From the Jolly Badger to the Park View

A quick meeting with Keith this morning, then off by train to Mill Hill to meet Mum and Mas in the Jolly Badger.

Did some work on the podcast on the way up and had a chance to think. Have set up a podcast recording with Pete next week. There is something about being on a train which is quite conducive to thinking, in the way that being on a plane with its attendant existential terror doesn't quite match -- and even tinkered briefly with a poem. Looked at the BBC weather app before I went and it said there was no rain in London. Obviously it was raining but I managed to miss it when it rained hard while we were in the Jolly Badger gnawing on ribs.

Good to see Mum and Mas. Their car is due its MOT and Maheena apparently offered to wash it, but it is only the complex life forms that are establishing themselves in the paintwork that are holding it together. Mas more mobile now, and clearly much better after his fall. He wandered about talking to people off and on, but he was having fun. Mum and I had a good chat, and quaffed some cider together. Popping up to see them this way is easy and fun -- and I wanted to get a visit in before the disruption starts. 

Sam's last day in Brighton. When I got back Lorraine was having a massage, and Sam said he had been playing the world's least enjoyable Tetris game packing his stuff up. We went to the Park View and I let him listen to some music and doing a few crosswords to decompress. Lorraine came and we moved indoors and ordered some food. Nice food, and friendly staff, that Sam had got to know and greeted him by name. With typical consideration, he had a card with him that he left, thanking them for being his local and making him feel welcome.

After we ate and I drank some more cider, Lorraine and I pushed off back home as Sam wanted to stay in the pub. We slipped into the escapist oblivion of Deep Space 9 and had an early night.