Park was a little frustrating, because our tour guide was the only one without a telescope, which all the other guides would set up so that their group could see things like toucans up in the tree really close up, or a bug that they've spotted a few metres into the undergrowth. So we were left squinting and searching walls of tendrils and leaves for animals we could hardly make out, which was a bit annoying. As was the fact that our guide was mad for ferns. She loved the ferns. Couldn't get enough of them. Unfortunately one fern looks just the same as another to me. Except the cool one which recoils when you touch it. In the end, I just started tacking myself onto other tour groups and got a good look at lots of amazing animals, like a baby porcupine in a tree and a humming bird that was - very unusually - sitting still.

A real highlight of the trip was the private transfers that our tour operator lady had arranged for us between destinations in that first week. We had the same driver both times - Gustavo - who was bi-lingual and really nice. We had his whole minibus to ourselves for drives of 3-5 hours and just chatted the whole time, all about Costa Rica. Turns out the reason it's such an amazingly nice country is because it's got a really big middle class, so doesn't suffer from a huge discrepancy between mega-rich and desperately poor people. Also, the government isn't corrupt, which is a bonus, and they're extremely hot on preserving the environment, so don't accept mega-bucks from developers wanting to build up the coastlines into massive resorts, and tourism is very tightly controlled by the government. We felt that everywhere we went - that Costa Rica is really really green and natural and tourists are very much visitors - but none more so than in Tortuguero, where we had to ride a boat down a river through the jungle for about an hour and came to our little hotel/resort place that you could hardly see from the river - the whole place looked like a jungley wilderness. Apparently there are 14 similiarly-sized hotel/resorts along the river, but you'd never know it.

Gustavo told us about how the Nicaraguans are to Costa Rica as the Mexicans are to America, in that they're an immigrant population who get given all the crappy manual labour and how there's a huge gang movement - I think called Maras - poised to invade Costa Rica, which would be really bad news. Apparently there's this really dangerous gang that started among the hispanic population in LA and has spread down into Central America, particularly Honduras and El Salvador, and is now working its way through Nicaragua.

Not only was Gustavo wise in the ways of Costa Rica, but it was he who suggested I drink ginger ale from a little roadside shack when I got really really carsick on a windy mountain road. Hooray for Gustavo!

We chose really well with Playa Samara for our final week, and with the Samara Treehouse Inn where we stayed (all sorted independently of tour operator lady). It turns out that it was the exact same beach where two of Max's best friends - Greg and Jane - got married a couple of months ago, which we hadn't realised when we decided to go there, but which made it all the most special. Especially as Greg lost his wedding ring in the sea shortly after the ceremony, so we had a mission to keep us busy... (alas, we didn't find it.)

The beach was just amazing and the Treehouse Inn was awesome. We had beautiful weather nearly all the time, and when we didn't, we just retreated underneath our treehouse on stilts and read books on our private hammocks!

I read 'I Was Told There'd Be Cake' by Sloane Crosley, which was a pretty funny collection of stories from the life of a mid-20s Manhattanite. A former friend of mine wrote a similar book, which I really hated and this one made me realise why - because Sloane Crosley is similar enough to me for me to recognise myself in her stories, but able to describe her experiences in a way that's way more witty and universal than the self-indulgent writing of the other book. So that was fun.

I also read 'The Yiddish Policeman's Union' by Michael Chabon, who's my favourite favourite author (some may say that that isn't difficult, since I hardly ever read, but he really is terrific), but I was really disappointed and left a little cold by the book, which was a real shame.

What was not a shame however was discovering body boarding! Man alive, it's the most. fun. ever. The Treehouse Inn had its own bodyboards, and as there are only 5 treehouses there with 2 people in each, competition for them wasn't very great. So Max and I spent ages in the sea, zooming into shore on waves. There was a swell on the way to Playa Samara, so towards the end of the week, the waves started getting bigger and a bit vicious, which wasn't so fun, but when we did manage to catch a wave, it was so so brilliant. Especially whenever I caught a wave and was yelping with glee, only to look over to my left to see that Max had managed to catch it too, and we were zipping along together!

