As Saturday's interview draws nearer, I'm trying to reassure myself that I'll be fine, or that it's not that important, or that if it's meant to be I'll get it and if not I'll get something else. All of this is very important because I know if I worry too much I'll mess it up. But that just makes me worry more. On the positive side, I'm so worried about the interview that I've hardly given a thought to the exam result I'll be getting tomorrow. If that's bad enough, then the interview won't even matter any more!

In preparation for the interview, and in a bid to reduce my worries slightly, I went for a hair cut this afternoon. I avoided Chris' Barbers, because last time I asked them for a trim, they just grunted shaved it all off. Instead I went to Adress Gents Hair Saloon (their spelling errors, not mine) where somehow, using only scissors, they managed to get it almost as short as 'Chris' did. And the guy stank of sweat. In fact the whole shop stank of sweat. Maybe one day I will find a barber who understands the phrase 'just tidy it up a bit', but irrespective of how this interview goes, at least I won't have to get my hair cut again for a couple of months.

"Hair are your aerials..."

Went to the gym this evening. There was a man complaining about his football. He said he'd left it behind by mistake and phoned to see if it had been handed in, but unfortunately he was told it had not. Resigned to the loss of his football he had returned to the gym anyway, where he had arranged to hire a football for him and his friends to use for their weekly kickabout. Imagine his surprise when the ball provided by the gym turned out to be none other than the one he had lost last week, with his initials still written on it.

Although this story might seem rather bland, I can assure you it is infinitely more exciting than the enormous Drafting and Opinion Writing exercise that I am expected to complete by tomorrow morning, despite not having been given a copy of the papers which are not available at the registry or on the intranet until after my class. I managed to borrow someone else's at about 4pm and take photos of it on my phone, but after reading as much as I could before the lecture this evening I had already made up my mind to give up.

Another mental weekend in Edinburgh! It was my Dad's birthday on Saturday so we got curry for 15 and a whole taxi full of booze and had a brilliant evening in the flat. My Uncle Harry came down from Aberdeen on the Friday and surprised everyone by scaling the front of the house to retreive his mobile phone, which turned out to be in his car after all.

On the hours I spent on the trains there and back I watched V for Vendetta and Inside Man, and finished reading London Irish by Zane Radcliffe before starting The Coma by Alex Garland which kept me pretty well entertained. Also I'm much obliged to GNER for the combination of free refreshments and lax ticket inspecting in their First Class carriages.

Before I forget, bizarre conversation I overheard in the toilets of the Cittie of Yorke this evening:

"Everybody's being a bit weird. They don't know how to approach my hair. You know the road to Damascus, where St. Paul was somebody, but then he was somebody else?"

No idea what that was all about...

So glad the exam is done. That's it until March now, assuming I passed :-S I began my celebrations in the first pub I found and carried on until I finally ran out of money in a very posh and quite empty bar in Soho where a waitress brought us tiny bottles of Carlsberg on a shiny tray and the seats had leaopard skin prints. At some point Alex negotiated a discount on some noodles, in Chinese.

Today I've been surprisingly active. I awoke at midday and within 3 hours I had successfully joined Wood Green Library. I borrowed London Irish by Zane Radcliffe and Coma by Alex Garland, author of The Beach. On the way to the library I noticed a building with a sign over the door saying 'Cyprus Potato Marketing Board'. I can't make up my mind if it's just a 'crazy' name for some advertising agency, or if they actually just market potatoes from Cyprus. If it's the latter then I don't think they're doing a very good job. All the potatoes seem to come from Israel these days. I also noticed a sign proudly declaring that the Police have closed down over 60 'Crack Houses' in Haringey. On the way back from the library the automatic wheelchair ramp on the bus got jammed sticking out of the side of the bus. We all had to get off the bus and stand in the rain waiting for the next one.

I can't justify any further procrastination, blogging included. It's time to start reading for Monday's class...

I'm starting to like the countryside. Ever since I spent 5 days cursing my way across Dartmoor to achieve a Duke of Edinburgh's Award I had advocated covering the whole lot in tarmac. But having spent a few days up here it's actually alright. There's real log fires, clean air, sheep, proper soup, slabs of meat on wooden boards, and even the driving rain and power cuts just add to the atmosphere. The other day we drove about twenty miles to the nearest cinema.

We spent New Year's Eve at Tay's brother's friend's house in a small village near Berwick. Driving over there it felt like the car could get blown off the road, and when we arrived we had to park facing the wind so that the doors could be opened safely. After a quiet evening we slept in the lounge with another real fire and one of his three dogs, who tried to lick my face.

Tay's family have just acquired a docile greyhound called Gordon. Apparently some greyhounds don't race after rabits and become family pets instead. I think Gordon has made a good career choice and I admire his laziness.

Tomorrow it's time to get back to London, where I'l spend another few days in the flat reading my notes before the exam on Friday, and the hectic pace of living and working in a huge city will start again. But for now we're going to take Gordon for a walk.