Matt Sullivan

I've recently taken to triffid-raising -- a rather hair-raising, and potentially blinding, past-time -- and the beast has attempted to take over the kitchen. It must have grown about four feet this year alone, and got so top-heavy that it snapped in half.

I now have two triffids.

After much triffid-centric care and attention (through very dark sunglasses), it seems to have recovered, though I have been forced to bind the wayward killer shrub for its own protection.

Here's the bound triffid, already attempting once again to retake the kitchen.

Well, well. A few weeks have passed since I last wrote anything here. Was it because little has happened? No; quite the opposite in fact. It was been an extremely eventful time, and I have been rushing around like some decapitated fowl. It has also been a time of upheaval and there will be some significant changes to my lifestyle over the coming months -- hopefully all for the better. More on that if and when things happen.

I arrived home late from Dublin last night, and immediately drove to my father's place, where a clowder of cats awaited impatiently to be fed. My father, you see, is away enjoying himself for the weekend, so someone is required to provide nourishment -- and a target -- to Bilbo, Jinx and Triscal. And that little task falls to me.

So I managed to stagger into bed and sleep like the dead by midnight after ensuring the well-being of the cattery; and being bitten twice for my troubles. Bilbo has anger management issues ...

I'm preparing to say farewell to London for the time being; I fly out this evening to Cork and then up at the crack of dawn to train it back to Dublin. Ah, the jet-setting lifestyle that I lead ...

I have been in London now for four days and it has been the longest that I've spent in the city since I left back in 2001. Four days of rushing around (London is hardly a place for a casual stroll -- well, not when you're fighting your way down Oxford Street on a Friday afternoon, or braving rush-hour in Green Park tube station) and reacquainting myself with the London Underground. It's all very deja-vu: places I have not seen in a few years; streets that are both once familiar and yet I'm completely lost; new landmarks on the cityscape that were not there just a few years back.