We also took a surf lesson, but that didn't go so well. Max had flashbacks of P.E. lessons and never quite managed to get his body and board to cooperate with each other. And while I did manage to get up a few times, it wasn't as fun as I was hoping, because I was always on the verge of falling off, so we scuttled straight back to our bodyboards after our lesson - at least on them, when you're on, you're on and you're riding a wave - it isn't a constant effort to stay on the board or the wave.

It's weird, the whole holiday was almost a little too amazing, because we couldn't quite believe it was happening. I think it was a combination of not having to work too hard for it - tour operator lady sorted everything out for us and we hadn't spent months planning it, as we would've if it had been a travelling trip, rather than a holiday. But also the things we saw were just so incredible that they almost felt unreal - like they were in a brochure of dream holidays or something.

Anyway, we had a wonderful wonderful time and I'd recommend absolutely anyone to go - even those who fear Central America as being somewhere for hardy travellers with backpacks on their backs. I think by now we've established I'm not one of those travellers and I had one of the most exciting, relaxing holidays ever. It was about as 'difficult' as Greece or Spain and it'd be a great place to take children, because it's all so doable, whilst letting them feel like their Tintin on a big adventure in the jungle or on a volcano.

HOLDING PATTERN

Hallo! We're off to Costa Rica in 5 hours and have to sleep between now and then, so I can't update the tantalisingly few remaining days of my blog. But I will do when we're back (I won't blog about Costa Rica - that'd overstep the blogging mark and veer into the territory of someone just wittering about their holiday. Oh hang on...).

In summary...

- SUNDAY: we had an amazing webchat with our friends' Greg and Jane's brand new baby boy Isaac (right) and I saw for the first time and LOVED 'Mr Smith Goes To Washington'

- MONDAY: we had supper with Alison, Emily and faux-Gavin at a burger joint run by the winner of 'Top Chef' (Masterchef to you and me)

- TUESDAY: I discovered the joy that is the Gap outlet store in Alexandria, which had 40% already discounted prices that were really low in the first place (hello, Costa Rica!)

- TUESDAY: we had dinner with Jack Straw's son and I managed to not mention pot once (but did have wine again - first time since falling off the wagon last week)

- YESTERDAY: we went to Pennsylvania AGAIN, because Max finally managed to sort out the doorstepping-with-a-union-person thing that he was meant to be doing the day we visited Amish country. I don't like PA.

- TODAY: we're extreeeemely excited about our holiday! And have been running around like crazy things, trying to get everything done, so are now somewhat exhausted.

Have a happy fortnight! xx

KAYAK MARATHON

CRAZIEST THING I'VE SEEN EVER - LET ALONE JUST TODAY: a squeaky ball of two baby bats, rolling around fighting on a footpath!

I've really enjoyed the past couple of days of working - I've had a nice sense of achievement at getting things done - even including the boring online US election stuff - and the TV work I'm doing is analysing a timeslot on Channel 4, which calls for many spreadsheets, which is a happy bonus! I like a nice spreadsheet.

Last night we met Leanna to go and see 'The Dark Knight'. Patrick is still out of town, so we wanted to keep her company. It seems she's doing really pretty well since the miscarriage, which is good.

We met in Chinatown and Leanna was a little late, which wouldn't have been a problem were it not for the fact that we had to stand and listen to offensive drivel being shouted into a microphone by a load of militant Nation of Islam people. Seriously, it made me so angry, the dude was saying stuff like white people are the devil and the only reason black men smoke weed is because they've been 'sissyfied' by going to church. I really don't understand how he's allowed to stand there saying that, when a KKK member spouting similarly offensive anti-black sentiments on a street corner would surely be stopped. It makes me kind of cross about freedom of speech. But only kind of.

Leanna eventually arrived and we had a pretty grody meal at a Chinese restaurant, then went to see 'The Dark Knight'. The cinema was packed, so I was relieved that I'd been so paranoid as to pre-book and collect the tickets before supper, then get us there super-early. The movie was every bit as amazing as the rave reviews led me to believe it was. Christopher Nolan was great at pacing everything for the maximum tension and I think he must direct actors really well, as Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhardt and Heath Ledger were outstanding. I even liked Michael Caine and I think he's the most overrated actor ever! (except in 'A Muppet's Christmas Carol'.)

