A pipe burns and the smoke goes over the calendar spread.

Today was redcountess's seventh birthday. I gave her an eoR and an Almost Famous DVD (though, admittedly, she clicked "buy" on that one herself). arkady gave her Hobbits II, Blood From A Stone Edition. (Has anyone gotten Gollum out of the box without ripping it?) arkady showed up on the doorstep at 7am because she is on crack lovely and wonderful and was dropping over the iron we desperately needed to hand — Liz had a job interview and I had to nick off on a secret mission.

Liz and I went for lunch at Caffe Uno in Tottenham Court Road just after her interview for her birthday meal out. The bacon cheeseburger is like someone who could actually cook had read the words "bacon cheeseburger" and decided to make real food of that description. YOU MUST HAVE ONE OF THESE.

Then to the 'l33t++ lupus clinic, where we found out ... Liz definitely does not have lupus, so her internal organs will not rot away! Nor rheumatoid arthritis, so her joints won't do the same! The bad news is that she's still sick, so the next options are fibromyalgia or ME/CFS, which are ill-defined things with no particular treatment that hence tend to highlight arse-elbow dysphoria in the medical profession. But the GP will be getting a letter recommending a referral to Whipps Cross rheumatology, who seem broadly competent if terribly overworked. It's a slow and annoying process, but we'll get there.

Liz hung out in Holborn while I dashed home to feed the rats and change, then returned to the Princess Louise upstairs. Assisting in the celebrations were arkady, poggs, vatine, urocyon_c, clanwilliam, gmh, valkyriekaren, wechsler, nils, fluffymark, d_floorlandmine and entirely too much fucking smoke. Though the food is large and nice and the beer is cheap. We were comprehensively buggered, but managed to stay until 8:30pm. Apologies to anyone arriving after then. What a nice way to turn seven!