Sunday

With another beautiful day on the cards, we decide not to waste as much of it as we did yesterday. So after a hearty breakfast we get the tube to the Barbican Centre in the City to see the popular new exhibition by Celeste Boursier-Mougenot in their 'Curve' space. There has been a lot of 'buzz' about the show, mostly from friends on Facebook and Twitter, mostly because of the weird nature of the art work - partly because it's free. The piece consists of a long dark tunnel - the walls of which are playing jagged, wailing videos of people playing guitar - which opens out into a bright room full of guitars and cymbals on stands, laid flat so the guitars' strings face the ceiling. The guitars are plugged in and turned on, the cymbals are upside-down - some filled with water, others with bird-seed. Also in the room are around 100 zebra finches; tiny, rather pretty birds who flutter around, landing on the guitars and creating their own strange little sounds. It's a nice place to be and it's fun to see the birds trying to build small nests in amongst the guitar strings while scratching the metal for our amusement. The birds are extremely au fait with humans being around - several of them were landing on people's coats and backpacks. It probably helped that only 25 people were allowed in at a time - we did well to arrive at 11am, shortly after the exhibition opened, as we had heard stories about people queuing for over an hour.

We leave the Barbican and walk via the strange, raised concrete walkways around this part of the City towards the Museum of London, in the hope that the renovation work in progress the last time K and I had been there would be completed. Unfortunately it turns out to still be going on, so we have a short wander around the semi-museum it remains and headed out again. The sun is blazing down by now and as we walk towards Liverpool Street Station the growing numbers of people around start to make things feel very much like summer. There are thousands of Tottenham fans being coralled by police at Liverpool Street ahead of their FA Cup semi-final match against Portsmouth at Wembley later - we skirt around them and make our way instead towards Brick Lane.

Not being the trendiest person or a big fan of marketplaces (in fact I generally hate the places), this isn't the sort of place I'd usually like to spend a hot Sunday afternoon - but K and her sister want to look around the markets and I've been lured in by the promise of some tasty market food for lunch. Sure enough, in amongst the hipsters, the Nathan Barleys, the 'bohemians' and the East London kids who've tried so hard it almost hurts to look at them, I manage to lay my hands on a chilli burrito, which we eat on the curb, and all is right with the world.

The Football Basement have plans to record a new podcast this evening - so while the girls head into central to do some Oxford Street shopping, I get the tube home to prepare, and hopefully do some more book pitch work. When I get to the front door, I turn my key to the right in the Yale lock, where it then jams and refuses to budge either way. Immediately terrified about calling out a locksmith on a Sunday and neither we nor our upstairs neighbours being able to get in or out, I desperately ring their doorbell and hope for the best. Eventually George, our very friendly neighbour, makes his way down the stairs to investigate. I am hugely grateful - especially when it turns out he has the necessary know-how to remove the lock from the door and repair it. What a result - I thank him profusely and go into the flat, totally relieved.

Later, in what is becoming a tube-travel-heavy Sunday, I make my way to Borough to meet the rest of the Football Basement lads for tonight's recording. Having done a bit of research I feel good about how the podcast will go, and after a quick pint in the Ship we head to Warren's house and get started. There are five of us today, which is a nice manageable number, and we record for around an hour and a half. We start with a quiz format that Warren has come up with, which is a good way to get the energy up early in the show, and move on to chatting about the Champions League, Premier League and a bit on the Europa League (Fulham in particular), then get onto the usual England selection argument. It's a lot of fun and it's nice to get one done after such a long break (our last one was at the beginning of March). At the end of the recording we copy the files to my hard drive to be edited and go our separate ways.

By the time I get home it's around 9pm and I'm totally shattered - I haven't had a Sunday this busy for ages, and the sun really takes its toll too. I sit with K and her sister, watch a bit of crap telly and get a much-needed early night.