We got home in time for the best episode of 'The Soup' I've ever seen. Keith Olbermann (presenter of 'Countdown' - a left-wing news programme on MSNBC) made an uncharacteristically hilarious cameo and Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes (nee Stephenson) were on to promote 'Spaced' which is only now being released on DVD in the States! It was a laugh riot, I tells you.

This morning, Max slept really late, but I used the two hours I lay perfectly still in bed to cook up a most excellent plan for what seemed to be a very sunny day. My wheeze was to walk to Georgetown and out on the tow path that Anne and I had cycled along to go kayaking that time. If, by the time we reached the boathouse, we felt like a bit of kayak action, then we'd get one and if not, we'd just walk back through the pretty countryside lane.

Max liked the sound of this plan, when he finally surfaced, and we planned to head straight out. Unfortunately - and almost improbably - we got sucked in to 'Three Men & A Little Lady', which was on TV when we were eating breakfast.

But soon the hilarious japes of Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and the mighty Steve Guttenberg were behind us, as we strode off towards Georgetown (looking out for rats on the pavement, natch).

We ducked in and out of a few of the lovely Georgetown shops, then got some sandwiches and went to eat them by the riverfront. The walk along the wooded path was just gorgeous, though somewhat unrestful, as we kept getting mown down by cyclists. But once again I was amazed that such a lovely walk was within just a few miles of our flat.

We were knackered when we reached the boathouse, but also exceedingly hot and the idea of getting splashed with cool river water really appealed, so we decided to get a kayak for an hour. I was so pleased, because I don't think Maxy really wanted to do it originally, I think he was a little nervous about it. But the moment we got out on the water, he looked like a natural and once again it was lovely to be on the lovely calm Potomac, surrounded by amazing countryside. And as if we didn't already feel enough like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, there were people on the far side swinging into the river from a rope attached to an overhanging tree!

We paddled in the opposite direction to the one Anne and I went in, heading upstream. There was far less floating around chatting this time and much more serious paddling, as we tried to get to a bridge in the distance.

Any longing I had to join the swingrope people disintegrated as soon as I realised that there was loads of grode in the river. There was a scum on the surface and big blobs floating by us. Max swears blind that it was algae, but I'm convinced it was raw sewage. Eugh.

The banks weren't teeming with wildlife as they had been when Anne and I went kayaking, probably because there were so many people on the water. But as we got further upstream, we came across loads and loads of hispanic people fishing.

We made it back to the boathouse right on time and rewarded our hard work with a delicious ice lolly before heading back home, this time along the side of the canal on a tow path that runs parallel with the path we were on before, right by the river. It was a lovely walk and there weren't any cyclists this time, which made for a more relaxing stroll. We saw the crazy fighting baby bats and also an enormous heron sitting in a tree.

We were utterly exhausted by the time we got home, but worked out that we'd walked about eight miles and kayaked two, so felt our exhaustion was justified. The only mistake we made was sitting down, as we were due to go out ten minutes later with Anne.

Fortunately she was running late too, but we were soon on our way to the E St Landmark cinema, our local arthouse movie theatre, which we hadn't been to yet. We hadn't factored in that the cinema's in quite a business-y area, and found it really hard to find somewhere to eat. In sheer desperation, we even ventured into the ESPN Zone (a bit like Hard Rock Cafe for sports), but were relieved to have to venture straight out again when told the wait would be 90 mins.

With 20 mins before the film began, we plumped for Ollie's Trolley, a buffet diner that looked a lot nicer than it actually was. But by that time, we weren't being too picky and managed to make it to the cinema in time to see 'Brideshead Revisited', which I've been really looking forward to, as it stars Emma Thompson, Ben 'mmm' Whishaw and Matthew 'swoon' Goode.

Unfortunately I came over all ill before the film started and spent most of the trailers (my favourite bit) in the loo, but not before seeing the trailer for 'American Teen', which looks wonderful. I've been getting excited just reading about it (it's a year-long observational documentary shot in an American high school), but the trailer nearly made me cry.

I felt rotten throughout the movie. It didn't help that the film kind of sucked. I was so disappointed. It's just really flimsy and insubstantial and I didn't think that Emma Thompson or Matthew Goode were particularly good. Michael Gambon and Ben Whishaw were the best things in it, but Hayley Atwell as Julia was like someone in a college play. And the lighting was really annoying (as it was in 'Mama Mia', too - I forgot to mention that).

