Tuesday

Back at work - and it's the usual post-holiday misery of trawling through the last few days of stacked-up emails and Things To Do helpfully flagged by my colleagues. There is also, even after such a short time, a necessary period where I have to remember what it is I actually do for a living - and then, ah yes, that's it. Back on the horse.

The day, in the event, passes fairly uneventfully and the weather is still nice enough to wear shorts to work - the first shorts day of 2010! Quite an occasion - last year I think I finally reluctantly put my jeans back on in the first week of October. I can't see this week starting an unbroken run, however; but we shall see. It certainly feels very summery even in Wood Green - trees that were bare when I left last week are now blossoming and even the nutters look slightly more peaceful.

After work I arrange to meet Alex to see how her weekend housemove went. It turns out that she is already in The Tollgate using their free wi-fi, so I stop off to see her and we order a drink. Sitting outside watching Turnpike Lane go by is an odd experience (and not often that pleasant, either) but I think a strangely defining part of my relationship with Alex is just this - sitting in unfashionable, unglamorous pubs (see Egham's Happy Man, Monkey's Forehead and Armstrong Gun as well as West Green Lane's The Goat, Finsbury Park's World's End and Hornsey's Hope & Anchor), surrounded by punters with whom we have very little in common - but having a great time chatting, smoking and putting away cheap lagers. It's how we became friends (we even both worked in one of those pubs at one point) and it's one of my favourite things to do.

After a couple of pints, K arrives home so we say our goodbyes and I join K for tea. We eat a delicious Bolognese dinner and finish off Mad Men series 2. It's definitely one of the most enjoyable TV series I've ever watched - and yet the reason it's so compelling is hard to put my finger on. Naturally, I started downloading series 3 as soon as it finished.