Hypatia Avenue

SUNDAY REVIEW

Well, the last few days have been surprisingly close to The Plan...

Friday, 1pm - Leave the office and go to St Pancras

2.35pm - Board train for Leicester; the train is packed and I have to stand near the buffet bar, wedged between a Nordic skater boy with a very loud Walkman and a gang of beer-bellied, desperately jovial middle-management men in casuals, on their way up to a stag night in Sheffield. They reminded me a lot of Geoff and his middle-management men in The League of Gentlemen - I half-expected to hear them try to outdo each other with tales of their time in the TA...

2.55pm - Despite everything going on around me, I fall asleep standing up, leaning against some suitcases.

3.55 - Wake up at Leicester, leap off train.

4.00pm - Locate funding body's office, which is gratifyingly close to the train station and hand in funding application. Breathe loud and dramatic sigh of relief.

4.20pm - I find a nice-looking bar along a pretty pedestrian walk - reminded me Garret Hostel Lane in Cambridge. Very pretty in a wrought-iron lamp post and autumnal trees kind of way.

5pm - I walk a different way back to the train station and marvel at the amount of smart-looking Indian restaurants in the town.

5.30pm - Board fast train back to London and miraculously get a seat. Immediately fall asleep.

6.45pm - Wake up in London, get Tube to parents place.

7.30pm - Sit down to dinner with whole family jeering at me and my day. Parents look worried and slightly disapproving when they see pictures of the Underground party: "Darling, why are all these people in bed together? Couldn't you find places for them to stay? They couldn't have been very comfortable; look - they're all lying on top of each other..."

11pm - Decide that I can't be fucked to move, so I stay in my old bedroom and go to bed travelsick, drunk and full to bursting with Papa’s cooking as predicted but with less guilt and self-loathing.

Saturday, 7.30am - Stagger out of bed completely disoriented.

9am - Make it into work, still disoriented.

6.30pm - Get back into flat, still disoriented.

12am - Go to bed, still disoriented.

Sunday - I feel less disoriented today, though several hours of Spider Solitaire and unlimited websurfing while I'm alone on front desk hasn't helped.

So, dear readers, how were your weekends?