Today’s the first day I’ve actually felt normal, and actually been in my right mind, after the joys of shunting my body clock backwards 10.5 hours. Yesterday I awoke feeling downright groggy, with a hint of a headache and an inability to properly stomach my glass of milk after breakfast. The cheese on my sandwich at lunch time felt equally disturbing, but all remained where it should and I decided a nap was in order.

Fully two hours later I awoke, at last with a clear head and the ability to think straight. My left knee, which had been troubling me due to the combination of cold, additional walking and my long fast stride, had eased sufficiently for me to manage stairs without a limp too.

It’s interesting to note how badly I was actually doing while under such a cloud of haziness. Today I got back into the normal routine of things. With my sleeping patterns no longer dictating my brain’s inability to function, I was thinking at normal full speed and even anticipating stuff properly. Hoorah.

This, unfortunately, means no new photos. Tim and the parents went to the Tower of London and did the tourist thing inside. Given my distaste for the monarchy and its apparent uselessness in a Western capitalist socioeconomic structure, I was somewhat glad to have had the “misfortune” of being laid up at home. We’ve messed around with our further plans in England and France, with my Germany jaunt being pushed forward to Jan 3 and our trip to Bath relegated to Jan 11. Hopefully this means we’ll take a day trip to the university town of Oxford sometime after Christmas and before New Year, and possibly visit the English Salisbury too.

Today, then, was excellent. Amazing how improper sleep just makes everything else totally insufferable. It hit double figures today: yes, 10 degrees. This meant that Tim and I could walk around outside in our usual winterwear, with the stylish yet practical addition of a manscarf each.

It was the perfect opportunity to jump on a train to Wimbledon with the grandparents, with the express purpose of visiting the Odeon theatre to see Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It was, succinctly, fabulous. The opening half hour is totally emotive, and I was on the edge of my seat with excitement as all my most vivid imaginations of Lucy’s “Lamp Post” meeting with Mr Tumnus were rendered in motion picture before my eyes. Disney is to be credited with remaining faithful to C.S. Lewis’ original text, matching the dialogue almost word for word (as I recall it, no less). As soon as we saw Aslan, I did whisper to Tim that he’d better have a good voice talent behind him. Fear not, he is brilliantly rendered, with an excellent voice performance by Liam Neeson. The beavers are great too, with some light comedy between Mr and Mrs to keep amused the parents of kids in tow. I did wish that the White Witch was a little more ferocious (a la Galadriel’s transformation in LOTR:2, which, incidentally, I found quite anomalous), and that the story didn’t proceed quite so quickly. At times Peter looked precocious with his sword, and unfortunately we flicked quickly from duty-to-parents-to-protect-siblings to must-save-Narnia-ahhhhhh. Still, this was no epic of the trilogic scale of LOTR’s proportions, so we will forgive these shortcomings and say bravo.