I tried to drown my troubles but I couldn't persuade Pooch to go swimming

A woman at work sent a forward round the office yesterday of Peter Kaye one-liners. This was fairly revolutionary - forwards, like spontaneous buying of doughnuts, don't normally happen at our place.

Many thanks for all your good wishes but the but the wheezing has now gone...and been replaced by a kind of gurgling which I can assure you is even sexier. Apart from that and the occasional coughing fit though I'm more or less better. Which meant that I was able to keep a social engagement I had made with myself yesterday evening.

Daddyo was kind enough to get me membership of the V&A for my birthday last year and so off I went to the China Design Now exhibition member's preview last night. That exhibition is one impressive piece of work. I have been to quite a few design exhibitions in my time but this one was really something.

It is split into three rooms representing three cities which have played key roles in the development of design since it was liberated from being just state controlled propoganda type stuff in the 70s. Th first room was mainly graphic design but also featured some clothing and these little fellas.

They are actually about a metre tall and cute and yet menacing at the same time to see for real.

Some of the posters were amazing but the ones that particularly caught my eye were those that played with the chinese charactors, fonts, alphabets and meanings. Posters representing the 60th anniversary of hiroshima had the character for hiroshima with key parts missing while still keeping it readable to represent what was lost that day. So moving even without reading mandarin. This on I particularly liked. It is a collaboration between a famous ceramicist and a graphic designer and the character represents 'China'.

There was also a case of these little maquettes decorated by different designers. Couldn't help buying one and planning how to decorate it myself.

The other two rooms were Shangai and Beijing. The Shanghai room was more 'arty' with videos playing and installations. The Beiking room though was truly amazing. I guess it caught me because I'm now surrounded by landscape architects but it was concentrating on the design of the olympic buildings. Wow. You might not like the way the chinese government acts but visually it is going to be an amazing olympics.

So apart from being amazed by chinese design what else have I been doing? Well I had my appraisal at work. "So how am I doing?" I said. She paused...."I thank god every day I see you walk through that door." So that was ok then. Somewhat different from my last appraisal at the IOP which largely centred around two points. 1 - It's all your fault cause you're rubbish, 2 - when are you leaving?

Then there has also been some knitting...

The cardi from the front cover of Lace Style. Using SkipNorth yarn naturally!

And then there is this to report...

This is a bucket of four leaf clover type plants Lou gave me and they all seem to be sprouting! I am terribly excited. But i don't want to get my hopes up as I generally kill off plants.

So today bodes well with my sister over and we're off to get pampered in a minute.