I noticed on one of my many trips to the loo that the cinema is hiring - I could handle a job there. But I guess it'd be illegal cos I don't have a visa. Boo.

SO LONG, SOBRIETY!

NUMBER OF WEEKS I WENT WITHOUT BOOZE: 8.

I've been given a couple more days' TV work by my company back in London this week, which has been really welcome. Morning movies are only fun if you should really be doing something else, or at least have the prospect of something else to do looming on the horizon. So I was a little worried a third day of lounging around might make my brain turn to mush.

But I only had two days to do a large amount of work, so was really busy all day today, trying to get a good start. Things weren't made easier by me taking a bit of a break to go and get some cash out, only to discover that Max had my keys. Thinking I was just dashing out for 5 mins, I got all hot and bothered when I was still wandering around half an hour later, trying to find Max. We'd arranged to meet at Dupont Circle, but he wasn't there when I got there and still hadn't turned up when I'd very slowly got my money. So I started walking in the direction of his office, expecting to bump into him.

When I managed to not only reach his office but actually go all the way up to his desk without bumping into him, I knew something was amiss. So I walked back home, not quite sure what I was planning to do by way of getting in the door, and found him at our rendez-vous place. Turns out he'd got there early and started walking in the direction of our flat, expecting to bump into me, but got all the way home without seeing me.

Thinking about it now, it seems one of those oh-too-chucklesome quirks of fate, but it wasn't fun while it happened - I had way too much to do and it was way too hot for such shenanigans.

I was a little relieved when Jean cancelled our tennis game tonight, as it gave me time to catch up. Then Anne came round to show me a dress she's bought for her sister's wedding in a couple of weeks. So far I've vetted two dresses she's bought, neither of which were particuarly good, but this one was DIVINE. It's a purple silk Vera Wang dress, strapless, knee-length and quite figure hugging, but the material has a nice rouching to it - a bit like my wedding dress - so it gives Anne a lovely sculpted figure, but has room behind the rouching for a bit of a tummy after a fat wedding food. It's just jaw-droppingly amazing (if slightly reminiscent of a Silk Cut ad from the 80s) and the colour suits her pale skin and orange hair really nicely. If I had a job, I'd buy one for me.

Max invited Anne in for a glass of wine and guess what? I had one too! I'd just had such a hectic, rubbish day that for the first time in ages I had a hankering for a nice glass of wine! Or three, as it turned into.

The three of us had fun chats and Anne told us for the first time that her sister's girlfriend is a TV producer who works in New York on my most favourite idea for a TV show ever. Awesome! I must meet her and get her to give me a job.

So it turns out that 200,000 people went to hear Obama speak in Berlin today. I don't fancy my chances getting into that 76,000 capacity football stadium in Denver, now. *sob*

After Anne went home, we watched 'The Daily Show' and 'Colbert Report', as part of our post-West Wing TV rehabilitation programme and both were just outstanding - they've been really excellent lately.

THE OUTDOOR TYPES

Yesterday was a day of guilty pleasure. I watched a DVD at 10am! Such decadence. It was 'Chasing Liberty', which I don't even think got a theatrical release in the UK and can now understand why, though wasn't really expecting too much when I put it on our NetFlix queue. I was just really taken with Mark Harmon as CJ's CIA agent in a couple of episodes of 'The West Wing' and wanted to see something else he'd been in. The fact that it also stars Matthew 'swoon' Goode was but a happy coincidence!

It's really very awful and Mandy Moore is INCREDIBLY annoying, but I listened to a bit of the commentary afterwards and it would seem that Matthew Goode's quite fun and Mandy Moore draws extensively on her own personality when portraying annoyingly lame people on film.

This afternoon, I made yet another picnic (yes, mostly consisting of nuggets) in our cute little picnic cooler, as this evening we went to watch an outdoor screening of the Robert Redford movie 'The Candidate' on the Mall.

