h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Spent most of yesterday at a St John's first aid course, renewing my 'First Aid at Work' certificate. It has to be done every three years, and can be tedious, but the instructors do their best to vary the methods (not just lecturing as in the old days) and it's always interesting to meet a huge variety of people on the course: yesterday included a lorry driver, EFL teacher, gym instructor, college chef, and Philosophy teacher from private sixth-form college!

Anyway, when that was over, there was a treat in store. The College has an annual memorial lecture, and this year's was being given by Dame Stella Rimington. She is a very good and amusing speaker and talked about how MI5 had changed during (and after) the time she was working there from the 70s to the mid-90s, illustrated with lots of little anecdotes. After the lecture, which was at Wolfson College (we don't have a big enough lecture hall), we strolled back to Newnham in our gowns, and drank champagne on the lawn outside the SCR before going in for dinner. We had carpaccio of tuna, lamb with Jersey royal potatoes and spring vegetables (baby beets, baby carrots and asparagus), lemon and raspberrry parfait, and cheese. Lovely wines too of course. Must say, having lived in France for a number of years, I still think it's more logical to have the cheese *before* the dessert, and to finish up the red wine with it, but that was my only quibble.

Later I had the opportunity to chat to Dame Stella, who went to the same school as I did, but about 15 years earlier. We nevertheless knew some of the same teachers, and we had both been back to the school recently so were able to talk about how it had changed since our time there.

Whole evening very enjoyable, and I was very restrained on the wine, so that I was able to cycle home safely! Didn't get back till 11pm though, which is way past my normal bedtime, so I'm having a late start this morning.

In other news: the police have apparently found my stolen bike! I will go and collect it from the Crime Store (great name!) next week.

* Resisted the temptation to call this 'Dinner in stellar company'. Getting coat now.