Work up at a fairly decent time yesterday, as I did today, and was at Asda in time to fight the crowds for a fruit loaf for breakfast. Not a particularly pleasant experience, but preferable to going later. It also meant I had plenty of time to sit down while Paul went out to get his hair cut, and plan the book.

Sitting down and going through my notes, I realise that there are far too many threads to pull together into a single story. Some impact on others and make them impossible, so it’s really a matter of picking the most appropriate (and robust and interesting) one and picking a safe route past the others. I read once that the success of story writing is not in what you include, but what you leave out.

Trouble is, sitting there with the radio on planning an outline makes you feel very hungry and all the time I found myself thinking about the rest of the fruit loaf and putting it off for as long as possible with big mugs of frothy coffee. I held out until two, when I broke for lunch and sorted out some washing.

That was pretty much it for the planning. I had agreed to go to Paul’s at four for tea with his parents so by the time my jobs were out of the way and a fresh load of washing was happily spinning around it was already five-to.

I needn’t have worried, though. They broke down in town and so didn’t arrive until five, after Paul had been out with the jump-leads to rescue them. Of course, that meant they didn’t have all that much time to sit and chat, and within 45 minutes they were off, leaving us wondering what to do with the evening.

Paul suggested the pub. I suggested the cinema. We ended up having dinner instead, at the Fox and Raven, and bumping into Graham and Roger at the door, leaving after their early-birds dinner. It was pleasantly busy, and the food was fantastic, and we both stumbled out feeling very full and a little tipsy.

We didn’t stay up late, and it was perhaps as a result of that that I woke at six this morning, then drifted into and out of a light sleep until the alarm went off at nine. They were a long three hours, and I should really have got up. Especially on such a nice morning.

I went home to shave and change into clean clothes, fill a flask and pack a sun-inspired picnic which, after studying my map, we took out with us towards Southend. It was the second time in a fortnight we had travelled south, but there were none of the traffic jams of last time, and we made Southend in under thirty minutes, taking Goldfrapp with us.

We were heading to Foulness Island, which on the map was shown as a bird sanctuary and nature reserve. What was not shown on the map was the firing range. Neither was it shown in Paul’s atlas of Essex.

I don’t know whether you’re not allowed to show Ministry of Defence property on maps for security reasons, but it makes it very difficult to find your way around when it’s not marked. We got well and truly lost around Great Wakering. Several times we followed roads that apparently joined with other roads, only to find that the roads they apparently joined were behind high barbed fences with scary signs about bullets and guns tied to them.

In the end, we just took the easy route and followed the signs away from the island towards Shoeburyness, where we found a field in which to park up. By now it was spitting with rain but as we looked out across the water at some rusting ships and a rather delapidated sea defence the spots soon turned to heavy drops and it quickly began to pour.

We ate our picnic inside the car.

That kind of marked the end of the excursion. We came home and got on with our jobs. I did some more book planning, feeling rather satisfied with my progress, and continued to drink more coffee than is good for any one person.

This evening, we had dinner at mum’s. Sal and Dan had come over and in spite of the oven being moody and refusing to work properly mum had managed to put together a massive roast dinner (Quorn for Paul and I).

There was discussion of going to the pub, but like last night we were stuffed and tired, so decided on early nights instead. I fully intend to make it to the gym tomorrow morning. I have a busy week ahead and suspect that evening visits will not be an option.

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