Friday morning. Rain. Lots of it. At least it's not cold. Rain when it's warm is bearable. I made it out of the house somewhat bleary eyed around 8.25am. Headed down to Kennington tube. Oh London Underground. My heart's desire, my one true love.
.
.
My arse.

Two ticket machines, two ticket windows, 25 moist patrons. Not too bad. Until you realised that a) neither of the tickets machines were actually working, b) only one window was manned (or womanned actually) and c) your travelcard has expired. The quick ticket machine helpfully said 'Closed'. The new all-singing all-dancing touch-screen ticket machine was flashing up 'Wait by the machine. Your ticket purchase has been cancelled' like some sort of Buddhist mantra. The ticket woman then left everyone queueing to come out into the foyer to check if the machines were working. 'They're not working' she offered helpfully. In the dulcet tones of a hormonal rhinoceros. What is it with British people and Customer Service? It's never going to happen. Anyway, the rest of the journey was uneventful (no real problems, Dave managing to go the right way, etc). Today's arrival time at Notting Hill? 9.03am. Bugger. (Sorry Tony - I've stolen that particular writing style peccadillo from you!)

New para for David and Ian.

Queued for coffee in Coffee Republic. Decided Starbucks would be quicker. Queued for coffee in Starbucks. Left without coffee as it was fast approaching 9.15am minibus time. Met Amanda, Carol and Richard at the bus stop. Waited. Waited. Waited. Someone took a call on their mobile. 'There's no minibus today'. Joy. A 20 minute walk ahead of us in the rain. We opted for a cab. Ever tried to get a cab in Notting Hill? Ever tried to get a cab in Notting Hill when it's raining? So we walked. In the rain. Via Starbucks. Hmmm... coffee.

Into work and wrote long e-missive to my antipodean buddie. After a bacon buttie and the aforementioned coffee. Have loaned Daft Punk to Amanda. I feel naked. Right. Off to see if David's still playing i-sketch.