On my first trip to Bangalore, way back in erm.. June, I was struck by the constant tooting of car horns. What is the problem with these people I thought! In the UK the horn is associated with road rage and angry drivers inches away from stopping the car and hammering in your window with a tire iron.

But a colleague told me that the convention in India, indeed it might even be (or have been) the law, is to indicate your presence via the horn to other drivers, especially when overtaking. Suddenly the whole racket takes on a different aspect. Nobody is spoiling for a fight - it's a cacophony of good intentions!

Had a great weekend in Chicago incorporating a visit to the fantastic aquarium (anywhere with penguins is a place I want to be) and the long running show Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. TMLMTBGB was certainly an exeperience - 30 plays in 60 minutes and the audience chooses the order. Some of it was very funny, some bits were poignant but I thought a lot of it was rather self indulgent. They were very proud of the number of plays they had written since the show opened. I wondered how many they had rejected - could do with a little Quality Assurance...

I did learn an excellent new word, or rather, an excellent new meaning to a word I already knew. My colleague from India, Rohith, told me that he and his friends in India used to describe weird/odd stuff going on as "Olympics". Why, I asked.

"Because what do Indian athletes do at the Olympics? They go, mess around, do their own thing, then come back! That's Olympics!"

As we walked out of TMLMTBGB Rohith turned to me and said "THAT was Olympics". I understood perfectly.

I'm leaving Chicago tomorrow so just time for a last picture of Millenium Park. It doesn't have any penguins but it does have giant pictures that squirt water which aint bad:

Ah! I'm back in the Windy City again which as attentive readers will know: I heart. It's been crazy hot but then again so has London. But 81 degrees at 10pm was really something.

One night we came out of the resteraunt into a warm muggy night where the air smelt unmistakably of chocolate! It was strong too - apparently there is a Hershey's factory somewhere in the vicinity. If only their chocolate tasted as good as it smelled that night.

It's been a sad day today.

Today I said goodbye to 5 Victoria Road, my home since 1979. I cleared the rest of my stuff out, sat in the garden, walked through every room and locked the door knowing that I would never do so again. On Sunday I fly to Chicago for work, I'll be back in London for two days and then I'm moving to Bangalore. Bangalore, India! When I come back in the autumn the house will be sold so I knew today was the end. I wasn't looking forward to today, but I took the time I needed to say goodbye and in th end it wasn't so bad.

All week I've been thinking about blogging today and what I would write; wondering how I could pour my emotions out in tear-drenched prose. But right now I feel fine, I feel like I hoped I would feel: like something's over and I'm moving on. And at last I can get excited about going to India :) I saw the fabulous Avenue Q last night and I know that it definately does NOT suck to be me!

Mind you, if I'd been typing this at about 4.30pm today it wouldn't have been quite so together. But sitting there in the garden I thought about the house and how it's a locus of memories (not a locust - read that again!) but actually the memories go on wherever you are and that's what really matters. So I had my last look round, locked up and went round to my Aunt and Uncle's house for supper. I was feeling pretty flat when I got round there but the evening was like acclimatising and in their convival company I soon felt better.

I was also able to show them the final treasures unearthed in the house. In Dad's study I found his pocket diaries in a box. Starting in 1949 they go up to the early 70s. But in the bottom of the box were some photos I'd never seen before. They were black and white pics of South Africa in the early 60s. There was one fantastic shot a very debonair, young, J.B.Johnston and then a lovely one of mum and her cousin Caroline at the beach. Touchingly Dad had jotted on the back who was who! It struck me that this must have been taken when they first got to know each other as he refered to her as "Elizabeth Crace (HC's niece) on the right". Awww...



I love those guys.

I've just bought a scanner. One of the first pictures I scanned was this lil' fella taken back in May. That's May 1887 of course.


It features 3 generations of my family. My grandfather, John Foster Crace, aged 9; my great-grandfather, John Diblee Crace, aged 49 and my great-great-grandfather, John Gregory Crace aged 78. There's even a picture of my great-great-great-grandfather Frederick Crace, plus some others, on my Flickr site.

I've singularly failed to blog about the world cup even though it's one of my favourite things. It's been a strange one because I watched the first match in India and most of the opening round in the USA and Canada.

The more I saw of England the more I thought of my trip to Turin for the winter olympics. There I saw Team Canada loaded down with stars and the hopes of a nation stumble through the opening round before going out when the going got tough. They never once gelled as a team. Sound familiar? Sigh...

Still England's demise meant that I could get fully behind Germany. I've only been to Germany a couple of times but I love it and I really like Germans. They've got a bad rep they just don't deserve.

So it was a shame when Germany lost last night. But it was a cracking game and the only thing I'm really disapointed about is the fact that we must suffer more of Gianluigi Buffon's v-neck jumper over white t-shirt outfit:



What ever happened to Italian style?