I went to pick up my little sis from the airport last night - her flight was due in at 5.55pm. However, it was close to 11pm before she emerged at arrivals! The bad weather and lightning prevented the plane from landing, and they had to go to Gatwick to refuel before coming back to Heathrow. It was pelting it down!

I went to run a bath last night, and someone had left a bucket in there. I went to take it out, and in the corner of eye, noticed something black in there, about the size of a tennis ball. My first thought was that someone had left a wad of hair in it, but then it MOVED! Eeeeeep! I have never dropped anything as fast as that bucket! Thankfully it landed back into the bath because inside it, was the biggest spider I have ever seen in my entire life! It had legs as thick and as long as pencils* and hairier than my legs in winter**! Imagine I had dropped it on the floor..?? It doesn't even bear thinking about..

Thankfully, there was someone else in the house who wasn't afraid of squishing it (there's no way I would have allowed them to simply throw it out of a window, in case it came back in, or even worse, made huge spider babies!) otherwise I would still be unwashed***! Phew!

Following the discussion about Arabic women on Olivia's blog, here's something to make you giggle on this dreary Friday:

I haven't blogged for a while, because I haven't really had anything positive to blog about. Feeling a bit low at the mo' and didn't want to inflict my mood on anyone else. So, in the absence of anything else, I thought I'd introduce you to my hamsters.

This pic of my little boy sums my current mood up perfectly. This is when I've woken him up and he's very grumpy with me - Meet the lovely little 'Tache:

'Tachey (pronounced Tashy) takes a while to get out of the grumps after he's woken up. He loves to eat and he's gotten tame enough to sit on my hand and have his dinner. Once in a while, he likes to show off his amazing acrobatic skills by scaling to the roof of his cage, and doing a back-flip off it and into his food bowl! I have yet to catch this on camera, but when I do, you will be the first to see it! He is very curious, and if I let him, will wonder around the room sniffing and investigating things. He's very good though and doesn't hide from me, so I can put him back into his cage easily. He is a very clean little boy, and will sit and groom for half an hour after he's woken up, licking himself allll over, and giving himself a little mohican in the process!

He has a 3-legged sis called Boris who can only run in circles because she has a benign ear tumour. She lost her leg in a freak wheel accident when she was younger. She will eat off my hand too, but if she's grumpy - she will give me a nip, so I don't do this too often! She likes to run round and round her food bowl. I dont think she actually knows she's running in a circle, bless her. We have a sisterly bond, and she will often just sit and watch me, quite peacefully. Boris isn't much of an eater, but she does like her fruit.

If you're wondering about their names - I didn't name them - I adopted them! The girl who had them originally thought they were sisters... until Boris had babies! They live in separate cages now, next to each other, so they can still say hello and have a chat.

They are lovely and cheer me up when I'm a bit low. 'Tache's antics, especially! He is a bit of a character! The hamsties say hello! *wave little paws*

My little sis, who’s 16, has been in India for the past 2 weeks and this week, is on a mountainous trek in the Himalayas. It’s a lower sixth school trip – the lucky little devils - we never had this sort of thing when we were in school! If we were lucky, we’d go to some obscure Belgian town for a day and look at a lace museum or something equally as mind-numbingly dull!

My baby sister in India – I’m so jealous! I was, until she got Delhi belly last week, and because they are staying in a poor part of town, I was imagining some horrendous toilet conditions – ick. The poor thing! She mentioned that all they have been drinking is bottled water, and she is so tired of it that I must make sure the house is stocked with other drinks when she returns! And because India is largely a vegetarian country, she says she must have meat too! :)

The house is really quiet without her and I miss her incessant chatter. It’s not the same watching TV by myself either – when we’re together, we play the advert game. This is basically trying to identify what the advert is for in the first few seconds of the ad, just by the music or images, before the product is displayed or mentioned. It sounds silly, but it’s a lot of giggly fun. She always has the advantage because she watches more TV than I do!

I also miss the house being filled with music when she plays the piano. She’s very good, and it’s so relaxing. I miss hugs and the random bits of gossip about her friends/school/who’s fighting with who, etc. I love my little sis, and although we sometimes fight, we have become close without me realising.

So I wanted to ask everyone – do you have any siblings, and what do you miss about them when you’re not together? If you’re an only child, tell me about your closest friend.

