Wednesday

Today is the monthly Big Meeting which usually drags on for around 3 hours - and today doesn't disappoint coming in at a respectable, tedious 2 and a half. The rest of the day is spent scrabbling around trying to catch up and disappears very fast. The worst part of the working day is when I feel a twinge of the cold the girls have all had over the last few weeks - I'm coughing harder, feeling phlegmy, slight headache. This isn't good, but I'll no doubt soldier on and just use whinging as my coping mechanism.

After work Alex comes round, straight off the plane from France as she has to put her bags somewhere while she goes for a couple of house viewings in the local area. I pick up a couple of beers on my way home so we can relax for a few minutes before she shoots off. It is nice to catch up and though it's a ridiculously fleeting visit she will be back in London this time next week - maybe for good.

When Alex goes out I head to Waterloo for what is Andy's absolute final leaving do (he flies to Bangkok tomorrow). This one is the last football match with the boys so we squeeze round a table to watch Manchester United v Bayern Munich on the big screen. The game starts at lightning pace as United go 2-0 up in 7 minutes, putting them 3-2 up on aggregate. They go 3-0 up after a second goal from Nani before half time and the game looks, sadly, to have been killed off. However Bayern score only two minutes later and in the second half a wonder goal from Arjen Robben makes it 3-2 - and Bayern are through on away goals. Andy, a Man Utd fan, is briefly distraught, but philosophical (I don't think anything could really have ruined his mood tonight - the excitement is radiating off him).

When the game finishes we go to All Bar One near Waterloo station to see the girls (these are the kind of girls who can't go to just any old pub for a drink - it has to at least have All Bar One's sheen of false glamour) and I start to make plans to leave. Like LVPO on Saturday, this just isn't my sort of place. It does have a nice view of the Eye outside though.

I bid Andy a nice goodbye with lots of hugging and kissing as expected. It seems surreal that I won't see him for a year, but I'm sure it'll fly by and he'll be in touch. I get home surprisingly late and a little tipsy, about which K is less than impressed. I drunkenly chuckle my way through a random Sean Lock live show on Channel 4 and then follow her to bed.