I love surprises!

The only thing good about being separated again is the joy of swapping surprises. We have new tower fans - one for the bedroom and one for the living room, flowers, a new electric kettle (courtesty of the landlords), a clean bathroom with a sink that drains, and pictures on the wall, including our newest cousin among other sappy snapshots. And imported from the states we have a new airbed and lots of new fashionable ties for me.

Unfortunately one of the surprises was not the hot water heater being fixed - in fact, the plumber kind of made it worse. Now it takes twice as long to get above 50 degrees celsius, which is pretty comfortable for a shower.

Congrats to Caleb, a high school friend, who after mulling it over at my house and for a week up at Oxford, did decide to go ahead with his proposal. Congrats to his bride-to-be Christian as well.

The big thing over here right now is the G8 concert - I think Madonna will be here in London. In fact, over 1 million texts have already been sent in to get in the free lottery for tickets.

One of the items I failed to mention from my Spring Day/Memorial Day adventures in Oxford was our lunch at the Eagle and Child, which is where Tolkien and CS Lewis used to brood over their novel ideas (pun intended). There's even a signed letter on the wall from the two of them, giving a toast to the owner of the restaurant.

And finally, I can't believe that Bree missed two of the best episodes of 24 - I'm trying not to rub it in. Now we've caught up in season 4 to the one I saw in the states a couple weeks ago.

With that, we're off to the Texas Embassy for a nice little dinner.