Monday 20th September

Back to work then, and as we have a new intern to toast and it was Susie's birthday recently, we decide as a department to head out for some lunch. There used to be a few decent restaurants around the office – but most went bust during the recession and decent food in Wood Green is as rare as you'd probably imagine it is. The girls have mentioned, though, that the nearby Asian community centre is offering chicken thalis for only £4.00 – and while I'm highly sceptical of how nice these could really be, I am assured they're well worth ago.

We troop over to the centre and queue up outside their office to pay our money and get our names written down (not sure why) before taking a raffle-type ticket over to the kitchen to grab a stainless steel tray with various compartments. There are also stainless steel cups to drink water from. The nice old ladies serve up rice, veg and chicken – along with a strange sweet pudding (which goes in the middle of the tray, meaning that by dessert I've clearly dropped lots of rice and curry sauce into it). The food turns out to be very nice – but I struggle with eating from the metal tray and perceived authenticity of the food. It's cheap for a reason, but it does the trick and we have a nice chat with our new intern before heading back to the office.

Later on I head home and spend the evening hanging out with K's sister while K is out for the first week of her evening dressmaking course. We decide to wait for K to get home before dinner (not til 10, but then I have had a big curry for lunch) and amuse ourselves by eating nachos and watching yet more Man vs Food in the interim. K finally gets home and we get involved in some serious chicken fajitas and drink some red wine to celebrate K's sister's last night in the UK before heading around the world.