Saturday 18th September

Tonight sees a mega-combination party taking place at Big Red, celebrating our friend Big Rich's birthday, K's sisters going off travelling and – of course – mine and K's engagement. In preparation, I manage to spend the bulk of the day doing absolutely nothing, save for nipping out to Tesco's to grab bread and bacon for the hungover twins, before making them a pretty exquisite fry-up. There's also the small matter of the day's football, which I am surprisingly allowed to follow on Sky Sports News in the afternoon, The bigger teams don't play until tomorrow, and Arsenal are in an evening kick-off against Sunderland, so there's relatively little to get excited about from the day's results, though Newcastle do manage to spring a defeat on Everton, who are having an utterly torrid start to the season.

We head out to Big Red for around six, where people have already started to gather in anticipation. We had been worried that this might be a tad early to start the party – but of course our friends are an eager bunch; plus Big Red serves those delicious nachos that can bring people down here at any hour of the day. We come armed with a mighty cake, crafted by K's sister – an enormous, three-layered, star-shaped cake in red, white and blue sponge that wouldn't look out of place on Man vs Food. Luckily there's a lot of people here to help out with it, I suppose. More and more people turn up as the night goes on and we're given lots of nice cards – Mike even goes the extra mile and arrives with a racist snowglobe from York (a classic engagement present if ever I saw one). I also, oddly, bump into someone I had been friends with at school in Folkestone and therefore haven't seen in over ten years. It's odd seeing someone after this long, in that while I recognised him instantly he is clearly not the 15-year-old boy I last spoke to. We have a nice chat though and I make sure to say goodbye properly when we head off.

Unusually for me on a Saturday evening, an early start doesn't mean an especially early night – as K and I find ourselves still standing as the time approaches 1am. We head home via the all-night bakery and stock up on pasties and steak slices, before jumping on the obligatory (and joyously free) 29 bus. I am reminded of an earlier conversation with Alex, in which we observed that the 29 bendy bus (on which it is laughably easy to get away without swiping your Oyster card) was Ken Livingstone's truly socialist gift to London before departing. He knew full well that no one would pay for a bus where it wasn't properly monitored – and sneakily created free travel for all (between Trafalgar Square and Wood Green, anyway). No wonder Boris wants rid of them!