On my last night in London, I met up with our very own Gail D. Although I have always loved meeting pbase folks, I must say that I do (like, I suspect, quite a few of us), get very nervous about meeting people I’ve not met before. I’m not sure if a one-to-one meeting is best because you don’t have that whole ‘crowd dynamic’ going on….but what if you just don’t get on with that person? Or is it best to meet a crowd of folks all in one go, but then you have to forge lots of fledgling relationships in a single go and I personally (despite me being Mrs Gobby) find that a tad intimidating.

Anyway, I had a feeling about Gail and knew we ought to meet especially when I realised that I’d been a whisker away from bumping into her by chance a few weeks ago. My feelings about people are sometimes way off beam, but on this occasion, I was spot-on. I just had a hunch we’d have a lot in common and that’s exactly what we found after five minutes or so of slightly awkward pauses we were off and running and the whole evening whizzed by in a whirl of chatter and laughter.

We strolled out of the restaurant Gail had found for our meeting point after quaffing some cold wine and eating some hot curry…...well, to tell the truth, some of it was hot in flavour but by the time we ate it, it was physically pretty cold because we didn’t stop chatting so food seemed kind of a poor second to hearing the next titbit of life. Don’t you think that’s a perfect way to spend an evening?

I told Gail that my top job of the night was to proclaim to the world that her ‘tough cookie’ demeanour is all just front, she’s a complete sweetie and as soft as a soft thing really!!!!!!

One of the things I laughed most about all evening (especially given that my forthrightness has got me into hot water with pbase folks before) was that I had thought she’d be offended because one day I was on a rant about the shallowness of Prada and how their views about black were totally pointless. A few days later, I noticed that she’d got a ‘friend’ (who I now know is her niece) whose email address was @prada.com……… I confessed to Gail that I’d expected her to blank me for that but was delighted to find that she’d been as chatty online as ever. It turned out that the email addy was a complete spoof and that it was only to throw unwanted observers off the scent of her real addy. Ha Ha – just goes to show, you can totally get the wrong end of the stick from something.

On that subject, Katey – how nice to get a comment from you and how funny to hear I’ve been a topic of conversation in your home! You got me wrong, it wasn’t a ‘fault with the old’, more a complete revelation about how happy I am now. Please don’t think I was suggesting anything else.

On another subject, I'm going to have a whine about how crappy this shot is because (and the only reason) of the camera shake. Those of you out there with 10ds will know that 1600iso is virtually unusable because of the grain and the only lens I had with me was f3.5 at its widest. Damn, I knew I should have come away with my 50.....that's got an f1.8! In every other respect, I LOVE it - Gail on Hungerford Bridge with St Pauls in the background.....perfect!

Last year - within an arm's length of desire? Oh yes, yes, YES!!!!!!!!!