Sunday

The bedroom is slightly too warm and I slept fitfully. With no comforting lamp to put on or music to lull me to sleep I spend much of the night too warm and feeling uneasy. I dream that as a result of my dodgy approach to electrical installation in the workplace I am to be relieved of my duties at the Hula Hoops crisps factory. Understandably devastated I attempt to plead with my female line manager - perhaps by demonstrating my passion for working for the Hula Hoops corporation I would be able to keep my job? It doesn't work.

We go to visit one of K's old school friends, to see her new house and two kids. This is nice - the children are very friendly and fun to be around - but it puts me in mind of similar visits paid when I was a kid, visiting the circle of family friends in Rochdale of a morning and playing with other kids' toys while Mum would drink tea and natter about local gossip. It is a rather grown-up way to spend a Sunday morning, but luckily Cars is on the DVD player and I can indulge both my inner coffee-morning-dad and my inner coffee-morning-kid. It makes me glad that these particular kids are Pixar fans, as I fully intend my future children to be the same.

We go back to K's parents' for lunch then get the train back to London. On the way I manage to finish That's Me in the Corner and start straight onto Deborah Curtis' Touching from a Distance, her biography of Ian Curtis. I'm never quite sure about biographies of rock stars, especially those written by their family members and therefore unlikely to be completely truthful, but I will give this one a go - not least because since watching the films Control and Twenty Four Hour Party People I listen to a lot of Joy Division and find Curtis a pretty fascinating character.

Back in London, K fiddles with her new sewing machine (an early birthday present from her parents) and I fiddle with setting up this additional, non-football blog. Later I read the news that David Beckham has ruptured his achilles tendon and will almost certainly miss the World Cup. I'll write about this for Who Are Ya?! tomorrow, I think.

It's been a nice weekend in Dorset, but it is nice to be home - even after such a short time (barely 24 hours). Every time I go away and return I am surprised how happy I am to be back in London - something I never thought would happen when I first moved here almost two years ago. It's also nice to get back to the flat - I'm really enjoying living here and the lifestyle K and I have cultivated for ourselves over the last couple of months.