Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours...

I've put in an application form for an apartment around the corner from the very photogenic Mike, Annie and Annabelle, who are ensconced in the West Village. Yesterday evening I slipped downtown to visit the Greenjens and catch up on their news and meet their beautiful baby Bella.

It was a brief visit as the sweat had barely dried from the apartment search hike and I was so tired I think I was hysterically chirpy, but its the first of many! Mike showed me photos of the place they're in the process of buying and I tried desperately not to think about the dog box hovel that Jus and I will be living in....thank god the Flemington house is at the end of the rainbow.

I had to take a shot of the commercial kitchen-sized oven in their kitchen: like New Yorkers ever cook! That thing is bigger than the stove in The Deanery but Mike suggested that the fastest way to eat in this town is to pick up the phone. I believe him. Mum and I ordered Mexican the other night and before I'd managed to pull my sneakers on and get out of the elevator so I could go and find a bottle of Californian chardy, the food had arrived. And it was $11. And it came with free 'soda'. Did I mention already that I'm gonna get fat here? Luckily I will be walking to work for the next 3 weeks.

The catch is that work is full of food: there are bowls and bowls of lollies, sorry 'candy', that I've never heard of at reception, at the concierge, at the printers, in the kitchens, bagels and muffins and fruit and more lollies in the lunchroom. There is a Starbucks coffee machine so you need not leave the building, there are boxes of Advil and Tylenol everywhere. I'm thinking they may play hard but its all about sugar, caffeine and headache pills when the deadlines loom. The expectation has been set.