I’ve just had a pretty damn-near perfect couple of evenings of gentle summer boozing. On Friday, after work, I wandered down to the shore with some work chaps. Having forgotten to bring money with me, I cadged a couple of beers from Jason and DaveM and we shot the shit for an hour or two on the quayside. Later on, Neil and I met up with Jeff and Devon in the St. Vincent, a marvellously cheap boozer on Cumberland Street, and nicely close to the flat. Ray turned up, so we had an argument. Just like ol’ times…!

On Saturday, Kate and I went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (after fighting off a truly evil hangover. Neil thought the St Vincent’s lines were unclean. I suspect I’m just a lightweight). Excellent film! Thought-provoking, well acted and made. Funny enough to avoid being melancholy and affecting enough to avoid becoming trivial. After that, I had intended to cook a bad-ass, RF speciality stir-fryTM for everyone but by the time I got to Tesco – 8.30 pm – it was shut.

WTF? Closed at 8.30 on a Saturday? I’d rather not be pressured into adopting a semi-realistic timetable by a branch of Tesco, but it looks like I may already have lost this one.

Kate and I went for a meal on Broughton Street instead, to a Greek place called Santorini. It was absolutely fantastic: the food was pretty much faultless, the wine decent and the chat flowed like – well, like the wine. We found the rest of the Mafia in the Star Bar over in the New Town. I’d already settled into a pleasantly woozy, love-all state with a bellyful of great Greek food and wine and a big smile plastered on my face, and a couple more drinks in the beer garden/close/alley finished everything off nicely.

Conclusion: this new flat is going to be great.