Day 1203

Went to the Jobcentre and the bank and finally put in T's 50p lottery cheque. Good thunderstorm about midday, some very loud thunder and heavy rain. Got very dark.

Worked at ANSI C; prepared tea (cold pie and salad, as the thunderstorm failed to cool things down - lovely) and ate it with Man Of The People, the Star Trek: TNG ep where Deanna Troi was simultaneously afflicted with nyphomania and rapid aging. (!)

M rang up about 7.45 and told me she'd moved. She came round and gave me a lift to have a good look at the place. Very mature this mortgage and flat stuff, I'd better catch up. She was obviously proud of the place and for a fact it was compact but nice.

We set off for the Green Man (M admitted she'd kept that dark as she knew if she'd said so I wouldn't've come) about nine and got there half an hour later after a strange dim summer-evening walk along a new cycle path, 'liable to flooding' as the signs declared, through the fields between the water meadow and the bridge.

At the pub met Jo Jones and Harriet, then had a long, intense conversation with M about everything from Tony Blair and Kenneth Clarke to the housing market and human racial history and differentiation. Best talk and evening I've had in ages.

The guy who used to keep the bookstall at Lowlands popped up again yesterday, on the letters page of the Guardian this time - that's 3 times now, with his two R5 phone-in calls. About the Internet this time and very true. Must tell T.