All I want to do is curl up with a book. Malheuresement, it's not happening -- a curry is de rigeur.

I had an absolutely fabulous night last night with my old homeys, John Gilman, Lisa and Diane Farley. I felt positively young until the alarm clock went off at 05:30 this morning. A day of scratching my head, wondering what I am doing in Brizzle followed. I guarantee I will be in bed by 22:00. Buggered.com does not even cover it.

You'll not be interested but my scanner at home was not playing ball last night. John and Lisa brought all sorts of photos from when we were all young. I planned on scanning them but the HP gremlins decided they were feeling antsy.

Speaking of HP, I have some work to do with HP containers. I am baffled. No big surprise there really.

One last thing before I go meet my compadres -- having an acute ear is not the blessing you might think it is. I am sat listening to a very high pitched whine from the modem in my hotel room. It is going to drive me nuts.

Any suggestions on the curry?

There may be a boat-load of 80s photos appearing here shortly. You might see pictures of me when I was cool.

Well, another game of two halves. I've had the Kat around for a couple of days. As usual, she was amazingly fun. I demand that someone clone her and move her in with me, but alter her tendencies away from being Libyan.

This morning we had to make it down to my grandmother's house to pick up some things, the most notable of which is a writing bureau that was purchased for my mother when she was at grammar school. Between the two of us, we managed to get it downstairs and into my car. Seeing I was feeling macho, I carried my golf clubs out too.

Bec, Furlong and I have installed the bureau in the front room. I love it. When the light is better and we've populated it, I will take a picture. It is gorgeous.

The downside of this, and two days of having people around, is that the back room is absolutely stacked full of stuff. It looks like we have taken the contents of everyone's wardrobes, golf clubs, a music shop, a computer shop, a second-hand furniture shop and a greasy spoon cafe and just thrown them around à la Jackson Pollock. Tomorrow night is going to be hard work.

It was truly awful walking into the house again. I know I have to do it at least twice more. Once to pick up some pots and pans, and once to move the bed. The house is a shell and it is heart-breaking to see 85 years worth of life boxed and bagged.

The final goodbye is on Wednesday. It is very sad that the internment of her ashes will be attended by only Mater, Pater and I. Kat has said she will try to make it too, bless her. She improves my mood more than anyone I know. We may bicker and bitch like a married couple, but I wouldn't have it any other way. She is gold-dust. I'm not sure what I would do without her and Bec at the moment.

Well, I have Die Führer's chair.

Today I am going to inherit a chair. This may seem like a little nothing but, to me, it's a big deal. When Die Führer bought her last suite, she purposely bought a reclining chair for my use. The good Mr Furlong and I wrestled with the two-seater sofa last night, to get it into the dining room (where, incidentally, it looks pretty good) so there is room for the new "captain's chair".

It will deplete the capacity of the front room by one but what the hell. It's not like I do a great deal of 'entertaining'. Having the dining room with a sofa means Bec can do her own thing when she wants. If I wire up the Linux box in there, she has her own interwebz connection/DVD player too.

In Die Führer's words, "alles gut".

In other news, I should be seeing the marvel that is Bob Walls tonight. And Friday will see Kat here, which always cheers me up.

'Tis all. I need to get down to Vegas. Given the rain/baldness ratio, the flat cap will be deployed. I'm so Wigwam it hurts.

On Friday I was feeling deeply miserable. In a fit of self-loathing, I booked next week off because there is not much happening at work and I fancied doing a Leaving Las Vegas somewhere remote. Unfortunately it isn't going to happen. So having filled in all the relevant forms, set up my out-of-office and generally advertized the fact that I will not be there next week, I am now going to be sat in Wigwam.

The Beckernator is away until Monday with her beau, so I'm rattling around doing bugger-all squared. Thank God for the Universal channel and FX. I am on a Law & Order marathon today. Tomorrow it's the Charity Shield so I should be okay. Gemma has offered to come around at some point, which will amuse me no end. Monday, I have some admin things to do. After that there is nothing planned. I guess there will be a lot of time for mindless TV and a bit of writing.

Happy days.

I was meant to be staying home and having a quiet one last night, but the prospect of being amused by Bob Walls and getting some revenge on the pool table tempted me out. Too damned entertaining.