Dallas

I had debated hiring a car while I was in Dallas. I don't like driving on the 'other' (read 'wrong') side of the road. My brother owns a copy of the Lonely Planet Guide to the US. He looked up the driving conditions for Dallas. It said one word.

'Interesting.'

By this, they do not mean 'mostly harmless'.

Dallas drivers are psychotics in trucks with gun racks and the roads look (and feel) like they were built around about the time Nero was getting violin lessons.

Needless to say, I did not hire a car in Dallas.

Dallas was a bit of a wash as far as thingies were concerned. I was meant to catch up with Essie, but the small issue of her buying a house cropped up and so my week in Dallas was uneventful.

I got to see the grassy knoll and the book depository, of course, as well as multiple pegasuseseses (pegasi?) and had my Dallas project manager turn to me and ask, "Y'all got Hooters down in Melbourne?"

I couldn't help myself.

"Actually, I have them all the time. see?"

I may never work in that town again...

London

I'd not been to London before. I was all squirmy and excited because I only knew it from books and movies and songs. I wanted to see if the mythical London in my head existed or not.

I touched down at Gatwick at some ridiculous cow-milking hour on Sunday. Just catching the Gatwick Express into Victoria Station was a revelation. The rows of houses, just like I'd seen on the TV. I wasn't in Kansas anymore, Toto.

I shivered with delight (and cold) as I caught my first black cab from the station to my hotel. I was staying in Mayfair, just off Piccadilly. Even the names were evocative of rainy afternoons of Monopoly. I tried not to squeak as the cabby drove past Down St.

As soon as I arrived at my hotel, I contacted thingies and family to let them know I had arrived safely and to make plans for later in the week. I grabbed a copy of London A-Z and planned my assault. I was close to Green Park. I could see Buckingham Palace on the map. It looked close enough to walk to. I figured if I managed to walk there and back in an afternoon, not only would I stay awake all day and acclimate to the time change, I also would have seen something pretty impressive on my first day.

Those of you who know London can stop sniggering now.

So I misjudged the distance. So I overestimated how far away I was. So five minutes into my walk, I found myself here.

I took the requisite tourist photos and found myself thinking, "Well now what do I do?"

I turned around and my next thought was, "Fuck me, it's Big Ben."

A turn to my right and I thought, "Fuck me, it's Westminster Abbey."

I was starting to get a feel for London.

Navigating via very tall landmarks (and the odd reassuring glance at my trusty London A-Z), I walked until I bumped into this and then I looked around and walked until I could see this. A leisurely wander down the Thames and I stumbled over Cleopatra's Needle, a landmark I was going to save until Maria's From Hell Walking Tour of London™, but I took a photo anyway. (see chapter 4, page 20 of 'From Hell'.)

It was getting dark by that stage, too dark for photos of Trafalgar Square (filled not with pigeons but with Chinese New Year celebrants) and Piccadilly Circus (still no clowns), but not too late for a look inside the gigantic Waterstones bookshop on Piccadilly.

Work consumed the next five days utterly. The only relief was grinning like a loon when I first heard "Mind the gap!" announced over the tannoy.

On Saturday I had scheduled a visit with a cousin who lives in Shepherds Bush near Olympia (the name of one of Hunter's previous employers in 'Neverwhere'). We were going to go to some street markets, but the weather was horrible (cold, wet and snowing despite the blue sky and fluffy clouds), so I caught a bus to meet her in Kensington instead.

I tried to be cool as I caught my first double-decker bus from Oxford Circus heading for Hammersmith. As we trundled down the road, I looked to my left and thought, "Fuck me, it's the Royal Albert Hall."

I did that a lot in London. Seeing things in real life that I had only seen before in pictures tends to evoke that response in me.

In fact, whenever I had to walk somewhere, I invariably had to schedule extra time in to allow me to goggle at the sights I discovered along the way.

I met my cousin and we went to see the animatronic dinosaurs go 'grrr' at the Natural History Museum. It was dark when we finished and we started to walk home. We took a wrong turn and found ourselves in Knightsbridge. I saw a glow down the end of the street. "What's that?" I asked.

"No idea," she responded.

So we went to find out what it was. I gleefully dragged her inside and insisted we go into the food hall so that I could buy things for our dinner that night (and get a souvenir shopping bag.)

We made our way back to the bus stop when I saw this. Kevin Smith fans should appreciate the joke.

Sunday was Maria's From Hell Walking Tour of London™. It was also steadily raining for the entire day. I don't actually recall what order we saw things in, but I have referred back to 'From Hell' and the carriage ride Gull and Netley take in chapter four.

