THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Only when I took my first sip of bellini at supper did our anniversary get any better than its inauspicious beginnings!

After our extortionate taxi ride, we got our flight to Boston, where the weather was just stunning and the city looked lovely from the plane - right on the sea with pretty lighthouses and houses.

Using the internet at the airport, we worked out that we wanted to drive up into the White Mountains to peep at the leaves, so got our rental car and headed off to New Hampshire, with the help of trusty GPS.

Our dreamy drive got off to a rocky start, when we unexpectedly hit a toll and had absolutely no cash. The man was very mean and shouted at us, but gave us an envelope which we could post in with the money we owed in it.

So off we went, desperately trying to remain upbeat on what had so far been a rather unpleasant adventure.

Fortunately the astounding array of leaves that we drove through on our way to the mountains was enough to cheer us up. It was like nothing I'd ever seen, other than on a Laura Ashley dress I had when I was little - an extraordinary tapestry of vivid reds, oranges, yellows and greens. They say that the colour of the leaves moves north to south, so things just got more beautiful the further north we drove.

We stopped for lunch in Concord, the state capital of New Hampshire which is a really pretty little town, a bit like a large version of Wareham. Fortunately people were a lot more friendly there than in Boston and we had a nice break.

Keen to get a move on and get to the mountains, while also being a bit distracted by the beautiful foliage, I whizzed us along in the car, merrily singing along to Coldplay (I do excellent 'oo-ee-oo' backing bits on Viva La Vida), until I spotted a state trooper standing in the hard shoulder, pointing at our car and shouting.

Now then, I'm not a massive speeder - I don't do hundreds of miles an hour in a 30 mph limit. But I do find 80 mph a nice natural speed to go at on a 3-lane road - fast enough to get somewhere, but not so crazy-fast that I feel I can't react if something goes wrong. I really hate going slow.

Unfortunately I hadn't really registered that, despite being on a road as big as a British motorway (and unfortunately going downhill, too), the speed limit was 65 mph. So it was understandable that I'd been picked off by the state trooper. And I was pretty resigned to it - I've never been caught speeding before, either here or at home, so figured my time was bound to come at some point.

So the state trooper was shouting 'pull over' and pointing at me, so I pulled onto the central reservation bit. It looked like that's where he was pointing and plus, with him being on foot on the hard shoulder, by the time I pulled across two lanes of traffic and got onto the hard shoulder, I'd be half a mile away from him.

But apparently this was not what he wanted. He went LOOPY, just screaming at the top of his voice, 'GET OUTTA THERE. GET OVER HERE. NOOOOOWWW', pointing to the hard shoulder.

So, from a standing start, I treacherously pulled across three lanes of whizzing cars, to the hard shoulder.

But this still wasn't good enough for shouty state trooper man! I thought he might actually burst a blood vessel as he shouted, 'GET OFF THERE. GET YOUR WHEELS OFF THE ROAD. NOOOOOOWWW - THIS IS THE EMERGENCY LANE - WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? GET YOUR WHEELS OFF THE ROAD NOOOOOOOWWW!!'.

Usually, if an authority figure was shouting that loudly at me, I'd be on the verge of tears and may even fear for my life. But this dude's reaction was so totally over the top and he seemed to be taking it so very personally that I'd broken his precious speed limit, that I found myself weirdly calm and kind of just marvelling at the whole experience.

Once the state trooper finally got me where he wanted me, he came over to the car and started screaming at me, asking where on earth I learned to drive. Putting on my best bemused British accent, I said, 'oh well, Britain actually', to which he screamed, 'WHEEERRE??' (it didn't surprise me that he hadn't heard of Britain) and when I repeated myself he - without removing his sunglasses or resisting every state trooper cliche you've ever heard of - said, 'Well welcome to America - you've got yourself a ticket'.

Turns out I was going 83 mph in a 65 mph area, so I figured that was fair enough. Buster Bloodvessel then took my licence away, hung out at his car for ages and came back and issued me with a 'summons', which confused me until he explained it's a ticket but if I don't pay it, then I have to go to court and they'll track me down in Britain and take my licence off me.

Safe in the knowledge that that dude was going to have a far more miserable life than me, if he got that upset by tourists speeding, I drove off, asking Max to look at how much the ticket was for. Emily and Anne had both told me that speeding fines are really low out here and you have to go really fast to get anything over $100.

So imagine my dismay when Max said I owed $250!! The combination of the shouty man and thinking of a) how little money I have and b) how much I'd spent on the appalling hotel that hadn't even served the purpose I was hoping it would, made me cry and I was convinced this would be the worst weekend ever.

