Saturday

Weatherwise, I wake to a pig of a day. That thing the tabloids like to call 'cuh, typical Bank Holiday weather' seems to have struck and sets about its task of trapping Tim and I in the house for the bulk of the day. There's no real problem with this - we hadn't exactly planned an activity-stuffed day; but the biggest problem seems to be that FIFA10 is rejecting my second XBox controller by crashing as soon as each game starts. This is incredibly frustrating - even though I know the pad hasn't been working perfectly for a long time, it's usually OK as long as you have the battery-charging cable attached at all times. Now, it instead appears to be intent on crashing the console the second it becomes active. We have a fun 20 minutes-or-so of choosing teams, setting up formations and then swearing profusely at the useless fucking thing before trying again. No fun at all.

As it turns out, Tim has never seen The Wire before and, unlike the holidaying K, is keen to give it a try. After nipping out to Tesco in the drizzle to grab some stuff for lunch, we end up watching the first six episodes of season one - which, naturally, takes up six hours of the afternoon. It's great to go back over the first season again and pick up little things I missed when I started watching the series over a year ago - plus I think Tim enjoys it too.

By the late afternoon the rain has eased off, so we wander into Crouch End to look around Prospero's and the Oxfam Bookshop for a bit - before inevitably retiring for a pint in The Queens' new, re-modelled summer beer garden. We then walk up to the Hope & Anchor in the Hope of getting a game of pool, but instead have to settle for darts - which we play with great enthusiasm for a good few hours. Alex joins us too for a few games of three-way 301, before heading off to watch Eurovision at Ant's house. This not being the sort of activity Tim (or I, really) would go for - we head home instead to finish off last night's beers and watch a bit more Wire.