I hate clothes shopping.

I spent a large proportion of yesterday trudging through various shops in London, making purchases I really couldn’t put off any longer. My habit of wearing clothes until they start physically falling apart is fairly ingrained, but I’d gotten to the point where my number of clothes that weren’t falling apart was exponentially decreasing. Something had to be done. So, a quest through London, resulting in new socks, ordering new shoes (they had the type I liked, but not the right colour) and– most difficult of all– two new pairs of trousers. I mistakenly went into clearence ‘warehouse’ Madhouse, where the bolt on the changing room door is placed so high above eye-level I didn’t notice it until a staff member decided to check if my changing room was occupied by opening it (rather than knocking, or peering under the door, or any of the slightly more sensible methods) thus catching me in a classic, bedroom farce, trousers half-way down moment. Needless to say, the bolt was located, and firmly fastened. Madhouse is the kind of place where the clothes are sorted by brand rather than- say- size, meaning lengthy quests through endless piles for the one size you actually need, and where the designers obviously felt the ‘industrial’ look was incredibly hip, rather than dated and tacky. The changing room itself was circular (including the door), and managed to make me feel like I was changing my clothes in a very cramped grain silo. I expected Harrison Ford to unleash a torrent of corn and replay the death scene from Witness at any moment.

I also saw a screening of Knocked Up, which was utterly filthy and fantastically sweet at the same time, and made the whole day worthwhile.

Our new DVD player arrived today- and it works perfectly, except when playing certain discs with DIVX files on them, and it complete freezes up. It’s still a joy to have a functioning multi-region back, though.

I’ve also signed up for two solid weeks of subbing, thus throwing a major spanner in my hopes to get the novel done before we go to France. There are times when I really feel like I need my head examining…

Thursday Morning was supposed to be a fairly easy process. I’d be woken up at 6.20 by the alarm, get 40 minutes of pottering around time, and then head off to the train to head into London for two days of subbing. Instead, I slept through the alarm, and only got woken up when my father-in-law called to tell me he was about three minutes away from picking me up– at about 7.00. Cue a desperate sprint around the house, and then a stagger to the car, followed by a rather dazed morning. Thank heaven I’d already made my lunch, but it wasn’t the easiest start to the day, combined with the fact that I got to the Future Publishing building on Baker Street– only to find that they’d moved offices. After getting directions from a receptionist who didn’t understand the rather important distinction between left and right, I eventually had to call George and get her to navigate me via the wonder of Streetmap, reaching the offices 15 minutes late and soaking wet from the rain. Thankfully, my two-day stint at XBOX 360 went very smoothly after that, and I also stayed over with my friend Alec for the night, spending an excellent evening talking about all things writing. Since getting back yesterday, I’ve been a little shell-shocked, letting myself drift slightly, but I know I’ll have to get back into gear soon.

Life feels good, though. We’re in the country, and we’re happy. Whatever our problems, it could be a whole lot worse…