Whispering sweet nothings

So there I was, minding my own business on the tube this evening, trying to write a few bars of music, when I feel the woman next to me, a total stranger I should point out, beginning to invade my body space. I thought nothing of it to begin with, but then I started to feel a bit claustrophobic and uncomfortable. She was drifting in and out of sleep, her head lolling around somewhat. Before long, the inevitable happened, and she was using my shoulder as a pillow. It got worse as it became apparent that she was drunk. Poor woman then started muttering sweet nothings in my ear, calling me baby, using the f word, and then suddenly telling me off. She'd seem to wake up for a bit, stare at me, and then snuggle down and start mumbling again. She spoke at quite a low level, but it was loud enough for everyone in our bit of the carriage to hear her. It was utterly mortifying for us both, but mostly for her! One of my fellow passengers took a quick snap on my iphone... Enjoy...

After the ordeal, I popped into our local shop for a can of soup. It's not the shop we most regularly visit, on account of its usually smelling of poo. Today it smelt of very strong BO, but I haven't yet vetoed the place because I'm so fond of the guys that work there, smelly as they often are. Today one of them took me aside and said, sotto voce, like he was selling drugs, that he had something I might be interested in. He took a small pile of newspapers off the counter and revealed a plastic tub of fizzy strawberries! Now, up until about a year ago, I used to go in there and buy handfuls of fizzy dummies, but of late they've not been selling them. To my knowledge, I've never chatted to that particular bloke before and they must have thousands of customers passing through, so I think it's really quite remarkable for him to remember my penchant for fizzy sour sweets. I immediately bought three and thanked him profusely.

I was also very happy with the service I received at PC Third World today. I mean, sure, they've now admitted that they actually lost the computer I'd taken in for repair five weeks ago, but they gave me a voucher for a brand new one, and the bloke was chatty and knowledgable. Go PC Third World!

350 years ago, and Pepys was up by 3am to start his journey back to London. He was keen! Sadly, it was a cold day, and he felt so underdressed, that he had to buy a pair of course woolen stockings in Biggleswade - which was apparently called Bigglesworth in those days. He had lunch in Hatfield, and took some time out to make a tour of a vineyard.A visit to a local country house revealed the biggest gooseberries that Pepys had ever seen - as big as nutmegs, apparently, which doesn't seem that large...

He reached home in the evening, and found everything to his liking, so immediately went to bed!