Friday 27 June 2003

This morning I packed and prepared for Neil to arrive. I finished fairly quickly and had brief chats with people online. Neil came at about midday and we swapped places; he stays in my place for the weekend, an I use his free St. Loyes' ticket to get home and get a car to take my stuff home in. Before I left we had a brief dinner together of pasta.

The train journey was pretty okay. Nicholas and I occasionally texted each other - we were trying to get to Reading at about the same time - and I finshed The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and started on The Horse and his Boy in between. On the Exeter to Reading leg I sat opposite a couple. Occasionally there was a ratehr worrying smell of gas. Whereas most of the passenger were grining and bearing it, these covered their mouths and noses with handkerchiefs. It's not something you see very often. I got to Reading well before Nick, so I went on the next train. There was a woman on the train who was as anxious about being on the right train as I usally am. "Is this the train for Redhill?" to all and sundry. She was in this way distinguished from the usual, anonymous travellers, and relatively cheery. She had a toy boat in a bag that she was bringing for her son. It was quite fragile, but I alighted at Blackwater without having broken it. Booyah. I rushed up to the Nicoles' (Another vicar family we know) to grab the car and try and get back to the station as early as possible to pick Nick up. It had started raining. I am a brother among brothers, and I mean that in a staggeringly literal way.

We both got back and did various things, like vegetating, and then Mum and Dad showed up later with a caravan, which we manouevered on the driveway. On TotP today, I jnotice a woman who is as Tori Amos would be if she were uninteresting; I forget her name. I liked The Darkness though - rock on. Then Nick and I watched Zoolander (Dad watched some of it) and that's where we are now, see? Oh yeah, and Tania was evicted, as everyone knew she would be, but I didn't watch the 2200 show.