We were invited by Max's colleague Zoe, who I'd met at our housewarming party and is really fun. We'd mentioned it when we went for drinks with Tennis Jean last week, so she came along too, as did Zoe's brother who's married to Sarah Smith - More4 newsreader and daughter of the late John Smith, head of the Labour party (she came to the movie, too). Max's Guardian friend Oliver turned up as well, so I was scoffing nuggets surrounded by the cream of DC's expat media crop!

It was kind of weird though, because Sarah and Simon have not been married very long and they were all over each other, doing really tonguey kissing, which I only found strange because I'm used to Sarah being all earnest and professional fronting More4 News.

It turns out that Jean is really fun! We had a really nice time chatting and eating, having met a few hours before the movie began (good thing we got there early too, as there were loads of people there already, creating a sea of rugs).

When the film finally began, at sundown, we found our view precariously contingent on the minute movements of a man with a massive afro, a bit like in a cartoon of someone who's really unlucky in the cinema. However, we gave in in the end and just enjoyed sitting out on a beautiful warm night, watching a film with the Capitol in the background and fireflies darting about in front of us. I ended up lying on Max for most of it (well I could kind of see...), just marvelling at how lucky we are.

I found the film a little slow and not much happens. But it was eery to spot the similarities with the Obama campaign - relatively inexperienced idealist runs for Senate against an established Republican - and it felt like a two hour episode of the West Wing! (but with people talking much more slowly.)

Today was not so different from yesterday, in that I watched a film this morning - 'Grey Gardens', the extraordinary Maysles brothers' documentary about Edie Beale and her daughter Edie (aunt and cousin respectively of Jackie O) and the eccentric life they lead in their house in the Hamptons.

It really is extraordinary and I only wish I hadn't been distracted by a phone call and dropped off for a mini-nap in the middle, as it was really well-made and I was dying to work out whether the filmmakers were poking fun at the two strange characters, or whether it was a sympathetic account.

I had lunch with Max in an extremely hot Dupont Circle and then tonight, we went for more balmy evening outdoor fun, this time at Wolf Trap, in Virginia. It's a DC summertime institution and we were invited by Michael and Marie to see Mark Knopfler in concert there.

We're not massive fans of aging members of Dire Straits (in fact Max issued a 'no photos' edict, for fear of evidence of us at a Mark Knopfler concert getting out. Sorrryyy, Max!), but we liked the idea of spending a warm summer's evening listening to music outside with Michael and Marie, whose company we enjoy. So we drove out there with them and once again found a sea of blankets. There was hardly any room for us to squeeze in, but we managed it (much to the chagrin of the party next to us) and had a nice picnic (no nuggets this time - just fancy grownup food, like barbecued prawns, from Michael and Marie) as the sun went down.

The Wolf Trap building is an extraordinary structure and reminded me of an ark (because I've seen a lot of those...). It's all wooden and angular, with spindly wooden walkways leading off from it, set against a backdrop of a forest, as if it's emerged from the natural world. There are fancy expensive seats under cover near the stage, then a big slope looking down, where the less fancy people (or people less interested in the music and more interested in the whole Wolf Trap experience) sit on rugs and risk getting rained on.

It was a gorgeous evening and we spent most of the concert lying down, looking at the sky and listening to Mark Knopfler and his band wig out in a very controlled way for 10 mins at the end of every song. It was actually a pretty fun gig and the band were really tight. It rained a little bit towards the end of the mammoth 90min set, but the big sploshy drops were actually quite welcome after such a hot day and we just let them plop on our heads.

I feel sure that there were some disappointed connoisseurs of the more obscure bits of the Knopfler oeuvre, but we were relieved that he stuck to the hits and recognised 'Romeo & Juliet', 'So Far Away From Me' and 'Brothers In Arms'. The best bit was that everyone was expecting him to encore with 'Money For Nothing' (my least favourite song in all the world), but he went for the theme tune from 'Local Hero'! It was great!

The crowd was very conservative and middle class, so listened in polite silence. Which caused the banshee behind us to stick out like a sore thumb! She was this really fun lady who was very friendly to us when we were having our picnic and who was obviously just the most enormous fan of Mark Knopfler, so kept whooping and cheering and jigging about. People around us were fuuuurious and kept shouting at her to be quiet, but she carried on regardless, which I think is quite right - it's a concert, after all. Loosen up, daddio!