Thursday

K's twin sister arrives today and as it will be the first time the two have seen each other since their birthday we make plans to meet in the pub after work. There'll be a few people there and K's baked a cake for everyone to share. I pop home on my way back from the office to pick up K's twin's presents and get the tube to Holloway Road - as tonight will be a Big Red night.

Big Red is a good pub - unusual for where it is and a bit of a North London institution. Pitched squarely at the rockabilly-fanciers of the area they serve cheap lager and cider and, crucially, legendary chilli nachos. They also have plenty of space to sit, a jukebox that seems to play the same Black Sabbath and Rage Against the Machine records over and over again, a few pool tables and a men's toilet covered in some of the crudest and most rubbish graffiti ever seen outside a student bar. Big Red also has a collection of pretty stunning, heavily tattooed barmaids to complete the image most effectively. Flirting with these living-pinup-tattoos is a time-honoured late-night tradition, one that has doubtless resulted in a fair few well-placed "fuck off"s. Essentially its a really big, really silly and quite kitsch American-themed bar with greasy food and a good mix of greasers and student types keeping the place lively.

I like it a lot - and its a place that's been a regular fixture in my and K's relationship. We even planned to go there on our first date but it was full of people watching the Euro 2008 final.

So we go to Big Red tonight and there are a few friends waiting for us. K and her sister exchange presents and coo over various products that I think have something to do with knitting. Fair enough. We order plate of the chilli nachos and down a few of the reasonably-priced pints. A few more people turn up and we get a bit noisy and messy - mostly down to the cake though, I think.

We head home before it gets stupidly late - it is a school night after all - and ride the bendy 29 (otherwise known as the Free Bus for obvious easily-avoided-Oyster-reader-reasons) all the way there.