Other than Christmas I don't make it to church very often these days (i.e. I don't go), but this is the second one I've been in as a tourist since I left Japan. As you can see, it's lovely.

After our stroll we headed back to Suzanne's to wait for Helen, her baby daughter Erin and Claire to arrive before heading out to lunch in the Burroughs, a rather swish restaurant where we sampled vegetarian black pudding for the first time. As real black pudding is made from pig's blood and oats (or something), it was always going to be interesting to see what they would put in a veggie version. It stopped being interesting when it tasted like shake'n'vac.

Maxine joined us, and after lunch, with Helen and Erin heading home, we relocated to a pub to celebrate Maxine's birthday. We had a few drinks and ended up spending the night in chatting, laughing and generally having a good time.

In case a cow had escaped from suicide watch I decided I should head home early-ish, but not before catching up with Suzanne's Mum and Dad which is always good fun- I don't know anyone who travels as much as they do.

The train ride home was not, of course, without incident, as most of the toilets were broken, and I pressed the automatic door-open button only for a rather embarrassed young lady knickers round her ankles, to wonder aloud why the lock hadn't worked. And Virgin trains managed to surprise me again. The train arrived in London 10 minutes early...