Start my new job tomorrow. I CAN'T WAIT!!! A rather relaxed orientation day is planned but I have to bring in my passport and copies of my degree certificates to make it easier for them to get visas for me to work overseas if needs be. Woo.

It's been a great week of not working even if I didn't do as much reading as I had planned. I did manage to see a lot of my friends and their kids, ranging from 11 days old to 4 and a half.
I like kids. And by and large they seem to like me.

Cath and I also completed our Henry IV grand slam by seeing part II the National on Thursday. I'd never read or seen either part I or II but they were cracking. And at £10 a seat it would have been churlish to complain. Michael Gambon was excellent as Falstaff - sometimes slightly unclear but an illuminating performance that brought incredible life to the part. Matthew Macfadyen (him out of Spooks) was prince Hal: I don't know if he's any good he's just dreamy :) But I was particularly taken with David Bradley as King Henry. You might remember him from such movies as Harry Potter (parts 1,2 and 3) where he plays the Hogwarts caretaker. "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" he declares at one point and he seemed to manifest this verbally and physically as the play wears on. He's wracked with guilt at his act of userpation but too busy putting down rebellion at home to make his penitential crusade. And then there's his ne'r-do-well son to worry about. Great stuff. And I'll never be able to look at the sea without seeing "the beachy girdle of the ocean, too wide for Neptune's hips". Nice.