The alarm went off at half past eight (an obscene time of day for a Sunday) and as I’ve not had any milk since Wednesday I couldn’t even lessen the shock with a cup of tea. Fortunately there was coffee and croissants and a cat that refused to come in from the garden waiting around at mum’s. We breakfasted, and then I helped with some computery bits while Andrew went to collect a van so we could take an ‘In memory’ bench up to the home where my grandmother had lived. Today would have been her 87th birthday.

Mum and I followed in the car, and by the time we had arrived the sun was shining madly and drying off the grass. We sat for a while feeding the ducks and actually feeling warm. It was very pleasant. The ducks were having a busy cleaning session, and there were six tiny ducklings, which probably won’t survive the winter.

Or the fox.

We came back and I had lunch and a flick through some Christmas catalogues and suddenly it was three. So much for going shopping and working on the book. I came home by way of the petrol station for milk, and did some emails for work, wrapped up Trevor’s birthday presents and dashed around to Paul’s.

Of course, Trevor and Jon were late - something about unexpected visitors - but we sipped tea and ate birthday cake and listened to the low numbers on the chart. Trevor opened his presents and I opened mine and I worked out that this is the fifth time I’ve celebrated my birthday this year (Lyon with Paul, St Remy with Dad, Galleywood with Mum, work with the team, this evening with Trevor and Jon). If that counts as turning 28 each time then I’m 140.

We left just in time to catch Kylie at number one in the car and drove out to Galleywood to eat. We picked a pub with the same menu as one down the road so we knew we’d find something edible. It was very good, actually, although they forgot the potatoes and Paul had to ask for them to be brought through. I always wonder if the stories about what chefs do to your food when you complain are true, so eyed them with suspicion.

We ended up sitting there quite a long time in the end. It’s six weeks since we were all last together and we used to meet up every week so there was plenty to catch up on. In the end we went back to Paul’s for mints and more cake, and tea to bed things down. A good day, I think, but far from productive.

There’s a rather nasty smell of burning coming out of the computer as I sit here typing this. I’m wondering if the chunky spider that crawled in through my window this afternoon has gone and done something stupid like sat on the motherboard.

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