Desperately trying to zen out, we made our way - very slowly and below the speed limit - to the White Mountains. I hate going slow. But fortunately the Kancamagus Scenic Byway was worth all the trouble.

The scenery was breathtaking and we found ourselves stopping every few minutes to take photos of yet more stunning views of beautiful leaves set against crisp blue skies. It was gorgeous, driving along tree-lined roads and stopping whenever we felt like it.

The folks up in the White Mountains are already very ready for Halloween, especially in the small village of Ammonoosuc, where I stopped to take a photo of a cool mailbox that was decorated for halloween, only to look up and find a scary child in dungarees just standing in the middle of the driveway, staring at me. It was exactly like something out of a Stephen King book.

Beating a hasty retreat from Creepsville, we soon realised that we had bitten off way too much than we could chew - certainly within legal speed limits - in order to get back to Boston for our 8pm dinner reservation.

So the afternoon became a slightly frantic rush to complete the drive and get back to town in time. However, it being our anniversary, we had to get out of the car and kick leaves. When Max and I got together (10.10.02), he invited me out on a date to kick leaves in Hyde Park. I thought this sounded like the most romantic thing ever and was very excited by this chap. Things got even more exciting when we met in the park and kicked leaves and then he went to lie his overcoat down for us to sit on, but not before reaching into the pocket and through the torn lining into the actual coat itself, to pull out a bottle of champagne and two glasses, saying, "will you be my girlfriend?". Awesome. And the rest is history! So we figured that, with New England leaves being all pretty at this time of year, we'd indulge in a bit of leaf-kicking up there.

So we got out at Sabbaday Falls and frolicked in the thick carpet of multi-coloured leaves, before admiring the waterfall and getting back into the car to hotfoot it back to Boston, sticking to the pesky speed limit, of course.

We were in a real hurry when we finally got back to Boston airport to return the car and were so grateful to the man there for being the first nice person we'd met all day, by not charging us for the petrol that was missing from the tank.

We weren't grateful however to his colleague, who recommended we get a taxi to our hotel if we were in a hurry, only to order one that didn't turn up for aaaaages. And then when it did, the dude didn't know where he was going (I'm not sure he'd been to Boston before), and had to keep calling into his controller for directions!!

Having called the fancy restaurant and put back our reservation by half an hour, we got to our hotel, which seemed ok, but kind of pokey for the megabucks we were paying and above a sports bar that was showing a crunch Red Soxx game, so I feared for our chances of getting any sleep - I worried it'd be Baltimore all over again.

Anyway, we got changed into our glad rags and then ran out of the door. Literally. We had to run through the streets of Boston (which, incidentally, looks really really nice - I immediately liked it, just as I immediately liked New York - it felt like a really cool city) to the restaurant.

On our way, I saw a guy sitting on the steps of the library, working on is MacBook, which I thought said a lot about how genteel Boston must be as a city, that someone is so unafraid of getting mugged that he'll brandish his fancy laptop in full view on the street on a Friday night. But then we rounded the corner and on the steps on the other side were some homeless people, so it would seem that not all Bostonians are as well off.

The restaurant (another recommendation from Jean's boyfriend, Joe) was at the top of a 52 storey tower block, which we could see from far off, but took ages to get to. And then when we did get there, we seemed to have to go through a shopping mall to get into it, which felt very funny in our fancy clothes and really frustrating, as we were dashing through this labyrinthine mall, desperately trying to find the elusive restaurant.

We eventually found the lift and got up to the top floor, but were so late for our reservation that we'd missed out on a table by the window, so sat miles away from the window, with me slightly wondering if anything was going to go right this weekend.

Fortunately the first sip of bellini righted all wrongs and, with the alcohol flowing freely for the rest of the night, we had a really fun, relaxed evening. A man proposed to his girlfriend while we were eating, which was exciting - I've never seen that happen before - and brought back fond memories of when Max proposed on a beach in Sweden exactly three years ago to the day. *swoon*.

After our lishy supper, we repaired to the bar for digestifs and listened to an excellent jazz band, while finally getting to sit by the window and look out at the amazing view. We realised, in not actually knowing Boston at all, the view was slightly lost on us anyway, so it was no great disaster that we didn't get to dine by the window.

A TERRIBLE START

Oh, the tangled webs we weave! What started out as a good intentioned anniversary surprise ended up as a bit of a logistical nightmare.

Max got back to DC as I was getting my haircut. Obviously the ideal situation would've been to go straight to Baltimore, to make the most of the hotel and get an early night. But Anne was in class all afternoon and had our luggage, so we had to wait for her to finish college at 8.30pm!

En route to meet Anne, we had supper at Ben's Chili Bowl - a real DC institution that is apparently Bill Cosby's favourite restaurant. It's on U St, where there was the most beautiful sunset as we were going inside.

