A morning full of running around - tidying up the house before moving back home, and scooting around Sainsbury’s to stock up the fridge before mum and Andrew arrived back home - and then in to London and Mike and Ursula’s wedding party with Paul.

They’d erected a marquee in the garden that took up the whole of the garden and confused Albert pussy cat no end as he crawled into and out of the flower beds under the bottoms of the canvas walls. He was immaculately well behaved, not caring that there were a hundred feet ready to stand on him, or a long table full of food at the far end of the room.

As the afternoon wore on the house slowly filled up with writers and editors - mostly PC Advisor and MacUser, but a fair smattering of PCW and freelancers mixed in for good measure.

And the more writers there were, the more empty beer cans stacked up until perhaps inevitably we began to tie them to the helium balloons. Eight, it takes, to balance an empty Stella Artois can so that it floats in mid air with neither the balloons touching the ceiling nor the can touching the floor. It is quite surreal looking at a can that floats three feet off the ground in front of your face.

(above: Mark, Nik, Nikki, Gordon and the floating can)

It hung there quite happily, slowly drifting around the room in the currents of the air until Mark added two more balloons and it got itself rather excited, being sucked out through the patio doors by a gust and high up above the house, across the streets and off in the direction of Alexandra Palace.

We stayed till half eight when the crowd started to thin, then headed off with Gordon, Nikki and Mark, promising to give them a lift to the tube, but in the event drove across what must have been half of north London as we got lost following the map in the dark.

1. Politeness at the party
   Much fun. A posh party last night in a posh room in Somerset House, where I've always planned to visit, but so far never been....
   
   
2. Pre-wedding blues
   I thought things might have calmed down post Christmas, but here I am in a smart shirt and trousers, with more smartness hung up behind...
   
   
3. Mark’s party
   The weekend's gone by in something of a blur, perhaps because of last night's late night, which wiped out the whole of this morning. As...