January has been flowing past. It's been good following the progress of the sun through the BBC Weather Web pages, noticing how the sunrise and sunset times have been opening out.
Last weekend, I was down in London. Worked at home on the Friday so I could make an early start of it. Travel was as disrupted as last year. Four hour journeys there and back. It really doesn't seem to have gotten very much better out there. No wonder they're doing half price fares in February.
It was a strange weekend in many ways. It didn't feel as though I was there before I was off again. Ross was tired. I'm feeling low in January. So, we didn't really do very much even though we hadn't seen each other in nearly a month.
The main event of the weekend was to visit Chris in his new flat in Crouch End and to meet his new partner, James (please can we have a moratorium on the names James, Chris, Colin and Phil - nobody but nobody is to strike up any more relationships with people bearing these names). And we ate fab food and drank fab wine and gossiped and smoked Chris and James's cigarettes.
We got there by taxi. Ross has this deal where he can get taxis on the cheap. It still came to £15 for a single fare but that was in contrast to the £32 which it should have been. The taxi driver was more articulate and well read than most. We had a long conversation about asylum seekers. He quoted a letter to a local newspaper which he'd read complaining about the incomers and their horrible ways and the fact that they were taking the houses and the jobs from those of us living here already and how they'd swamp the country and destroy the English way of life. The letter was published in the 1840s and the incomers were Jewish people re-settling in the East end.
Chris's flat feels small now that I'm used to my big house. I can't imagine living in something so small. My possessions simply would not fit. The books and CDs alone would fill the main room. Still I'm carping and I'm forgetting about London house prices.
It's cosy and it's friendly and it has mirrors everywhere. I would have suggested that this has something to do with Chris's vanity but they were all there well before he arrived. Mirrors at the end of corridors, full length mirrors by the bath, mirrored doors to the fitted wardrobes - there's not an intimate function that can be performed without a reflected accompaniment.
And James. Well, to be strictly honest, my absolutely first impression was not that favourable - this sort of young thing with drooping jeans displaying the top two inches of boxer shorts about the hips. I did rather think "What has Chris done this time?" However, later first impressions were much better. Articulate, bright, committed, passionate, he's in or around that sort of area. Lawyer. Works defending asylum seekers. Didn't let me brow beat him. But did keep as respectful distance for a first meeting. Will, no doubt, show more mettle on future occasions after the novelty of good manners has worn off.
And now I'm home again and not liking it.