On discovering that we're British, the guy behind the counter started talking to us about British cartoons, explaining that he loves 'Danger Mouse', which was a little random. In a pitifully white middle class attempt to sound cool, I started talking about the music producer and Gnarls Barkley dude, Danger Mouse, but it was lost on the assistant and I just shuffled off feeling lame.

Poor Maxy, knackered after 24 hours of travelling and stressful interviewing, he then had to schlep with me all the way to Anne's college, at the end of the metro line. Then we had to hang around for ages for Anne to pick us up, before heading into Baltimore, where we got lost and finally got the hotel at about 9.30pm. Ugh. What a waste of time, effort and money.

Things only got worse when we got to our room, which was the most shoddy looking penthouse suite I've ever seen. It was just gross and tatty and made me sad that I was spending so much money on it. But we hurriedly got into bed to watch a bit of TV before getting an early night, trying to ignore our surroundings.

Unfortunately the surroundings became very hard to ignore when someone in a nearby room used their bathroom, filling our room with the loudest grinding sounds, like in a very old house with bad pipes, and actually shaking the taps in our bathroom!

Having specifically requested a quiet room, I went back down to the front desk and asked for a different room. The concierge lady was so unhelpful it wasn't true, just giving me another key and leaving us to find the new room and get our luggage there, while assuring us that that room would be quiet.

So we got to the new room, jumped into bed and... were deafened by noise coming from outside! The room was above some kind of huge outlet for a fan or generator or AC unit or something - really loud machinery right outside our window, such that we couldn't hear the telly unless we turned it up really high.

By this time, I was nearing the end of my tether, so Maxy manfully went back down to the desk and got the concierge lady to actually come with him and check out any new room she suggested we take, to be sure we'd get a quiet one.

Eventually we were put in a different room and there was still noise from other rooms, but by then it was about 11pm and we were exhausted and just wanted to sleep, so gave up the unequal struggle.

As we were checking out in the morning, I asked for some kind of refund and was told that only the manager could do that and that he wasn't there! Aaaarggh. And then we got a taxi to the airport which was over $20 more than the hotel said it would be.

What a rotten start to our anniversary weekend!

KENNETH KENDAL

Ugh. Googlemaps SUCKS!!

I spent Monday working (this is my fourth of five weeks working for the TV company back in London) and generally getting depressed about the credit crunch.

Then I got to hang with Maxy on Tuesday morning, as he had to go in late to cover the second presidential debate and of course yesterday, he went to Maine.

Things were still very up in the air as to exactly where in Maine he was going to go when he boarded his plane, then when he arrived in Maine, he got a message saying he could interview George Mitchell - the democratic former Senate majority leader (and former chairman of Disney. Fact.), so headed up to the Obama HQ in Bangor, from Portland where he flew into.

Max called to ask me to get him a hotel in Bangor and mentioned that he was just going to get a taxi all the way up to Bangor. I sensed that he was doing this basically to spite his boss for not letting me drive Max around and knew it'd cost hundreds of dollars to get a taxi for a 3 hour journey, so found a bus that went from Portland to Bangor instead.

Then I had to find the Obama HQ in Bangor and book a hotel as nearby as possible, which all went very well.

I took ridiculous pleasure in being Max's Ground Control, really pleased that I was able to do something well and efficiently and give Max all the info he needed. I've been finding my TV development work quite tough lately and do quite wish I could have a really mechanical job like that - you know you've done a good job when a hotel is booked and a nifty transport plan is hatched, rather than the really subjective and unpredictable nature of writing a proposal well, or having a good idea. I like things a bit more cleancut than that. I think that's why my favourite ever job was waitressing and bartending - it's very clear when you've done a good job.

Anyway, with Max safely stowed on a bus to Bangor and a hotel room waiting for him, I carried on with my work, but then when Max got to Bangor, had to play Kenneth Kendal to Max's Anneka Rice, as he had to find a gun shop to go interview someone at after his meeting with the Democrat man.

So I rocked googlemaps, emailing Maxy exact directions to what sounded like a very Palin-y gunshop. Unfortunately it turned out that googlemaps was woefully wrong and Max called me from what looked on googlemaps like a road of shops, but was in fact a deserted lane that went on forever, with only trees and signs about moose on it.

Eventually Max was able to get a cab and found another gunshop - the one I was sending him to apparently didn't exist.

I then had to spend hours online and on the phone to the tourist information centre, trying to find a way on public transport that Max could get to another part of Maine today, then down to Portland in time for his flight. Again, Max was planning to get a taxi, but as Defender of the Licence Fee Payers, I was determined to find a better way. Turns out Maine is probably the state least well-served by public transport in the whole country.