Maria met me at my hotel, we conferred a bit over her extensive and brilliant notes and then we headed up towards Oxford Circus, checking out Sir William Gull's house along the way at 74 Brook St (chapter 4, page 4). Maria had noted that William Blake lived just up the road at 17 South Molton Lane (appendix i, page 9). We found it amusing that his house had become a nail salon.

We headed for Kings Cross/St Pancras Station and tried to find Queen Boadicea's alleged resting-place (chapter 4, page 6-7). We fear that if it's not under Platform 10 at Kings Cross Station, then her grave is now a pile of dirt excavated for the new channel tunnel rail link. We walked down Battlebridge Road and it was just as gloomy as Gull paints it.

St George Bloomsbury was next (chapter 4, page 16.) If you have the book, compare my photo to the lower left-hand panel on that page. Completely co-incidental, completely spooky. Wandering back to the train station, we stumbled onto Drury Lane (no muffin man, unfortunately) and the Freemasons Hall there. Another serendipitous find, since the Masons play a big part in 'From Hell' and the 'Angels Over England' exhibition scenes in 'Neverwhere' was filmed there.

All this walking required a refreshment stop, so we drank a pint at Shakespeare's Head in Holborn.

Then it was off to the Non-Conformists cemetery in Bunhill Fields (chapter 4, page 12). We found Daniel Defoe's obelisk and William Blake's gravestone as well as the resting-place of John Bunyan.

Gull and Netley leave it until last, but we headed for St Paul's Cathedral (chapter 4, page 34). It was a Sunday, so we couldn't go in, but I tried to fit as much cathedral into the frame of my camera as I could manage.

It was getting dark as we made our way to Spitalfields. We walked down Brushfield street, past the refurbished old Spitalfields market (appendix ii, page 24). The market was closing by the time we arrived, but we wandered around for a bit and then headed up to Commercial Street to see the Ten Bells Pub (chapter 6, page 23) and the exceedingly creepy and loom-y Christ Church (chapter 4, page 32) as the sun set.

We headed down Commercial St to Hanbury St on our way to Brick Lane for nummy curry. We passed what used to be the entrance to the backyard at 29 Hanbury St, the scene of Annie Chapman's murder. It's a brewery now.

After curry, Maria and I headed for Leicester Square for a final pint. Hugs, farewells and then it was time to head home and stand under a hot shower for an hour to get the chill from the constant rain out of my bones.

It was decided rather hurriedly on Monday that Mayfair was a much too expensive place for this little consultant to stay, so I moved to a room with a view in South Kensington. Not much happened until late Wednesday night. I had arrived home from work at about 10pm and was cramming pistachio nuts into my mouth while waiting for my dinner to heat up. As I checked my email, the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet got very, very itchy. To the point where I fetched a fork from the kitchen to scratch them because nothing else would do the job.

I felt an itch on my back and reached under my shirt to scratch it. I was covered in welts and hives. Then my lips and tongue started to tingle and swell and my throat and chest to tighten. This all must have happened within about 15 minutes.

An ambulance arrived not long after an involved series of phone calls where medical people felt that the best course of action would be to put me on hold. Thankfully the lovely ambulance blokes and the people at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital treated me quickly and kindly. I received several cups of tea as part of my ordeal, along with enough steroids to turn me into Arnold Schwarznegger and polite advice to take it easy on the pistachios in the future.

I slept most of Thursday, having been in awake all Wednesday night. Culfin very kindly offered to take me out for pints and curry that night in Islington. Despite still shaky hands (those adrenaline injections really knock me sideways), I managed a couple of quiet pints and to go back to the curry smorgasbord twice. I even got to tick another 'Neverwhere' landmark off my list.

Loz lost me on friday, apparently, but in the meantime, I had a long conversation with Sheri and Garry. Sheri had recently had surgery so couldn't make it to London to catch up and I was due to fly home on Saturday night, so I couldn't get to Exeter. The three of us nattered for a couple of hours and it was wonderful to hear their voices again.

Loz found me on Saturday, or at least I found Loz outside Gloucester Road tube station. Like Maria, Loz had researched a plan of attack for my last day in London (not in the least bit offended by me not wanting to participate in a peace march.) Armed with a book of walks around London, we headed for the Tate Modern. We gawped at falling pianos, empty elevators, bloody odd artwork (with the occasional "ooooh!" when we spotted something famous or fabulous) and the astonishing prices in the gift shop.

