Saturday 16th October

Jim and Steph are in town today, so after spending the morning dithering about a bit (but mostly, as ever, enjoying the fact that it is Saturday) and taking delivery of our second online Sainsbury's shop, we head to the tube to go and meet up with them. They've spent the morning doing the Science Museum in true tourist fashion, so we go to South Kensington to meet them for the obligatory Natural History Museum leg of their touristy weekend.

We meet them at around two. The museum is very busy so we're instructed to the side entrance, meaning no queue and an unusual starting point up the large escalator towards the more serious, less essentially dinosaur-based exhibitions. No problem here, especially as we're soon at the rather brilliant Kobe earthquake simulator I loved so much when I was a kid. I suppose it's a bit crap by the standards of interactive exhibits built since, but I remember vividly how exciting it was when that floor started moving when I was 10 years old.

We brave the crowds for the inevitable dinosaur section (which is fun, but how ridiculous that the most popular attraction in such a fascinating museum is an animatronic dinosaur - one of the only artificial things in the entire place) and duly shuffle through. By this point it's almost five, and K and I have arranged to meet some folks at the Green Man while Jim and Steph go to catch a show.

We get the tube as far as Holborn and walk up to the Green Man, where we order a cider and a burger as the others arrive. We're not around for long though - that cider is vicious stuff - and we head home at a rather less than rock n roll 9pm. I'm not too fussed as we're home well in time for Match of the Day and K and I crack on with the Jack Daniel's she brought home from the States the other week. She heads to bed during the duller, later games on the bill and I promptly nod off on the sofa, eventually hauling myself to bed just after 1am.