This week, the earthquake happened to people we know, and to lots of people we don’t know. It has been so horrible and dislocating to see the footage and to hear the voices of bleeding, shocked New Zealanders and to watch the aftermath of complete ruination. Our family are safe, and our friends are ok, but their houses are cracked and damaged, and so, I imagine, are their spirits. We watch the death toll creep steadily every morning, and scan the reports from The New Zealand Herald, and we keep crying when we see the faces of those people who died on Tuesday. And the babies…oh, the babies. We have been grabbing our own pesky children frequently and randomly this week, feeling grateful that we have them in our arms for at least six seconds before they wriggle away/headbutt us/cry because we are squashing them just that little bit too hard.

So a blog post feels a bit redundant and ill-judged, but you gotta get back on the horse, I suppose. And so a brief photo shoot of us at Jamie Oliver’s new not-quite-right restaurant in Westfield where we had lunch on Friday, the last day of the blissful half term:

The kid’s menus were actually red plastic viewfinders. Weird. The food all looked a bit day-glo coloured and samey. And here is Casper (he is now too old to be called Custard. He turns 3 this month, and we all have to grow up, some time), looking like he has suffered a head wound, but it is only jam, dudes, only jam:

Because clean hair is overrated.

And a few thoughts, if I may:

1. I asked a man for £50,000 today. He may give it. I hope so. (File this curious snippet under “Secret Genius Project Sketchy Titillating Details” if you will).

2. I made a cake with beetroot. I have done it before and it wasn’t very good then – this one, although layered in chocolate and cream cheese (it makes me feel a bit ill just writing that) – tastes like dirt, and metal, and has turned the skin on my hands a pale puce. And now, I must eat it over a day or two because no one else will touch it.

3. When I walk along the grey and drizzling London streets, I practice talking like a Baltimore gangster in my head. I say things like “Yo” and “What’chu been callin’ me?” and “I’ll whip yo ass” and stuff like that, and although I am getting pretty good at it, it will serve no actual purpose in my life in any real terms.

Everybody does that though, right?