Pizza nite with Anton

I bent over this morning and pulled something in my back. I often do something like this at this time of year. 

Mum's birthday today, I called this morning to wish her well. Her eye was looking a little better today. But the bruising is coming out under her eye still. She is hoping that the injury won't affect her expression,  as it damaged the muscle over her eye. These things take quite a time to recover. She was going to dinner at Wynford's house tonight. 

Lorraine and I started making spidergrams of things today. First we started with the house, and what needs doing and so on. We are going to do a holiday and cheeky break one, as well as other aspects of our lives. A start of year appraisal. I feel we have been dealing with assorted crises lately, and it seems a good idea take a broader view, and regain a bit of control.

Beth came by with Enzo this morning. Beth feeling okay and Enzo doing better after being a bit under the weather yesterday. 

I went off to meet Anton. I missed the train because I was loping painfully instead of walking. Caught a bus instead, and the trip into Brighton with the sea and sky utterly gorgeous and full of colour. A purplish sea, orange, yellow, green and mauve and blue in the sky. A French couple sitting in front of me were busy snapping the colours through the bus window, and I copied them. I eventually snapped something, but not great through the speeding bus window. 

Met Anton at the clock tower, and Anton took me to a pub in Brighton that I'd never been to, and Anton had discovered only this week. Called The Hole in the Wall. A proper little boozer, but full of people. We had a cheeky half there, and then went to the Brick. Then to Waitrose where Anton bought some bits for the pizzas he was making as a special treat. We crept up the hill, me loping, and Anton weighted down with shopping in his rucksack. Oskar lad was at home, and it was good to see him. He is working long hours at the Ivy at the moment, but enjoying it. 

Anton is usually my benchmark for January, someone who professes to enjoy the month because nothing has gone wrong yet at work, and he relishes the year's potential. I am trying to borrow some of that approach for my own. Anton this year, however, is not drinking for the bulk of January, and is going to lose weight on one of his no-food diets. 

Then a feast of Anton's exemplary pizza, washed down with some German lager, and listening to an album brought him by Klaudia by Echo and the Bunnymen. The evening rounded off by a game of Bones, which we had to abandon as I had a train to catch. Anton drew a line in his notebook ending the year of dominoes. Anton gave me a shot of run, served in a correct rum glass, with a narrow neck, and after fond farewells, I sloped downhill to Brighton Station, and hopped onto a train. Back beginning to hurt quite a lot by now, and was grateful to get home, watch some Brooklyn 99 with Lorraine, with a hot pad on my back before bed.

A not very good photo of Brighton pier and the gorgeous sky through the bus window.