Once again, googlemaps let me down this morning, when I tried to direct Max to another gunshop, but little did I know that that was far from the only disaster that would befall us today...

Because Max was due to get into Baltimore airport at 9pm tonight, then we're due to fly out of the same airport at 7.30am tomorrow morning, I decided to kick off our anniversary weekend with a surprise: I'd meet Max at the airport tonight and whisk him off to a fancy hotel in Baltimore for the night, then we wouldn't have to get up so early to get to the airport tomorrow and he wouldn't be exhausted from all the heinous travelling.

It was the perfect plan. Anne even offered to drive me to the airport, pick Max up and take us to the hotel. Sweet! And Joe - Jean's boyfriend - recommended a really nice-looking hotel, which was reeeeally expensive, but looked worth it.

So Anne collected our suitcase this morning and drove off to college, where I have to meet her later and then we'll drive to the airport together.

I had a blissful day off work today so I had a fun webcam chat with my friend Kat, before getting ready for the big weekend. While I was chatting to Kat, not only did Alison and Patrick call from their office for 'Ask The Brit' (a weekly event where Alison puts her phone on speakerphone and her, Patrick and a couple of colleagues quiz me about all things British. Last week, it was what do we call English muffins, this week it was about whether anyone is allowed to own a swan. Fortunately Kat knew what I didn't, that the Queen owns all swans), but Max also called, saying that his flight from Portland had been delayed for hours, but that he had managed to get himself onto a flight that not only left earlier, but gets into DC direct, rather than Baltimore! He arrives during my hairdresser's appointment and shortly before my manicure and legwax!

My plans are going to have to dramatically change...

THE MAINE EVENT

FUNNIEST THING I SAW TODAY: 'Life On Mars' with subtitles, for those impenetrable cockney accents!

I think it must be Francis of Assisi Day today or something, because people were encouraged to bring their pets to church. One funny dog woofed at just the right moment in the sermon and it was funny.

When I got home, we had a nice webcam chat with Greg, Jane and baby Isaac, though emerged wildly depressed about the state of the economy. As if all the doom and gloom in the press isn't enough, Greg works for the Bank of England and was bandying around words like, 'depression' rather than recession, 'grave situation' and even 'rise of fascism'!! Oy vey.

It's all a bit bleak and I'm getting rather down about it, but trying to keep things in perspective. As my wise Dad says, we've all got used to having too much stuff these days and really all that we need to be happy is food in our tummies, a roof over our head and ideally someone to share it all with. And I have that, so am going to try to zen out.

While I was at church, Max got an email from his boss asking him to go to Maine this week, to write a piece about how Maine's electoral college is unusual - it has four electoral votes, but doesn't operate on a winner-takes-all basis - each of the four votes counts individually. Or something. Anyways, the point is that the state is really split, between a solidly democratic south and a moose-hunting, shooting and fishing north that might swing for McCain (or, to put it more accurately, Palin).

The slight complicating factor in all of this is that we're due to go to New England next weekend for our 6 year anniversary of being together and have already bought our flights. We also weren't sure where Max was going to have to go in Maine, so looked into getting me a flight too, so I could play chauffeur again. This would work perfectly, because then we could spend our anniversary driving down from Maine to Boston for our weekend away.

However, when we contacted Max's boss with a price of all of this, he said it was way too high, so we had to abandon the idea of me joining Max and spent hours and hours trying to work out a way that Max could go to Maine, then meet me in Boston on Friday without having to schlep all the way back here in between, overlooking how on earth he was going to get around once he got to Maine.

It was all proving such a headache and was such a beautiful afternoon outside that we decided to take a break from our flight-booking hell, and walk to the Old Post Office building, which has a big tower you can climb for free and look out over all of DC.

Thomas Circle, en route to the Old Post Office building

It was a really nice walk and lovely to not have anywhere to get to in a hurry. Especially as this allowed us to pop into CVS (the Boots of DC), where we discovered a new and surely the greatest flavour of our favourite sweeties - Mike & Ikes (called Mikey Ikeys in DevoLand and frequently consumed in large quantities whilst watching TV) - lemonade flavour! Mmmmm.

We got to the Post Office with about 45mins to spare before it closed, according to both our guidebook and the sign outside the building. However, when we tried to get inside, a security guard told us it had closed 15mins ago! When we pointed out the sign that said it should still be open, she just kind of shrugged. Grrr.

Unable to accept such illogical information, we tried to get in via another door and, although we were fortunate enough to come across an amusingly punning segue company (Segs & the City. Fnar), we were once more vanquished and had to accept that our Post Office tower dreams weren't going to be realised today.

