It had been quite a weekend. After a fairly action packed week, I drove to Reading after work to rendezvous with my post-exam-stress girlfriend. We were to spend the weekend down South, where I had a gig planned, and then we would return to Newcastle.

Once in Reading, things were fairly relaxed. We went out on Saturday night to see the very memorable Sin City. We did this and that (I forget precisely) and then, on Sunday, pootled over to Southampton for some tidying, prior to the gig that I was doing in Southampton itself. We had food in the local pub and then made our way to the venue of the gig.

The gig was a charity benefit, and I was on after a choir who matched their lack of ability with their lack of ambitious arrangement. It was bloody awful. I was hardly doing very well when I took to the stage either. I didn't really enjoy it at all. Still, a gig's a gig.

After we were able to leave Southampton, we headed up North. At 1.30am, some two and half hours from home, we hit a traffic jam on the M1 - unbelievable. 30 minutes in traffic. The girlfriend sleeping in the passenger seat, I did what I could to pass the time - I played Scrabble on my mobile phone. It was a fitting end to a ludicrous week.