Pitching

Climbed into a suit, shiny black shoes and subdued but stylish shirt and got the very early train to London to do a spot of pitching with Pat and The FB. Arrived at their agency at 8:30 and had much needed coffee. Much of the morning spent watching the FB and Pat swear colourfully at technology, until it was time to bundle into a cab to Waterloo with Sarah a nice young suit. Trained to Basingstoke and cabbed it to a pharmaceutical giant.

Anton called as we arrived at our destination wanting suddenly to talk about football again.

The pitch, as far as you can assess these things, went fine. The thinking and work presented was at the more radical end of the spectrum, so the result will be interesting. The FB and Pat on good form, and I did fine. Sarah ticked all the suit boxes. Then back to Waterloo. By then I had a headache, so I bade a fond farewell to The FB and Pat, who had been drawn towards a bar like migrating eels to lakewater and made my way up to Edgware.

A really nice night with Mum and Mase, and Ben and Poppy who have returned from living in Guernsey to their house opposite Mum in Edgware. They told me the story of the house in Guernsey they had lived in, where there would be a penetrating smell of spectral cigarettes from a smoking ghost.

Much cheered by this email from Mindy today: "Finished reading Skelton with Oz recently - we've both loved it + been rolling round the floor on some bits (eg Skelton's decision to go with Rick - very funny!). Also, I was round at Mark's house last week... Mark's been reading Skelton to his boys too (7 and 8yrs I think). They must have realised that they weren't going to get Skelton that night... we heard them chanting from the other end of the house 'Skelton Yawngrave Skelton Yawngrave Sketon Yawngrave...' ! I thought you'd like to know!"

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