Fortunately, just round the corner, we came across a Turkish Bazaar (must be the weekend for bazaars), so all was not lost and we wandered around that for a while. But the spectre of still having to book Max's Maine trip was hanging heavy over our heads, so we cut our Turkish fun short and went home.

We finally booked some flights that are acceptable to Max's boss, though will make Al Gore cry yet more cold salty tears as Max single-handedly destroys the planet in the name of saving the BBC money. He's flying to Maine on Wednesday, back to DC on Thursday and then out to Boston again on Friday. Yikes!

By way of comfort viewing after our trying day, we watched 'Monsters Inc' this evening, which Max had never seen before and which we'd started watching when we were babysitting for Richard and Megan before Costa Rica. It's so ace - I really really like it. I'd forgotten that amazing scene when they're chasing the bad dude along all the flying doors - it's just awesome. I heart Pixar.

BEST. SATURDAY. EVER.

Today has been a day of many days.

It started with brunch with Susie and Louis. Susie's husband John is a good friend of Max's from the BBC - they worked together in Max's previous job. John is now a radio producer and he, Susie and their four month old son Louis have just moved over to DC for six months.

So poor Susie - she's just had a baby, as it happens they'd also just moved house before they came out here, and now she's over in the States, away from friends and family, knowing no-one in the city and with John travelling a whole lot more than Max does.

Before John went off to cover the debates, he asked us to hang with Susie, hence brunch this morning.

We met Susie on 17th St, where she and Louis had just been to mother and baby yoga. Louis is categorically the most adorable baby ever in the world EVER. I'm sure there are many sweet babies out there, but Louis is so the sweetest! He's really content and chilled out and just smiles the whoooole time. Susie made the mistake of letting me hold him and all of a sudden I found myself channelling my baby-stealing mother and couldn't let go! He's adorable.

And Susie's nice too. She writes for the Independent (when not on maternity leave) and actually seems to be handling the move to DC terrifically well - she already knew most of the places we recommended and seems very capable. It's really sad though, because they're living in the building we lived in for our first week here, in a small one bedroom flat. It's kind of an outrage, especially when one of John and Max's colleagues is living in a massive two bedroom apartment in the same building by herself, for the same length of time. Apparently she was asked to swap but didn't. Beastie.

So we'll hopefully see lots more of Louis and Susie, though she didn't seem to really need our help that much and I think she's more grown up and sophisticated than me, so I'm not sure we'd be friends in the usual run of things, but her baby's sooooo gorgeous!

After brunch, we intrepidly got the bus uptown to Patrick and Leanna's Russian orthodox church, where they were having a fete!

It was so nice to see Patrick and Leanna, because I really really like them both and Patrick's been travelling for most of the summer, for work, so we haven't seen them for ages. Plus Leanna was dressed in a traditional Russian outfit, which was fun.

We had a really nice time chatting to Patrick, while Leanna manned the cake stall. Patrick showed us around their church a bit and explained that services there are three hours long and they stand up all the way through! Aye carumba. It's odd, because neither of them grew up particularly religiously, but then one day thought they wanted to join a church, so went window shopping, attending services at lots of different churches - including the Presbyterian one that Alison, Brewster and Emily go to - and decided to go with the Russian orthodox one! Kind of an extraordinary decision for people who weren't massively religious.

Anyway, having listened to a bit of Russian music that reminded me of the band Beirut, despite the fact that they're Jewish, and avoided lots of borscht, we headed off to the metro for our next adventure.

It was lovely to amble around a new neighbourhood, until we hit a kind of rundown part called Petworth, where it was really interesting to be literally the only white people on the street. I can't think of any other time in my life where I've been the only white person I could see (apart from Max) and totally get that that must be how lots of ethnic minorities feel every day. Max later told me that Petworth is a really rough area where a blogger he likes got shot recently. What lovely places he takes me to!

Our next adventure was a roller derby bout!!

It was part of the DC Rollergirls league and the two teams were the DC Demon Cats and the Cherry Blossom bombshells. I'd been looking forward to this for aaages and quite expected it to be a large scale, kitschy show a bit like WWF, where it's all staged.

But the DC Armory, where the bout was held, looked a bit like a school gym and it was all extremely low key. I'd hurried us there, for fear of it being sold out, but I think probably about 200 people turned up in total and most of them a good 45 minutes after us... Somewhat awkwardly, boring Jackie and her boyfriend David were among those people, which put us a bit on edge, trying not to make eye contact (we think we got away with it).

Although it was all more low-key than I was expecting, it was too awesome for words. There was an MC who commentated on the bout throughout and beforehand did a demonstration of how roller derby works, using some of the girls as demonstrators. Each team had someone dressed up as a mascot and there was pumping music playing all the time.

