Three degrees cooler

It's very icy in Highgate tonight. In fact, as usual, it's two degrees colder here than it is anywhere else in London. Our car thermometer always confirms this fact.

Today started in central London at the Arts Theatre where we were interviewed for Radio 4. I think we're on a show called PM on Monday afternoon, but I don't listen to the radio at that kind of time, so don't even know what PM stands for. One assumes post meridian?

The chap who interviewed us also spoke to us on air when we got married. He reminded us of this particular fact when he shook our hands. I don't remember much about the whirl of interviews we did the morning of the broadcast of our wedding. It was only two days after the wedding itself and we'd barely slept. We were running around from pillar to post, taking taxis across London. I even ran into a live TV interview half way through. It was all very surreal.

Anyway, today's chap was most polite, erudite, intelligent and, in a nutshell, brilliantly old school BBC. His sort have mostly been replaced by gurning, vapid 25 year-old women who nod like ludicrous nodding dogs.

They're doing the "get in" at the theatre at the moment. There were tree trunks all over the place. I guess that means the trees on set are real trees!

We had a lovely lunch with Cat afterwards. Cat's the brilliant woman who designed the experiment and directed the TV show, the first episode of which we saw two nights ago. It's brilliantly done: informative, witty, tongue-in-cheek... There's an incredibly uncomfortable moment when I'm talking to the man in charge of our computer music system which will, I'm certain, make everyone's toes curl!

We came home, did a little homework, and then decided to take ourselves off to Thaxted. It's been our first evening off in an age, and I haven't seen the parents for far too long. My Mum managed to whip up a Moroccan dish for us to eat, Nathan knitted a scarf for a teddy bear and we went through my Mum's special box, where she's kept piles of photographs, cards and newspaper cuttings. There was an open fire, lots of mini chocolates and tea on tap.

We travelled home in bright moonlight. It took twice the time we'd expected due to the M11 being closed. We were forced to take an astounding diversion through Hertford of all places.

This evening we also listened to a wonderful and deeply moving radio documentary about the Coventry Blitz by my brilliantly talented mate Siobhan Harrison, which is totally worth a listen to. Get your hankies out!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p036cb83