Durham

I'm wondering if today could have lasted any longer if it had tried!

I appear to be in a guest house in Durham. This place redefines chintz. The walls are covered in a paper which depicts a series of dying lilac tulips, there are folds upon folds of what I can only describe as a sexual fabric hanging from the window, there's a dressing table with a sconce around it, the like of which I haven't seen since my grandmother passed away, and all the woodwork has been distressed, painted white and touched up with shiny gold paint. I'm staring at a chaise lounge now. How could I have missed the deep purple chaise lounge*?!

(*thanks to my reader who points out that it's a chaise longue, not lounge!!)

Still, Durham is a beautiful city. A very special location. There is not one single street in this place which isn't framed by the most remarkable view. The entire city is watched over by a castle and a cathedral. Turn a corner and they're there, towering over a dark green ravine through which the blackest, shiniest river meanders.

Cat, our director, used to come here on "music school" summer camps, and took us on a tour of some of her former haunts. Every story she told triggered a memory of my own. Our summer schools were in a Northamptonshire village called Grendon. It's where I met Sam Becker and Ted. And probably Fiona, although I can't actually remember meeting Fiona. That's a little strange isn't it? How can you not remember meeting your closest friend? Is that a thing perhaps?

We were up at the crack of dawn to film sequences at Goldsmith's University in South London. It felt like a very successful and highly informative morning. The other contributors were fascinating and we all got along famously.

I didn't much like leaving Nathan on the tube at 2pm. He's not come up to Durham. It's just me and the film crew for this particular part of the project.

The train from King's Cross was in disarray. The carriage we were booked on had faulty air-conditioning, so we were sent off to coach K, which turned out to be first class. Result!

Sadly, we weren't treated like first class passengers. In fact, the staff wheeled copious trollies laden with fruit and cakes past us in a sort of "look what you could have won" kind of way.

Still, that aside, the chairs are ever so comfortable in First Class. It was rather lovely to lounge our way up to Durham in style. Railway travel is by far the greatest method of transport. I absolutely love sitting on a train, but when you're in a half empty compartment and you have a table in front of you, and a laptop and a sandwich and a cup of tea... Well there's nothing better is there?