The Wild Weekend was wild. I am suffering from major holiday come-down now, and real life seems dull and bland. Probably cos – when compared to dancing at a casino for three nights, in sequined/fringed/netball costumes; staying up til four or five in the morning; having dance rehearsals on a 10th floor balcony and hearing people in the next block applaud – it is. It’s a strangely nostalgic feeling for me, and one I haven’t experienced in over a decade: I used to go to Poland every year between the ages of 13 and 16, on a summer camp for Polish kids from Poland, England and the US, and in the three weeks we were stationed in a boarding school in some no-man’s land, we created our own world. We had our own slang, in-jokes, crushes, nemeses. Gossip flew around the rooms, and a hierarchy of popular kids and nerds was established by the end of the third day. It was like high school condensed, but with midnight feasts, dawn raids, illicit drinking, and bi-lingual swearing.

If I am making it sound like loads of fun, please note this was before the fall of communism, and the food was awful.

But Benidorm was great. The town itself is ugly – like LA but with none of the cool 1930s architecture and good shops – just full of strip malls, tower blocks, and bars with names like ‘Bob and Joan’s English Pub’. There was not a hell of a lot to do during the day, which was fine by me as I wanted to sleep through most of it. The main thing in the town’s favour is that when you buy a mixed drink in Benidorm boy do you get a drink… about three/four shots in one glass, with a splash of mixer.

Am having my flat valued today. Before I bought it, the survey noted that the kitchen was dated (which is putting it politely) and that the décor could do with freshening. I can imagine how this evening’s meeting will go:

Estate agent: you bought it for how much?

Me: [mumble mumble]

Estate Agent: OK. Well, in ripping up the carpets – but not having the paint-splattered parquet flooring cleaned – and steaming the wood-chip wallpaper off – but not re-plastering the walls – you’ve done the unthinkable and knocked twenty grand off the value!

Someone just emailed round a book proposal about some dead person who did stuff ages ago and nobody’s heard of them. I guess it was unsupportive of me to skim it, sigh, and loudly say ‘bo-ring!’ to the entire office…