Thursday

It's K's birthday tomorrow, so we head into town after work for a few drinks.

This is after, I should note, more tiresomely routine disappointment from the plumber - he managed to deliver the boiler, write a note saying he wouldn't, in fact, be installing it today and deposit in the bathroom what can only be described as "some sort of giant pump thing." No matter, I suppose. He's coming back on Saturday so that's only two more cold showers.

So we go to the pub - though at first I mostly try to go to the pub. I leave TPL at around 6.30 and end up on the Victoria line as the train grinds to a halt somewhere between Highbury & Islington and Kings Cross. In a mostly empty carriage the other scattered folks are unperturbed at first, but eventually we've been sat there for half an hour as power is, apparently, restored to the track. It's funny the way, in situations like this, people don't really grumble or panic - perhaps because there's literally nothing they can do about it. We, as a carriage, settle down, do some reading and, in my case, listen to The Football Ramble. Eventually we make it to Oxford Circus.

There is a good turnout in the pub to pre-celebrate K's birthday and I drink several pints of Sam Smith's Alpine and chatter away about films and funny stuff and the usual nonsense. I even get to tell the dog-in-a-suitcase story to one more person (I had thought, sadly, that I had told everyone I know) so accordingly indulged in a super-long and rambling embellished version. I seem to remember saying that if I were ever given a five-minute stand-up slot then I would simply tell that story in its entirety. I think that would work.

We leave the pub at closing time and K and I manage to get into a fairly huge row over nothing much - effectively she feels that we're not partying hard enough and going home too early and I feel that we are, in fact, going home at about the right time for a Thursday night after loads of beer. The issue is unresolved and she heads off to bed. I eat beans on toast and watch Blackadder to cheer myself up. We, as ever, will be fine in the morning.