Another birthday weekend gone, with all manner of fabulousness, including too many drinks in Soho, a nasty hangover with critical horizontal moments, followed by a long walk from Whitechapel via smoked anchovies and Cornish fish stew in the close-by company of Plum Sykes and Toby Young, an encounter on Embankment, an extra hour of daylight, trees divesting their leaves on the dot of Winter, platefulls of bacon, leek and potato torte, ice-cream, wine and breathe.

I've just finished a fairly critical conference call between my company and another huge organisation who's providing us with a secure server for our charity arm. My phone buzzed to inform me of a new text which I somewhat absent-mindedly opened. This is what I read:

"Who made up 'windy spasms'? Was is mum or granddad? X"

Good things about today: got up at 9:13, sky mostly blue, went shopping, swam, had a sauna, put photos up on wall, vacuum-cleaned the place.

Bad thing about today: John Peel died at least 20 years too early.

While R is singing behind me, I'll quickly recount this afternoon's gah moment. We were sitting in The Mall in Bristol, window seats, staring at the falling leaves, amber-colours, rain, grey clouds to blue sky ratio, and the dotcom curvy brown shoes and knee-length jacket of a passing father (probably), and his extended family.

He waved and smiled at us, ouch, and we waved back and carried on talking about dotcom curvy shoes, at which point the door next to us flung open and he came in saying 'You're not allowed to people watch' with a great big smile, to which we quickly and laughingly objected 'No, no no', and received a shoulderly squeeze in return.

All hail and jubilation. I got a seat on the tube at my own stop this morning! Three stops later, my bottom started feeling distinctly soggy. Why had the person next to me, who'd looked at me slightly nervously, not told me? I got off to inspect the dampage, noticeable to me, mainly.

And the woman who was looming over my newly vacated seat? I didn't tell her either.

Bah. I walked home behind a couple: he with black curly hair, enough to pull back into a minuscule backknot, and striped baggy trousers. She, same hair cut, low-cut jeans. Not a lot new there. What bothered me was the bag swinging from her fingertips, just your average Costcutter bag, white n' shiny, which held probably, by the looks of it, a carton of milk and some orange juice? Which you could carry? With your hands?

My Dad called to say thank you very much, it'd been a good day, the Morgan had got fixed for free, his book had arrived (horribly belated birthday present) and his Lordship had lost three teeth, one of which had been found in the passageway, leaving three up top, one new below.

A funny thing my neighbour does each morning - sticks his/her hand out of the window, waves it round a bit, to test the outside temperature. It's so cute!

'God, I really hope they don't give me singers.'

'Why?'

"Well, they can't dance."

"Oh. -pauses- Are those scabs from your dancing shoes?"

"Nah, they're from my cowboy boots."

It's been four months, oh sauna, how I've missed you.

A brief lesson in how to look good at work and effortlessly cover up your dim mistakes.

Imagine you caught a train this morning. Imagine that you wanted to get off at Reading, but that to your surprise, the train wasn't due to stop at Reading, instead going straight through to Paddington. You pay the extra fare to the nice conductor, explaining your mistake, with the intention of travelling to Paddington, then back to Reading.

As you talk to the conductor, the train has halted just before Reading, where it will stay for 45 minutes. There's a tree on the line. Do you call work to tell them you'll be late? Not quite, have a think about it. OK. What do you say? You say that a tree has fallen on the line and you'll be late.

Time passes.

Your phone rings. It's your boss. In, I imagine, response to the question 'Where are you now?', you reply 'Just outside Swindon'.

A perfect alibi, or so you thought. Mwah ahahhahahaahh.