All the players had funny punning names, like Guantanamo Babe, La Dolce Beatah, Styx n' Stones, X-abitchinest, Mason-Vixen, Camilla the Hun (she was the best), Rage Before Beauty and Velvet Landmine.

And it turns out that there's real skill to roller derby - who knew?! There are two teams of five skaters (the squads are bigger, so skaters sub in and out), who whizz around a track during each 2-minute 'jam'. One member of each team is the jammer. Those two skaters start out behind the pack and it is their job to work their way up to the pack of the two teams, then weedle their way through the pack and out into the front. Once out in front, the jammers have to speed round the track to join back up with the back of the pack and weedle their way through again.

that girl coming up on the outside (Camilla the Hun) is the jammer for the DC Demon Cats, trying to pass the pack

The jammers score points according to how many of the opposite team they pass and whether they get all the way through the pack each time.

The coolest thing is that of course half the pack are on the side of the jammer, and the other half isn't. So each jammer's teammates bash their opponents out of the way to make room for the jammer to whizz through and they can also 'whip' the jammer forward, basically taking her by the arm and flinging her ahead to give her more momentum.

So it's the job of the team members in the pack to a) get people out of the way so their jammer can whizz through and b) get in the way of the opposing team's jammer, to stop her getting through.

It can get a little brutal

It's really the most fun ever and really appeals to my scooter driving sensibilities, because I'm always looking for little gaps in traffic to nip in and out of, like the jammers. And now I understand the title of Drew Barrymore's directorial debut about roller derbys that's coming out soon - 'Whip It'.

We were firmly on the side of the Cherry Blossom Bombshells and they kicked ass, emerging victorious. The nicest thing was that there was loads of camaraderie between the teams. Although the competition was pretty brutal, there was an ethos of empowerment and sisterhood to the whole thing and it seems like just a really fun thing to do with a group of girls you like. The diary is already marked for next month's bout, on 29 November. Woo!!

Beating a hasty retreat so as to avoid Jackie and David, we dashed off at the end - missing the after-bout party at a pub nearby - to head to Chinatown where the day o' adventure continued with 'Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist'. I'd been too excited for words about the movie, but was a bit disappointed by it. I can't really put my finger on why - Max thinks it's because we're too old to relate to a couple of teenagers falling in love during a wild night on the streets of New York - but I maintain we could still pull an all-nighter and have larks, so I don't think that's it. It was all just kind of annoying. Hmm.

The soundtrack by Mark Mothersbaugh was wonderful and one of the pivotal scenes takes place in my favourite diner in New York - Veselka! That was very exciting to see. As was the trailer beforehand for 'Role Models', which looks hilaaarious.

Just to prove Max that we could stay out as long as the next teenager, I took him for a cocktail afterwards, which made a nice change from just heading straight home - we don't often go out for drinks as just the two of us. I had a yummy blueberry mojito and the barman was curiously well-versed in British comedy. Strange.

We got home just in time for the spectacular 'The Soup' - the US's answer to 'Harry Hill's TV Burp' that's just too funny for words and presented by a man as hot as he is hilarious - and then watched 'Saturday Night Live', with Tina Fey hysterical as Sarah Palin during the VP debate.

What a day!

THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE

LOOK AT THE LOVELY FLOWERS MAX GOT ME: they're sunflowers that are red and have turned the water red, too. Weeeeiirrd.

As difficult as I'm finding it to do this development work, it does make days off that much sweeter.

Today was one such day and Anne was also free, so we headed out to Great Falls - a big National Park with bits in Maryland and Virginia.

We got terribly lost on the way there, but I was just enjoying the pretty drive through autumnal leaves and listening to the Joshua Radin CD I made her (Max and I can't stop listening to Joshua Radin at the moment).

The park was just beautiful and it's been a gorgeously hot and sunny day (in October!). It's called a park, but it's really just this amazing sprawling forest right on the Potomac, with beautiful rapids and waterfalls all over the place. After a lishy picnic on a rock, we went for a hike along the river - we saw cute river turtles! - through pretty tree-lined paths and then over huge boulders which eventually took us to this amazing overlook, high above the river in the ravine below.

You can't really tell, but there's a big ravine behind us...

I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised, but the park was crawling with old people in tracksuits! Apart from this one couple who were hilarious... A guy came walking towards us looking kind of geeky and behind him was this tiny woman with the tightest trousers on that you've ever seen, the most pushy of push-up bras, makeup an inch thick and extremely large, hairsprayed hair. The funniest thing was that the lady was carrying a pair of 6 inch stiletto heels! She didn't look too happy and I can only assume that she'd taken 'going for a hike' as some sort of sexy euphemism.

