Follow your dreams...except for that one where you're naked at work.

I've been here for ten weeks now and beginning to feel much more settled. Obviously y'all are asking me if I am enjoying it and if I'm happy, what I'm missing, etc. It goes without saying that I miss you all, enormously...and I stand by my belief that London is the best city in the world. However, for what ever reason, there is something about living somewhere smaller and by the sea which is what I need right now. Whatever I decide to do in four years time, I think I made a good choice about studying here and I am following that dream (whatever number it was in my long history of new plans), really enjoying meeting new people and expriencing a different culture, even if it is in many ways similar to our own. Therefore, there is by definition, much that remains a complete mystery to me.

Perhaps 'a complete mystery' is not quite the right phrase. Had my life been more 'traditional' my surname would, as you know, have been Brady not Raynor. So I ask you, where else but in America would you have a random stranger walk past you in the street, spit on you, and shout in your face, "F@ck the Brady Bunch!"

I am still finding it amusing that people don’t always understand me and find my accent ‘cute’ and ‘charming’. It’s perhaps not quite so amusing that I am often asked, “So what would a British person say about this?" Just so you all know, I am taking it upon myself to speak on behalf of the whole nation with alarming regularity and some might say reckless abandon. Certainly on most occasions my opinions have no element of fact or knowledge involved whatsoever… as you know.

I was reading the other day that on being asked what he missed about England now that he spends so much time in LA filming ‘House’, Hugh Laurie said he missed the buildings and the cruelty. The British, he said, are very harsh people: hard to impress, very tough on each other. It's not that the British are more honest - you're just under no illusions with us. L.A. runs on optimism, enthusiasm and flattery. Apparently people say there's a limit to the number of years you can stay in LALA without going slightly mad. It's just too damn sunny in every dimension: the weather, socially and professionally.

I found that simultaneously both amusing and perhaps portentous! But then again I did come to the foggy city instead. However he also said that as a scientific type he’s a bit miffed with our current love affair with all things Eastern. Apparently when he sneezes on the set, 40 people run to hand him Echinacea. So he’s taken up boxing as a response to men in white pyjamas feeling each other's chi. And on that point, with darling Hugh I must diverge.

And this post's picture is really for Susan, Bernie and Staffs Jules. It serves two purposes: firstly, it's my desk, so it proves that I am studying, and secondly to introduce you to the house cat, Miss Lulu Bunny. When I'm fingers to the grindstone it's her spot of choice.