Happy Birthday Simmi

Yes, today is my friend Simmi's birthday, I'm sure that bottles are being cracked even as I type - well it is a day with a 'y' in it - but Simmi assures me that there will be more celebrating when Kevin and I get there.

This morning Simmi has sent me a link which took me back a few years. Armistead Maupin has won an award for being the best gay read, and so he bloody well should. His 'Tales of the City' series were just - well, I'll use Simmi's own word - they were yummy. I can remember devouring those books. I loved Anna Madrigal, I loved Michael Mouse Tolliver, actually I just loved everyone in them. And the TV series, which wasn't long enough, it should have gone on forever, how great was Olympia Dukakis in that? And was that the first thing we saw Paul Gross in? Simmi said she had had to buy all the books and read them virtually in one sitting, and I can remember doing the exact same thing, I had a reading spot in the garden and I couldn't keep away from it the summer I discovered Maupin. When a writer can have you enthralled like that, well he or she deserves awards.

In other Simmi related updates, there is a new 'Strange Pigeon Woman' photo which I think is brilliant and completely sums up the phenomenon. It was taken in Barcelona and couldn't be more perfect.

Another of my friends, oops, I almost typed fiends, Canadian Karen, is currently in Paris enjoying the museums. It sounds as though she has a sweet deal, the friends she is staying with have a flat not far from the Arc de Triomphe. There was a period when my sister worked in Paris, and her company had a flat just off the Champs Elysées, she also had an expense account which was very nice. It meant we could eat for free in restaurants. My sister's co-workers were a bit miffed that Amanda's expenses were lower than theirs, so she had an opportunity while I was staying with her, to up them a bit.
The flat was really a studio with a bathroom. If it had been in London it would have been a bit of tat, but in Paris, it was a magical place because you could open the windows on the balcony and breathe in the Frenchness of it all. Ok, well, that just makes it sound smelly, but there was someting stirring about the roofs and shutters. Amanda and I were stopped by the police one evening while we were just walking down the Champs Elysées, we were wearing our duffle coats and leg warmers, this was a November evening and we were admiring the illuminations. The police asked us some pertinent questions, or, more accurately some impertinent ones, clearly they suspected us of street-walking rather than just walking down the street.

I am looking forward greatly to seeing my other friend Karen and her mum, May. May is Scottish and has recently moved nearer to Karen into a just lovely flat overlooking the sea. When Karen and I were little, we used to argue (well, not much, I can't really ever remember arguing with Karen, but we did disagree on one thing) because I could hear her mum's Scots accent and she couldn't hear it as strongly because she was her mum, and she could hear Brummie in my mum's and I never could. Anyway, let's just say that a Scottish accent is a beautiful thing and a Brummie one - egh, not so much.
Kevin and I are going to be taking a short trip up to Scotland while we are over in Britain, and I am looking forward to it. It was good to have some input from Karen because she said, 'if you have the time, just drive into the countryside,' and I think that is a very good idea. We have a few things we want to do, a distillery of course and Edinburgh Castle, but rather than try to cram as many touristy things as possible into our short visit, yes, the countryside would be much more satisfying.