Unfortunately we got carried away with our beautiful surroundings and didn't leave enough time to get to a hair appointment I'd made for this afternoon. But we didn't really appreciate this at the time, so were rushing and hurrying (though Anne doesn't drive quite as fast as I do in an emergency) and got really stressed, because we got lost again on the way back - mainly due to one road being cordoned off - and were on the phone to Max and Hugh simultaneously in the hope that they could look up a map and guide us back to town.

The stress and hurry a little bit eroded the lovely relaxingness of our day, especially when we ran into the back of a car. It was only the tiniest of bumps, but we'd been distracted by a confused old woman hobbling across a 4-lane road, with traffic whizzing by her obliviously. Anne just very slightly bumped the car in front when it stopped unexpectedly. The car drove off but then pulled over a little later and Anne was honest enough to realise it was so the driver could check the damage done to her car, so Anne pulled over too. Fortunately there was evidently no damage done to either car, but unfortunately this meant that I had to cancel my hair appointment as we were so clearly not going to get there. Awwwkwaarrd.

This evening was the party at the Swedish Embassy that state department friend Jean's terrorist assets friend JP had told us about - the 'After Dark In Denim' party - which I discovered was actually the after-show party for a fashion show by a denim designer.

I duly denimmed up and we headed round to Jean for some drinks beforehand. We got to know Joe a little better and, while he's really fun and everything, he's a bit overbearing and pleased that he's making money from the financial crisis while everyone else is suffering (he's about to move into market trading, having been obsessed with following the markets as a hobby).

Anyway, the party was amaaaaazing. Oh my goodness, the embassy is so cool and Swedish and the party was across three floors - one with a bar and dancefloor, one with a band playing and then up on the roof terrace, we stood around quaffing overpriced cocktails while looking out over the river, Virginia and the Kennedy Centre while listening to some stellar Swedish pop music.

I was the only one of Max, me, Joe and Jean who took the dress code seriously
(JP not pictured)

It was good to see JP again, as he flitted about between various groups of international party people, and we got a cool goodie bag! Turns out the party was being thrown by Swedish jeans label Nudie and we got an excellent t-shirt, big pointless book of fashion photos and a wicked CD of Swedish pop music. Poor Max had to go score us a couple of goodie bags, because they were being handed out to people as they left, but the supplies were going down fast before I was ready to leave, so Max manfully went and talked the ladies round to bag (heh heh) us a couple.

JP was of course going on to another party somewhere else when the Swedes chucked us out, but we went home, revelling in an embassy event that had been way more fun than the stuffy old polo 'do' at the Argentinian embassy ages ago.

NATUREWATCH

WEIRDEST BERRIES I'VE EVER SEEN: these Easter egg berries in Dumbarton Oaks Park - they were pink and purple and blue and green...

On Sunday, it was my first proper shift as a Sunday School assistant and it went really well. Though I couldn't help thinking that the teacher could've found slightly more creative ways to get his point across, which got me to thinking that maybe I'd like to be a primary school teacher.

I really want a different job to TV and figure primary school teacher would be great - it's really creative, because you've got to find different and fun ways to get information across to young children, I love spending time with kids and wouldn't have to know much more than basic maths and reading, which is about the extent of my knowledge! Plus, I'd get long summer holidays, get to be at home in the afternoon, which'd be good if we have children, and wouldn't have to live in London. Perfecto!

Continuing the cute kids theme, we had a webcam chat with my friend George and her gorgeous girls Angelina and Ava (my goddaughter) when I got home. Unfortunately we were blighted by pesky technical failings, so couldn't talk on webcam for long and had to resort to the regular phone, but it was amazing to see how much both girls have changed in the past 6 months and it was lovely to have a chat with Angelina, whose vocabulary is amazing and who's happy to chat away happily on the phone, despite only having just turned 4. Awwww.

It rained for most of the afternoon, but after our noodley day the day before, we were determined to get outside and went exploring to Dumbarton Oaks Park.

It's a rambling National Park which we got to by walking through the backstreets of embassy residences, which were very fancy.

The park was amazing and made us forget that we were in DC. It's all little trails through woods, which some times open out into these open areas of undulating ivy. Everything's covered in ivy. It's a bit like the bottom of the sea, when all the rocks are covered in seaweed - you can only see the outlines of what is there.

It was a gorgeous walk, over little bridges and next to a little stream, before we joined a path that ran parallel with the road through Rock Creek Park (not sure how the two parks are connected).

It was at that point that we realised we were a little lost and, having enjoyed not meeting a soul so far, were grateful when we started to encounter other walkers, as we could find out where to go.