Current mood: Grumply, because it was so hot last night that it was impossible to sleep

Panda has been trying to be a good girl. She didn't blog at all during work yesterday and only a little bit today... It's a bid to try and get more done :

It's been a hot, sweaty, uncomfortable journey home from work these last few days. On the tube, the Metropolitan line has 20mph speed restrictions because of the heat and this means a one and a half hour journey of being trapped between sweaty, stinky people in 45 degree heat (no exaggeration). We're so crammed in that I don't even have to hold onto a rail not to fall over - if we all decided to take both our feet off the floor at the same time, we'd all still be in exactly the same place. Whinge whinge, moan moan - we Brits seem to do a lot of that about the weather, huh? Lol, it's our fave pasttime whether it be hot or cold :)

I wanted to talk about the Spiral/Aisleyne/Nakedness thing on Big Brother. For those of you who haven't been watching or aren't in the UK, it was like this:
Spiral was in the shower, naked; Aisleyne, also in the bathroom, playfully splashed some water on him; Spiral jumped out, holding his bits and backed Aisleyne into a corner.

She was obviously uncomfortable with it, and understandably so - surely, this is only a feather away from sexual harrassment? What annoyed me was that, upon being asked about it by Big Brother - Spiral got pissed off with Aisleyne for talking to BB about it! WTF?! He tried to defend himself by saying that she asked for it because she threw water on him. But he was in the shower for *@#?s sake! What's a little more water going to do??

To make it eeeeeven worse, when Aisleyne, in a mature way, tried to tell him that she wasn't comfortable with his behaviour, he told her that he didn't like the way she flaunted her body and wore short skirts, insinuating that if a girl likes to look good and wear sexy clothing, that she should expect to be treated this way. The arrogance of the b*@~#! not only does he not feel any remorse whatsoever, but how dare he justify his behaviour, and also shatter a girl's confidence in one swoop?! This type of thinking worries me hugely, because if this is the view of even a tiny percentage of the men out there, then us girls should all be covering up. It's a teensy little step away from saying that if you bare any skin, then it's okay for men to grope you, sexually harass you - a mere step away from rape.

I am surprised at BB for not giving him a warning - this behaviour is NOT socially acceptable and should not have to be tolerated. By not reprimanding him, they are telling their viewers that it's okay to behave like this, and it's not. Using your body or sexuality to intimidate and humiliate others is NOT okay.

Then, a couple of days later, whilst Aisleyne was sunbathing, Mikey comes up and bites her arse-cheek. This just confirms my fear that most men hold this derogatory and frankly, animal-like view of women. Please tell me I'm wrong.

I am only 23 years old. To this date, I have had to deal with sexual harrassment more times then I can count on one hand; a couple of cases of which have been quite serious. Am I wrong to be scared? And who's fault is it that this view is still widely held by men, if not openly then at least inside their heads? Is it the parents? Is it the media? What's for sure is that it needs to stop NOW.

For those who didn't manage to catch Big Cat Week last night for whatever reason, little Toto survived the scary baboon attack by laying low - yaaaayy!

The dangers aren't over though, ohhh no! Toto and his mum were faced with a very big lion in close proximity who would almost certainly have eaten the cub. Thankfully though, lions are very short-sighted!

Since only 25% of cheetah cubs survive their first year, it's going to be a tough one for Toto. He seems savvy enough though, and we shall keep our fingers crossed for the little mite! He is such a little chap, but he sometimes acts as though he's a big kitty!

Some interesting big cat facts for you - did you know that:

• Lions, when the female is on heat, mate on average 150 times a day
• It takes approximately 3000 matings for one lion conception to occur (for humans it's 120 times) This means that in order to conceive one lion cub, lions must be mating for 20 days solid! The horny beasts!
• Lionesses roar during nookie but male lions squeak!
  

Lol, I leave you to ponder over those in wonder :)

My favourite soap at the moment isn’t Eastenders, it’s not Neighbours. No, it’s Big Cat Week.

Okay, so technically it isn’t really a soap, but in the way that it follows the lions, cheetahs and leopards, it might as well be. Take last night’s programme for example: “Tomorrow on Big Cat Week…

Will little Toto the cheetah survive this baboon encounter..?
Will Notch be accepted back into the pride after his betrayal..?
Will Bella the leopard find the strength to stand up against her son, Chui?”

I love this format, and I am soo hooked on this show!

I’ve only been watching BCW for the past few years (it only runs for one week, every six months) but I already feel like I know these cats, as if I’m catching up with old friends. I love that all these big cats have such different characters and traits. Take Chui the leopard for example, the other night he tried to ambush some giraffes – he was only playing with them, mind. And little Toto, the 8 week old cheetah, he’s playful and yet so proud, not to mention delightfully fuzzy! I’m so addicted that straight after the programme, I have to switch over and watch the detailed analysis on Big Cat Week Extra on BBC3. Sad huh..?

