Tuesday 31st August

Back to work then, feeling ever so slightly the worse for wear after forcing myself through last night's wall of tiredness. The bank holiday has meant that there's little piling up of work to get on with, but what's there needs to be done by the end of the week - and when there's only four days to do it tensions are slightly higher in the office and tempers fraying. A bit of a shouting match between the Big Bosses shortly after lunch sours the atmosphere in the office and in the end it's nice to get out at the end of the day. And I'd been so relaxed, too.

After work I head home, negotiating the seemingly-permanent gas works all along the street and tidying up after the workmen who have apparently been trampling all through the house and rearranging things in our cupboards. There's nothing missing - I'm pretty sure the landlord's been here too - but one of our kitchen windows seems to now be busted and our drying washing has been dumped unceremoniously on the dining room table. Cheers, guys. Well worth it to have our new dubious looking metal pipes poking out of the front door and snaking up the wall.

After dossing around the house for a bit, I head up to Park Road to meet K for this week's swim. Without much hanging around (and after a little banter with the unusually friendly lady behind the counter about my Back to the Future t-shirt) we head in and I manage a Herculean 42 lengths. It's very odd to feel myself getting slightly better at this week by week, but a lot of tonight I feel like I'm swimming on anger and annoyance - there's a family in my lane who swim one length, all stop at the end for a chat and then eventually get going again. The only reason I'm doing so many lengths is because they give me no room to stop and get my breath back. Maybe misdirected rage is my own internal personal trainer.

We head back around 9 and grab a quick dinner before finishing off the Battlestar Galactica mini-series. For the most part I'm still undecided as to how good it is (though I'm assured by various sources that the actual series is much better) but the cliffhanger at the end has me hooked. It's been a long time since I got into anything properly sci-fi so I'm looking forward to getting deeper into this.

Just before 11, we notice ambulance sirens lighting up the street outside along with assorted voices. We think little of it until the doorbell goes. I take a look out of the window and see a youngish guy in no discernable uniform, and K sends me out to the front door. It's hard to know what to expect in a situation like this, but when the man introduces himself as a police officer and asks me whether I know our next door neighbour at all, it becomes sadly obvious what has happened. I don't know our neighbour at all, but have seen him around and know that he's very old and clearly not very well. As it happens he's been found dead in his flat today, and the police are conducting routine inquiries to try and gauge how long he has been there. I've no idea how long it's been since I've seen him - it could be two weeks or two months - and I feel a little sad that I can't be of more help. These things must happen fairly often to old people living in flats on their own, and it's scary to think how easily people can pass away without anyone noticing - especially in a huge, anonymous city like London.