Wednesday 1st September

More stress and tedium at work and I find myself with a rather severe case of spreadsheet blindness - flicking from left to right across vast swathes of empty cells, trying manfully to piece together the significance and correlation between sterling prices, Dollar prices and page numbers. I don't think I exaggerate when I say it's the most boring, most difficult and least rewarding work anyone has ever done; and by 3pm I've got such a bad headache that I text Alex just to doublecheck that we're still going to go out and get drunk tonight. Luckily, the game is still on.

I get home and make a quick dinner - making sure to leave some out for K who won't be home until after Alex and I are off to the pub. We haven't really spent any time together for over a month now, not since her birthday, so it's nice to catch up when she pops round and we head over the bridge towards Hornsey. She's been on holiday to Poland and interning at a company who restore old paintings, while I've got a few stories of my own - so we're chattering away well before we get to the Hope and Anchor. We take a seat in the garden and natter and smoke and giggle at the usual array of esoteric in-jokes we've developed for ourselves over the last few years (which essentially alienate us from any larger social group) as well as (thank Christ) even talking about footbal for a while - something I very rarely seem to get to do these days.

We head inside when it gets too cold and try to buy drinks way past closing time. Undeterred, we walk all the way back to Turnpike Lane to try and catch last orders at the Tollgate; but alas, though the many sad old folks in there still have full pint glasses, the bar itself is shut. Much like the birthday scenario, we end up back at hers with a couple of glasses of wine - and, once again, it gets very late very quickly and I end up strolling home at a ridiculous hour for a school night. K is unimpressed - but mostly unconscious. I will make hasty amends in the morning.