I’m getting very excited about my German adventure. I’ve been reading Lonely Planet on my delayed trains and purely by chance I seem to have picked an excellent route. Whether anything could really be as good as the book claims it to be, we’ll see. I’m guessing it was written by a bunch of very enthusiastic Germanophiles.

I’m looking forward to riding the trains more than anything else, though. I’m hearing good things about German punctuality and comfort on the faster, long-distance routes, and I want to see how they compare with the TGVs I used to get around France last year.

One thing’s for certain, though - they can’t be any worse than the trains in and out of London at the moment. Delays yesterday, then this morning I was still waiting for the 08h47 at 09h10. Eventually got to London, then crawled along on the delayed tubes. Signal failure at Shepherds Bush.

Coming home: signal failure at Mile End, so we sat on the platform at Chancery Lane. We would have stopped at Holborn, but it was closed due to ‘passenger action’ and the trains were sliding through at a leisurely 5mph.

Next Wednesday is a 24-hour tube strike.

Six tonight (or half seven, when I actually left the office) marked the end of a very unhealthy week. Every day it seems a new batch of chocolates has arrived on our desks, whether in the form of wrapped sweets, pastries or cakes, and none of us has done anything to resist them. You have a week like that every so often.

Of course, it throws the whole ‘being good’ routine out of whack … especially if it’s a week when you only make the gym once, too.

Hmmm…

Next week I will be good.

Well, perhaps not on Tuesday, which is my birthday. Or Friday when we’re heading off to the dog track to celebrate. I’ve never been dog racing before, but it seems in every group you mention it to there is at least one expert keen to dish out betting advice. The two hard-and-fast rules seem to be:

1. Watch the dogs carefully as they are paraded around the stadium before their race. Bet on the one that craps on the track. He’ll be lighter, so run faster.

2. Always bet on the dogs in traps two and six. Number two is close enough to the middle to have a short-cut around the track. Number six, though, has plenty of opportunity to cut around in front of all the others. Number one, apparently, has a tendency to get squashed against the railings by the rest of the pack.

Whether either of these tips is worth bearing in mind, I don’t know, but I suspect I’ll be making my choice on the basis of which dog has the nicest coat or the friendliest face.

…and because that’s highly unscientific I’ll be putting a

1. Delays
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2. Dogs
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3. Poorly
   Woke up with a poorly head. I have an awful cold. I know just where it came from, too: on our last night in Paris...