Monday

It's a beautiful day and despite being trapped in the office for the majority of it, I endeavour to make a little bit of the evening by eschewing the opportunity to play FIFA all night and walk up through Priory Park to Park Road for a swim.

I arrive at around 6.30 and find that while the pool isn't that busy, there's relatively little of it dedicated to actual swimming. There's a lesson going on in the far lane (and when I say "lesson" I mean kids floating around on big bits of foam - nothing wrong with that, but what are they learning here?) and "free swim" in the nearside half of the pool, meaning more kids. The lane in the middle is very narrow, and suffering from a pretty severe traffic situation.

I join the train of exasperated people shuffling up and down the pool, everyone stopping dead at each end and bunching up, waiting for the best time to set off again. It's not particularly pleasant - and in the end the only thing motivating me to keep on swimming is awkwardness, or rather the fear of awkwardness. That's what I'm swimming away from; the prospect of standing in 3 feet of water with six other people, trying hard not to accidentally touch any of them or make eye contact.

The pool doesn't get any quieter, so eventually I leave in frustration after just half an hour. It's still really nice outside though, so I stop for a drink and a cigarette in the park and watch a middle-aged man wrestling with a bee - at one point even taking his shirt off to fling it at the poor creature.

I get home in time to enjoy some delicious curry with K and have a quick shower, before catching up with some writing and, eventually, allowing myself a little time with the XBox. I also start reading Richard Herring's How Not to Grow Up, which - while Christ knows I don't need to read any more of his output - seems to be a little more interesting and personal than his blog and at any rate keeps me reading for 50 pages in one sitting.