My mission for the next two days, should I choose to accept it, is to learn the words to as many Justin Timberlake songs as I can. Hmmm… OK, so it’s not really me. Have never particularly liked his music, but I got a call, late on Friday, inviting me to his concert on Tuesday and as the tickets are for somewhere close to the front I thought it would be rude to refuse.

So far I know four words: ‘Cry me a river’. I have some way to go. It’s a back-burner project, though. Everyone else there is bound to know, so I’ll just hum along and mumble and hope nobody notices.

So, rather than look up the lyrics on the net I sat down late on Friday and wrote on through to two on Saturday morning, finally dropping in to bed feeling happy with some of the best words of the book so far.

Of course, after that there was no chance of getting up early and I padded around for almost an hour between the bed and the shower and my email, trying to find my head. Paul popped around some time about noon and we headed off to Freeport in search of jeans and shoes.

Freeport is just about the only place I ever buy clothes, so I don’t feel too guilty that I ended up coming home with far more than I’d intended. Specifically, two pairs of jeans, the shoes I was looking for, three shirts and a top. As they are all effectively work stuff it was like getting three outfits for the cost of half a suit, and as half a suit is nigh-on useless it was a bargain.

Home via Tesco; a swift foray with the ironing board, and then in to town for dinner with Trevor, Jon, Andy and Rob.

It seemed the whole of Chelmsford was out celebrating the start of summer. A two-hour queue in the Spanish restaurant. An hour and a half in the Italian. We ended up sitting at an unstable table in a French restaurant where they could be quite justifiably expected to serve horses for courses. Quite literally.

Fortunately, they didn’t.

The food was great. The chat was lively, and the company relaxed - an aura that followed on as we moved off to the Rising S&N for a drink that turned into a lock-in, that turned into a cold late walk home and finally warming up with mints and mugs of steaming tea with the cats back at Trevor and Jon’s.

Spent most of the time in the pub talking to the Midnight Weatherman who had very bravely walked down there in a t-shirt, his tanned arms glowing like wobbly neon street-lamps in the dark.

Today, more writing, taking me well past the 80,000 word mark. I’m aiming for 90,000 words this month and with a bit of effort should be able to manage it. That’ll have me averaging 10,000 words a week by the start of June, so with any luck the first draft should be done in under six months.

Broke off around mid-afternoon to hunt out sites for this evening’s slot on Through the Night. Settled on trying to find the worst sites on the net but ended up most of them were so bad they were compulsive viewing. My favourite, simply for the range of subjects it covers, has to be Joan and Steve

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