Friday night, I went to the Haidhauser Augustiner with Lise, Paul, Sandra, Sarah and her boyfriend. It was a good night. I love Sandra - she is funny, smart and nice. Paul and I had a really deep conversation, the kind that you only have when you are half soused. I can only remember bits and pieces of it, but it seemed good...

Chris came home from South Africa on Saturday morning and Henry and I were both thrilled to see him. It was a bit of a lonely week for me, but I managed to handle it.

That afternoon, despite threatening looking skies, we strolled over to the Augustiner Beer Garden to hook up with Paul, Pete, Simon and Richard. We had last week's Sunday New York Times and we played with doing the crossword. Richard and Chris are hilarious together. They just bounce off each other in the most relaxed and natural way. Then we went to Swagat for a curry, which was delicious. Swagat is till my favorite cury house in Munich, must be a sentimental thing with me! Afterwards, we popped over to Lise and Richard's local, a great favorite of ours. I hadn't been in there since New Year's Eve when Chris and I had gotten into a knock down drag out row. No theatrics this time.

Yesterday, we walked to the Hirschau for Planty's birthday. The forecast was for shitty weather but as I said "the sun always shines on Planty." It was another totally pleasant afternoon. They have a jazz combo playing there and the music just wafts through the trees. We were just drinking mineral water after our marathon day on Saturday. I sat at one corner of the huge table we'd cobbled together of four tables. We had gotten the papers and were dissecting them with Gary, Bev, and Paul. Simon was there with Chrissy as was Pete, Alan and Annette (looking gloriously pregnant), Lise and Richard, Cal and Ingrid (who I really have taken to. She's smart, funny, and really with it.) among other folks I don't know so well. Planty was getting happily drunk. Bev, Gary, Lise, Richard, Chris, Paul (Jen was still in South Africa) talked about our upcoming week in Provence at Will's house, which we are all getting really excited about. We stayed for a few hours and then wandered back home slowly to just relax with each other.

Planty, Pete, Andy and Gary

Pete, Paul, Simon and Chrissy

Paul, looking happy

Lise and Richard

Gary, in amazingly good form, despite tantrum thrown the day before after Southampton let Richard's team, Aston Villa, beat them after being up 2-0 at halftime.