Then it was off to look at the outside of the new Globe (and the site of the old one which is free), Sir Christopher Wren's old digs, the Golden Hinde, Clink St and the Borough Market (yum!), all the while Loz maintaining a running commentary from the book.

"... And that would be blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," said Loz, as bouncing smiley things dropped from the sky.

I discovered in Hay's Galleria that angels only come with a 32-inch chest.

Then it was back along the Thames to look at the HMS Belfast and this reasonably famous object. I realised that I had no photos of famous London landmarks with me in them, so I asked a passing tourist to get a photo of Loz and I in front of Tower Bridge. Unfortunately, this was the best she could come up with.

We stopped for ice cream and carbon monoxide poisoning beside the bridge and then strolled across towards the Tower of London. The queues were horrendous and I had very little money left, so we skipped the tower itself and I snagged a souvenir at the gift shop.

Then, the most important part of the mission.

Comic shopping.

Loz took me to Gosh, where I spent a gosh-darned lot of money on comics and I tried to tempt Loz with a copy of 'From Hell', relating how much fun Maria and I had following the directions. It was not to be. Loz is untemptable, at least at that price.

We stopped for a pint at the Angel (not the Angel, but now I can say I've been to the Angel), a quick stop at a couple of bookshops and then it was hugs and farewells and I was on my way to Heathrow for the 16,905km journey from London to Melbourne via Singapore.

I love London. I love it with a passion that burns deep within my soul. The nicest part of the whole trip? Having thingies I had met only hours before asking me when I will be back.

Soon. I promise.

It's been six weeks since I last reported in. In that time, I have been weighed twice. Once the day I arrived from London (84/185 kg/lbs) and then again last night. And if you look here and here, you'll start to notice a pattern...

How terribly embarrassing, my readers will know precisely when I am in my cycle just by looking at my blog.

Mind you, it's really starting to make me really hate being a girl. I can put on four pounds (2 kg) one week and drop it the next. And there is nothing I can do about it. Ack.

But there is no rest for the wicked. Not only do I have some serious booty shaking to do (so that I am deliciously svelte when my boy arrives), but I'm being sent on another business trip. A mere three weeks after I get home from the last one.

I'll be off to Brisbane for two weeks (they will let me go home over the Easter break) to work for another client.

I did ask to travel more for work, but this is a touch ridiculous. My body hasn't even properly adjusted to being home again.

And this time I promise not to eat any pistachios.

P.S. Ghost and I are still happily involved and he doesn't feel the slightest bit threatened by the passion I expressed for the city of London in my previous blog...

I met them while I was travelling.

I was utterly captivated by their smell, by the way they spoke to me, by their vibrant, continuous energy.

I fell like a suicide from a bridge.

Yes, I am playing the pronoun game. But what do I have to be afraid of? My new love is a woman, through and through.

Older, more experienced, wise in the ways of the world.

She let me explore her and showed me things I’d never seen before.

She has changed me. I will never see the world the same way again.

And as soon as I can manage it, I shall return to London and resume my passionate love affair with her.

Imagine my surprise Wednesday night, as I munched on handfuls of pistachio nuts, when I suddenly developed incredibly itchy palms and soles, wooziness, gigantic hives, tingling and swelling lips and tongue and finally breathing difficulties.

Those symptoms alone are enough to scare the hell out of you. When one is alone on the other side of the earth and it's happening, it's bloody terrifying.

I managed to have my wits about me and rang an ambulance. They whisked me off to hospital, pumping me full of adrenalin and oxygen and who knows what else. Then I had a drip jammed into the back of my left hand and regular shots of steroids to help calm everything down.

If I'd been on an episode of E.R., I would have had doctors leaping about yelling "STAT!" a lot.

All this plus six hours under observation in hospital was not on my list of things to do in London. I'd like to lodge a protest.

I spent Thursday in bed, sleeping it all off. Thursday night I spent some quiet time with another thingie, Culfin, who kept me enormously amused. I needed that, I did not fancy sitting in my room brooding about what might have happened.

Needless to say, I've never had an allergic reaction like that before. Ever. I've been eating pistachios for some years now. In fact, I was happily munching on them on the plane as I was flying over. I'm so glad I was on the ground before I discovered they were bad for me. Heaven knows what they would have been able to do mid-air.

I'm glad to say I'm flying home tomorrow. It's been a long three weeks and while most of the stuff I've been able to do for fun has been absolutely magical, the work has been hard and this latest has made me long for home.

The only problem with home is that is not where my boy is and that is where I need him.

I need to do something about that, and soon.

Wish me luck.