June 16th

Marc got me out of the shower this morning to return my laptop adaptor so I spent half an hour drying the hallway carpet. It never ceases to amaze me that I can spend three hours sitting around on the sofa waiting for something to happen that never does, and yet as soon as I pop to the toilet or take a shower I get a phone call or visitor. My mother has an uncanny knack for this and for years I scoured the flat poking my nose into increasingly ridiculous nooks and crannies searching for the bugs & cameras she’d clearly installed so she’d be aware of the perfect time to call me to achieve optimum annoyance.
I spent the morning working and making myself laugh like a twat by listening to the almost sickeningly funny Rickey Gervais podcasts. If you’ve not heard ‘em then I strongly suggest you pick them up on mp3 off the iTunes music store. They’re without doubt the funniest things I’ve heard in a very long time. What makes them so special is the fact that the comedy revolves around a chap called Karl Pilkington and not Ricky Gervais or Steven Merchant.
Es & I had to attend two more meetings today and we headed off cursing the fact that it was turning out to be such a lovely day and we were about to spend it ensconced in dismal offices in conversation with two more prospective managing agents. To make matters worse we had misread the address of the first agent and went wandering up Western Road to his old address. Luckily a kindly chap in the building pointed us in the right direction. His new office was in fact smack at the bottom of our road. Grrrr! Anyhow we spoke with him for an hour but we weren’t very impressed, his office smelt of damp and was in a bit of a two and eight. If he can’t look after his own office then how could he be expected to look after our entire building.
After a brief respite at the Real Eating Co. (where I made a complete plum-duff of myself by enquiring after the name of the wonderful cake I’d just eaten only to be told by the waitress, with a very sweetly tolerant smile, that it was a cherry bakewell) Es & I headed off to our third meeting which was much more satisfactory.
I met Zoe at the Meeting Place Café for a quick cuppa after our last meeting and we chatted for a bit about stuff until Beth rang and said she was back from work at which point we moved on to the wonderful Robin Hood pub. It’s a ‘people’s pub’ you see which is the brainwave of a local entrepreneur. Basically all the profits (after covering costs and staff wages etc.) are donated to local charities, hence the name. It’s a great pub with a good mix of decent customers, comfy chairs and decent beer. If you live in Brighton and haven’t yet been then go along. It’s comforting to think that while you attempt to reach a stage of mental incompetence by the repeated consumption of fermented vegetable drinks you’re also helping out those less well off than you.

Tea drunk: Too much
Cakes eaten: 1 (it was a cherry bakewell you dufus!)
New beers discovered: 1 (Artois Bok – it’s very strong and has a caramel like taste)