Ooh! And that morning, Max had been included on a mass email from the head of online news, praising the coverage of the debate last week and singling out Max's FactCheck for special mention!

Most of this week has been spent working on development work. But I decided to run my three days this week from Tues-Thurs, so Monday was a blissful day off. It made such a difference to have a day at the beginning of the week doing my own thing, running errands, catching up on emails and all that stuff I don't get done at the weekend so which interferes with my work.

I had to call Max at one point to be reminded of the name of that chidren's bubble bath shaped like a sailor (I now know it to be Mr Matey, but no thanks to Max), but was told that he didn't have time to help me as he was writing a news story about the failing economy. Huh.

That night we had a fun dinner with Oliver at a French restaurant up in Adams Morgan (Oliver lives about three streets away from us...). It was a lovely laid-back evening, though we were all taken aback by how massively expensive the restaurant turned out to be, so that was a bit of a blow.

But otherwise it was fun and Oliver's really good company. He told me that the thing I'd been worrying about in the election - the idea of white voters telling pollsters that they'll vote for Obama, then going into the booth and not bringing themselves to vote for a black man - is called The Bradley Effect. So now I know.

Tuesday was a day of good and bad news. In bad news, the greatest book/record/video store in DC - Olssons - closed down. I'm sad. In good news, Max found out he wasn't going to St Louis to cover the VP debate, as we'd thought.

Yesterday was a hellish day of hard work, so it was really stressful that Alison and Brewster came over for dinner. We'd long had plans to meet up, but when we agreed it had to be something cheap because we're all broke, I stupidly suggested they come to us for supper.

My dash to the supermarket at lunchtime was made all the more stressful by all the things I needed (creme fraiche, cream crackers, double cream) having different names over here, so I had to call Max to decipher. Then it started pelting down with rain on my way home, so I was absolutely soaked to the skin by the time I poured myself through the door ready for an afternoon of work.

I was nowhere near finished with my work when they got here, so was really uptight and stressed for the whole evening, which was a real shame, because it would've been nice to chat properly in a relaxed atmosphere. I just knew I'd have to go back to work once they were gone, so was always slightly rushing things along.

It was nice to get to know Brewster a little better though - he's a very nice and polite chap. He still doesn't have me keeling over in hysterics, but he makes people feel really good about themselves, is very complimentary, and is a good solid fellow.

Brewster explained that he is a Republican, but that the way that McCain is handling the economy is making him consider voting for Obama. Added to which, Brewster is familiar with the economic advisers Obama has surrounded himself with, so is very impressed with him.

The weirdest thing throughout the conversation was how Brewster and Alison made frequent references to 'when' they get married, 'when' they have children and 'when' they live together, etc. They only started dating back in May, so it's extraordinary to me that four months later, they're talking like that. But that seems to be the American way - I know some of the girls here think Max and I waited ages in not getting engaged until our third anniversary, but back home it felt kind of fast.

Sure enough, once they left I had to get on with work, and then slaved away again today. But it's nice because a couple of birds have started visiting the tree right in front of the window I look out of from my desk, so I spend quite some time hypnotised by their efforts to get the berries off the tree and then hop away.

Fortunately I was finished tonight in time to watch the debate properly. Once again, Max was doing the live blogging with Justin Webb, followed by the FactCheck.

I have to say, it kind of scared me, how good Palin was. I mean, if you actually listened to what she was saying, it was all nonsense and confused and didn't answer the question (something of which she was apparently proud), but the fluency and confidence with which she spoke was such a world away from the astonishing Katie Couric interview this week that she sounded kind of impressive.

Fortunately Joe Biden was terrific - he's so awesome and I felt he was in a league of his own when it came to projecting confidence and political experience. Not to mention just as much hokey 'Main St' credentials as Palin kept banging on about. It was amazing to see him choke up when he talked about his family.

I wish Palin hadn't been looking right at the camera all the time. Once a local news reporter, always a local news reporter, I guess. And she got the name of the commanding officer in Afghanistan wrong. But expectations had been so low, that just because she managed to not fall over during her entrance, or dribble down her chin while stumbling through an answer, it made it feel like she was kicking ass. Just like with Leo in 'The West Wing' season 7! The difference is that he actually was good - she just appeared to be good.

Anne and Hugh came over to watch the analysis afterwards, which was nice and neighbourly. It annoyed me a little bit in MSNBC's analysis that because Biden's approvals were higher than Palin's after the debate, he won. I mean, he obviously won, so that's fine, but Palin's approval rating actually increased by more than Biden's (despite ending up lower than his still), and I know that if the roles had been reversed, MSNBC would've been hailing it as a big triumph for Biden the underdog.