I was dead pleased when Nick said he wanted to go along to Drayton manor with Matt and me. A chance to get to know each other a lot better.

Memo to self: Sleep the night before going on long journeys.

We were supposed to be meeting Tom and Leigh from Out! But, well, I figured we could have a lot of fun on our own for a few hours and then meet up later and that’s what we did. I feel really comfortable with Nick and, bless him, he was already suffering after giving up the fags.

We met Tom and Leigh later on, probably around 3pm and had a good rest of the day there with them.

Annoyingly I got a call from other Tom, that is, Tom and Gary saying that my weekend with them was meant to be starting that evening. I had so not figured that one into my plans in any way. I was already feeling really tired and so didn’t need to have loads more miles to do when I got home. Thing is, I didn’t think to ask what day I was meant to be there so it would have been mean to say no.

I guess we got back to Northampton sometime around 6:30 and I was off on the road again by 8pm. We arrived in Clacton soon after 10pm.