Last night, Toto’s mummy was trying to defend him from a baboon attack (they can kill a fully grown cheetah with their 5inch razor sharp teeth!) and poor Toto tried to hide in the grass, all the while making little ‘peeep’ noises for his mum. You could see the panic on the presenter’s face, and how badly he wanted to run out there and scoop the little fuzzball up, to protect him from the baboons, but they ‘never interfere with nature, however badly we want to’. I find that commendable and heartbreaking at the same time.

Tune in at 7pm on BBC1 tonight to see if he’ll survive…

On Friday night, we had planned to go to the theatre to see ‘See how they run’ and have dinner afterwards. The night started with tube delays, then I got lost trying to find the theatre (a blonde moment - I’ve lived in London all my life..!). By the time I got there, I was refused tickets, because ours were reduced price tickets and the theatre had already sold them to other people (even though I got there before the show started). Since my family had travelled into central London especially, we were understandably pissed off.

Nonetheless, we went to Rong Cheng Chinese restaurant on Shaftesbury Avenue for dinner. We won’t be going there again in a hurry. Not only was the food more sub-standard than any I’ve had in London, but we found bits of wire from a scrubbing brush in the soup. To make it worse, on googling it just now, I found that they were fined £15,000 for mice droppings in the kitchen and bad hygiene. Yuk. They even had the cheek to try and make us pay for our meal, even though it went uneaten. Rong Cheng? Rong choice..

The rest of my weekend was good enough to make up for Friday night though:

• I went shopping on Saturday and bought myself some very pretty shoes in the sale, as well as a cute top and sexy jeans.
• Played pool – quite well I thought, but still lost 3 times.
• Stayed up all night talking and gossiping with Seema
• My joints felt well enough to play badminton for the first time in 2 months, even though I am aching today
• Made some yummy food

Me and Seema had the same dream on Saturday night – how freaky was that??! Last week she dropped her phone into a cup of tea and it hasn’t worked since. On Saturday night, we both dreamt that we were standing at the exact same spot in my room, trying to switch the phone on. Not only that, but we BOTH dreamt that it didn’t work the first time, but it did on the second try!

When we both realised this, we straight away went to switch the phone on, hoping that it would work on the second try, giggling like idiots. Did it work? Did it hell.. Still, it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase 'See you in my dreams'!

So, it’s a year to the day since the July 7 bombers wreaked havoc on our city. Last night, al Qaeda released a video of one of the deceased suicide bombers, promising more attacks. Well up yours AQ. Us Londoners may be aloof, we may consider it taboo to talk to others on public transport, think it weird when a stranger smiles or tries to engage in conversation, but when it really matters, we will pull together, as we already demonstrated this time last year.

It would be foolish to say that we aren’t scared, but we can’t, and we haven’t, let that fear take over and encroach onto our normal lives. Remember, fear is their biggest weapon. The 52 people that were killed in the bombings this time last year were such a great multi-cultural mix that is so typical of London. I hope you’ll all observe the 2 minute silence at noon today and remember them.

I think this picture sums up how I feel today - slightly drugged up and weird, but happy! I am on antib's and painkillers, which explains it!

This is a picture I took in a pet market in Taiwan in Dec 2005. Cute little thing, isn't he? If there weren't so many travel regulations on taking pets into the UK, I might have bought the entire market home with me!

I had a good weekend - went down to Westbury in Wiltshire and had a big family barbecue. I spent some time with my old granny, that was nice. My mum has 6 siblings (as does my dad), so there were dozens of children of all ages running around the place. I love them all but I was relieved to come home again!

You learn all sorts of things from being around kids. This visit's lesson was: The most angelic looking one's are the naughtiest! Don't be fooled by those big puppy dog eyes. I also learnt that the tooth fairy can be very forgetful sometimes, as she forgot to leave money when Tiffany's tooth fell out and Tiff had to write her a note (lol, her mummy forgot, bless her!).

Remember the slebs blog I did ages ago? Number 23 on my list left me a comment! I was a bit embarrassed because I refered to him as D-list.. oops, sorry Rob. Anyway, he has his own blog now, and gives quite good advice on jobs/interviews and that kind of thing, so drop by if you're interested. That is my way of redeeming myself btw.. :)

I hope all you lovely people are fine and well?