Spent the weekend in Southwold, on the coast. There’s no train station there, so it’s pretty inaccessible, except for the hordes of Gap-clone rich families who drive down in their Mercs. Still, it was lovely. Our two days and nights went something like this:

Arrive, eat lunch. Check in to B&B with sea view and giant window. Walk on beach. Drink local beer, which is very fine. Big stodgy dinner. Sleep (waking frequently to pee, as the sound of crashing waves, lovely though it is, has permeated my subconscious and my bladder needs to be emptied every few hours). Eat giant fry-up. Swim (ok, stand chest-high in the water and jump and scream every time a wave hits me) in the North Sea. Drink more local beer. Eat giant ploughman’s lunch. Sleep (even though it is daytime! Oh the joy of holidays!). Eat fish & chips. Drink increasingly lovely beer. Hire a rowboat and have giant fight in the middle of the lake over which of you is the worst rower and is causing the boat to run aground, when it’s not spinning in lazy circles, that is. Make up.

I caught the sun a little on my pasty London face, which sees daylight for about one hour out of every 24, and my forehead and nose are a bit red. My hair is a bit lighter, too; basically, I look like Boris Becker.

Back at work and it’s hell. Got a set of page proofs from an author who has decided, at this late stage, to rewrite great chunks of her book. Complete paragraphs have been crossed out and inserts attached. Got so frustrated that I wanted to either scream, cry, or walk out. Instead took a page of the proofs in my teeth and had Steve tear it out, leaving a jagged, wet, crescent-shaped space. It actually made me feel a lot better.