Nice niece party

We're presently motoring down the M1 from Cheshire where we've spent the day with in-laws celebrating Nathan's niece's 23rd birthday. She was a little dot when I first met her. I genuinely can't work out where the years go. I need to start living my days more. Life has started to feel a little like it's running through my fingers.

I am utterly exhausted. I was a little distressed last night, so spent the night tossing and turning. I got up at 4am and did some work at the kitchen table, went back to bed for about ten minutes, trying to listen to Vaughan Williams in an attempt to sleep, before deciding it was all hopeless and going up into the loft to compose. It wasn't an entirely unpleasurable experience. I could hear the sounds of birds announcing dawn drifting in from the outside.

I finally went back to bed at just before 7am, so probably managed about 3 1/2 hours' sleep before Nathan woke me up to say it was time to go to Cheshire.

The day was lovely and the house was full of people: a full compliment of relatives including both Nathan's parents and their prospective partners. Nathan's Mum and Step-mum have both lost a huge amount of weight and they look fabulous.

The journey home was relatively stress-free. There were some dreadfully frustrating speed limits on the motorways, which made it seem like we were crawling along. We returned to London via St Albans where Nathan's niece Jenny's boyfriend is currently stranded because she went up to Chester with his car keys by mistake.

I've been doing some research on the Labour MP, Clive Lewis, who recently became about the 200th shadow cabinet member to resign. His reasons for going were honourable. He was protesting against Jeremy Corbyn's ludicrous decision to "whip" his MPs into voting to trigger Article 50. He's quite an interesting chap; a proud socialist who was both a journalist and a military man before standing for Parliament. Rumour has it that he's considering standing against Corbyn as a prospective leader of the party. Based on what I've read, I think he could be one to watch.