catching up...

I've gotten out of the habit of writing here even though I have had things to say. Last week I celebrated my birthday (I'm as old as Star Wars in case anyone wonders), and spent the day at Mudchute City Farm. We saw cows, sheep, llamas, pigs of varying sizes and breeds, happy free range chickens, horses, feisty big goats and feisty little goats. We also had a worrying run-in with a psychotic squirrel, but we didn't let him spoil our day. It was lovely and strange to find fields and woodland and animals right in the middle of the city.

The farm also has a very tasty cafe, which was serving still-warm freshly baked carrot cake when we were visiting. Mmmmmmmmm.

On the way home we ran into this Halloweeny fellow:

I also received a wonderful home made dark chocolate and Marsala cake for my birthday, making it a two-cake day. Not too shabby.

Today I had the amazing opportunity to tour the sets and workshops for Wes Anderson's stop-motion animation film Fantastic Mr. Fox. Having signed a confidentiality agreement I am not allowed to say anything about what I've seen, but suffice to say the people working on it are very, very talented and the tour was incredible for a design/modelmaking/puppetry geek like me. What we were allowed to see was fantastic indeed and I cannot wait until it comes out.